General thoughts about PoE that could be improved for PoE2

[Alexander1]

"Fewer, longer, better fights, plz. "

 

Probably the single most thing that is realistic to achieve and is crucial for overall quality. Encounter design was poor in POE and better but still fundamentally mobby in WM. 

 

Otherwise, I'd look for exploring more interesting settings, and bringing back Obsidian's traditional forte - the ability to explore offbeat / derivative themes and poke holes in common themes and tropes. POE was a bit too straight and narrow in its writing. 

 

This is the other thing that I think is crucial and, as you say, realistic to achieve.  The current game has too many areas where you're basically just walking from "trivial fight to trivial fight" where there's little danger and lots of tedium.  I would stress that these areas are fine once in a while since they do require resource-management and are realistic in some places.  I would also acknowledge that not every battle should be a "max-difficulty life-or-death" struggle because that would make those tedious, too. 

 

Even so, I absolutely agree that the current "dungeon crawl" concept of going from small fight to small fight is boring and out of date.  Fewer, larger battles would be far more entertaining, for me. Raederic's Keep, for example, had some nice fights in the courtyard.  But the sewers felt so spread out it there was much more tedium. 

[Andeerz]

well, there were enough potions and gear for the chars in BG2, no need for using spells that much. I believe that the points you raise are points that do not go against the systems/mechnics that were applied in BG2 though. When someone says that you could triviliaze encounters in BG2 with summoning e.g., then the solution would be to simply shorten the length and number of summoned creatures even more than it was the case. Or when someone e.g. would say that project image which you get much later in BG2 was overpowered then the solution would be to simply not have that spell in BG2 at all. But IMO it's not that the system as such in BG2 failed. There sure would be ways to make pre-buffing, rest-spamming balance even better than it was in BG2, i guess, because the system as such allowed it. If the basics of the game don't allow it, like i believe is the case in PoE than you cannot much improve the game experience by balancing stuff IMO. If you guys say that what would be needed for PoE2 is to have longer, better encounters, then i'd honestly like to know how Obs would be about going to achieve that goal with the systems in place.

 

Hmmm... in what way can BG2 be balanced and tweaked (fundamentally speaking) that PoE cannot?  I think that PoE could be balanced and improved in much the same way as in those situations you describe by tweaking existing prameters in the systems already in place.  

That said, I think that both BG2 and PoE are similarly limited in the kinds of battles and combat situations that one encounters.  And I think that this limitation cannot simply be addressed by tweaking values, encounter design, etc..  No matter how much you tweak these things, ultimately battles are going to involve the same AI controlling the enemies, the same basic objectives (e.g. kill all the baddies), and the same limited tool-set at the player's (and AI's) disposal to accomplish these objectives.  These are the things that need to change if you want a fundamentally different kind of challenge.  Otherwise, you are simply changing the flavor of the day, and those longer, "better" encounters won't really be all that novel.  (Which is not necessarily a bad thing.  I do think there could be a better balance in terms of the kinds of battles there are in the game.)

 

Anyway, I among other things, a good thing for Obsidian to focus on, I think, would be more interaction with the environment, especially during battle (which would represent expanding the player/AI tool-set mentioned above), and ideally not just through scripted stuff (though that can be amazing enough!).  It would do a lot to enhance immersion and create fundamentally novel and unique combat scenarios.  For example, would it not be amazing if your powerful wizard's ice spells could be used to form an ice bridge to get to the other side of a river, only to melt it later when your pursuing enemies attempted to cross?  Or perhaps, as another example, wouldn't it be neat if your fighter was able to push an enemy off a cliff, with that falling enemy landing upon and damaging another enemy?  And as a final example, would it not be awesome to be able to place lit torches on the walls of a long-abandoned dungeon in order to see, or alternatively extinguish such torches to keep from being seen?     

[KDubya]

I think if they got rid of vancian casters with their per rest or per encounter spells and had every caster use a system similar to the Cipher's focus that it would be a better system.

 

Differentiate between the classes by what abilities they can fuel - give Ciphers the mind control psionic stuff, Wizards the arcane type, Druids the elemental, Priests healing and buffing. You'd start with some focus and have to engage enemies in order to generate more. You could balance the classes by the amount of starting focus, the rate of generating it and the cost of the various abilities.

 

PoE started with Ciphers having too much focus which let them blast out multiple top end abilities at the start. Now with reduced starting focus Ciphers have choices to make and need to balance their casting and their focus generation. They are well balanced now and scale well with the difficulty and at higher level. The same can not be said for the quadratic Vancian casters.

 

You could change the ratio of attacks Vs casts. Have Ciphers with a few attacks generate enough focus for one cast as they are more of a hybrid, have Wizards need to attack less and cast more as they are more caster oriented.

 

You could add in metamagic abilities that would cost more focus but give different modifiers like making something into an AoE, or making it DR piercing or whatever. Have extra things cost more focus and just balance the costs and the rates at which it is generated.

 

Maybe even have something similar for melee types to power their abilities through damaging or killing the enemy. The Monk's wound system works great as a different way to power abilities, PoE2 should expand on that.

 

If people want DnD Vancian systems there are plenty of games like that. Better to make something unique.

[FlintlockJazz]

POINTY HATS!!!

 

I cannot believe they included a range of hats but not one pointy hat!  They will naturally need to make up for this by providing a wide range of pointy hats in the future, from the wide floppy brim version to the narrow rigid version, floppy point to the rigid point.  I mean, who would not want a magely hat like this?  I am being serious in wanting them though, a properly designed pointy hat is a fine addition to any wizard's wardrobe and a viable alternative to the preponderance of hoods all those wannabes wear.

 

[gkathellar]

Anyway, I among other things, a good thing for Obsidian to focus on, I think, would be more interaction with the environment, especially during battle (which would represent expanding the player/AI tool-set mentioned above), and ideally not just through scripted stuff (though that can be amazing enough!). It would do a lot to enhance immersion and create fundamentally novel and unique combat scenarios. For example, would it not be amazing if your powerful wizard's ice spells could be used to form an ice bridge to get to the other side of a river, only to melt it later when your pursuing enemies attempted to cross? Or perhaps, as another example, wouldn't it be neat if your fighter was able to push an enemy off a cliff, with that falling enemy landing upon and damaging another enemy? And as a final example, would it not be awesome to be able to place lit torches on the walls of a long-abandoned dungeon in order to see, or alternatively extinguish such torches to keep from being seen?

The big problem with this, in practice, is that PoE uses pre-rendered, layered 2D backgrounds. That's not really compatible with the kind of D:OS-esque environmental manipulation that you're describing. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

 

I think if they got rid of vancian casters with their per rest or per encounter spells and had every class use a system similar to the Cipher's focus that it would be a better system.

FTFY.

 

If people want DnD Vancian systems there are plenty of games like that. Better to make something unique.

PoE promised to be one of those games, alas.

 

I really like the Cipher system - it attaches a flow and a rhythm to combat. But PoE has a legacy attachment to its phaux-Vancian system.