No buffing outside of combat, why?

[endolex]

@manageri:

 

"Now that you admitted it is indeed not optional, tactically speaking, to prebuff"

-- I don't recall having said that anywhere. I stand by my point that buffing is an option, not mandatory.

 

"You have absolutely no GAMEPLAY related answer to this."

-- Yes I do: I want to be able to cast my spells regardless of 'combat mode' or not, and I want to decide exactly when I do that. As for immersion, I already pointed out that a C-RPG game shouldn't prevent players from using player knowledge to make informed decisions and commit to metagaming if that is their preferred way of playing.

 

"There's nothing truly limited about the resting system in this game."

-- That, however, would be a problem of the resting system, not the buff system. I find myself agreeing though, but I don't want to discuss the resting system here.

 

"No, because with prebuffing you're doing BOTH, you're buffing the party (before the fight) AND THEN you can start using that buffing character to nuke. Long term buff spells are simply not optional in D&D CRPGs; You either use them or you're playing badly. Only when the fight starts without the possibility of having buffs already up does it truly become an option whether you cast that bless, or throw a pillar of faith to knock those enemies down, as an example."

-- I'd like to see the priest in PoE who is able to 'nuke' anything, but aside from that: EVERY spell is optional in D&D CRPGs, because you use either spell slots / mana / spells per day for buffing which you could also substitute those for more offensive spells (as offensive as priests / D&D clerics can get) or you can even decide against bringing a cleric at all. In a balanced game, several playstyles are entirely possible like that. And before you again say that spell slots / spells per day are no limitation in Pillars because of the resting system - see above. That's a different problem, then.

[NathanH]

I've always rather liked pre-buffing, it gives a wide range of power to your party so you have the capability of really dialling up your strength for a given fight if you want to. It also allows you to play "naturally" for most of the game, until you hit something troublesome, and then you work out how you use your extra reserve power to overcome that particular challenge. It's a bit like cast-per-rest abilities: there isn't really much in-game beyond inconvenience stopping you from blowing all your per-rest abilities on every encounter and resting afterwards, but I wouldn't ever do that, even if resting was free and convenient.

 

Unfortunately it seems from my experience that a lot of people won't follow this "natural" approach and need more strict treatment (I remember the first time I played multiplayer BG2: my party rested after every encounter, I was horrified). You want most of your encounters not to need pre-buffing / blowing all per-rest abilities, but you also know that you have to strictly stop people from doing it because they can't be trusted with playing the way that they'll enjoy more.A number of possibilities emerge. You can ban pre-buffing, but this is somewhat disappointing. You can make pre-buffs long duration but relatively weak, so it's a question of "do you want an extra spell per day, or do you want a small constant bonus" but this doesn't really increase your power much for specific fights like pre-buffing is "supposed" to do. You can make strict restrictions on resting, so that pre-buffing is possible but only once per dungeon or so; this mostly solves the problem but is super-inconvenient or even worse unwinnable for some. You can make less strict but more elaborate resting restrictions, such as "if you rested n times since starting this dungeon, the final boss gets n pre-buffs of his own", which mostly solves the problem but is much harder work to balance. Or you can ignore the people who don't play "properly", but this ignores the people who don't play properly.

 

Hoom hmm.

 

Edit: It's also worth noting that if you commit to allowing pre-buffing, there's no reason why this ought to be boring for the player. If the designers are committed to it, it'd be relatively easy to develop user-defined auto-buff scripts. Many roguelikes already offer such a feature.

Edited April 5, 2015 by NathanH

[anameforobsidian]

The enemies' spells are not, however, limited in the short term, and it's much harder to predict whether or not the player will have buffs remaining at their disposal - as I say, it makes designing encounters much more difficult - every person who has DMed for a long period of time knows this. 

 

Many systems have largely side-stepped this problem entirely by giving the enemies a different set of powers.  I think that's a pretty weak solution, because party vs. party fights are really fun.  The problem is that high damage, low health characters are more interesting for the player to play.

