Doesn't build diversity feel a tad....limited?

[Longknife]

It feels as though 90% of talents and abilities are garbage, to the point where any attempt to innovate and try something new is just a lost cause. It almost feels like the class talents were the only ones with any real thought or effort put into them, and aside from those there's just a handful of good all-class talents to put to use, with many being pretty weak.

  Likewise the whole game feels very....controlled. There's a very limited range of additional accuracy you can gain permanently, as is the case with a lot of stats. What I mean is it doesn't really feel as though it'd be possible to build a character that's insanely good at offense but obviously lacking in defense, like even if you tried your hardest to achieve this, the stats are controlled enough and the scope of what stats you can gain is small enough that no character is gonna stand out as truly unique, and all Ciphers or Wizards are gonna feel more or less the same. I understand that of course the stats need to be controlled to a degree lest there be stupid broken overpowered builds or the like, but I guess I'm still disappointed in the range and scope of what you can accomplish. Customizing squads can feel unique, but customizing individual characters seems like it'll get old fast...

 

 

Thoughts?

[DracoSpirit86]

Give it a few expansions. At the moment there mostly A and B routes for most of the classes, through I think the difference between the truly great builds and the average builds aren't too big... look how messed up the npc builds are.. and the game still very winnable with them!

[I am Catharsis]

I think that we need to let a bit of time to Obsidian to balance this new-school Baldur's Gate.

 

So far, it has been an incredible work to create this new engine and it gives a good base to create new things over it.

 

Just let some time, some patches, maybe an extention, things will for sure get better and better.

 

I don't know if you played the Baldur's Gate series, but if you did, you should remember that the very begining of the serie was slow and not that customisable. Then things evolved little by little over time.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Yes.

 

Talents are mostly bad, with class ability boosts, weapon focus, weapon style, and modal being all you really need in most cases. A lot of the defensive talents are too situational and the utility talents are largely convenience that you wouldn't waste a valuable resource on.

 

Add to that the extremely limited class abilities and you have very little viable build diversity. You can make a warrior-wizard, but a Cipher will beat it because Wizard buffs suck and the Wizard has **** base stats.

[TheUsernamelessOne]

Honestly that's true to one extent or another of the IE games too. Pillars is a lot like the first Baldur's Gate in this way. I think the cool unique magic items in Baldur's Gate II were what made characters really feel special, and there isn't anything like that in Pillars.

 

Since you mentioned Accuracy, keep in mind that the whole Accuracy system is a pretty bad idea to begin with. I mean, if you want your psychic powers to have a better chance of affecting your enemies, of course equipping a dagger would help, right? They can't allow players to significantly increase Accuracy or else their entire mechanical system disintegrates. Notice how many people bragging about winning hard fights mention they use the paralyzing trap? It's because they maxed out their Mechanics, because that gives you a flat permanent bonus to Accuracy on traps, which helps make traps extremely effective.

[Elerond]

I would argue that build diversity is quite good in this game compared to other class based CRPGs that there are. Only 3+ edition D&D games definitely offer greater class build diversity and even with them you could argue that most build options are just bad or they are based on ability to multi-class and especially on prestige classes.

 

But I hope that expansion packs and possible sequel will add much more diversity in class builds and maybe new classes and something similar to prestige class system. Multi-classing base classes isn't necessary thing that I would like to see.

[Longknife]

He's a suggestion of what I think could help:

 

 

You can get enchantments that provide Retaliation, Second Chance and whatever the self-healing one is....why not offer these as talents? Why not give a Talent that provides Second Chance? I don't think it'd be too OP since all this effectively acts as is another enchantment slot, but would a talent that provides a character with Second Chance be tempting? Dear lord yes. As it stands now, no one in their right mind is having trouble debating between grabbing Psychic Backlash or Bear's Fortitude....

[Emptiness]

Limited build diversity is the child of the min-max mindset.  First the system gets torn apart to identify "the best" options available, then all other options are rejected, then the system is criticized for lacking options.  This has nothing to do with the system itself; for any system, a given person will only find a limited set of choices to be "the best" because "the best" implies stratification of the available choices and rejection of all but a limited number of them.

