The loss of Vancian casting?!

[JerekKruger]

If they reduced the number of resting supplies found, would that fix your problem? Or would you just travel across the map to an inn just to rest and recover your spells. Maybe you would use your spells more sparingly without camping supplies lying around every corner.

 

For me? I am extremely frugal with my spellcasting (and all per rest abilities) at the moment (outside of boss fights) because of the per rest limitation so it would make no difference whatsoever for me. I play on PotD by the way.

[Shadenuat]

VC was always an illusion/self imposed challenge in IE games and in PoE. Knights of the Chalice did it, some old rpgs did it, rogues like Darkest Dungeon or even FTL did resources right, Dark Souls did something quite similar to VC - note all these games either had respawning monsters/forced you to finish content without resting.

 

Actually, Mask of Betrayer did similar stuff, but let's face it - Obsidian will never, ever repeat that, because backlash from community would be hysterical. People are too afraid of strongarm design like that and missing content because they weren't good/quick enough.

 

The most logical thing for Obsidian would be to just make their own system with difficulty based around single encounter instead of a big dungeon.

 

They could expand on cipher-like magic, for example give priests Faith points that would allow extra/stronger casts and would increase if priest behaves accordingly to his god and other possible Ars Magica-inspired stuff. Anything actually interesting and unique and inspired by pnp games would be welcome instead of boring and pretentious not-D&D system PoE had.

 

For actual D&D to happen you'll have to simulate adventure, where you go out of the "safe space" of city/rest places into "adventure" and it takes lots of time and supplies and then party has to survive in the "adventure" microcosm. Whole game design would have to be changed from one people are used to (a checklist of things to do). That or every act of the game only giving you a set number of days to finish it/MoTB curse etc.

 

One other thing I want to mention is casting times. They were not used in PoE much, but if some per-encounter spells would be instant while others would require multiple rounds of casting, you could get your powerful spells in a non-VC system. Not to mention Interrupt value would finally become useful. It's a real time game so why not actually use the friggin time as a resource?

Edited February 2, 2017 by Shadenuat

[Gromnir]

 

 

 

 

Please add proof to your claim that this was only a minority. I guess you can't...

 

77,000 backers, and we only ever say a dozen or so folks demanding such on the board.  we never made claims o' the total folks wanting vancian, but reason for the change were protests, and the number o' board protesters were never large, even when compared to total board traffic.  "small number o' vocal protesters."  again, reading skills is useful. 

 

 

"Small vocal number of vocal protesters" reminds me more of yourself (and your second personality). Actually, you could say that about ANYTHING that is discussed on this board and elswhere...

 

 

 

so?  we have made such an observation many times.  one o' the biggest flaws o' poe were the obsidian reactiveness to a handful o' mouthy boardies.  the developers no doubt spent many hours deciding best ways to do stuff, but in part 'cause poe were crowdfunded, the obsidians would cave to perceived public pressures, when the pressure were never anything other than a relative small quantity o' over-invested and mouthy boardies with too much time on their hands.

 

if developers is convinced by a good argument from the boardies, then numbers shouldn't matter.  if is good for the game, then do it.  and sure, sometimes player ineffable feels and emotions is actual as important as is cold, hard facts or well crafted logic. can'

t dismiss the gut impressions o' the mob before or after release.  even so, am thinking the obsidians realized, too late, that trying to make everybody satisfied tends to be resulting in nobody being complete happy.   

 

but again, what you think is an argument 'gainst Gromnir observation is actual one in defense.  we have been a vocal proponent o' the notion that the developers should actual be less reactive.  yeah, listen to boardies complaints, but don't necessarily change the game simple 'cause o' loudness or number o' complaints.  we paid money for poe 1 and poe2 development because we trust OBSIDIAN to make a good game as 'posed to lc, sensuki, or even Gromnir.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[LordCrash]

so?  we have made such an observation many times.

Who is we?  

 

one o' the biggest flaws o' poe were the obsidian reactiveness to a handful o' mouthy boardies.

I don't think so.

 

the developers no doubt spent many hours deciding best ways to do stuff, but in part 'cause poe were crowdfunded, the obsidians would cave to perceived public pressures, when the pressure were never anything other than a relative small quantity o' over-invested and mouthy boardies with too much time on their hands.

