Spell mastery made casters boring

[Gidpo]

Even though I don't feel that casters were so overpowered that a nerf was needed, my biggest disappointment with the change is not the lack of per encounter casts.

 

My biggest disappointment comes with the lack of variety. 

 

Now every fight my casters are casting the same 3-4 spells, regardless of the make up of the encounter. 

 

If this change absolutely had to made to balance a single player game, I would hope spell mastery could be adjusted to allow for any, instead of a particular, spell to be cast at least once per encounter. That would at bring some variety back and satisfy those that desired a more vancian system put in place.

[JJGee]

I must agree with this, at least partly. I also noticed that those few "mastered" spells do get cast in every encounter, and after that, all casting only happens if it's a tough one. I liked how before this update the lower level spells became Per Encounter, so that instead of throwing in all the highest-level spells right away, there was an incentive to go back to using these less formidable spells and develop tactics that those spells would work well in. This limitation certainly has dampened my creative thinking in terms of strategy, and it's definitely a little disappointing.

 

I think it would be cool if it at least went back halfway; allowing for one low-level spell Per Encounter, per spell level, as an extra, and beyond that go back to Per Rest uses for all spells. That would at least allow you to pick from an actual pool of available spells before dipping into the spells that you don't get back after the encounter.

[scottii]

agree.  mastery pretty much took the same battle system baldur's gate had.

[Ineth]

those few "mastered" spells do get cast in every encounter

 

How is that different from how a Fighter's Knockdown or a Barbarian's Frenzy gets used in every encounter?

 

Seems fair to me that it should be similar for Wizards.

[JJGee]

I disagree. It's different because they have more spells, it's just not smart to use them. And more importantly, Fighters have significance beyond their special abilities; their placement in the combat situation makes a lot of difference, and they play with engagements and such. Casters are supposed to have a wider variety of options because their placement isn't so instrumental. While the tactical choices with a Fighter or another "brawn" class have to do with movement and location, casters only need to move away from immediate danger, and their tactical depth comes from the spells they use.

[Inspector Switchblade]

My idea is to leave the vanilla spells per encounters mode level 1 and 2, and put an one level 3 spell (but all can be chosen every time) per encounter at level 13 etc instead of the current single spell mastery, how about that devs?

[Ineth]

casters only need to move away from immediate danger

 

My Wizard prefers to cast Arcane Veil and/or one of the DR-increasing spells on herself, and sometimes Alacrity too, and run straight into immediate danger so that she can crush the skulls of said danger with her staff... :D

[Wolken3156]

Now every fight my casters are casting the same 3-4 spells, regardless of the make up of the encounter.

Use the per rest spells then? By the time you have Spell Mastery unlocked, you already have 18 per rest spells along with 1 per encounter spell and any other possible per encounter abilities attached to the class. You only need one or two per rest spells to heavily decide a battle in your favor anyway, and it cleans them up much faster. There's zero reason to horde anything in the game, the game is very generous is resources and alternative options.

 

The worst case scenario is that you end using a camping supply, a consumable that you can buy with a pittance of copper and something that a majority dungeon treks every provide you with in most loot containers anyway. Oh no, anything but that.

 

The older system IMO, made casters even more one-dimensional. All you need was some affliction and then spam Fireball, Noxious Burst and Iconic Projection and you would instantly win any fight without having a single dent in your resources. Battles are supposed to wear on your resources, that's the whole design logic around a majority of encounters in any dungeon. The older system eliminated any need for resource management and made all the trash encounters without any reason or purpose.

[Gidpo]

 

Now every fight my casters are casting the same 3-4 spells, regardless of the make up of the encounter.

 

 

The older system IMO, made casters even more one-dimensional. All you need was some affliction and then spam Fireball, Noxious Burst and Iconic Projection and you would instantly win any fight without having a single dent in your resources. 

 

What you state there isnt changed in the new system. Of all the things you could say the new system changed that part of your post is not one of them.

 

Also your whole post seems to miss that there is much in the game that indicates to the player they should use resources sparingly. There is almost nothing stating that any given moment is the time to use a resource, except almost dying.

 

The only way you can know that you will have a wealth of resources left at the end of an area or the whole game is to have already covered that area before or be on your second play through.

 

Its very clear that you have figured out this game, but is that a reason to drastically change it?

[Tigranes]

Duplicate thread, continue discussion here:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84448-spell-mastery/page-2