Empower vs Metamagic

[Naurgalen]

While I dont really dislike the "empowerment" of spells (it may be fun if numbers are correct), it seems how they will be "empowered" is arbitrary ("The effect may be more projectiles, a longer duration, more damage/healing, etc. A wizard could empower a Minoletta's Minor Missiles, adding missiles. A fighter could empower Vigorous Defense, increasing the bonuses.") and would make people need to remember both the effects of the normal spell + the new effects of the empowerment.

 

I propose instead using 4 or 5 kinds of "metamagics" that can be selected to empower the spell. (For example: 1.stats increas:damage/buff/heal,  2. Increases/reduces saving throws, 3. increase in effect durations, 4. less or null casting time, 5. area of damage/less or non friendly dmg etc...)

 

This IMHO lets the mechanic being easier to understand and provides the player to better customize the empowerment to what they really need in a battle.

[Rolandur]

The way I'll think of it when I'm playing is the cast/use of the empowered spell/ability is it's three levels higher. Nothing more, nothing less. Then I don't need to overthink it and just use it in dire circumstances or I just want to go nuclear for my own jollies. I know such a tyrant! ~cheers~

[injurai]

Sounds like empower is going to be used to increase the logical components that make up a move. Hardly arbitrary at all. If you need to have a particular affect on the enemy, use a spell with a different effect. I don't think empower should have 4-5 variants for every single ability, if that's what I understand you are saying.

[PrimeJunta]

Empower is tied to the power source. According to Josh, currently empower adds 3 to it. I.e. the spell or ability performs as if it was used by a character that's one level higher than you are. (I'd expect the number is subject to tuning once they get to proper playtesting.)

 

Can't get much more straightforward or easy to understand than that IMO.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Empower is tied to the power source. According to Josh, currently empower adds 3 to it. I.e. the spell or ability performs as if it was used by a character that's one level higher than you are. (I'd expect the number is subject to tuning once they get to proper playtesting.)

 

Can't get much more straightforward or easy to understand than that IMO.

 

I'd argue it's a bit too straightforward, in fact. The ability to cast spells as if you were one level higher is such a marginal gain at higher levels (a whopping six percent increase at level 15! amazing!), it might as well not exist.

[limaxophobiacq]

Empower is tied to the power source. According to Josh, currently empower adds 3 to it. I.e. the spell or ability performs as if it was used by a character that's one level higher than you are.

 

I thought it added to your power 'level', rather than your power 'points'. So more like 6 levels?

Edited February 9, 2017 by limaxophobiacq

[mumbogumshoe]

I I understood it, the abiliy would be cast as if 3 levels higher, ie the equivalent of 9 points in the power source. Maybe I misunderstood, I was awfully tired during the stream. But seems to me that this would make sense in terms of balance. Having it cast only 1 level higher would be quite underwhelming while 6 levels sounds like overkill. As I said, could be wrong there.

[Archaven]

I like this per encounter+empowerment idea. You use it situationally to make very tough fights manageable. It also reduces rest-spam? I think this time around.. rest-spam probably happen on much higher difficulty? i'm not sure if they still would impose the fatique idea where they at least force you to sleep if you have not done so in the past 24 hours? if they do it much earlier, i would see scrapping off vancian very much pointles.

[MaxQuest]

I propose instead using 4 or 5 kinds of "metamagics" that can be selected to empower the spell. (For example: 1.stats increas:damage/buff/heal,  2. Increases/reduces saving throws, 3. increase in effect durations, 4. less or null casting time, 5. area of damage/less or non friendly dmg etc...)

Yeah, that's a nice idea.

Was proposing adding secondary effects as well. (link1, link2)

 

I I understood it, the abiliy would be cast as if 3 levels higher, ie the equivalent of 9 points in the power source. Maybe I misunderstood, I was awfully tired during the stream.

Empowering adds 3 to your power level. But we cannot know how many power source points that is exactly equivalent of, as the conversion function is not bijective:

I.e. 3 power_levels can correspond to: 14,15,16,17,18 and even 19 power_source points.

