Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers

[Boeroer]

I will also say that close to every single adjustment we've made to mechanics in Deadfire has been the result of listening to player feedback: not overwhelming the player with druid and priest spells, making grimoires more important, making the Interrupt/Concentration mechanic clearer/cleaner, making the armor system less "mushy", removing generic Talents because a ton of people didn't like that they felt generic*, moving away from per rest resources, etc.

I'm reading and writing in the PoE forum a lot and nearly since the beginning of PoE. Here, there was no substancial feedback like:

 

• druid and priest spells are to many: seriously? Too many spells? That's like saying "My mom bought too much ice cream".
• grimoires are not important enough: first time I hear about that - but the Deadfire solution is fine for me
• making Interrupt/Concentration mechanic clearer/cleaner: well maybe that was a thing, but I'm 100% sure nobody who said that wanted supersluggish casting times so that you can cleanly interrupt spells in clear way or something...
• I didn't read a lot of complaints about the armor system in this forum. Sure, it had its shortcomings the higher the damage output gets, but it wasn't a major issue, at least not here. The armor system could have been made less mushy with a percentage based DR value. Same with DR bypass.
• I can't say how much I want to punch those people in the shoulder who play PoE like one time and than say that something feels generic. Also, here in the forums I read very little about this. Where do the TON of people come from?
• moving away from per-rest resources: if you're honest that's your own wish. One could read several posts here and there that per rest is bad. But those people didn't truly understand what the advantages of per-rest are compared to per-encounter. In PoE you had casters who could really shine in tough fights while they may underperform a bit in easy ones (because you want to spare per-rest secources) - in Deadfire you spam out the same few spells over and over again in every encounter and have to specialize a lot. Actually it's more boring now.

 

So of course here in the forum the changes in Deadfire are not praised. Because here we didn't ask for those and also frankly because some of them are reducing fun. Especially casting times and long recoveries!

 

Maybe more listening to feedback from here than to feedback from Twitter would lead to something that is appreciated more - at least here. If that's what you are looking for anyway.

 

The feedback that I read a lot about in these forums when it comes to PoE:

 

- lots of bugs and with each patch there are new ones that replace old ones

- documentation, clarification, explanation of mechanics are obscure/bad/missing/wrong

- Rogues are strong in the early game but too weak in the endgame (no idea if this is still a thing in Deadfire since we can't go past lvl 9)

- Chanters are too slow and a one-trick-pony with Dragon Thrashed (this got addressed in Deadfire - now you can't do without one like PoE's priest)

- the calculation of damage done is not complete (no DoTs, no animal companion)

- several issues with the start/end of combat and things like invisibility/withdraw/mind control

- melee Xaurip Skirmishers and Phantoms are too strong with their afflictions on graze/hit/crit

- Afflictions are to strong because they do the same debuffs on a graze, just shorter (I believe in Deadfire it's still the case that grazes apply the same tier of afflcition instead of going down one tier - instead disables like paralyze and so on are nerfed - no drop of defenses but hit-to-crit?)

- some quests are a bit weird (see Ferry Flotsam)

- deceptive disposition is counterintuitive: the more successful you are the more the people know

- stuff that is a bit too good (focus through retaliation, Envenomed Strike in an AoE via Blast or Spirit Lance or Rot Skulls and so on) gets nerfed immediately and secretly (no patch notes whatsoever) while several bugs stay in forever

- and more minor stuff. Of course this is a very subjective and biased list.

 

The most important being the first two.

 

I mean it's great if all the feedback gets a look. It really is. But it seems that you simply oversteered with a lot of changes to certain problems. Instead of trying out small changes you completely changed whole mechanics (DR bypass/DR to PEN/AR, automatic interrupts delaying actions to Interrupots completely deleting certain actions) so that PoE players are lost while it's not even more easy to understand. But I think I read somewhere that this is your preferred method: not to incrementally change something but to try a new, radical approach and then see what people say. Well, now you have it.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[Sedrefilos]

I suppose the feedback came from more casual players (like me) who are the vast majority and play the game once and want to get the juice out of all the systems and features. Well, it can't happen. Tbh, I too didn't ever switch grimoires (just copies spells I though were cool and put them in the basic grimoire) and do felt priest and druid spells were too many to be thrown at you at level up, because I had to read like 10 spells at once and used like 1/3 of them at the end (though after a while it was not a problem any longer). Also I almost never used consumable except healing potions.

