P:E mechanics - how is it doing compared to IE?

[PrimeJunta]

And the other half is OP.

 

There's also a bug there where Grazes on status effects behave as Hits. This makes spells like Slicken stupidly overpowered: drop it on something, and they're all knocked down for a pret-t-ty long duration. You can cheese pretty much any fight with it. 

 

Thanks for pointing those out though; if they actually worked it would go a long way to making the wizard more interesting to play. I'd still miss the Charm and Summon spells though.

[Malekith]

PrimeJunta, on 19 Jan 2015 - 11:57 AM, said:

 I'd still miss the Charm and Summon spells though.

Actualy, i don't have a problem with that. I'm ok with Cipher having all charm/fear/domination/stun effects. What i don't like is that the durations and the effectiveness of these spells are nerfed to the point of uselesness with a couple of OP exceptions that no doubt will be nerfed as well.

Same with Chanters taking all summons.

Same with wizards taking only damage and self buff spells, but making the self buff so useless that they are a waste of spell shots, so spamming fireball and arcane missiles is the superior way to play the mage, and enemy mages go down in one attack

[Stun]

Where P:E is worse than IE

 

Magic. OK, magic in IE games does have its issues. I don't like spells that one-shot an encounter, on either side, for example, and effectively game-ending effects like Disintegrate aren't much fun either. But. There's not only a huge selection of spells in IE, many of these spells have multiple uses. A companion got Dire Charmed? Slap a Dominate on him and get him right back on your side. Out of Dominates? Hold Person to get him to stay put while it wears off. There's a whole bunch of spells there that will just shake up an encounter, like Teleport Field for example.

 

P:E's magic system removes many of the things I find un-fun about IE magic, such as super-powerful/one-shot effects like, at their respective levels, Horror, Confusion, Haste, and Cloudkill, which is a sound decision. And the system does have synergies which are a lot of fun to exploit.

 

But with no spell counters, and no spells like Hold Person, Charm/Dire Charm/Dominate, Rigid Thinking and so on it does feel flatter, more one-dimensional. Extremely powerful, long-duration effects should still be in, as long as there is a way to counter and/or prevent them. A special kind of IE fun has been removed here, and that is a shame.

Oh it's worse than that. There's also no spell power progression. That is to say, the spells you know don't get more powerful as you level. For example, a 12th level wizard's fireball does exactly the same damage as a 5th level Wizard's fireball. A 1st level priest's 13 second duration "bless" spell will forever have a 13 second duration....even when that same spell is cast by a 12 level Priest.

 

And I just don't understand that design at all... It goes against Josh's stated philosophy that there should never ever be "redundant" or "throwaway" skills. Yet there it is, right there in the magic. The system he implemented seems specifically designed to make early spell picks worthless at high levels.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

@Stun As it happens, that's another of Josh's decisions I agree with. His goal was to avoid quadratic power progression where some classes advance linearily, whereas others advance geometrically. Spells that gain in power according to character level are quadratic.

 

It is IMO inherently better to turn the less powerful lower-level abilities eventually into per-encounter or unlimited ones, in line with the progression in general. And, of course, to design the lower-level spells so that enough of them retain utility even at higher levels.

[Stun]

So it sounds like half the wizard spells don't actually do anything at all. I can see how that could be a problem lol

They *do* do something, but, because of Josh's absurd "death via 10,000 paper cuts is EXCITING!!!" game design philosophy, you won't friggin notice the effects.

 

The Stun affliction, for example. There are a couple of Wizard spells that can stun opponents. In the IE games, Stun was a standard disabler. If you stunned an opponent, the effects were Obvious. Victim was frozen in place. Can't attack, can't defend. But in PoE a stunned opponent just suffers a few minor numbers-based penalties that you won't notice unless you're one of those spreadsheet nerds. (I think they suffer -10 to their deflection, -5 to their recovery, and perhaps a penalty to their movement speed). How exciting.

 

The entire magic system in PoE is like this. Bunch of worthless Nickel and Dime crap.