 

 

The encounters are already not "balanced" in this regard, assuming you have spellcasters of X or Y type - they are not "balanced" with you having a priest in mind. They are not balanced with your Wizard having Slicken memorized in mind, so why would they be balanced with buffs in mind? The game isn't balanced with resting bonuses in mind, either, which are objectively buffs. They are not balanced around you having specifically a Paladin. Why would it be?

 

You buff, you lose access to spells, that's the balancing factor. You also lose time, very valuable time, considering how quickly buffs actually run out. This is no different than spending any spell in battle, whether it's a buff or a fireball.

 

They are balanced assuming a certain amount of aggregate defenses+health, damage, and crowd-control in mind.  Prebuffs dramatically improve the health+damage part of that equation.  

 

In the case of some classes, the resources lost are negligible.  Ciphers have some very nice single target buffs, but can generally regain the focus they lost casting them quite easily.  Furthermore, the time is not really all that valuable considering the ready availability of both resting materials, and the fact that you're still gaining a bonus that the enemy cannot get.

Edited April 5, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[endolex]

NathanH:

 

"because they can't be trusted with playing the way that they'll enjoy more."

-- I'm sorry, but if I imagine myself a game dev and I find players playing my game in a way they prefer but not in the way I intended, clearly *I* am doing something wrong or have the wrong expectations of what players find fun to play, not the players! Simply restricting them from ways they want to play the game just because *I* think it is the wrong way to play, especially in a single player game is just bananas. The only thing I can do is making the playstyle I had in mind more attractive, not simply switch off the playstyle players prefer up to now (unless it's a buggy exploit or something severe like that).

 

The golden thing a gamedev can of course always do (and I wonder why PoE, with so many singular difficulty adjustment options (restrict stash? show dialogue qualifiers / reputation gains? maim before character death?) already in place, has not thought of that) is: make it an option. Let players who don't want to pre-buff turn off pre-buffing, and those who would like to be able to do it, do it. Problem solved.

[vril]

The short answer to this is "Sawyer". The long answer is slightly more complicated but ends up as a largely indefensible position. The shorter answer is really the easiest and most correct one. Sawyer did not like pre-buffing in the IE games, and therefore there is no pre-buffing whatsoever in PoE.

 

No. Mainly because of technical issues with Unity's "saving of the game state".

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please.

 

 

I suspect there is no truth to it at all.  You do not design mechanics like this around the limitations of an engine.  If there was such a limitation, Obsidian would have roled their own "saving of the game state" code, which is likely what they did anyway, not for the reasons Gairnulf stated though.

Edited April 5, 2015 by vril

[Prime-Mover]

 

The short answer to this is "Sawyer". The long answer is slightly more complicated but ends up as a largely indefensible position. The shorter answer is really the easiest and most correct one. Sawyer did not like pre-buffing in the IE games, and therefore there is no pre-buffing whatsoever in PoE.

 

No. Mainly because of technical issues with Unity's "saving of the game state".

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please.

 

What's the long answer? Just to make sure you're not misrepresenting his view.

 

I'm not misrepresenting his views, I am simply parahrasing them. At the end of the day, it was his decision and is attributed to him. At that point, the rationale he used for it in itself is largely irrelevant. That being said, I'm sure most of the "arguments" will crop up in the thread, some have already been mentioned, most of which are, of course, blown out of proportion, and based on how pre-buffing worked in the IE games, which did have some issues - issues that do not exist in PoE, whether you can buff before or after combat.

 

 

Not sure it constitutes paraphrasing a view to simply say: "Sawyer". Also, why does the fact that a decision is attributed to some guy make the rationale behind the decision irrelvant? Someone asked for the reasons behind the decision (and I'm interested in it too), so clearly that relates to whatever rationale that has been given. Further, you claim that the design decision given is "largely indefensible", which again calls for some degree of elaboration from you, at least for the sake of making your post relevant, but perhaps just as importantly, to exclude misrepresentation.

[Luckmann]

 

The short answer to this is "Sawyer". The long answer is slightly more complicated but ends up as a largely indefensible position. The shorter answer is really the easiest and most correct one. Sawyer did not like pre-buffing in the IE games, and therefore there is no pre-buffing whatsoever in PoE.