 

The only solution to this problem is to be content to make suboptimal choices.

[Longknife]

Limited build diversity is the child of the min-max mindset.  First the system gets torn apart to identify "the best" options available, then all other options are rejected, then the system is criticized for lacking options.  This has nothing to do with the system itself; for any system, a given person will only find a limited set of choices to be "the best" because "the best" implies stratification of the available choices and rejection of all but a limited number of them.

 

The only solution to this problem is to be content to make suboptimal choices.

 

 

Nonsense. There's plenty of ways to encourage build diversity by simply offering more diverse benefits.

 

The problem currently is that most of the talents are arbitrary stat bonuses. The class talents are better because many of them add or modify existing abilities, the all-class talents are crud because they just give +10 Will or something like that, which simply won't mean jack against the toughest opponents and will hardly be noticeable in normal fights.

 

 

Take for example the Monk's talent that reduces all hostile effects by half. This? This is a good talent. This is flexible and can universally help your monk across the board. But no such all-class talents exist. There needs to be more like that.

[knownastherat]

Would you mind posting your Wizard and Cipher Longknife? So I can see how its more or less the same like mine. Thanks

[Gromnir]

disagree with original premise.  for a crpg based on a new rule system, we see great diversity being offered.  one need not look too hard on these boards to see folks arguing 'bout how best to make use o' various classes.  is not much consensus.  is not consensus precisely because there is viable alternatives. heck, we saw one joker tell us that a tanky priest is better than a tanky paladin.  the fact that we got so much potential diversity in a brand spanking new class-based system with 11 freaking classes impresses the heck outta Gromnir.  we loathe class systems, but am admitting that the developers has done an admirable job providing options for character development.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps recognition that poe offers much diversity o' choice in character building doesn't mean we is satisfied. we want more options, but am admitted greedy.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Gromnir

[Emptiness]

Limited build diversity is the child of the min-max mindset.  First the system gets torn apart to identify "the best" options available, then all other options are rejected, then the system is criticized for lacking options.  This has nothing to do with the system itself; for any system, a given person will only find a limited set of choices to be "the best" because "the best" implies stratification of the available choices and rejection of all but a limited number of them.

 

The only solution to this problem is to be content to make suboptimal choices.

 

Nonsense. There's plenty of ways to encourage build diversity by simply offering more diverse benefits.

 

The problem currently is that most of the talents are arbitrary stat bonuses. The class talents are better because many of them add or modify existing abilities, the all-class talents are crud because they just give +10 Will or something like that, which simply won't mean jack against the toughest opponents and will hardly be noticeable in normal fights.

 

 

Take for example the Monk's talent that reduces all hostile effects by half. This? This is a good talent. This is flexible and can universally help your monk across the board. But no such all-class talents exist. There needs to be more like that.

 

Yes, there need to be more options like the ones that you consider the best.  But then you won't be able to take them all.  So for the ones you aren't taking to compete, they'll need to be more like the ones that you are taking.  Ad infinitum.

[Nadrac]

You can have bit of fun with it but yeah, they are pretty simple slightly boosting certain styles, and this would have bothered me if i was only controlling one character but with 6 and more i had my hands full anyway especially with the casters. Weapon focuses are nice, getting access a variety of weapons does offer more deeper and versatile builds.

 

What we could do, and what i am planning for 3rd time around on potd is to have randomized guys, you may find it boring that your 18/18 base primary stat wizard looks just like the previous one, but if he had 10/8 primary stats instead and took ghost hunter after he took snakes reflexes, along his randomly selected spell of minor grimoire imprint and flame shield, you may be forced to solve your problems differently.

 

There is only so many best ways to do things, i love to overcome not optimal circumstances, that is kind of how you feel with companions, but of course you have control over them. You can play the game telling everyone what to learn and make them perfect or just let them make their own stupid choices and its up to you to choose whether you want them along or not.

[Eos]

I think the build diversity is pretty big. Many chars to fulfill many rolls. Plenty of choices available for tank, off-tank, melee DD, ranged DD, supporter. Mostly two, sometimes three different roles available for every/almost every class. Don't see how this is limited.

