Josh Sawyer Something Awful PoE2 Posts

[Silent Winter]

It was the instantaneous casting speed that made them so devastating. Whats the cast time of MMM?

It was really fast in PoE1 - not sure about the reworked cast-times for PoE2

[Orillion]

I like this news about Paladins getting all of their modals as a group. Honestly, that's how I'd love to see them built for most of their abilities in PoE2. For example, getting Lay on Hands AND Flame of Devotion at level 1, but only being able to use one of them per encounter (or, two uses of both, total? Depends on how the LOH would be rebalanced for it). Sure, it'd remove pretty much all of the interesting options in building them (beyond talents--they'd become a caster with relatively few spells, in a way) but I feel like it'd make for some much more interesting tactical decisions, and nearly every pair of abilities they get a choice between includes one aggressive ability and one support one.

 

Failing that, though, being able to swap auras as needed (without sacrificing two other, more valuable class abilities) is a good step in the direction of giving Paladins more to do each fight that isn't strictly reactionary.

[Boeroer]

That's a bit like Diablo III. I hate Diablo III.

[injurai]

That's a bit like Diablo III. I hate Diablo III.

 

​In fairness. Diablo III is the best design document of what not to do.

[morhilane]

That's a bit like Diablo III. I hate Diablo III.

 

What's like Diablo III (I never played it)?

[Boeroer]

Having all abilites at hand all the time and just deciding what you will use in an encounter. Which leads to not building or skilling a character level by level into a certain direction. You can change the whole purpose of the charater in every encounter. On level up you gain some new skills/abilities (you don't pick any, you get them all) and then you can decide which ones you want to put into your hotkey list for the next encounter. That system is totally foolproof (no bad skilling)... and also superboring. No risk, no fun I say!  

[Tigranes]

You don't necessarily get more tactical decisions when you give the player more tools. When the player can choose from all the tools, it can remove tactical thinking, because you're much more likely to always pick the right tool for the job. 

 

Really interesting situations happen when you have one lay on hands left and two allies at critical health, when you realise you didn't memorise that important spell and now you have to figure out how to use the other stuff you've brought to achieve an unlikely outcome.

[hilfazer]

It's kinda sad most attacks will no longer graze. I really liked that miss/graze/hit/crit in POE.

 

But maybe it will work all right. After all there will be more hits now and hits don't have their (often short) duration reduced in half.

[Archaven]

Having all abilites at hand all the time and just deciding what you will use in an encounter. Which leads to not building or skilling a character level by level into a certain direction. You can change the whole purpose of the charater in every encounter. On level up you gain some new skills/abilities (you don't pick any, you get them all) and then you can decide which ones you want to put into your hotkey list for the next encounter. That system is totally foolproof (no bad skilling)... and also superboring. No risk, no fun I say!

 

Isn't the whole idea of PoE2 to simplify things? PoE was blamed for being clumsy, hard to manage, too fast, too many effects.. rules were not clear and casual folks not sure what's need to be done? .. Even in QnA .. Josh stating some folks need hand-holding on which exit they should choose?

Edited February 9, 2017 by Archaven

[Boeroer]

 

Having all abilites at hand all the time and just deciding what you will use in an encounter. Which leads to not building or skilling a character level by level into a certain direction. You can change the whole purpose of the charater in every encounter. On level up you gain some new skills/abilities (you don't pick any, you get them all) and then you can decide which ones you want to put into your hotkey list for the next encounter. That system is totally foolproof (no bad skilling)... and also superboring. No risk, no fun I say!

Isn't the whole idea of PoE2 to simplify things? PoE was blamed for being clumsy, hard to manage, too fast, too many effects.. rules were not clear and casual folks not sure what's need to be done? .. Even in QnA .. Josh stating some folks need hand-holding on which exit they should choose?

You either didn't play Diablo III or you didn't understand what I wanted to say. Or both.

 

Whatever - it was only a sidenote so let's forget about Diablo III. The sooner the better.

[morhilane]

Having all abilites at hand all the time and just deciding what you will use in an encounter. Which leads to not building or skilling a character level by level into a certain direction. You can change the whole purpose of the charater in every encounter. On level up you gain some new skills/abilities (you don't pick any, you get them all) and then you can decide which ones you want to put into your hotkey list for the next encounter. That system is totally foolproof (no bad skilling)... and also superboring. No risk, no fun I say!

I see. The change seems more about uncluttering the UI by having mutually exclusive modals use the same button to me. You could have all auras on a Paladin in POE1 as well, just later than level 3...

 

It's clear that many things changed here, but I suspect we might have more character building options just not via talents like in POEI.

 

It's kinda sad most attacks will no longer graze. I really liked that miss/graze/hit/crit in POE.

 

But maybe it will work all right. After all there will be more hits now and hits don't have their (often short) duration reduced in half.

Funny, we kept complaining about graze in the POE1 beta. I don't think anyone liked it because D&D worked fine with hit, miss and crits. It was added to normalize the damage curve and not make you miss as often as in D&D. It ended up competing with high DR and I think that's one of the reason Obsidian added 1 minimum damage on everything but misses in a patch.

