Talents in 392: Incentives for Non-Class Talents?

[Osvir]

You only get 1 point to spend on Talents at level up and... it got me thinking.

What are the incentives to pick a Non-Class Talent? Currently it feels as if the Offensive/Defensive/Utility Talents are more or less "If you want to break the mold" or "If you want to build specifically towards something". Class Only Talents feel more attractive.

I want to propose, or flirt with the idea of getting 1 more point to spend at Level Up on Talents. Either that or separating the Talents as seen below.

Bulletpoint/On Level Up (And applicable):
- 1 Talent Point for Class-Only Talents (Can only be spent on Class)
- 1 Talent Point for Non-Class Talents (Can only be spent on Offensive/Defensive/Utility)

or

- 2 Talent Points on Level Up (Spend freely)

Granted, I don't know how many Talent points you get (in total from Level 1-12, Level Up Talent Points Only. Talents acquired through Quests/Objectives/Achievements excluded, if there are any of those).

EDIT: According to "Talent" (official Wiki) you gain 1 Talent point every even level so... you get 6 Talent points in total? (still excluding the reward Talets)

Thoughts?

Edited December 23, 2014 by Osvir

[archangel979]

You will have incentive on 2nd or 3rd playthrough.

Edited December 23, 2014 by archangel979

[Sensuki]

Not all class talents are very good (at the moment).

Edited December 23, 2014 by Sensuki

[Doppelschwert]

What are the incentives to pick a Non-Class Talent?

 

-snip-

According to "Talent" (official Wiki) you gain 1 Talent point every even level so... you get 6 Talent points in total? (still excluding the reward Talets)

 

You already answered your own question in a way. You get 6 points to spend, no class has 6 class talents, so you have spare points.

 

Apart from that, as sensuki already said, some class talents are not very good or situational or only benefit one way to build the class.

 

Consider the monk, for example. There are two class talents: Getting wounds faster and self inflicting damage to generate wounds. When I played the monk today, I often had the problem that wounds would pile up faster than I was able to use them because I had low DR and only invested in abilities that don't cost much wounds or passive abilities. The way I played, there was absolutely no incentive to get the class talents.

[Kjaamor]

To be fair, for all the extensive options, this was pretty much the case with crpg D&D 3.5, albeit worded slightly differently. 28 sub-optimal feats and 2 ones that significantly improved your chances because they worked with your class.

[TrueMenace]

I really wish I was given 2 talent points per level up. Also, A LOT of the talents are terrible. It's so diluted with crap that it annoys me...I want each talent option to be a hard choice for me, not because X talent is better than the 20 talents in this list...

[Doppelschwert]

I think we're looking at it from the wrong angle as well. Enemy NPCs of the player races are probably almost always built within the same framework as the PC, so some situational talents can be used on these enemies to counter certain strategies of the player party. In this line of thinking, if you implement them with enemies in mind anyway, you might as well make them accessible for the PC.

 

As for the claim of many useless talents, I guess a good part of it boils down to a lot of talents being situational and a psychological aversion to take something like that over a general bonus. It's probably a similiar effect as the hoarding of items for a later time when you need to use them instead of actually using them.

 

I'm wondering about the classification of the talents a bit - class, offensive, defensive and generalist is an odd way to sort them imo. For example, all the talents involving weapons are in the offensive category, except two-handed because it gives a deflection bonus. I think it'd make more sense to have more categories:

 

- Equipment (Styles, Proficiencies)

- Passive, Situational (Stuff like the elemental DR, Damage Bonus against enemy types aso.)

- Passive, general (Stuff like bonus to Defenses

- Modal

- Daily

- Class

 

It's two categories more, but I think it's way easier to find stuff you're looking for when building a character, especially if you expect each of these categories to grow over more installments of PoE.

[Sensuki]

One example for me is Fighter's Rapid Recovery. In the full game, it might end up being a good talent. But why would I take it now? Sure it helps me auto heal stamina, but that auto-stamina healing is not going to do anything when you get dropped by an enemy creature in 4-5 hits. Much better off picking something Deflection boosting talents and using spells to mitigate the damage.

[Namutree]

One example for me is Fighter's Rapid Recovery. In the full game, it might end up being a good talent. But why would I take it now? Sure it helps me auto heal stamina, but that auto-stamina healing is not going to do anything when you get dropped by an enemy creature in 4-5 hits. Much better off picking something Deflection boosting talents and using spells to mitigate the damage.

Exactly. There may be less offensively effective enemies in the full game where the talent may end up much better.

[Sensuki]

I don't think it's necessarily related to the types of enemies you are fighting, just game balance in general. In the current meta, it doesn't really add any survivability, neither does Ancient Memory.

Edited December 24, 2014 by Sensuki

[jones092201@gmail.com]

I like the OP's idea. I'd like to have some small perk, maybe once every 3 or 4 levels, that kind of related what my character was doing outside of murdering things and otherwise shaping the world. Something that fleshed out what he did on his free time, like at camp or whole traveling. Maybe her reads(+lore) or tinkers (+mechanics). If you gave a bonus perk every three or four levels, it doesn't seem like it would break the game.

[Shevek]

I think the current talent implementation is fine. Its similar to how in 3E/Pathfinder/etc you could take feats that improve class features or more general feats. You may not want to improve all your class features and thus you would take general feats as well.

[Lephys]

The impact of each individual talent should really be proportionate to the frequency with which we get talents. IF there are going to be some along the lines of "+3 DR", and others that are more "You get +1 spells per rest/encounter at every spell level, Mr. Wizard! 8D!", then I definitely think there should be two general categories of Talents: Major and Minor. Every level could gain you a point for a minor talent, and only the even levels would give you a point for Major talents.

 

But, if we're just going to get 6 (out of such a huge pool), then they really need to all be pretty significant things. With that in mind, I really think mutual exclusion should factor in. Otherwise, it becomes really easy to say "Well, we can't have a talent that does A and a talent that does B, because what if you took both of them? Better tone those down," and end up with kind of an underwhelming arsenal of talents, even after 12 levels, simply because the game was balanced around "oh noes, what if you pick any 6 talents?!". If they're organized into groups of mutual exclusion (especially class talents, etc.), then you can have some REALLY spiffy talents, while remaining confident that they wont' be stacked with each other to produce demigod characters after just 3 talents.

 

I think even 3 talents, though, for thew hole playthrough, wouldn't be "too few," so long as the "potency" (for lack of a better word) of those talents matched the infrequency of their acquisition.