 

Granted, Barbarian's One Stande Alone is so terribly retarded, that it is a must have. Same with some of the cyphers abilities. But other than that.. feels good to me

[Raven Darkholme]

I like the build diversity even though the race diversity is quite bad.

I like how it's really fun to have a party with 6 different characters, while in BG I always ended up getting frustrated with parties and soloing, though that is also due to the endurance mechanic in PoE.

[Longknife]

 

Limited build diversity is the child of the min-max mindset.  First the system gets torn apart to identify "the best" options available, then all other options are rejected, then the system is criticized for lacking options.  This has nothing to do with the system itself; for any system, a given person will only find a limited set of choices to be "the best" because "the best" implies stratification of the available choices and rejection of all but a limited number of them.

 

The only solution to this problem is to be content to make suboptimal choices.

 

Nonsense. There's plenty of ways to encourage build diversity by simply offering more diverse benefits.

 

The problem currently is that most of the talents are arbitrary stat bonuses. The class talents are better because many of them add or modify existing abilities, the all-class talents are crud because they just give +10 Will or something like that, which simply won't mean jack against the toughest opponents and will hardly be noticeable in normal fights.

 

 

Take for example the Monk's talent that reduces all hostile effects by half. This? This is a good talent. This is flexible and can universally help your monk across the board. But no such all-class talents exist. There needs to be more like that.

 

Yes, there need to be more options like the ones that you consider the best.  But then you won't be able to take them all.  So for the ones you aren't taking to compete, they'll need to be more like the ones that you are taking.  Ad infinitum.

 

 

 

Your argument is to bother try because there will always be room for more options...?

[Crucis]

It feels as though 90% of talents and abilities are garbage, to the point where any attempt to innovate and try something new is just a lost cause. It almost feels like the class talents were the only ones with any real thought or effort put into them, and aside from those there's just a handful of good all-class talents to put to use, with many being pretty weak.

  Likewise the whole game feels very....controlled. There's a very limited range of additional accuracy you can gain permanently, as is the case with a lot of stats. What I mean is it doesn't really feel as though it'd be possible to build a character that's insanely good at offense but obviously lacking in defense, like even if you tried your hardest to achieve this, the stats are controlled enough and the scope of what stats you can gain is small enough that no character is gonna stand out as truly unique, and all Ciphers or Wizards are gonna feel more or less the same. I understand that of course the stats need to be controlled to a degree lest there be stupid broken overpowered builds or the like, but I guess I'm still disappointed in the range and scope of what you can accomplish. Customizing squads can feel unique, but customizing individual characters seems like it'll get old fast...

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Rather than just throwing out the 90% number, why not go down the entire list of talents, particularly the "all-class" talents and review them?  Tedious?  Perhaps, but the info would seem to put your topic in a clearer light, I'd think.  (BTW, I'm assuming by "all-class" talents, you're talking about the offense, defense, and utility talents.)

 

I'm not sure that I'd say that 90% are weak.  Some are, no doubt there.  The weapon focus talents seem pretty good, though some of the choices of weapons to put in a mix seem strange to me.  There are a number of ranged weapon talents that seem well worth taking if your character is going to be a dedicated ranged combat specialist like a Ranger or a ranged Rogue.  Weapon and Shield Style seems well worth taking for any character that's going to be tanking a lot and wants to maximize his deflection. 

 

 

One thing that disappoints me a little is that it seems that the mechanics of the game are skewing players/characters into either looking to go maximum armor or the lightest armor possible.  There just doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to want to use medium armors like chain mail.  This seems like a "diversity" issue to me.

 

 

And another diversity issue.  It seems like the fighter class has been turned strictly into a max armor, tanking meatshield only character class.  Maybe I'm wrong here, but in the IE DnD games, it seemed like there was room for Fighters of various combat styles, not merely tanking meatshields.  Some people would go for non-ranger archers.  It was possible to play something swashbuckler-ish.  There was room for variety because IIRC, the class' abilities/talents didn't focus on any certain style of combat.