Points	Power Level
0-2	0
3	1
8	2
14	3
20	4
26	5
32	6

Conversion table source: link

If the sequence continues with the same step 6, then the formula is:

power_level = power_points < 3 ? 0 : Math.floor[(power_points + 4) / 6]

 

---

Also, here's Josh's excerpt from the yesterday stream (18:00-18:47):

Briefly, so empowering is what you use on (btw, everyone can use empowering; everyone has a certain number of empowers per rest) you can use them on abilities to make them more powerful, I should say all active abilities in PoE do scale with your main class's power source, so as your wizard gets higher level your minoleta missiles gets additional missiles, your firebals deal more damage, uhm, things that bounce, or rather jump from character to character get more jumps; uhm and empowering it treats you as you were 3 power levels higher when you use that ability, so it makes it much much stronger than normal, uhm, yeah, and that is across the board for all characters.

There are few things that I find confusing through:

- "all active abilities in PoE do scale with your main class's power source" (so knockdown ability of a 15/3 wizard/fighter scales with Arcane???) (he probably meant 'respective class')

- "all active abilities in PoE do scale with your main class's power source" (why doesn't empower add 14 to 19 power source points then? You can't add power_source with power_levels without conversion)

- "when you use that ability, so it makes it much much stronger than normal" (when your current power level is low, adding 3 to it, will indeed make spells much stronger; but when your power level is 9 adding 3 to it, will make them only by 33% more damaging in the best case scenario, i.e. when power_level is applied multiplicatively; and not additively in line with might and other dmg coefficients, in which case it's effect would get diluted)

Edited February 9, 2017 by MaxQuest

[theBalthazar]

Yes, Josh has describe the phenomenon of empowering : a large difference. Understand : visible.

 

This may mean that each level of character is really important, which comes to the disadvantage of the multi-class.

Edited February 9, 2017 by theBalthazar

[MaxQuest]

Yes, Josh has describe the phenomenon of empowering : a large difference. Understand : visible.

Hmm, what do you mean?

 

This may mean that each level of character is really important, which comes to the disadvantage of the multi-class.

Could you elaborate?

[Naurgalen]

Empower is tied to the power source. According to Josh, currently empower adds 3 to it. I.e. the spell or ability performs as if it was used by a character that's one level higher than you are. (I'd expect the number is subject to tuning once they get to proper playtesting.)

 

Can't get much more straightforward or easy to understand than that IMO.

 

 

Maybe "arbitrary" was not the right word, as it indeed has a logic behind it.

 

What I tried to convey is that "3 levels more" is not really intuitive for a new/average player to fully understand how all the spells will be affected and select the best option. (at least not without hovering for tooltips) That happens because as @Max Quest described some spells may benefit far more than others from 3 extra levels depending on multiclassing or how the spells mechanics work / are calculated.

 

Selecting speciffically " "30%" + damage/healing", ""50%" less casting time" etc... solves that problem while giving more customization. (which metamagics are available will depend on the spell itslef)

Edited February 9, 2017 by Naurgalen

[Ninjamestari]

I think this is all a band aid solution for not making the base mechanics properly. The basic stats of PoE aren't interesting, so instead of reworking the system they add new stuff that serves more to convolute the game rather than making it more interesting. The empowerment mechanism simply isn't needed, it doesn't really add anything that the old system didn't have and feels forced and artificial.

 

From what I've followed this process, Josh should just take free reign over the class system and create something that inspires him rather than trying to "give the people what they want". People don't know what they want until they try it, that's a fact in all forms of entertainment and consumer products, games are no different. I trust the artistic vision of one man far more than I trust in the consensus of a bunch of people with more opinions than insights.

[injurai]

I think this is all a band aid solution for not making the base mechanics properly. The basic stats of PoE aren't interesting, so instead of reworking the system they add new stuff that serves more to convolute the game rather than making it more interesting. The empowerment mechanism simply isn't needed, it doesn't really add anything that the old system didn't have and feels forced and artificial.

 

From what I've followed this process, Josh should just take free reign over the class system and create something that inspires him rather than trying to "give the people what they want". People don't know what they want until they try it, that's a fact in all forms of entertainment and consumer products, games are no different. I trust the artistic vision of one man far more than I trust in the consensus of a bunch of people with more opinions than insights.