But I understand why all these things are there. If you want to play higher difficulty or solo or whatever challenge above normal difficulty you need the extra stuff.

Now, I don't know if all these people complained about those things or they just mentioned them and Obs team took them as serious criticism. It seems like there is a lack of confidence, regarding mechanics, from the team for some reason? I don't know, that's what I sense :/

[Boeroer]

Yes, it feels like they indeed have no clear opinion or idea - or as you said: confidence - when it comes to the mechanics. I mean Ninjamestari... well, he's Ninjamestari with all the trimmings ( ) -  but it seems he had a point in that "true vision" thread.

 

But I still can't understad why a more casual "single-run" player should complain about universal talents being generic. I did countless playthroughs and still don't think that they are generic. Some of them are very niche or maybe too weak, but even the niche ones can be put to good use with the right buld. And I don't mean necessarily powergamers' builds. Made a rogue who specializes in scrolls: I could give im Deep Pockets. Another rogue wants to provoke disengagement attack in order to trigger Riposte more often: Fast Runner and Graceful Retreat. A wannabe Daenerys pale elf wizard who wants to bath in her own fire spells can take Scion of Flame. How is that generic? And how is taking away such things make the game feel less generic?   

Edited February 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

Interesting ropekid SA post today:

 

A change that unfortunately did not go into the last BB update (but is implemented in our internal builds) is that all characters, single- and multi-classed, get 2 abilities per power level when they reach a new power level.

 

All grimoires now (as originally intended) have 18 spells, 2 per power level.

 

Druids will also be gaining bonus spells at each power level, like priests.

 

That's interesting. Because it kinda goes against what was written in update #40:

In actual playtesting, multiclass characters have terrific flexibility even though they lag power-wise compared to their single-class counterparts. In my personal experience, they are a lot of fun to play and there is a huge amount of variety to how a multiclass character can be built even before subclasses are taken into account.

The initial idea seemed to be:

- multi-classers get flexibility and a higher amount of spells/abilities

- single-classers get higher effects due to higher power-level

 

In practice though, physical attacks/abilities had no power-level attached, and phys. multi-classers quickly gone ahead in dps, due to the possibility to take the best out of the low-rank stuff of two classes.

 

If I'm reading it right this change seems to:

> shift the current state of things from [mc-phys > sc-phys > mc-caster >> sc-caster] to [mc-phys > sc-phys ~= sc-caster > mc-caster]

> and the amount of spells we can learn is:

 

 

Generally I'm ok with a buff to single-class casters, as they were quite lagging behind. And always like having more learnable spells.

Although wasn't expecting the direction taken, because single-class casters are becoming a bit more versatile than multi-class ones. And am wondering: do we even need power level attached to spells and abilities in this case now?

 

P.S. old and new progressions for reference.

 

• druid and priest spells are to many: seriously? Too many spells? That's like saying "My mom bought too much ice cream".

100% agreed. That was such a bull$hit complain in the first place... Some people are just lazy to read an extra few spell tooltips/descriptions. Edited February 15, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Wormerine]

Happy to see more skill points for single classes. With passive tree getting expanded they will be needed. I was worried that investing into passives with singleclass characters will be too much of a loss, making multiclass even more useful. As it is, multiclass will still have a bigger flexibility due to dual resource pools.

 

Josh will not be one buying and playing his game, I imagine, so listening to feedback is a smart thing to do. He seems to know what he aims for, and changes Obs made are tackling some of the issues PoE1 had. Deadfire had a benefit on being a sequel to a game inspired by IE games - they can move further from the source now. I found PoE1 to be the best in story and mechanics when it was exploring its own ideas, instead of trying to recreate what was good in 90s. It’s dangerous for creator to rely on his point of view, as it gets skewed during lengthy work on a project. While he quotes fan feedback as a reason for change a bit too often for my taste but he gave good, logical reasons for said changes as well. With B.B. we still pretty much have the same build we had months ago - I do sincerely hope that what we get in April will be much better. All the changes should work on paper but in B.B. they are off in BB.

[Madscientist]

- I totally agree to the long post from Boeroer above.

 

- MaxQuest, where do you have the info about beta version 4 and the new point or spell distribution from. I read your post, than I looked in the other parts of this forum but I did not find a new beta version announcement.

[theBalthazar]

druid and priest spells are to many: seriously? Too many spells? That's like saying "My mom bought too much ice cream".

 

 

True. Have a list is good thing. Now you are bad with cast time and you have only few spells.