 

 

And another issue.  The Ranger class.  It seems to me that the Ranger class in PoE went in 2 different directions at the same time.  On one hand, to a degree, it became the ranged combat specialist fighter but without ability to get a weapon specialization for ranged weapons, though I suppose that that's made up for with the various special ranged combat class abilities.  OTOH, the class seems to have moved away from the Ranger as a woodsman warrior, yet at the same time you're stuck with an animal companion that you have no choice but to accept.  Personally, I wish that the animal companion was a class ability that you chose to take or not, say at level 2, so that the player had the choice of having the AC or not.  Frankly, Rangers don't feel much like rangers to me.  They feel more like Archers (or ranged combat specialists) who got stuck with an animal buddy.

[mazeltov]

And another diversity issue.  It seems like the fighter class has been turned strictly into a max armor, tanking meatshield only character class.  Maybe I'm wrong here, but in the IE DnD games, it seemed like there was room for Fighters of various combat styles, not merely tanking meatshields.

 

Fighter has a number of damage focused class talents. I've got a swashbucklery Fighter right now on PotD using Disciplined Barrage, Confident Aim, Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery, and Knockdown, all from the class list.

 

I agree with the rest of your commentary.

[Emptiness]

Your argument is to bother try because there will always be room for more options...?

 

I assume the "try" to which you are referring is to try to increase build diversity by adding or rebalancing aspects of the game.

 

In itself, that isn't bad.  A certain amount of balance is necessary to promote the use of different classes and abilities.  Perfect balance is impossible, and pointless to pursue, but some imbalance is stark enough to merit correction.  For example, is +10 Will worth spending a talent on?  If it clearly is not then it is productive to try to determine how much +Will a talent is worth.

 

I don't really see this thread as approaching the question of balance from that direction, however:

 

He's a suggestion of what I think could help:

 

You can get enchantments that provide Retaliation, Second Chance and whatever the self-healing one is....why not offer these as talents? Why not give a Talent that provides Second Chance? I don't think it'd be too OP since all this effectively acts as is another enchantment slot, but would a talent that provides a character with Second Chance be tempting? Dear lord yes. As it stands now, no one in their right mind is having trouble debating between grabbing Psychic Backlash or Bear's Fortitude....

 

Retaliation and Second Chance are great examples of very powerful abilities that are deliberately limited to specific items in the game; abilities that, were they available to every character as talents would instantly overshadow most of the alternatives (for appropriate characters).  This isn't a "some of the character options under-perform and could use some adjustment to make them competitive" thread, this is a "there aren't enough overpowered choices available, so they should add more" thread.  Or, at least that is how I read it.  That's where my response comes from: increasing the number of build options by adding more overpowered options is doomed to fail because only the most powerful options will satisfy the need to be the best.

[Longknife]

This isn't a "some of the character options under-perform and could use some adjustment to make them competitive" thread, this is a "there aren't enough overpowered choices available, so they should add more" thread.  Or, at least that is how I read it.

 

 

How would it be overpowered to provide an ability that already exists within the game as a talent?

 

Granted it was merely an example, but if you're limited to 6 talents, then I think if you can provide the player with 20 good options on where to spend those, then there's plenty of room for diversity. More diversity = better. By all means balance it out, but from what we've seen of Pillars so far, it feels as though the game is so obsessed with controlling it's own capabilities that absolutely zero risks were taken. At this point, I'd actually prefer seeing weaker forms of Retaliation and Second Chance being talents (weaker being lower % chance of proc'ing) and see these retroactively be nerfed if neccesary, rather than just see more petty "+ 5 concentration1!!" bonuses.

[Kaigen42]

 

This isn't a "some of the character options under-perform and could use some adjustment to make them competitive" thread, this is a "there aren't enough overpowered choices available, so they should add more" thread.  Or, at least that is how I read it.

 

 

How would it be overpowered to provide an ability that already exists within the game as a talent?

 

Because an ability that's limited to items can only be used by some characters, while an ability that's a talent can be used by everyone. Consider also in the case of retaliation that it's limited to a handful of items, none of which are easily available until the mid-to-late game (one of which I believe you have to already have won the hardest fight in the game to get).

[Emptiness]

Take Second Chance as an example.  It is so strong that I use a suit of armor just for it, instead of using better armor more appropriate to my character's role.