 

No. Mainly because of technical issues with Unity's "saving of the game state".

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please.

 

 

I suspect there is no truth to it at all.  You do not design mechanics like this around the limitations of an engine.  If there was such a limitation, Obsidian would have roled their own "saving of the game state" code, which is likely what they did anyway, not for the reasons Gairnulf stated though.

 

 

It should be stated that the claim is not Gairnulf's, but rather he is simply relaying one of the explanations we have been given at some time or another. I do not believe there is any truth to this at all, just like you say, but it's worth pointing out that Gairnulf is innocent.

 

Not sure it constitutes paraphrasing a view to simply say: "Sawyer". Also, why does the fact that a decision is attributed to some guy make the rationale behind the decision irrelvant? Someone asked for the reasons behind the decision (and I'm interested in it too), so clearly that relates to whatever rationale that has been given. Further, you claim that the design decision given is "largely indefensible", which again calls for some degree of elaboration from you, at least for the sake of making your post relevant, but perhaps just as importantly, to exclude misrepresentation.

The rationale is irrelevant because it does not matter what it is, because it was his decision, whether the rationale was good or bad. Like I said, it's been largely covered in the thread. If you want actual quotes specifically from Sawyer on the issue, you're going to have to do some deeper digging on your own, but I can already tell you that you'll find nothing new under the sun, and nothing that hasn't already been covered.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Luckmann

[anameforobsidian]

endolex, on 05 Apr 2015 - 12:24 PM, said:

NathanH:

"because they can't be trusted with playing the way that they'll enjoy more."

-- I'm sorry, but if I imagine myself a game dev and I find players playing my game in a way they prefer but not in the way I intended, clearly *I* am doing something wrong or have the wrong expectations of what players find fun to play, not the players! Simply restricting them from ways they want to play the game just because *I* think it is the wrong way to play, especially in a single player game is just bananas. The only thing I can do is making the playstyle I had in mind more attractive, not simply switch off the playstyle players prefer up to now (unless it's a buggy exploit or something severe like that).

 

 

 

Making a system at all implies that you will limit the desires of players to reflect your artistic intent.  At some level, every game has a designed form of play, and there are always limited resources to support play formats that abberate from the desired form of play.  For instance, how many chess sets support multiball?  Eventually designers must set limits.

[NathanH]

NathanH:

 

"because they can't be trusted with playing the way that they'll enjoy more."

-- I'm sorry, but if I imagine myself a game dev and I find players playing my game in a way they prefer but not in the way I intended, clearly *I* am doing something wrong or have the wrong expectations of what players find fun to play, not the players! Simply restricting them from ways they want to play the game just because *I* think it is the wrong way to play, especially in a single player game is just bananas. The only thing I can do is making the playstyle I had in mind more attractive, not simply switch off the playstyle players prefer up to now (unless it's a buggy exploit or something severe like that).

 

The golden thing a gamedev can of course always do (and I wonder why PoE, with so many singular difficulty adjustment options (restrict stash? show dialogue qualifiers / reputation gains? maim before character death?) already in place, has not thought of that) is: make it an option. Let players who don't want to pre-buff turn off pre-buffing, and those who would like to be able to do it, do it. Problem solved.

 

This is quite a challenging question because the designer must balance on one hand avoiding imposing their narrow idea of what a player ought to find fun on players who genuinely disagree, and on the other hand providing enough focus and restrictions to direct players towards the styles of play they genuinely do enjoy. I think players will tend towards taking easier options, particularly if there's no inconvenience to them. Imagine you took PoEt and allowed automatic consequence-free resting at any point, but changed nothing else. I am fairly confident that many players would start to rest an awful lot more, and that for most of them this action would be bad for them. The resting system gives us some focus as to what we should be doing: I know I shouldn't be looking at resting more than 4 times per dungeon on Normal, even though it's physically possible for me to do so at only personal out-of-game inconvenience. I'm confident that this camping supplies restriction is going to be good for most players' focus.

 

Options are a reasonable approach, with suitable "are you sure you want to be doing this?" documentation.