I didn't know you played the game in its original vision before the crowdfunding campaign even took place. But it's funny that you think that Obsidian just changed stuff because some boardies wanted it. They don't. They listened to feedback which is always a good idea and then they decided whether the feedback could result in a better game. And they tried stuff and iterated on it. That you think that the game had certain flaws just because some boardies wanted to have exact these flawed systems is rididulous. You just don't like certain stuff and that's ok. If you want to blame anybody blame Obsidian, not other boardies.

 

if developers is convinced by a good argument from the boardies, then numbers shouldn't matter.  if is good for the game, then do it.  and sure, sometimes player ineffable feels and emotions is actual as important as is cold, hard facts or well crafted logic. can'

And that's exactly the way it happened.

 

it dismiss the gut impressions o' the mob before or after release.  even so, am thinking the obsidians realized, too late, that trying to make everybody satisfied tends to be resulting in nobody being complete happy.

Of maybe they realized that the game was actually pretty good but not perfect? Maybe you should start to realize that your opinion is no actual fact...   

 

we have been a vocal proponent o' the notion that the developers should actual be less reactive.

You and ...?

 

Anyway, I don't think any different. I just trust Obsidian enough that they want to make the best possible game. In no way did I make the claim that they should automatically include stuff that is demanded by anyone on the board. The difference between us is that you think that Obsidian did so for PoE in several topics. I don't.

 

yeah, listen to boardies complaints, but don't necessarily change the game simple 'cause o' loudness or number o' complaints.  we paid money for poe 1 and poe2 development because we trust OBSIDIAN to make a good game as 'posed to lc, sensuki, or even Gromnir.

If you lost that trust simply don't buy their games anymore. Simple.

[Ganrich]

 

And PoE had limits to resting supplies which stopped rest spamming. So, that issue wasn't prevalent.

 

Pretty much every dungeon and wilderness map had at least one (often two or three) camping supplies in a container somewhere. Rest spamming was very doable.

That's fair, but can easily be remedied. Resting supplies aren't on the loot table, and only purchasable at vendors. Then adjust the number of supplies for each difficulty accordingly. If they are on the loot table at all then have them at camp sites that are in wilderness areas connecting multiple dungeons/encounters/etc. that way, once you're in the dungeon, what you have is all you've got. Unless you head back to town.

 

So, thinking about this a bit more. IF, and it's a big if, almost all spells are damage or debuff (MAYBE soft CCs like slow), and in order to disable (knockdown, stun, root, etc) you have to apply empower, then this system might work ok. That way the best spells (hard CC's) are limited by rest, and may stop too much repetitive spell casting.

 

Using Slicken as the example again. By itself, it doesn't knock down, it it slows the enemy and reduces something like dex and reflex. However, when Empowered, it has a knockdown added to it. Since Empowering stuff is limited per rest then you still have some tactics required in managing that resource. While simultaneously you are avoiding casters having a limited subset of things to do when they are tapped for spells.

 

Combine this with more enemy diversity, with different immunities and the like. You might swing this and still keep a decent tactical element. I asked Feargus about last night about enemies. Particularly, since we repeat from level one if they've added new monsters, and he said they have added new monsters, and that they have more types of reoccurring monsters. So we will have new ones, plus more Xaurip types, more beetle types, more Fampyr types, more blight types, etc.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Ganrich

[Gromnir]

(nonsensical response to individual sentences and snippets)

*insert silly eye-roll emoticon here*

 

start off with questioning the posting style o' Gromnir is never gonna make your argument stronger.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYSNxrtq5QY

 

is better than vancian deserves.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps please note how your inartful response had you discussing other than vancian casting.  reply to posts rather than snippets will  benefit you as much as does exorcising logic flaws.  helps keep on-topic to respond to posts.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Gromnir

[morhilane]

[skip]

 

In a Vancian system, if you've used all but one of a level X spell use, then you start hoarding it for the right moment. So, you can't lean on it every fight. For instance, Slicken. It's level one, and you have four casts initially, but you've use 3. It's your best disable given what your fighting, but you don't want to burn the last one because a bigger fight is possibly ahead where you will need it. So, you save it, and you find other spells from other levels to use that will make due.

 

Where if everything is per encounter, you will always have it available, and you use it every fight.