 

grimoires are not important enough: first time I hear about that - but the Deadfire solution is fine for me

 

 

In fact, Grimoire WAS VERY important. BUT did not bring any function. Now the choice of grimoire is more strategic but he is less important than before.

 

making Interrupt/Concentration mechanic clearer/cleaner: well maybe that was a thing, but I'm 100% sure nobody who said that wanted supersluggish casting times so that you can cleanly interrupt spells in clear way or something...

 

 

Casters are still slow 2.0  : p

 

I didn't read a lot of complaints about the armor system in this forum. Sure, it had its shortcomings the higher the damage output gets, but it wasn't a major issue, at least not here. The armor system could have been made less mushy with a percentage based DR value. Same with DR bypass.

 

 

Exactly. With the first adjustment, armor is good for me now.

 

 

I can't say how much I want to punch those people in the shoulder who play PoE like one time and than say that something feels generic. Also, here in the forums I read very little about this. Where do the TON of people come from?

 

 

Casuals come from Twitter : p More seriously : I think there is a part of talents that was generic. But not all. It is a good thing to remove '+10 defense against disengaging" and all theses crap.

 

moving away from per-rest resources: if you're honest that's your own wish. One could read several posts here and there that per rest is bad. But those people didn't truly understand what the advantages of per-rest are compared to per-encounter. In PoE you had casters who could really shine in tough fights while they may underperform a bit in easy ones (because you want to spare per-rest secources) - in Deadfire you spam out the same few spells over and over again in every encounter and have to specialize a lot. Actually it's more boring now.

 

 

I disagree here. Per encounter spells are an excellent news. Mentally is more comfortable. PoE2 casters don't work but that because cast time is awful, not because per rest change. For some players, per rest abilities lead to non-use. "It will be more useful later." And with that you don't use 100 % of your character. Or, you use at 100 % your possibilities, but if you meet a boss and you have nothing : surprise ! You have nothing (And a casual "don't know the future" like a new game + of an hardcore gamer...). Globally, for casuals and hardcore gamers this decision is a good decision.

 

On the other hand, I agree with you : if you have no choice, do again and again same spells is boring. In this case, I prefer a full list (like POE1) But, with per encounter style.

 

__________________________________________

 

For the main change :

 

I am OK with +abilities each power level.

 

But... single class is always deeply behind. It is an equal boost. He don't gain anything compared to multiclass.

 

Why not an additinnal empower per encounter ?

Edited February 15, 2018 by theBalthazar

[dunehunter]

I’m still not convinced of the expanding class talent approach to make talent more generic. Why not just put all of them into a general pool so everybody can pick them?

 

The latter approach is cleaner and gives more options. Some talents should be given to every class too, like all elemental talent.

[MaxQuest]

- MaxQuest, where do you have the info about beta version 4 and the new point or spell distribution from. I read your post, than I looked in the other parts of this forum but I did not find a new beta version announcement.

I don't. But if I am reading this post right, Josh is speaking of the upcoming changes. And what comes after current beta?) Beta4

 

P.S. I can substitute that for "Internal Build", if it causes confusion. But internal build is something ongoing, subject to permanent changes. So not really fitting either. How about "preBeta4"?

 

---

Oho, empower was quite empowered. (for reference: it was +3 to power level during Q&A #4)

 

link

Edited February 15, 2018 by MaxQuest

[morhilane]

 

I will also say that close to every single adjustment we've made to mechanics in Deadfire has been the result of listening to player feedback: not overwhelming the player with druid and priest spells, making grimoires more important, making the Interrupt/Concentration mechanic clearer/cleaner, making the armor system less "mushy", removing generic Talents because a ton of people didn't like that they felt generic*, moving away from per rest resources, etc.

I'm reading and writing in the PoE forum a lot and nearly since the beginning of PoE. Here, there was no substancial feedback like:

 

• druid and priest spells are to many: seriously? Too many spells? That's like saying "My mom bought too much ice cream".
•  
• I didn't read a lot of complaints about the armor system in this forum. Sure, it had its shortcomings the higher the damage output gets, but it wasn't a major issue, at least not here. The armor system could have been made less mushy with a percentage based DR value. Same with DR bypass.
• I can't say how much I want to punch those people in the shoulder who play PoE like one time and than say that something feels generic. Also, here in the forums I read very little about this. Where do the TON of people come from?