[PrimeJunta]

Not of all of 'em. Paralysis is mucho effective. Hobbled/Slowed also, especially in the way it synergizes with other abilities.

 

I think that's actually an often-neglected (and positive) aspect of Joshism (Joshology? Jo****ude?): he designs stuff for synergies. One ability does one thing, another ability requires or benefits from whatever it was the first ability did. That adds a lot of possibilities to use the systems creatively.

 

Which of course doesn't mean that there can be on such thing as a counter or that Petrification has to be temporary.

 

Edit: LOL at the profanity filter. I wrote Josh+itude. :D

Edited January 19, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[aeonsim]

I've never succeeded in paralyzing anyone with Fetid Caress in BB392.

 

It works well for me (one of the main stays in PoD mode) one possible issue for it is that Fetid Caress targets fortitude and a lot of the creatures in the beta have fairly high fortitude. The Ciphers paralysis is more useful in the beta, as it targets will which seems a bit lower in general and you can spam it on a per encounter basis rather than being daily. At least in PoD you need to knock back the fortitude for alot of enemies to get Caress's to hit.

 

 

Oh it's worse than that. There's also no spell power progression. That is to say, the spells you know don't get more powerful as you level. For example, a 12th level wizard's fireball does exactly the same damage as a 5th level Wizard's fireball. A 1st level priest's 13 second duration "bless" spell will forever have a 13 second duration....even when that same spell is cast by a 12 level Priest.

 

And I just don't understand that design at all... It goes against Josh's stated philosophy that there should never ever be "redundant" or "throwaway" skills. Yet there it is, right there in the magic. The system he implemented seems specifically designed to make early spell picks worthless at high levels.

 

 

At the same time though they don't get dramatically weaker (aside from damage as a % of total targets endurance), your chance to hit an equal levelled enemy stays much the same and the duration of the effects as you pointed out stays the same (it doesn't decrease, and the spell is not more likely to fail). There is also a way to increase there damage as you level, but it requires a choice by the player to specialise in a certain damage type rather than coming for free ( invest in the talents that give + 20% Dmg Type ).

 

After playing through the beta I've come to think that the focus on PoE's magic is on stacking the spell effects and combining them rather than spells damage. If you sicken or weaken the group then drop a spell that attacks the weakened defence then all your hits are suddenly crits or instead use the weakened Fort or Will to paralyse or stun them (-30/40 deflection ) now all your other party members are getting hits or critical hits and your damage has increased by by 25-50%. Also the Implements and carnage start to work very well now instead of hitting just one enemy or a couple for grazes your getting hits or crits on everyone in the area (for the implements can double the total damage) not to mention your rogue (if you have one) is now getting sneak attacks on them all. At this point it's also time to active other abilities that increase attack rates, trade accuracy for damage. The spells enable you to maximise the value of your entire party as well as doing a reasonable bit of damage.

[h3st]

Edit: LOL at the profanity filter. I wrote Josh+itude. :D

Obligatory Scunthorpe test. (Scun+thorpe)

[teknoman2]

I've never succeeded in paralyzing anyone with Fetid Caress in BB392.

for that matter i never managed to paralyze anyone with hold person in BG2, while it seemed to work fine on me

also, lorewise, mind affecting spells are the domain of chiphers. 

Edited January 19, 2015 by teknoman2

[Lord Wafflebum]

I slicken everything. Often on myself as well. Then everyone is just constantly falling down for like five minutes. Good times.

[Stun]

I slicken everything. Often on myself as well. Then everyone is just constantly falling down for like five minutes. Good times.

You mean 5 seconds. Slicken's duration is 5 seconds. Edited January 21, 2015 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

Long enough. Slicken is way OP. I think it's due to a bug which causes full-duration status effects on Grazes.

[Lord Wafflebum]

It feels like so much longer.

[PrimeJunta]

It is longer if you buffed... whichever ability extends Duration in this build. As you probably did.

[Lord Wafflebum]

If I did it was by accident...