You will have it available at the start of the fight doesn't mean you will use it every fight. Going by how druids, priest and the grimoire will have less spells (bloat and redundant spells getting removed) and the switch to per-encounter, don't expect to be casting 4 spells of each level each fight.

 

I'm expecting max 2 per-encounter spell per level while my character knows about ~6 spell per level.

[Ganrich]

 

[skip]In a Vancian system, if you've used all but one of a level X spell use, then you start hoarding it for the right moment. So, you can't lean on it every fight. For instance, Slicken. It's level one, and you have four casts initially, but you've use 3. It's your best disable given what your fighting, but you don't want to burn the last one because a bigger fight is possibly ahead where you will need it. So, you save it, and you find other spells from other levels to use that will make due.Where if everything is per encounter, you will always have it available, and you use it every fight.

You will have it available at the start of the fight doesn't mean you will use it every fight. Going by how druids, priest and the grimoire will have less spells (bloat and redundant spells getting removed) and the switch to per-encounter, don't expect to be casting 4 spells of each level each fight.I'm expecting max 2 per-encounter spell per level while my character knows about ~6 spell per level.

If spell y is best against enemy x you will use spell y every time you fight enemy x. If you have burned up limited casts of level z spells (the level that spell x is in) then you can't cast it against enemy x.

[Harrow]

I think a lot of people are hearing "spells are per-encounter now" and not hearing "but to get the full potential of a spell you have to spend a per-rest resource." We're still going to have long-term resource management because I guarantee going into a difficult fight with no Empowers left is going to suck just like going into a difficult fight with no high-level spells left does in PoE1.

 

The difference now is that your wizards, priests, and (to a lesser extent) druids aren't dead weight once they burn through their per-rest resource--they can still contribute to a fight beyond just their weapon attacks. (I say druids are to a lesser extent because if your PoE1 druid focused on spiritshifting, they're still going to be somewhat useful even without their per-rest spells.) But you still have a per-rest resource to manage, just not one that's tied to individual spell levels.

[LordCrash]

(nonsensical response to individual sentences and snippets)

Snarky remarks without saying anything of substance on the topic won't ever support any of your points...

 

start off with questioning the posting style o' Gromnir is never gonna make your argument stronger.

Sorry, but your arrogant (talking about yourself in the 3rd person and using the pluralis majestatis for yourself) posting stlye disrespects other users. At least that's my opinion and how I feel while reading your posts. But that has nothing to do with any of my (or your) arguments and I never claimed that.

 

is better than vancian deserves.

I still don't think so.

 

ps please note how your inartful response had you discussing other than vancian casting.  reply to posts rather than snippets will  benefit you as much as does exorcising logic flaws.  helps keep on-topic to respond to posts.

Please, stop trying to lecture other people all the time. And pleae, spare me your derogatory remarks.

 

It's also pretty funny that you question MY posting style here, given the fact that you told me above that it wouldn't make my argument stronger if I questioned yours. I guess the same applies to you, mate.

Edited February 2, 2017 by LordCrash

[Archaven]

Boo.

 

Managing per-rest spells is part of what makes Infinity Engine/Pillars 1 tactically interesting.

 

Things changed.. ahem even number of party members *chuckles*. But i can see the reason why this empower became per rest. It's kind of hard to mix per encounters with per rest. It's one of the reason that greatly discouraged me to play as a Wizard. My first character in PoE was a Cipher.. and it was kinda broken, IMO or exceeds far better than any characters.

 

This new concepts sounds quite interesting though. I may have to put some thoughts onto it. But props to Josh, he can figure out such mechanics!

Edited February 2, 2017 by Archaven

[Harrow]

Boo.

 

Managing per-rest spells is part of what makes Infinity Engine/Pillars 1 tactically interesting.

You still have to. You can think of the per-encounter versions of the spells as "minor" versions, with the empowered versions being "major" versions. You'll need to manage your empowers because that's where the caster's real power comes from. Sure, you can cast minor spells all day, but I'd bet those spells aren't going to have the same impact as a single spell does in PoE1--to get that, you'll still have to use a per-rest resource.

 

You're still managing per-rest spells, it's just that you can still do something other than wand and use your couple of per-encounter non-spell abilities when you're out.