 

anameforobsidian makes a reasonable point above that pre-buffing is also not so compatible with some classes; still, I can imagine it wouldn't hurt much to simply make the Cipher class unable to pre-buff individually.

[Prime-Mover]

 

 

The short answer to this is "Sawyer". The long answer is slightly more complicated but ends up as a largely indefensible position. The shorter answer is really the easiest and most correct one. Sawyer did not like pre-buffing in the IE games, and therefore there is no pre-buffing whatsoever in PoE.

 

No. Mainly because of technical issues with Unity's "saving of the game state".

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please.

 

 

I suspect there is no truth to it at all.  You do not design mechanics like this around the limitations of an engine.  If there was such a limitation, Obsidian would have roled their own "saving of the game state" code, which is likely what they did anyway, not for the reasons Gairnulf stated though.

 

 

It should be stated that the claim is not Gairnulf's, but rather he is simply relaying one of the explanations we have been given at some time or another. I do not believe there is any truth to this at all, just like you say, but it's worth pointing out that Gairnulf is innocent.

 

Not sure it constitutes paraphrasing a view to simply say: "Sawyer". Also, why does the fact that a decision is attributed to some guy make the rationale behind the decision irrelvant? Someone asked for the reasons behind the decision (and I'm interested in it too), so clearly that relates to whatever rationale that has been given. Further, you claim that the design decision given is "largely indefensible", which again calls for some degree of elaboration from you, at least for the sake of making your post relevant, but perhaps just as importantly, to exclude misrepresentation.

The rationale is irrelevant because it does not matter what it is, because it was his decision, whether the rationale was good or bad. Like I said, it's been largely covered in the thread. If you want actual quotes specifically from Sawyer on the issue, you're going to have to do some deeper digging on your own, but I can already tell you that you'll find nothing new under the sun, and nothing that hasn't already been covered.

 

 

This is a somewhat strange reply. If I ask why Josh, or whoever made a decision, the answer to that question clearly does not become less relevant because "it was his decision". Why would it? Obviously someone at Obsidian made the relevant decision, but the reasons for doing so are still up for evaluation, and are not contingent on the fact that someone actually made a decision.

 

Fair enough that you don't feel like elaborating it, but nothing about that makes it less relevant.

[endolex]

NathanH:

"I think players will tend towards taking easier options"

-- I would be inclined to believe so, too, but the existence of Hard Mode, Heart of Fury Mode, Path of the Damned Mode and all the other options shows me that a lot of players do enjoy a greater challenge (or simply more legwork, in the case of restricted stash).

 

anameforobsidian:

"Making a system at all implies that you will limit the desires of players to reflect your artistic intent.  At some level, every game has a designed form of play, and there are always limited resources to support play formats that abberate from the desired form of play.  For instance, how many chess sets support multiball?  Eventually designers must set limits."

-- I wouldn't know how to compare something like PoE to something like chess, but yes, of course, limits, I can't just include every player wish if I'm still talking about 'my' project. But this isn't about adding content or removing content - it's a simple option to turn a game feature on or off, and a lot of those options are already in place, because player tastes vary.

[Odd Hermit]

There were definitely issues with pre-buffing in the IE games, yes, and I largely agree with you. For example, "this is definitely better than having to cast bla bla bla".

 

I'm inclined to agree, yes, but it is a false dichotomy based on the premise that if there is pre-buffing, it has to work like in the IE games, with the same issues, and the only alternative is to not just curtail pre-buffing, but to artificially prevent it completely.

 

I'm not saying you adhere to this dichotomy, just that that part of the argument between pre-buffing vs. no-pre-buffing is inherently flawed. There are many ways to make buffing viable without making pre-buffing an issue. The vast majority of buffs in PoE already have very short durations, and the number of spells per day are already limited, and the amount you can actually rest - and thus how much you can buff - is already restricted.

 

There are definite, concrete tradeoffs to pre-buffing already built into PoE in how the buffs themselves work. You are expending effort, you are expending time, and you are expending limited resources. Restricting buffs to "Combat Only" on the basis "pre-buffing was **** in IE and therefore we have no pre-buffing" is just such horse****.