[skip]

 

The 3 I left in the list I've seen a lot on other forums. The armor one came up a bit on the POE forum early on, mostly from people who expected AD&D carbon copy mechanics I think. I haven't seen complains post game release over the DR system (outside the scaling toward end game). This seems to have been a case of Learn2Play.

 

The "it's generic", I've seen that a lot in other forums and even had arguments over it. Note that there is two group saying that though. One just hate Josh "no bad build" ideas and constructed some (false) fantasy over what it means and what is in the game based on that. The others are just annoyed with the class system being very close to a wannabe classless system with a bunch of cosmetic choices (i.e. you can make a Wizard in heavy armor fighting with a two-handed sword).

 

The druid and priest one, I've seen people complaining about having no idea what did what a lot early on. This was clearly a case of Learn2Play, but it seems to have stuck with Josh.

 

I think a lot of initial "negative" feedback for POE was entirely the cause of "this isn't exactly like BG2, I didn't want to learn all these new systems".

[Sonntam]

100% agreed. That was such a bull$hit complain in the first place... Some people are just lazy to read an extra few spell tooltips/descriptions.

 

 

I am usually a fan of more spells vs. less spells, but after White March having a druid, priest and mage in my party felt like overkill. I could not remember where which spell was. I had to look for 15 seconds each time I had a specific spell in mind, but didn't know whether it was level 1 or level 4 spell. And imagine this for every damn time I wanted to cast a new spell. 

 

And not to mention all the times I did not use good spells, because I simply forgot they existed. And leaving a caster class on the bench and then picking them up after 4 levels? I had definitely forgotten by that time where which spell was, needed to learn all their new spells and what they are good for and THEN I just spent quarter of the battle reading through all spells trying to figure out what would be a good match for current situation.

 

Something needed to change. (Though, in my opinion, a good UI overhaul would have likely worked pretty well too.)

[Boeroer]

Then they could have made something like "my favorite spells" UI that you could compose yourself from all the spells and that is more prominent during combat - but you'd still have access to you other spells should you need them. But removing spells from the game? That's just a bad solution.

[Sonntam]

Then they could have made something like "my favorite spells" UI that you could compose yourself from all the spells and that is more prominent during combat - but you'd still have access to you other spells should you need them. But removing spells from the game? That's just a bad solution.

 

This "favorite" spells feature would mean that the remaining spells would never be used. That's also bad design. Good design would being forced to pick the spells you really need and make trade-offs. Not have a lot of trash thrown at you and then having to pick whatever is usable.

 

When you have too many choices, they become more of a nuissance than a help. There is a good reason for cutting down, no matter how great the appeal of big spellbook is.

[Daled]

I think the question we should ask ourselves is: "Every spell was useful in most situations with none of them being totally superseded by others?".

 

For me the answer in no, I prefer a little smaller arsenal but that I actually use in is entirety, especially now that spells are per encounter. Also we shouldn't forget that in PoE 1 spells didn't scale, some spells were clearly the "better spell X", just because of this the number of spells lowers a little. Personally I hate redundancy so it's fine by me :D

Edited February 15, 2018 by Daled

[Boeroer]

 

This "favorite" spells feature would mean that the remaining spells would never be used. That's also bad design. Good design would being forced to pick the spells you really need and make trade-offs. Not have a lot of trash thrown at you and then having to pick whatever is usable.

 

When you have too many choices, they become more of a nuissance than a help. There is a good reason for cutting down, no matter how great the appeal of big spellbook is.

 

That's not right. Different players like different spells (if they are all implemented well and there are no trashy ones). If you want to cut down you could put the ones you like into your favorite list and forget the rest. You'd have waht you wanted without taking away choice from other players.

 

Also: since when is forcing someone to do something in game considered to be good design?

 

I think it boils down to what MaxQuest said: some people are just too lazy (or don't have enough time) to read through all the spells. Fair enough, but this game's target group is not casual players. As if the spell list of druids and priest is that overwhelming...

 

If you don't know what to use and lose track of where which spell is and whatnot you could simply write down your favorite spells on a piece of paper.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

I think the question we should ask ourselves is: "Every spell was useful in most situations with none of them being totally superseded by others?".

 

For me the answer in no, I prefer a little smaller arsenal but that I actually use in is entirety, especially now that spells are per encounter. Also we shouldn't forget that in PoE 1 spells didn't scale, some spells were clearly the "better spell X", just because of this the number of spells lowers a little. Personally I hate redundancy so it's fine by me :D

Removing redundant spells is ok. But taking away choice just because some people can't handle a few more spells is not.