[Boeroer]

Actually I like the idea of having all zealous auras in one ability. It's a good idea. I only meant that post from Orillion that took things a bit further and suddenly it sounded like Diablo III to me.

[JerekKruger]

Actually I like the idea of having all zealous auras in one ability. It's a good idea. I only meant that post from Orillion that took things a bit further and suddenly it sounded like Diablo III to me.

 

It won't truly become Diablo III unless the story is so truly awful that your mind refuses to accept that it's real and invents another in its place.

[Orillion]

I'm not sure how "each attack/debuff/otherwise hostile ability comes with a heal/support/otherwise supportive one which shares its uses per encounter" sounds anything like Diablo 3, but whatever. Full casters (save for Wizards, but even then they can have multiple grimoires) get all of their spells each odd level. I fail to see how applying a similar dynamic to a class that can't really decide whether it's a fire-based damage-dealer or a full support tank makes it less tactically interesting.

 

"Do I burn everything or wait to see if I need to heal?" vs. "Yes, I burn everything because there's literally no reason not to."

[Infinitron]

[anameforobsidian]

Funny, we kept complaining about graze in the POE1 beta. I don't think anyone liked it because D&D worked fine with hit, miss and crits. It was added to normalize the damage curve and not make you miss as often as in D&D. It ended up competing with high DR and I think that's one of the reason Obsidian added 1 minimum damage on everything but misses in a patch.

 

DnD early level combat in BG was so awful that they put the Shank and Carbos encounter in BG2 to make fun of it.

[Infinitron]

[Blarghagh]

Having all abilites at hand all the time and just deciding what you will use in an encounter. Which leads to not building or skilling a character level by level into a certain direction. You can change the whole purpose of the charater in every encounter. On level up you gain some new skills/abilities (you don't pick any, you get them all) and then you can decide which ones you want to put into your hotkey list for the next encounter. That system is totally foolproof (no bad skilling)... and also superboring. No risk, no fun I say!

Question! How's this really different from retraining? Other than having to slog back to an inn, which you can do pretty much from anywhere in the game anyway, it's just a difference of convenience.

 

Not saying I want the Diablo 3 system, mind.

[theBalthazar]

So...

 

There is absolutely no choice at level up ? You took every abilities ?

 

Not sure to like this system.

[Boeroer]

The difference between Diablo III's "fluent" skill system and PoE's retraining is the same as between PoE's retraining and restarting completely: it's just a difference of convience.

 

But if something is too easy to achieve it's not rewarding any more to get there. If it's too hard then people get frustrated. There can be fun in planning and raising a good character build. If you just can reskill your character into any build idea in seconds it just feels... boring.

[Boeroer]

So...

 

There is absolutely no choice at level up ? You took every abilities ?

 

Not sure to like this system.

Basically yes. Don't know if they changed stuff. But when it came out it was like that. The big Diablo II fan I was I bought and started the game... and was so disappointed after the first run that I never touched it again.

[Blarghagh]

The difference between Diablo III's "fluent" skill system and PoE's retraining is the same as between PoE's retraining and restarting completely: it's just a difference of convience.

 

But if something is too easy to achieve it's not rewarding any more to get there. If it's too hard then people get frustrated. There can be fun in planning and raising a good character build. If you just can reskill your character into any build idea in seconds it just feels... boring.

I suppose another small difference is that even if you retrain a character, they retain the same stats - there's still a degree of risk in any character you start in PoE. I'm guessing you don't like retraining much either, though?

 

Still, I think that the only real thing making your talent and ability choices matter in the long run in PoE is "I don't want to get bored slogging back to an inn / don't want my immersion broken". I mentioned that I feel similarly about how PoE treats Vancian casting - I don't think that "I could continue on with poor skills or refreshed spells, or I could inconvenience or bore myself" is a very meaningful choice. I wonder if there's a way to fix that without heavily penalising poor choices.

 

(On a side note, I enjoy D3 just fine these days. Plus hardcore mode gives enough risk for me, personally. )

[Boeroer]

I don't use retraining in my playthroughs unless I make a mistake during level-ups, yes. I'm a min-maxer, but I don't like "abusing" the retraining feature to make the game easier.

 

But I think retraining is a good compromise. Players who are not like me (planning every build meticulously and playing the game several times with different builds) don't want to restart all the time when they feel their character is miss-skilled. That's cool with me. 

[Silent Winter]

I don't use retraining - I make my choices and live with them.  I like making choices.  It helps connect me to the character.

Retraining is there for those who want it, great.

But remove choice?  In an RPG?  The mind boggles.

[injurai]

I don't use retraining in my playthroughs unless I make a mistake during level-ups, yes. I'm a min-maxer, but I don't like "abusing" the retraining feature to make the game easier.

 

But I think retraining is a good compromise. Players who are not like me (planning every build meticulously and playing the game several times with different builds) don't want to restart all the time when they feel their character is miss-skilled. That's cool with me.

 

I don't use retraining - I make my choices and live with them.  I like making choices.  It helps connect me to the character.

Retraining is there for those who want it, great.

But remove choice?  In an RPG?  The mind boggles.

 

​Hear, hear!