Vancian magic

[archangel979]

 

When you use consumables, you trade a permanent loss for a temporary grain.  The more common the consumable, the less that loss is felt, and the more likely it's used.  When you enchant you trade a permanent loss of items you can't use (reagents) for a permanent gain in items you do use (weapons & armor).

This is so very true. The permanent loss/temporary gain trade-off in a base mechanic is usually bad design, as it strongly incentivises hoarding. Most players are reluctant to use even ready-made consumables for this reason; instead they struggle through with renewables, saving those sweet scrolls and potions for the boss battle that never comes.

 

If you have material use for a core mechanic -- alchemy, spells etc. -- then those materials have to be renewable too. The Witchers do this nicely -- alchemy is fairly crucial, but herbs regrow and monsters respawn so you can always get more materials. Conversely, the non-renewable materials (from non-respawning monsters) can be used to create mutagens which produce permanent gains.

 

Incidentally, this is one case where respawning monsters makes sense.

 

There are better ways to solve this. You make the game more difficult and consumables more meaningful and people will use them.

 

For example I will use my BG1EE run with SCS mod installed. In base BG1EE I rarely use any consumable outside healing potions and a wand here or there. With SCS installed I used all those sweet OP potions, wands and even extra spell scrolls to overcome much tougher challenges.

[Guest 4ward]

 

sorcerer and potions and free movement and clear dividing line between trash fights (you mostly use your weapons) and set encounters (you use up lots of abilities) = no rest spam ala BG2.

For PoE2 there could be 2 modes, one for all abilities being per-encounter and one for all of them being per-rest (with resting in designated places). Player just switches between them whenever he likes except when in combat. That way anyone can set difficulty for himself and also how much resource management he wants.

[Messier-31]

How do people feel about the fact the game has stuck to a vancian magic system?

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vancian

 

What?

[evilcat]

 

How do people feel about the fact the game has stuck to a vancian magic system?

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vancian

 

What?

 

That:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Spells+of+Dungeons+%26+Dragons

The idea of spell memorization is sometimes called "Vancian" in the game designer community, since its first use, in Dungeons & Dragons, was inspired by the way magic works in Jack Vance's Dying Earth world.^[1][2]

 

[Lord_Mord]

I came up with a question a while ago (Ignore my english, I'm drunk): Why is everybody against rest spamming? Basically rest spamming equals per encounter. So in a system like BG2 everybody can get what he/she wants. The per encounter fraction can rest spam and get per encounter spells with no cost, the others try to stay alive until they used all their spells.

[why]

I don't think everyone is against rest spamming, Mord. I don't even think most people care about it. Once again, I could be wrong, but with the tens of thousands of backers and even more players, it doesn't seem to be the burning issue on the tip of everyone's tongue. It seems to be a major complaint for some people, and I'm all for them bitching about it. From my perspective, however, rest spamming isn't an issue.

 

When I play, I tend to try to conserve my inn/stronghold resting bonus and play to the convenience of the number of resting supplies I have. I don't want to 'rest spam' (an entirely ridiculous concept that's almost elitist gamer jargon) because it's more fun to progress the story than to rest every other encounter. Some areas are a lot tougher/higher level and require more resting. Other areas require more time to whittle down the player's health enough to require resting.

 

I'm willing to let the material component argument rest. I don't agree but I agree with Ganrich, I don't want to argue in circles. I'm also not completely averse to the idea of some resource management for spell casting, just not onerous micromanagement.

 

Resource management isn't really a difficulty setting per se. It's a convenience setting for the most part.

 

As far as the potions, scrolls, and other consumables, having played the hell out of all of the IE games and sunk a lot of hours into Pillars, I don't see any difference. Yes, I horde items, but not because of their costs. Well, maybe a little. Mostly, though, I just forget I have them. If anything, in Pillars, I've started making scrolls and having my front line use them for convenience sake whereas in the IE games I tended to forget about consumables except for the hardest of fights usually encountered at lower level than intended.

[RojayNola]

 

 

 

Baldur's Gate (the city) had significantly more content than Defiance Bay. The temples, the Museum, the multiple inns, the airship caper, the rando mage fight in the mage shop, the orphan with creepy people watching, the thieves guild, the sewers, the seven suns, the warehouses in the docks, the dead kid quest.... I have to say that Pillars just didn't match it in Defiance Bay.

 

I liked Defiance Bay well enough, but it needed more NPCs, locations, and sidequests.

It's been a long time since I played BG, but that's my memory too. I liked PoE, and I'm looking forward to the 2nd half of the expansion as well as a sequel, but I'm not sure I'd compare PoE to either BG or BG2.

 

But the real reason I responded is to call not just for Vancian magic, but for original AD&D MATERIAL COMPONENTS. I want to see wizards grinding up gems, burning hair and tracing arcane patterns with exotic materials on the ground. I want incense and candles and powdered motherf***ing NEWT.

 

You kids have your "mana" and your "cool-downs." I will be here in the corner with an odd look in my eye, rolling a ball of bat guano and sulfur just before I make boom-fire.

I remember thinking about this when I was originally playing IE games, but even then concluded most people would hate it

And it is too complicated to implement only as an optional mechanic.

Could've gone the Ultima route of just consuming reagents. Honestly, it would have deterred rest spamming by having limits on reagents, and you could have limited key reagents thus bringing limits to the wizards higher level spells.

 

I think a lot of games would benefit from using a reagent/component system.

 

I was joking. I don't see a realistic way, or the need, to implement the AD&D spell component system into PoE or any other CRPG. 

 

I was also, as far as you know, joking about being in the corner with a ball of bat guano and sulphur. 

[Ganrich]

I also don't see a need in PoE, but I like spell components as an old Ultima player. It's a better system than mana IMHO, but to each their own.

[why]

I never realized you were comparing it to mana.  That's a tough one.  I came down hard on the components idea, and I shudder at the idea at having to manually mix reagents over and over again a la Ultima IV, but I enjoyed finding out new recipies and mixing them at the right time.  I think this is all crazy for Pillars of Eternity, but everything depends on presentation.

 

For me, it's not a matter of in-game resources or trying to horde the mats.  It's entirely a matter of not wanting to pull my hair out with the amount of time, clicking, and frustration with some of the material components schemes I've seen.  It's the same thing with runes.  I like the idea of rune-magic, but I see the irritation factor with a high potential.  Nor am I a big fan of mana in a straight up RPG.  I don't mind it in an action RPG, but it seems like cutting corners a lot of the time.

 

I guess this is the circular argument you were warning us would happen, but it's also entertaining to see everyone shooting at everyone else at the same time.  You never know what good ideas might spring from chaos.  lol