 

As for the argument some bring forth "Hurr, then the encounters need to be rebalanced" or "Pre-buffs encourages metagaming, hurr"; No.

 

The encounters are already not "balanced" in this regard, assuming you have spellcasters of X or Y type - they are not "balanced" with you having a priest in mind. They are not balanced with your Wizard having Slicken memorized in mind, so why would they be balanced with buffs in mind? The game isn't balanced with resting bonuses in mind, either, which are objectively buffs. They are not balanced around you having specifically a Paladin. Why would it be?

 

You buff, you lose access to spells, that's the balancing factor. You also lose time, very valuable time, considering how quickly buffs actually run out. This is no different than spending any spell in battle, whether it's a buff or a fireball.

 

As for metagaming, if you don't scout in a game that already awards scouting and positioning massively, you deserve to die in the game and be punished for moving around. Metagaming has done nothing for anyone in PoE that scouting can't already achieve, in 9 cases out of 10 (I'm saying 9 times out of 10 just in case someone can think of a case where this might not be true; I sure can't).

 

 

I have a strong dislike for the in/out of combat state being such a gamey feeling system as well. That said I think pre-buffing, without other changes to adjust it, would reduce my enjoyment of the game as it is right now. There are some buffs that would become no-brainer pre-buffs if I could cast them before combat and it would get tedious.

 

You can argue preparation = smart, but it's a game and if it reduces fun / increases tedium that's an arguable position.

[PrimeJunta]

Buff durations are so short I don't think there are no-brainer pre-buffs.

[vril]

It should be stated that the claim is not Gairnulf's, but rather he is simply relaying one of the explanations we have been given at some time or another. I do not believe there is any truth to this at all, just like you say, but it's worth pointing out that Gairnulf is innocent.

 

 

 

Noted, it sounds like an excuse some lazy programmer told a designer and that was relayed to the community . 

 

The fact it was there was probably helped them with encounter design though, since, every battle you start at a known state.

Edited April 5, 2015 by vril

[eisberg]

No pre-buffing was one of the better improvements they made over the IE games.  When there was pre-buffing, there was less tactical choices to make.  Now there are more tactical choices to make.

[Odd Hermit]

Buff durations are so short I don't think there are no-brainer pre-buffs.

 

There's a priest spell that extends durations by 10s.

 

Also buffs aren't short if you make custom characters with 19 int, which I do for all my casters.

[endolex]

No pre-buffing was one of the better improvements they made over the IE games.  When there was pre-buffing, there was less tactical choices to make.  Now there are more tactical choices to make.

 

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter.

But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight).

With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else.

[PrimeJunta]

They're still not so long you can stack them so much it becomes tedious. Plus, with the limited resting, the opportunity cost of spending one or more spells on them is still pretty hefty.

 

I've said it before, but here it is again: I agree with Josh's diagnosis -- that the way you could stack prebuffs to absurd levels, then steamroll fights, then rest in the IE games did not incentivize fun or smart or engaging gameplay.

 

However I do think he threw the baby out with the bath water here: nerfing the durations to be measured in seconds rather than hours plus limiting resting was sufficient to fix that problem. Adding combat-only limitations to buffs on top of that is just irritating. Not a huge irritation by any means, but still an irritation.

Edited April 5, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[NathanH]

They're still not so long you can stack them so much it becomes tedious. Plus, with the limited resting, the opportunity cost of spending one or more spells on them is still pretty hefty.

 

I've said it before, but here it is again: I agree with Josh's diagnosis -- that the way you could stack prebuffs to absurd levels, then steamroll fights, then rest in the IE games did not incentivize fun or smart or engaging gameplay.

 

However I do think he threw the baby out with the bath water here: nerfing the durations to be measured in seconds rather than hours plus limiting resting was sufficient to fix that problem. Adding combat-only limitations to buffs on top of that is just irritating. Not a huge irritation by any means, but still an irritation.

 

The key question is probably whether the PoEt designers and indeed the designers of future RTwP RPGs are going to carefully analyse the results of the PoEt systems and learn from them, or going to be dogmatic about it. My main worry from reading the designers' statements from PoEt is that they are quite dogmatic and make simplistic arguments. But maybe this is just what they say in press releases because it's easier.