 

If it was a talent, then every member of my party would have it.  It would overshadow every other option.

 

I agree that more diversity is better, but that is not the same thing as saying every possible option is a good option, and it doesn't solve the perception that there are limited choices.  There only seems to be limited choices because many of the options have been ruled out as inferior.  They could triple the number of options available...indeed, they could even triple the number of classes available...and the system might still feel restrictive as a result of the drive to make only the best choices.  I'm not objecting to more choices, I'm just pointing out that it won't solve the problem.

[Shdy314]

I was brainstorming this when trying to make the suckier talents more viable and less boring. This is just idle musing.

 

Elemental Master=Scion of Flame+Spirit of Decay+Secrets of Rime+Heart of the Storm

Weapon Focus    =Is just +6 Accuracy to all weapons (Cuz use whatever weapons you effing want. Seriously.Alternatively you choose whatever 4 weapons you wanted for your concept. Master of guns? Wizard with Quarterstaff, Rod, Scepter, Wand? IE Wizard with Quarterstaff, crossbow, dagger, wand? But this makes the talent reward metagame information so I decided on making it universal.)

Weapon Master   =All weapon styles (Same as weapon focus. This really doesnt do anything amazing. Just lets you decide to try out dual wielding for awhile before settling on using a great sword or a sword and shield.)

Gunman          =Marksman+Gunner+Close Shooter

Hard to Kill    =Bears Fortitude, Bulls Will, Snakes Reflexes+Superior Deflection

Fancy Footwork  =Shot On the Run+Fast Runner+Graceful Retreat+Unstoppable

Spell Master    =Bonus Spell of level 1,2.3 and 4 (By levels 9 & 12 the first two talents are a waste anyways and this puts this talent in line with the rings of wizardry. Honestly this still wouldnt even be very good. By level 12 I had more spells than I could possibly use in a fight. But it's something nice at early levels casuals will pick and have more fun in the class.)

Blood Knight    =Bloody Slaughter+Hold the Line+Body Control+Mental Fortress

Medic           =Wound Binding, Field Triage and Envenomed Strike (I still wouldn't take it actually but now at least you heal a decent amount of health.)

Loaded for Bear =Arms Bearer+Quick Switch

The modals can stay

I'd just remove Dangerous Implement but I know it has its uses for edge cases.

 

Hilariously the bad talents are so bad even combining them with the more useful ones isnt much of a boost to a characters power.

 

These should also be a lot clearer for casual players which ones are really going to help your build.

[redneckdevil]

Think of Poe as a "core book" in a roleplaying tabletop game. It's basically the foundation, once we get expansions and sequels (aka other books) then it's gonna be a smorgasbord of options. But u gotta start somewhere and lay the foundation.

 

Tbh as someone who's immensely enjoying the game, I'm impressed with how a lot of talents are viable for many classes. I'm having a good time using different talents depending on what type of character I'm making and I see myself using different talents for different characters of the same class.

[AncientToaster]

It feels as though 90% of talents and abilities are garbage, to the point where any attempt to innovate and try something new is just a lost cause. It almost feels like the class talents were the only ones with any real thought or effort put into them, and aside from those there's just a handful of good all-class talents to put to use, with many being pretty weak.

  Likewise the whole game feels very....controlled. There's a very limited range of additional accuracy you can gain permanently, as is the case with a lot of stats. What I mean is it doesn't really feel as though it'd be possible to build a character that's insanely good at offense but obviously lacking in defense, like even if you tried your hardest to achieve this, the stats are controlled enough and the scope of what stats you can gain is small enough that no character is gonna stand out as truly unique, and all Ciphers or Wizards are gonna feel more or less the same. I understand that of course the stats need to be controlled to a degree lest there be stupid broken overpowered builds or the like, but I guess I'm still disappointed in the range and scope of what you can accomplish. Customizing squads can feel unique, but customizing individual characters seems like it'll get old fast...

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Somewhat agree. I feel like most if not all of the Defense and Utility talents will never make it into any serious character build.

 

There really is a way to make a crappy character, unlike what the devs were saying before release. I guess if you really wanted you could take some ridiculously bad talents in those trees every level.