Will warriors be able to kill things now?

[MaxQuest]

If i select my fighter and then another guy from my party then click on bonding then both chars stay close improving their defense rating [...]

Back-to-back fighting.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I still think that the Fighter class should emphasize battlefield control, which they already get through Knock Down, Clear Out or Overbearing Guard. But defensive boosts for the other party members would work with that. Multiclassing means that every class can have a stronger identity, but they shouldn't be narrowed down to one build. Neither should a particular role (tank in this case) be limited to one class.

[Boeroer]

The fighter has supporting abilities like Take the Hit and Guardian Stance. The problem is that those abilities are bad.

[smjjames]

The fighter has supporting abilities like Take the Hit and Guardian Stance. The problem is that those abilities are bad.

 

Bad in what way?

[Boeroer]

In several ways.

 

Take the Hit is awfully bugged when you use mind control. A charmed troll for example also benefits from Take the Hit. That's annoying, but fair enough - but the problem is that he will benefit from it even after the charm stops - until he's dead. Since you will have to kill that troll in the end you have to move the fighter out of range or turn off Take the Hit. Superannoying!

Then the base AoE is too small. It's only effective with high INT.

 

Guardian Stance's AoE is also too small and it doesn't stack with other deflection buffs and has a drawback for the fighter. Paladin's auras don't have drawbacks and are bigger.

 

Both are modals that prevent you to use other modal abilities of the same group.

[Guest 4ward]

 

@MortyTheGobbo

don‘t know if you played the old IE games like the Baldurs Gate series but there you could easily affect targetting of melee opponents since most often than not they would simply attack your nearest char. So, e.g. if your weaker char is being attacked then you move him toward say your fighter and then the fighter takes over. Combat is more interesting that way as what chars do can vary from one encounter to the next, sometimes even within one battle. I would bet that ‚controlling the battlefield‘ is actually as effective in an IE game as it‘s in Pillars (certainly to a part also because there‘s less enemies at a time than in Pillars).

[MortyTheGobbo]

The AI not being smart enough to do more than attack the nearest party member doesn't qualify as battlefield control. Tactical depth in the IE games comes entirely from spells; non-magical characters have none. Which, granted, Pillars isn't so great about, either. But we kind of hope Deadfire will improve on that.

[Guest 4ward]

 

for the IE games it does qualify since you‘re not dealing with as many opponents as in Pillars. It‘s just one aspect of tactics in the IE games. I don‘t consider overrunning the player with enemies and then handing out per-encounter abilities as tactical depth. What i consider tactically challenging and also fun is when enemies have interesting abilities and don‘t necessarily need to pass by your front line. E.g. a vampire in BG2 can dire charm from afar and close in for leveldrain, he doesn‘t need to get to your backline. And it wouldn‘t make that much sense either since the protective spells like mirror image (used by the first enemy mage near the friendly arm inn in BG1), stoneskin, fireshield etc. are good enough to protect a caster. The AI is improved through mods for BG2 where opponents like say a lich don‘t summon a pitfiend and then proceed to waste spells on him because they forgot casting protection from evil.

 

There definately is tactical depth for melee chars. Next to movement and affecting enemy targetting, there‘s also melee retargeting which is a valid option since there‘s no AoOs. Then there‘s changing gear if you want to try to intrerupt a far enemy caster or attack a creature that is immune to a specfic weapon type. Then there‘s a great variety of potions which have limited quantity so that the player needs to consider if and when to use them. Compare that to per-encounter abilities like the mentioned knockdown which are a no-brainer and mostly simply used at the start of combat to get the upper hand. So, all in all, for me at least, being thrown against a much greater number of opponents and then trying to stop them with always the same abilities of my build is IMO definately not more tactically challegning than the battles in BG2. Pillars gives me the illusion that it‘s tactically challenging but it isn‘t. I much prefer going against less foes who have cool abilities, take the right decision when to use them and where enemy composition (mix of melee and ranged oppponents) provides decisionmaking.

[Archaven]

Sounds like you haven't played since patch 2.0 came out. Pure tanks Fighters became pretty bad post 2.0 due to the changes to engagement AI meaning enemies will simply ignore the engagement of a tough, nonthreatening opponent. It's not pretty much required that Fighters are designed to be hybrid tabk/damage dealers if not pure damage dealers. They aren't the most damaging class around, but they do respectable single target damage with fairly little micro and even when built for pure damage they're fairly survivable.

 

That sound awesome to my ears. Have you played Dragon Age Inquisition before if i may asked? Tanks can only be tanks with their warcry aggro ability only for x seconds. And that gets fairly boring when warcry is on CD and the rest of the party just running around kiting.