[Gromnir]

 

bad reasoning is not a posting style, but as for the rest, you prove our point 'bout taking us further afield from the topic at hand.  wanna bleat and moan 'bout Gromnir being a meanie?  is more appropriate for pm.

 

to stay on-topic, we will once again observe how obsidian were trying to get rid o' vancian in the last poe incarnation.  it would seem they are doing so again after seeing how a frankenstein system o' vancian tacked onto per-encounters actual worked in poe1.  given the power curve issues o' vancian which has plagued every ie game as well as poe, am thinking we will happily look forward to seeing what obsidian comes up with after having fully exorcised the last vestiges of a dying earth.  sorry, dying mechanic.  

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps added another favorite viking funeral

Edited February 2, 2017 by Gromnir

[tinysalamander]

In a Vancian system, if you've used all but one of a level X spell use, then you start hoarding it for the right moment. So, you can't lean on it every fight. For instance, Slicken. It's level one, and you have four casts initially, but you've use 3. It's your best disable given what your fighting, but you don't want to burn the last one because a bigger fight is possibly ahead where you will need it. So, you save it, and you find other spells from other levels to use that will make due.

 

Where if everything is per encounter, you will always have it available, and you use it every fight.

 

The better way to fix that is to improve encounter design and spell balance.

[LordCrash]

...

Whatever, I will probably ignore you in the future since it doesn't seem to me you'd really think it's necessary to respect other people in a discussion.

 

Have fun though.

Edited February 2, 2017 by LordCrash

[Harrow]

In a Vancian system, if you've used all but one of a level X spell use, then you start hoarding it for the right moment. So, you can't lean on it every fight. For instance, Slicken. It's level one, and you have four casts initially, but you've use 3. It's your best disable given what your fighting, but you don't want to burn the last one because a bigger fight is possibly ahead where you will need it. So, you save it, and you find other spells from other levels to use that will make due.

 

Where if everything is per encounter, you will always have it available, and you use it every fight.

What if your best disable isn't your best disable without being empowered? Remember, every character still has empowerment as a per-rest resource, so you still can't cast a spell at its full potential on a per-encounter basis. Again, I think a lot of people are reading "per-encounter spells" and ignoring "that aren't at their full power without spending a per-rest resource."

 

Plus, I agree with tinysalamander:

The better way to fix that is to improve encounter design and spell balance.

If spamming the same spell for every fight is the best way to play, that's not going to change whether spells are all per-rest or all per-encounter. That's down to spell design and encounter design more than how your resource works.

[Revan91]

While I think mages and other vancian casters could've used some fixes, getting rid of the vancian magic system entirely doesn't seem the correct way to approach the problem.

Maybe they could've got more per encounter abilities and the like, while still keeping per rest spells.

As I said in another thread, PoE 3.0 was pretty good. Don't change something that already works, Josh/Obsidian.

[Enoch]

So, if Obsidian is stripping out the stuff that only made it into Pillars 1 based on D&D nostalgia, is it too late to cut Elves? 

[Ganrich]

 

In a Vancian system, if you've used all but one of a level X spell use, then you start hoarding it for the right moment. So, you can't lean on it every fight. For instance, Slicken. It's level one, and you have four casts initially, but you've use 3. It's your best disable given what your fighting, but you don't want to burn the last one because a bigger fight is possibly ahead where you will need it. So, you save it, and you find other spells from other levels to use that will make due.

Where if everything is per encounter, you will always have it available, and you use it every fight.

 

What if your best disable isn't your best disable without being empowered? Remember, every character still has empowerment as a per-rest resource, so you still can't cast a spell at its full potential on a per-encounter basis. Again, I think a lot of people are reading "per-encounter spells" and ignoring "that aren't at their full power without spending a per-rest resource."

 

Plus, I agree with tinysalamander:

The better way to fix that is to improve encounter design and spell balance.

 

If spamming the same spell for every fight is the best way to play, that's not going to change whether spells are all per-rest or all per-encounter. That's down to spell design and encounter design more than how your resource works.