Edited April 5, 2015 by NathanH

[eisberg]

 

No pre-buffing was one of the better improvements they made over the IE games.  When there was pre-buffing, there was less tactical choices to make.  Now there are more tactical choices to make.

 

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter.

But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight).

With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else.

 

 

Nope, completely disagree.  Pre-buffing is a reduction of choice during combat, that is less spells that you need to take into consideration during combat.  Pre-buffing takes away from tactical choices.  Pre-buffing is a no-brainer, and all it does is take away choices during combat, which in turns makes the combat even easier because of less decisions to make.

[PrimeJunta]

@NathanH Josh changed a lot of stuff based on BB feedback. He's nowhere near as dogmatic as many people make him out to be. He stuck to his guns on a couple of points, but for most of those there was at least a large minority opinion backing his view. Like this question on this thread for example.

 

There is a tendency for people to throw hissy fits when they don't get their way, including calling Josh names. I imagine he's grown an extremely thick skin by now.

[Prime-Mover]

 

No pre-buffing was one of the better improvements they made over the IE games.  When there was pre-buffing, there was less tactical choices to make.  Now there are more tactical choices to make.

 

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter.

But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight).

With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else.

 

 

If a choice is obviously supperior to possible alternative, it becomes more or less mandatory, and the alternative is no longer has any a real value. To give a fairly broken analogy: if you are given a +5 longsword at the beginning of BG1, why would you ever be tempted to buy a +1 sword? Pre-buffing has a Diderot effect, making alternative approaches pretty irrelvant, unless to avoid the tedium of buffing.

[Sleazebag]

@NathanH Josh changed a lot of stuff based on BB feedback. He's nowhere near as dogmatic as many people make him out to be. He stuck to his guns on a couple of points, but for most of those there was at least a large minority opinion backing his view. Like this question on this thread for example.

 

There is a tendency for people to throw hissy fits when they don't get their way, including calling Josh names. I imagine he's grown an extremely thick skin by now.

Yeah I have no idea what people think they can accomplish by throwing personal insults at Josh instead of providing constructive criticism

 

And seems to me that people think that Josh designed every single part of this game. Like everything. That's a good soundtrack Josh, didn't know you were so musically inclined

[endolex]

 

 

No pre-buffing was one of the better improvements they made over the IE games.  When there was pre-buffing, there was less tactical choices to make.  Now there are more tactical choices to make.

 

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter.

But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight).

With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else.

 

 

Nope, completely disagree.  Pre-buffing is a reduction of choice during combat, that is less spells that you need to take into consideration during combat.  Pre-buffing takes away from tactical choices.  Pre-buffing is a no-brainer, and all it does is take away choices during combat, which in turns makes the combat even easier because of less decisions to make.

 

 

Can you please explain how having more options results in having less choice? I sure don't get it. You seem to base this view on the strange assumption that 'pre-buffing is a no-brainer', a mandatory decision you have to make just because you can, yet I have yet to read a single reason for that.

[endolex]

 

 

No pre-buffing was one of the better improvements they made over the IE games.  When there was pre-buffing, there was less tactical choices to make.  Now there are more tactical choices to make.

 

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter.

But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight).

With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else.

 

 

If a choice is obviously supperior to possible alternative, it becomes more or less mandatory, and the alternative is no longer has any a real value. To give a fairly broken analogy: if you are given a +5 longsword at the beginning of BG1, why would you ever be tempted to buy a +1 sword? Pre-buffing has a Diderot effect, making alternative approaches pretty irrelvant, unless to avoid the tedium of buffing.

 

The analogy is truly broken, for it would only apply if you could use this +5 sword only once per rest cycle and only starting at 7th level. Which would be the equivalent for a high-lvl weapon summon. Which would be the exact analogy of something you want to cast before combat starts.

 

Edit / Addendum: And yes, avoiding the tedium of buffing can be a strong motivator to *not* do it where it's not necessary.

Edited April 5, 2015 by endolex