[anameforobsidian]

for the IE games it does qualify since you‘re not dealing with as many opponents as in Pillars. It‘s just one aspect of tactics in the IE games. I don‘t consider overrunning the player with enemies and then handing out per-encounter abilities as tactical depth. What i consider tactically challenging and also fun is when enemies have interesting abilities and don‘t necessarily need to pass by your front line. E.g. a vampire in BG2 can dire charm from afar and close in for leveldrain, he doesn‘t need to get to your backline. And it wouldn‘t make that much sense either since the protective spells like mirror image (used by the first enemy mage near the friendly arm inn in BG1), stoneskin, fireshield etc. are good enough to protect a caster. The AI is improved through mods for BG2 where opponents like say a lich don‘t summon a pitfiend and then proceed to waste spells on him because they forgot casting protection from evil.

 

There definately is tactical depth for melee chars. Next to movement and affecting enemy targetting, there‘s also melee retargeting which is a valid option since there‘s no AoOs. Then there‘s changing gear if you want to try to intrerupt a far enemy caster or attack a creature that is immune to a specfic weapon type. Then there‘s a great variety of potions which have limited quantity so that the player needs to consider if and when to use them. Compare that to per-encounter abilities like the mentioned knockdown which are a no-brainer and mostly simply used at the start of combat to get the upper hand. So, all in all, for me at least, being thrown against a much greater number of opponents and then trying to stop them with always the same abilities of my build is IMO definately not more tactically challegning than the battles in BG2. Pillars gives me the illusion that it‘s tactically challenging but it isn‘t. I much prefer going against less foes who have cool abilities, take the right decision when to use them and where enemy composition (mix of melee and ranged oppponents) provides decisionmaking.

 

Ok, apparently we've forgotten what the IE games were like.  Not that many enemies?  Did you clear out a different gnoll fortress, go to a different mine filled with kobolds, miss the xvart camp, or just completely forget about the bandit camp?  That's just BG.  BG2 & ToB have sendai's lair, orc ambushes, infini-drow city, the siege, a murderous demon for every party member fight, and summon monster frequently made swarms.

 

SCS liches are boring to fight.  Teleport field + 30 buffs + melfs meteor's do not exactly make for an interesting fight.  Basically you strip their counterspells with the mage and heal the mage if they get too hurt.  The the fighters who have been useless except possibly as a meatshield take like three hits and the lich is dead.  Once is fun; twice it gets old; third lich and SCS goes off for mages.  There's a difference between challenge and tedium.

 

Also, BG II throws healing potions and invisiblility potions at the enemies.  So many random encounters have rogues that use them.  Yes there are rarer and cursed potions, but frequently they're outclassed by a superior spell, or rod of resurrections make them obsolete.  Pillars honestly distributes potions & scrolls at a similar rate.

 

 

Now, onto Pillars supposed lack of tactical complexity.  That argument is complete and utter tripe.

• Engagement provides a tactical decision for attackers.  I'm doing my Ultimate run right now, and I was facing a nasty vithrak.  I had to face the decision: do I risk an engagement stun attack and let the dragon roared do its work, or do I hope I can avoid a stunlock and summon ogres, or do I hope that they one of its fellows mind controls me so I break engagement while they fight my beetles.  Without engagement, I could simply dragon slashed kite most of the game.
• Pillars has granulated movement speed, so it becomes an issue.  A troll will never wipe a mage with expeditious retreat.
• Teleporting enemies are a real problem (that was most absent from BG); do you take the hits, retreat to a corner, or get a knockback talent like grimoire slam?
• Using knockdown at the start of combat?  Only if you're sure it will hit before debuffs land, and the enemy isn't immune.  Use and understanding of the power of prone is one of pillar's strengths.
• Charm can wreck your party.  How do you counter?  Charm them with your own cipher or chanter, knock them down, hit them with a paladin, use a chant to buff defenses or break it, suppress affliction from a ring or priest.  In BG2 if you get hit by domination, reload and cast chaotic commands before the fight.
• Characters are pushed and pulled in Pillars, changing positioning.

 

Really, looking at Pillars the only mechanics it lacks which BG2 had are instadeath (which sucks), petrification (which breaks some sidequests) and is pretty much instadeath, and rock, paper, scissors spell-fights.  Well that, and whatever the **** beholders do.  None of those are terribly good mechanics.  Timestop was kinda interesting, but it was the purest distillation of the magic system; everyone else stood still while the mage did all the work; you hardly ever saw timestop though.

 

I love the BG series and beat it with SCS and the Acension mod.  That doesn't mean that other games are without merit merely for being different.

Edited May 26, 2017 by anameforobsidian

[MortyTheGobbo]

Don't forget enemy wizards blatantly cheating by having multiple contingencies and spell triggers.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Double post, but we have some insight on what will make Fighters stand out in Deadfire, at least at the current stage.