I gave an example of this in one of my previous posts. If Slicken doesn't knockdown unless empowered then that limitation might work. If it still has a knockdown when not empowered then I'll use it every time an enemy is susceptible to it. If all empower does to Slicken is increase accuracy or whatever then it will be spammed every time vs an enemy susceptible to it is present without empower. The best

 

Actually, per-rest spells can't be spammed because of the simple fact that they are limited in number of casts between rests. So, even if it works well against an enemy the player can do a cost benefit analysis on whether they want to cast the spell or not. Group isn't a threat because it is a trash fight? Don't waste it. Group is huge and you need to buy time? Use it to its fullest.

 

Don't get me wrong, encounter design needs to be better, but you can't always chalk up the problems in the system to encounter design. Sometimes the system is janky, and needs to be looked at. If this system is like I laid out: spells/abilities are buffs/damage/debuffs without empowering them, and then they become immunities/moar damages/hard CC when you do empower them... it could work. And I might like it, but I'd want to give it a go before being sold on it.

[Ganrich]

 

In a Vancian system, if you've used all but one of a level X spell use, then you start hoarding it for the right moment. So, you can't lean on it every fight. For instance, Slicken. It's level one, and you have four casts initially, but you've use 3. It's your best disable given what your fighting, but you don't want to burn the last one because a bigger fight is possibly ahead where you will need it. So, you save it, and you find other spells from other levels to use that will make due.

Where if everything is per encounter, you will always have it available, and you use it every fight.

 

 

The better way to fix that is to improve encounter design and spell balance.

Or you make the system better, and you can still improve the encounter design and get a win/win. Having someing fundamentally flawed and saying "Well if we just make encounters better, it'll work out" is functional, but I'd say not optimal. I'd prefer they do both to get the most variation in combat and increase the tactical depth simultaneously. Doing one or the other is a half measure.

[LordCrash]

So, if Obsidian is stripping out the stuff that only made it into Pillars 1 based on D&D nostalgia, is it too late to cut Elves?

And while they're at it they should cut the heavy handed UI as well. No need for that if the D&D feel is gone anyway... 

[Rolandur]

Got some rivalries in here it seems; vancian system does that to people (lol) and I know after many "debates" about it on the old D&D forums with many ponies... anyways, because ground must be held, check me off on the list of one who wants to keep the PoE1/rest/memorize/vancian system. As usual, across the world wide web, there's often no sense to elaborate why I want to keep it.

 

Best of luck to everyone who wish to continue this topic for many pages to come. ~cheers~

[Aotrs Commander]

Keep PoE-Vancian, get rid of camping supplies, replace with single use rest spots. Have the game auto-save right before a spot is consumed, so people can reload back when they screw up their resource rationing. Don't tell anyone you're doing this though, horrible players will complain and drop their pledge. Keep it as a nice surprise for release night. 

 

With the last two sentences thus ensuring that you annoy customers, including otherwise reasonable ones who might have accepted the change had you said that's what you were doing, and getting a reputation for greedy business practises and thus harming your company's reputation for any future endeavours.

 

Whatever Obs decide to do, they absolutely need to be open about it - especially with a crowd-funded game, where people are giving them their money on, basically, good faith.

 

Lying (even by omission) to rake in more money is, like, the epitome of sleazy business practises. Let's not even joke about Obs starting down the path to the next Konami/Ubisoft/EA/Sony etc.

 

[L4wlight]

Completly unrelated to the topic: everytime I see Aotrys Commander posting something, I read AndreaColombo.

God, I happen to think that it is possible to spend too much time reading these forums.

[Harrow]

Or you make the system better, and you can still improve the encounter design and get a win/win. Having someing fundamentally flawed and saying "Well if we just make encounters better, it'll work out" is functional, but I'd say not optimal. I'd prefer they do both to get the most variation in combat and increase the tactical depth simultaneously. Doing one or the other is a half measure.

Sure, but maybe this is what making the system better looks like.

 

A lot of this depends on what spells are like when they're not empowered. My assumption is that a PoE1 wizard spell (for example) is the equivalent of a PoE2 empowered wizard spell in power. And I expect that (if that's the case) spell design would change to accommodate. Maybe there won't be a Slicken spell this time, or maybe it has a different effect other than knockdown if it isn't empowered. Maybe Ninagauth's Shadowflame is just an icy version of Fireball unless you empower it.

 

My opinion is that this could be a better system than what PoE1 had. We won't really know until we get to play with it some, of course, and I'm sure Obsidian will be using playtesting feedback to tweak and adjust things to make it work.