How has Obsidian's experience with Tyranny influenced their design philosophy regarding PoE2?

[Ganrich]

I think per-rest and per-encounter abilities suffered early on because some classes were designed with resource mechanics and that was their only inhibiting factor. Of course I am talking about Ciphers, Chanters, and Monks. Ciphers were the most egregious of them. Why bring a wizard when you can have a cipher? I remember threads asking that exact question. Wizards were limited by per rest and health, and Ciphers were only limited by health. So, if you were good at keeping them safe. Ciphers were the energizer bunny of casters. They just kept going, and going, and going. This was balanced out a great deal as the patches came out, but I think those two designs are at odds.

 

I'm kind of hoping that some class redesign happens, but that's mostly just for ciphers and Chanters. Monks are great, but maybe a bit OP. Ciphers are in an odd place from what I've seen. They aren't bad, but they aren't great. Chanters mechanics need a second look. They are too slow to ramp up for lower difficulties, and not everyone wants to run PotD just to make it work. Brisk Recitation was a solid duct tape solution for late game on hard, and maybe normal.

 

I really want to hear about any major changes (if there have been any) before pontificating too much. Anyway, I think some design despcisions are definitely at a juxtaposition to per-encounter and per-rest abilities/spells.

 

Anyway, there are things I like in Tyranny, but CDs, lack of Friendly Fire, and the odd open class system are least among them. I normally prefer open class systems, but maybe that's just in TB games or aRPGs. It seems funky in RtwP.

[Vaeliorin]

Unless Obsidian intends to reduce trash encounters by 80%-90%, I'd much rather have a system wherein I'm willing to let the AI actually do things (cooldowns) than one in which I don't want them wasting limited resources (per rest.)  Otherwise we end up with, what was to me the biggest problem with PoE combat, trash fights requiring a bunch of micro-management and becoming a massive slog.  In the IE games, 85% of fights just required select all->attack, 10% required casting haste, and 5% actually required micro-management, whereas I found PoE to be almost exactly the opposite.

[Gromnir]

snip

am thinking far more o' the dedicated builders people would consider poe wizards to be op than ciphers.  honest. ciphers have an advantage early in the game precisely 'cause wizards (and priests and druids) suffer the same power curve problems as were evident in d&d. the fact that ciphers very quick lose their edge as wizards and priests level is illustrative o' the problem.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Ganrich]

 

snip

 

am thinking far more o' the dedicated builders people would consider poe wizards to be op than ciphers.  honest. ciphers have an advantage early in the game precisely 'cause wizards (and priests and druids) suffer the same power curve problems as were evident in d&d. the fact that ciphers very quick lose their edge as wizards and priests level is illustrative o' the problem.

 

HA! Good Fun!

I was specifically mentioning early release. I should have been more clear. Ciphers aren't what they were then. They have been tamed, but Wizards are definitely better in the long haul. I still think looking at those ramp up mechanics for those three classes would be wise.

[Gromnir]

release state o' poe is perhaps not best measure o' anything save for as a warning to developers regarding the scope o' the beta.  focus were indeed difficult for the developers to get right, and a few powers were comical op.  tanks were functional invulnerable at mid-high levels. rogues were solo killing adra dragons in under 15 seconds with little more than petrification traps and a pointy stick. etc.

 

developers should not necessarily make more content available in the poe2 beta, but am thinking more complete access to the full range o' levels, talents and abilities would be wise.  create a silly arena thing if need be, but am thinking the community does a fair job o' breaking what can be broken.  break during the betta instead o' at release. 

 

but again, the fact o' the matter is the dedicated vancian spellcasters in poe suffered the same power curve problems they had in d&d and the ie games.  reasons seem obvious to Gromnir.  unshackle us from per-rest and limit the spell catalogs a bit. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Revan91]

Hopefully, Tyranny will have little to no influence over PoE2, aside from wiki-style hyperlinks in conversations.

Cooldowns have no place in PoE, area design was terrible with very small maps filled only with monsters to kill and NPCs to talk to (nothing even remotely resembling Raedric's Castle or the Abbey in TWM2 design-wise), combat was bad systems-wise and encounter design even worse, with basically the same enemies to kill through the entire game.