[takamorisan]

I managed to build Eder as an offensive tank, he killed a lot stuff with his charges and it was set on Path of the Damned difficulty.

[ozymandiasza]

From memory, they were a bit underpowered.

[Gromnir]

From memory, they were a bit underpowered.

opposite were the more obvious problem.  at release all tanks were overpowered.  it were too easy to load perception and resolve so as to create nigh invulnerable tanks. weren't a fighter problem so much as an attribute problem.  in fact, while fighters were the most resilient tanks, their supremacy were largely wasted. why play a fighter-tank when you could go the paladin or chanter route and be highly effective at tanking while also providing useful support abilities?  alternative: monk-tanks could dish out serious pain. is not that fighter tanks were less capable than other classes.  opposite were true as far as pure tanking.  however,  the fighter's overkill defense were wasted. 'course by the time the last expansion were released, fighters were back to channeling 2e d&d ghosts.  a post wm poe fighter could tank AND dps with high effectiveness. why play a rogue when a far less squishy fighter offered similar melee dps potential w/o the need to apply debilitating status effects to foes?  

 

fighters in poe have never been underpowered.  while poe fighters initially were not what ie game fans expected, the most resilient tanky class offered far more potential active abilities than any pre tob ie game fighter. even so, compared to other classes, the poe fighter were intentional low-maintenance which could be perceived as dull.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 19, 2017 by Gromnir

[smjjames]

A question that someone asked on Josh's tumbler relating to tanking and the taunt mechanic that is certainly relevant to this thread: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/162046603176/im-curious-about-the-role-of-a-tank-in-the-party It's not much, but it is insight into how he feels about taunt mechanics.

Edited June 20, 2017 by smjjames

[MaxQuest]

While I don’t think taunts are dumb, they feel a little out of place in a game inspired by A/D&D mechanics.

Tbh, I felt that taunts are a bit weird even in games like WoW and Rift. When you are in battleground (or warfront) a player will (unless specific circumstances) prioritize targets with higher DPS/TTK and Healing/TTK (or EHP if you will). Why should NPCs act different?

It's the task for CC and Supports to keep enemies at bay, away from specialized healers and glass cannons.

Sure frontliners could attract more attention at the start of the battle (first few seconds, before engagement), but it would indeed be strange if "an enemy would stop murdering Aloth because Edér whistled at them". On the other hand if Eder would have confuse/charm/paralyze... or would charge and knockdown, it would be another story.

Edited June 20, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Katarack21]

Taunt exists to make the "tank" party role an active role, and to ensure that said party role has a consistent role to play. Otherwise, as you said, the tanks role--the guy who can take the hits--has no "reason" to be actually useful if logic is applied to the NPC's decisions--they'd just ignore the tank while taking down everybody else, then concentrate on him afterwards (exactly like I would do to an enemy party).

"Taunt" is an example of a skill that exists as a meta-skill. It's not something that makes sense inside the world, any more than stealth revealing hidden treasures or being unable to dual-wield wands.

[anameforobsidian]

Let's not forget that the use of Taunt in a game led to the worst line I have ever read.  From an RA Salvatore book:

 

"Your mother's an ore-sucking harlot.  The enraged orc shifted targets and charged the Dwarf."

 

 

A better system would have front-liners trip, stab, or grapple people who tried to run past them.  That's what engagement was supposed to model.  Then again, I'd like to see a pillars style system with a 12 man party.  

Edited June 20, 2017 by anameforobsidian

[Katarack21]

In all fairness, you shouldn't really use R.A. Salvatore to model anything *except* crap writing.

[injurai]

Whenever I see terrible writing I always wonder why I'm not making money trying my own hand.

[Katarack21]

If I was this age in the 80's, I would. TOR fantasy was the golden age of **** writers.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Taunting is a way to compensate for AI limitations. Ideally, a tank tanks by being too dangerous to ignore and punishing you for going straight for the squishier targets. But that doesn't work too well with AI-controlled enemies, as opposed to real players.

 

I'm glad Deadfire continues to pursue different ways of doing it, though.

[Judicator]

Well, I made a fighter and he's doing pretty good. I guess the updates did change some things.

[Teslacrashed]

Or will dudes in armor just act as MMO-style meatshields again, while the glass cannons kill off the enemies?

You realize that in all roleplaying games, characters like the "Fighter" or "warrior" are suppose to be the damage sponges for the rest of the party?

 

That's why fighters get the highest hit points per level, all the armor, etc. Yes some let you alter it to varying degrees to do more damage and less tanking, but ultimately it's always fell on rogues or other classes to be the high damage dealers.