 

​I was under the impression that most of what Josh is doing is coming from his insights and vision after so many years working in his domain. Saying this is just a band-aid over a flawed base system doesn't make sense to me, it seems arbitrary to denote what the base system is. Why does the base system need to be complete? What if these additional mechanics are what properly complete a gameplay system.

[MaxQuest]

The basic stats of PoE aren't interesting

Tbh, PoE1 attribute system is quite deep. 

From related games I've played and enjoyed NWN, NWN2, DA:O, DA:2 and DA:I. And tbh Pillars' system is deeper than those.

And a deep system is interesting in my book.

 

The empowerment mechanism simply isn't needed, it doesn't really add anything that the old system didn't have and feels forced and artificial.

 

From what I've followed this process, Josh should just take free reign over the class system and create something that inspires him rather than trying to "give the people what they want". People don't know what they want until they try it, that's a fact in all forms of entertainment and consumer products, games are no different. I trust the artistic vision of one man far more than I trust in the consensus of a bunch of people with more opinions than insights.

Doesn't the second paragraph contradict the first one?

Edited February 9, 2017 by MaxQuest

[hilfazer]

I support metamagic.

Spell casters need something to set them apart from other classes now, after The Great Unification has removed per-rest.

[Blades of Vanatar]

I'm all for a strong game engine, but I also don't want to be forced to micro every character. So I am on the fence over this feature. Unless of course AI scripting will use the empowerment like it did per encounter abilities in PoE1. Then I am all for it. So to me breaking it down to even more choices to make per combat would be a bit too much microing for my taste.

 

BUT......If I had more free time to game I might have an opinion more leaning toward the OP.

[Ninjamestari]

 

The basic stats of PoE aren't interesting

Tbh, PoE1 attribute system is quite deep. 

From related games I've played and enjoyed NWN, NWN2, DA:O, DA:2 and DA:I. And tbh Pillars' system is deeper than those.

And a deep system is interesting in my book.

 

The empowerment mechanism simply isn't needed, it doesn't really add anything that the old system didn't have and feels forced and artificial.

 

From what I've followed this process, Josh should just take free reign over the class system and create something that inspires him rather than trying to "give the people what they want". People don't know what they want until they try it, that's a fact in all forms of entertainment and consumer products, games are no different. I trust the artistic vision of one man far more than I trust in the consensus of a bunch of people with more opinions than insights.

Doesn't the second paragraph contradict the first one?

 

 

Nope. I recall Josh saying in some seminar something along the lines of "Would I personally use the PoE approach? No." The whole system was built around general consensus and backer feedback.

[Rolandur]

I trust the artistic vision of one man far more than I trust in the consensus of a bunch of people with more opinions than insights.

 

This is often the core reason why successful games anything's are successful. Once community has opinions AND creators try to incorporate and appease too many in the community of polls and opinions the entire entity/project/theory/reason/product becomes diluted and less meaningful. One of the easier ways to define which side you lean towards is to ask yourself if you have a top three favorite bands or a top three favorite genres of music. The "I like all kinds of music" crowd tends to want their whatever it is their way. The "the this band is the best" understands why they're the best band for them personally.

 

Anyways I hope they don't rush this game too much! When it comes to the stage it'll the dream theater I've been looking for--though I hope I don't get zappa'd too much for this reply.

[limaxophobiacq]

OTOH; Star-Wars prequels. If Sawyer was given free reign could we really handle the balance?

 

Personally I really like the PoE attribute design f.ex., though I know Sawyer would have prefered not to have attributes at all.

[Varana]

One of the easier ways to define which side you lean towards is to ask yourself if you have a top three favorite bands or a top three favorite genres of music. The "I like all kinds of music" crowd tends to want their whatever it is their way. The "the this band is the best" understands why they're the best band for them personally.

Yes, diluting artistic vision can be harmful to a project.

OTOH, don't rush to conclusions. I find that musical guideline highly questionable (though not enough to have you shot with a .44 Magnum).

 

Sorry for derailing the thread. I'll go now (and think about how to hide "Shostakovich" in an English sentence, which will take a while).