 

For example I really liked Nature's Terror or Spark the Souls of the Righteous. Not many people used those spells because they compete with other really good spells in that particular spell level. So if you take those away I (and others who liked those spells) will be sad and disppointed - and the only thing you gain is that players have to read through less spells. Erm... 

 

Also this "Too much choice! Please pick something for me!" is totally beyond me...

Edited February 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[MortyTheGobbo]

If more spells is good and fewer spells is bad, why not give every class access to every ability on their list? Why should only priests and druids get this treatment? The only reason they did to begin with was because that's how D&D had done it.

 

I'm also not sure how this removes choice... it adds choice where there was none. Now you have to actually build a priest or druid, rather than getting all spells on a platter.

[Madscientist]

- I dislike that you have less spells than in PoE1.

If you have a single class char, each char will learn up to 3 spells per spell level. (up to 4 spells per level with the new system, "up to" because if you select a talent that is not a spell you will have less spells.)

It is true that most people use only a small number of spells ( citation needed ), but I want to select which spells.

Sorcerers and other spontanious caster (= select a few spells to learn at level up, but more spell slots ) were quite powerful in DnD. But selecting which spells to chose was an importent choice in building your char. And they were intresing because you had vacian casters as alternative who could learn all spells but had less spell slots and had to select the spells to be cast when resting.

At the moment all casters in PoE2 are like spontanious in DnD.

 

I do not think that they will double the caster classes for PoE2 like it was in NWN2 (wizard vs sorcerer, cleric vs favoured soul, druid vs spirit shaman )

I think I could live with 4 spells per spell level, 2 spells per level (in beta version 1+2) were too little. But if they add more talents, casters might still have less spells.

I am not sure what is the best solution, what I write here is just loud thinking.

 

- I like that they want to add more talents.

In the previous versions of the beta sometimes it felt like there is nothing useful to pick so I just took anything. While I can understand that some people call PoE1 talents like weapon style, weapon focus or elemental damage boost generic, without them there would have been not much to chose at level up.

If the table from MaxQuest is correct and single class chars get more points than before, they will also need useful things to spend their points in.

 

EDIT: One more thing about spells.

I dislike that in the current system you have many similar spells at different spell levels, like every wizard spell level has a spell of the mirror image type.

You only need one of them, so if you take one of them to get a buff early and later you select the improved version, you will never use the low level version again.

Maybe it would be better if the spell effect increases when you level up.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Madscientist

[Boeroer]

I meant taking away spells that were there in PoE. If they'd design a completely new game with another background then they can carefully craft fewer spells without taking away anything.

 

I also meant taking away spells in form of "removing them from the game altogether". It's ok if you have a more narrow spell selection at level up. But you should still be able to choose from the variety of spells that were in PoE. 

 

That's what I meant with limiting choice.

 

But even if I find it ok that the spell selction is limited now: it takes away flexibility of casters. That doesn't need to be a bad thing per se, but it takes way something, too. The thing you gain is the more "strategic" apporach that you have to think about what spells to choose. That might be nice for char builders but it can also be a trap for beginners. Especially because I still don't see a retraining mechanic in Deadfire.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

I am usually a fan of more spells vs. less spells, but after White March having a druid, priest and mage in my party felt like overkill. I could not remember where which spell was. I had to look for 15 seconds each time I had a specific spell in mind, but didn't know whether it was level 1 or level 4 spell. And imagine this for every damn time I wanted to cast a new spell. 

 

And not to mention all the times I did not use good spells, because I simply forgot they existed. And leaving a caster class on the bench and then picking them up after 4 levels? I had definitely forgotten by that time where which spell was, needed to learn all their new spells and what they are good for and THEN I just spent quarter of the battle reading through all spells trying to figure out what would be a good match for current situation.

 

Something needed to change. (Though, in my opinion, a good UI overhaul would have likely worked pretty well too.)

Hmm,.. well I can't name all spells by name either. And in case of invocations, am not even trying) But I kinda remember their effect, and when the situation is right, I know that I have a specific spell for that.

 

Also it probably helps that I'm often checking the wiki. Especially when planning a new party. So am deciding apriori which spells are core on character x, and which gonna be situational.

But the great thing is: that you actually have those situational spells at your disposal. As sometimes they provide just the right answer; and it was a great feel that can deal with that boss via tactic A, or tactic B, or tactic C, all with the same party.