[Fenixp]

poe developers implied such were their goal.  board did not react favorable.  but perhaps poe2 backers is more enlightened or adventurous than were poe1 folks.

To be fair, PoE1 was both significantly more enlightened and adventurous than Tyranny was. If the original PoE showed us something (and Tyranny failed to completely), it's that this doesn't need to be a discussion of per pers vs. cooldowns, but more of a "Why not both?" one.

 

One of the things I loved about Pillars of Eternity was that out of the 9 classes in the game, only 3 were based around Vancian magic (and I'd certainly like to see Druid being reworked somewhat to drop that number to 2). So if you wanted to avoid Vancian casters, you could, very easily - in fact, when building your party, good 90% of your abilities could avoid per rest mechanics altogether. Because Pillars of Eternity system was extremely flexible.

 

So that's why I don't think the second game necessarily needs to drop Vancian magic, but if demand for cooldown-based gameplay is high enough, it could add cooldown-based classes (or even spellmaker class who'd work like Tyranny mages). Obsidian has already mixed several systems that I always thought incompatible in the original, might as well go further in that direction in the second game.

[dark___devil]

I don't  like cooldown mechanics but there could be some mixing.Warriors skills could be on a cooldown,it doesn't make a lot of sense to have the need to rest so you could kick someone in the knee.

[Entarion]

I understand that cooldowns on skills or some kind of stamina changes combat a lot. And I don't want to change that. I really like how it is right now.

 

There is big difference to have only two or three knockdowns on warrior per fight or have it on cooldown and use it how many times I want.  Just wish they could make pure warriors a little bit more fun to play. Maybe some rage/momentum bar which could be filled by critical strikes or kills to give extra use on special skills and so on.

[Flouride]

In order not to make the game feel like Pillars 1 they had different system design that was used in Pillars and will be used in Pillars 2. So it actually feels like you are playing a different game than Pillars.

 

So, yeah, I wouldn't worry that much about Tyranny influencing Pillars 2, at least not when it comes to system design. Obviously they will pick up few things here and there, like the hypertext links etc. 

[Ganrich]

 

poe developers implied such were their goal. board did not react favorable. but perhaps poe2 backers is more enlightened or adventurous than were poe1 folks.

To be fair, PoE1 was both significantly more enlightened and adventurous than Tyranny was. If the original PoE showed us something (and Tyranny failed to completely), it's that this doesn't need to be a discussion of per pers vs. cooldowns, but more of a "Why not both?" one.One of the things I loved about Pillars of Eternity was that out of the 9 classes in the game, only 3 were based around Vancian magic (and I'd certainly like to see Druid being reworked somewhat to drop that number to 2). So if you wanted to avoid Vancian casters, you could, very easily - in fact, when building your party, good 90% of your abilities could avoid per rest mechanics altogether. Because Pillars of Eternity system was extremely flexible.So that's why I don't think the second game necessarily needs to drop Vancian magic, but if demand for cooldown-based gameplay is high enough, it could add cooldown-based classes (or even spellmaker class who'd work like Tyranny mages). Obsidian has already mixed several systems that I always thought incompatible in the original, might as well go further in that direction in the second game.

I'd have no issue (as someone that isn't a fan of CDs) moving the Druid away from Vancian. Monk gets wounds from taking damage, cipher gets focus from dealing it, and Chanter slowly builds phrases....

 

The Druid could build a resource based on number of enemies hit by their offensive spells/debuffs and number of friendliest hit by their buffs/heals. When they hit a certain number they Spiritshift temporarily, and start wrecking the place, and after a period of time the revert back to kith form. Have their spells single cast until they've spiritshifted, and after a Spiritshift it resets their spell(s) so they are all usable again. That sounds much more interesting to me than what they were in PoE1 with being a Vancian caster with a Spiritshift. But that's just me.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Ganrich

[Fenixp]

Yeah, exactly. We already have a defensive/offensive spellcaster in the form of priest and wizard, I don't think a third one's needed - but having a class that's more intricately tied to the shapeshift ability, now that would be awesome

[MaxQuest]

poe developers implied such were their goal.  board did not react favorable.  but perhaps poe2 backers is more enlightened or adventurous than were poe1 folks.

Hey, I thought you were against logical fallacies And if I am not mistaken this one looks like a reverse ad hominem (i.e. praising the defence instead of attacking the opposition).

 

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To be honest, it's not that cooldown-system is bad. As it depends how devs implement it. But the first thing that comes to mind, when one mentions cooldowns is Tyranny.

 

Without much thinking, I suppose spells can be implemented as:

1. in PoE1: per-encounter/per-resource/per-rest.

  - per-resource are spells cast for focus, wounds or based on chants counter (i.e. spells which don't have a limit specified)

2. Mixed: same as above; but per-rest spells get a cooldown attached.

  - e.g. Envenomed Strike instead of 3 uses per rest; can have 3 charges, with a restock time of 2 minutes per charge, but resting will still restore all of them.

3. Just cooldown based

 

The last category could be organized as:

a). Without cost:

 - v1. Simplest form. As in Tyranny. Spells without cost, but with big cooldowns.

 - v2. Same as above; but also with few filler no-cd spells which are either low-damaging on auto-cast; or have long cast-time and are on manual-cast.

b). With cost. Resource based:

 - v1. big initial resource pool (enough for 5-10 casts), slow restoration rate 

 - v2. small initial resource pool (enough for 2-3 casts), fast restoration rate

 - v3. empty initial resource pool

   . - p1. either fast regeneration rate (time based)

   . - p2. or you get n of resource after casting m free spells, and those resources are used for special spells

   . - p3. or you get resources when you inflict/take/prevent damage

 

Going for a simplistic cooldown-based system as it was in Tyranny, is a big no, for the reasons already mentioned. (specifically because it decreases combat diversity by taking away spell usage planning. In the end, using the same spells all over again, moreover usually in the same order, was just getting boring. There was no depth to it.)

 

A less aggravant but similar problem threatens some of the cd-based resource-based models too, as players will just come up with the optimal spell rotation. And it will take a lot of play-testing to balance spells' power, in order to make under-used abilities a viable alternative. Then again, if that state of balance is achieved, there will be a risk of getting the "it doesn't matter what you cast anymore, just mash the buttons" situation. As result the system will have to become deeper, quite likely confusing for usual players, and only power-gamers will dive into it's intricacies, in order to get just a marginal benefit.

 

So the question is: is it worth switching to a completely new spell system? 

Sure I could see vancian classes getting cooldown-based spells, and their power gated by limited mana pool. But it would also take a lot of testing to balance out first of all the pool/cost values and second the mana restoration means.

 

Or maybe it's ok to keep the current, familiar and well play-tested system; and just tweak it a bit. Something like toning-down vancian classes' late game, tone-up their early game, and (optinally) use the mixed approach 2.?

Edited January 31, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Gromnir]

 

poe developers implied such were their goal.  board did not react favorable.  but perhaps poe2 backers is more enlightened or adventurous than were poe1 folks.

Hey, I thought you were against logical fallacies And if I am not mistaken this one looks like a reverse ad hominem (i.e. praising the defence instead of attacking the opposition).

 

 

 

wasn't actual making an argument per se, so the fallacies don't really fit, eh?  logic is a rather limited tool.  in any event, you misapprehend our comment or the fallacy as we were not making the suggestion that the argument were stronger 'cause o' the qualities o' those defending.  "you should listen to bob 'cause he is a fine churchgoing man."   suggestion that acceptance o' a position would be enlightened is not actual the fallacy you describe.  you kinda have reversed.  but again, weren't logic from the start.

 

but as emoticon suggests tongue were at least partial in cheek...

 

HA! Good Fun!

[MaxQuest]

The tongue and the cheek were indeed there. As my goal was to indirectly, half-jokingly point out something I perceived as rude (specifically naming poe1 folks as less enlightened). Since you explicitly wrote that you were not making such a suggestion, pardon me if that was not your original intention. 

I bet you understand that your unique manner of speech, acts as a double edged sword: originality vs difficulty in comprehension.

 

 

I am through more interested in your thoughts on the better approach to PoE2 spell-system, as you seemed to favor the cooldown-based one. At least that was the impression a non-native speaker could get.