 

While if the amount of spells you can learn is limited - you'll be taking mostly core stuff, and approaching majority of encounters in a quite repetitive manner.

 

 

P.S. I reminds me when Curse of Recklesness and Curse of Idiocy were removed between TBC and WotLK, because "the players don't use them". Well they actually had situational uses, and I had a lot of fun with them...

 

I'm also not sure how this removes choice... it adds choice where there was none. Now you have to actually build a priest or druid, rather than getting all spells on a platter.

Personally I'm perfectly fine with "selecting" which spells to learn instead of getting them all instantly on level-up (like it was with priest and druid in PoE1).

I'd just expect for a level 16 ex-vancian caster to have enough points to get 8 abilities/passives and ~32 spells. And to empower the feel of choice would expect a total pool of 48-96 (rank1-rank8) spells to choose from.

And for ciphers and chanters, something along 12 abilities/passives and 18-24 powers/chants+invocations.

 

There, you actually build your characters, and have both a choice and selection, and also: room for core and situational stuff.

Edited February 15, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Madscientist]

In BG2 (the first big RPG I have played) you had tons of spells and it took a long time for me to find out which ones are good or bad. I was happy that my wizard, cleric or druid could learn them all so I can test what they do in combat ( or as pre buffs).

On the other hand, in NWN2 I played a favoured soul and the spells she learned were enough for her ( it was more a buffed melee fighter than somebody who casts spells on the enemy). But at that point I already had lots of experience from BG2 and other games.

 

As an "old" player I have little problems with having tons of spells, but I have also little problems to tell which might be good in a certain situation. ( But I am not as good as those who solo the game on higher difficulties, not even close).

I do not know how new players feel about this. Are they overwhelmed by a huge number of spells or do they feel limited in their choice by having a small number of spells?

People who buy a large RPG should not have a problem with reading lots of text and learning some rules in any case.

[Sonntam]

That's not right. Different players like different spells (if they are all implemented well and there are no trashy ones). If you want to cut down you could put the ones you like into your favorite list and forget the rest. You'd have waht you wanted without taking away choice from other players.

 

Also: since when is forcing someone to do something in game considered to be good design?

 

... that is literally entire point of game design? You always force players to limit themselves, by picking one class or another, force them to decide what they want to trade in exchange. Same thing goes when you are being forced to pick spells you want to use at level-up.

 

You could make chess with many more pieces and many more options. But it would not necessarily create a better game.

 

As I said before, I enjoy generally having more spells. But if even I find it tedious to have so many spells at my disposal, it hints at the fact that many more people would struggle with it.

 

 

I think it boils down to what MaxQuest said: some people are just too lazy (or don't have enough time) to read through all the spells. Fair enough, but this game's target group is not casual players. As if the spell list of druids and priest is that overwhelming...

 

If you don't know what to use and lose track of where which spell is and whatnot you could simply write down your favorite spells on a piece of paper.

 

 

The problem is that I am not talking about my top five spells. I can remember those. I can remember my top 10 spells for each casters. But after that I stop keeping up.

 

And when you have parties with >3 casters it only gets worse. I did remember pretty well at the end of PoE where every spell was, but with WM I could no longer keep up. Spellbook bloated for each class in a very silly way. I had so many situationally useful abilities, but I can not keep in my head more than hundreds spells at a time.And this meant I constantly had to reread what each spell does and try to remember where they were and then try to remember to use them in proper context. Most time when I paused I did not consider tactical options, I was trying to memorize what spells I have and figure out why I don't use them and then use them to remember why they suck. 

 

It did not ruin my enjoyment of the game, since I am pretty finicky and am used to pausing every two seconds of gametime to then brood over my spellbook for thirty seconds. But I can very well imagine that it's not fun for many other people. If people wanted to play Memory with spells, they would do that. But they want the big question being "what spell do I use" instead of "uhhh, so what kinds of spells do I have anyway?"

 

P.S. Fixed the post, the formatting for it broke...

Edited February 15, 2018 by Sonntam

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I can't remember what most spells in PoE do so I right click on the icon to read the description. Don't see how that was a big deal.

[the_dog_days]

Also this "Too much choice! Please pick something for me!" is totally beyond me...

 

 

 

 

 

I found the culprit.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm concerned about the change in ability points to multiclasses, they were touted as trading power for versatility but giving single classes more ability points cuts into versatility for multiclass casters. Not sure what a good solution is, but I don't think this is it.