Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers

[Gromnir]

am reassured by josh comments 'bout casters.  we personal lost patience with the segment o' beta folks who keep demanding faster casting times, as if casting times were the problem which needed fixing.  oh sure, a significant change to casting speeds would largely nullify the new interrupt scheme implemented in deadfire. oh, and offensive casters has been doing consistent good damage in the beta, with the exception o' pure caster ciphers.  make a party o' non-optimized, single class characters and the poe beta is challenging but hardly overwhelming.  the casters is hardly lagging. sure, there is individual spells which need adjustments, but is not a problem with casters en masse.  where casters clear fail is when compared to optimized multi-classes.  as the vanilla casters ain't actual ineffective, obvious solution is to make 'em more powerful?  how does that make any sense? there is already a problem with more than a few weapon focused multi-class combos being overpowered.  so let's turbo charge the casters and multiply the existing multi-class balance issues?  

 

again, casters, as is, is not only viable but effective.  is no good reason to apply a general improvement to casters.  

 

more than a few beta folks is complete bass ackwards on this issue.  am glad to see obsidian is being more reasonable regarding caster changes.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Enoch]

Yeah, as somebody who only really jumped into the beta in the past week, I haven't found the casting times to be nearly as onerous as I expected after reading these forums. 

[Enoch]

https://twitter.com/Obsidian/status/964333334024171525

 

[Nanawatzin]

https://twitter.com/Obsidian/status/964333334024171525

 

 

Yaaaaaaaaas! <3 Totally love it. :D

[injurai]

https://twitter.com/Obsidian/status/964333334024171525

 

 

This is transcendent.

[Gromnir]

Yeah, as somebody who only really jumped into the beta in the past week, I haven't found the casting times to be nearly as onerous as I expected after reading these forums. 

there was a bug with the initial beta release which affected weapon speeds.  particular if you were dual wielding sabres or something similar, combat speed were comedic fast.  were benny hill yakety sax skit speed.  two handed weapon speed were also relative glacial compared to one handed weapons, but there were multi class combos with paladins and assassins n' such which resulted in ridiculous high weapon damage.  however, as a pure caster, there just weren't customization options which made massive damage output possible.   

 

recent builds have altered/corrected weapon speeds.  however, the massive weapon damage exploits from a few multiclass combos remain.

 

initial impressions is hard to shake... and almost nobody ever advocates nerfs.  as such, the beta reaction to casting speeds is not unexpected.

 

edit:

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited February 16, 2018 by Gromnir

[Silent Winter]

Yeah, as somebody who only really jumped into the beta in the past week, I haven't found the casting times to be nearly as onerous as I expected after reading these forums. 

 

^I don't have the beta, so basing on what I've read it seemed like combat was nearly over before the wizard got a spell off - or maybe two spells for a longer fight.

If that's not the case then it's probably fine.

Are there faster, lower damage spells vs. slower, higher damage (or substitute damage for CC-effect/buff/malus, etc)?  In which case it's a tactical decision to make.

E.g. are level 1 spells faster than level 3?

Edited February 16, 2018 by Silent Winter

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

^I don't have the beta, so basing on what I've read it seemed like combat was nearly over before the wizard got a spell off - or maybe two spells for a longer fight.

On Normal it was that way, the choice of enemies in the slice of the game we've seen doesn't help that perception either. I haven't really played since the most recent patch, but just looking at the changes I still think spells will lag behind.

Are there faster, lower damage spells vs. slower, higher damage (or substitute damage for CC-effect/buff/malus, etc)?  In which case it's a tactical decision to make.

E.g. are level 1 spells faster than level 3?

In general there are .5 sec spells(mostly buffs), 3 sec spells, 5 sec spells, and 8 sec spells. Outside of buffs they generally take longer to cast the higher the level. I've gone out of my way to avoid the 8 sec casts and I think a lot of 5 sec casts should be 3 sec and many 3 sec should be 1.5 sec. Max Quest had a pretty good post on it, and I think suggestion any of his suggestions could be implemented without disrupting balance too much. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95293-casters-are-still-slow/page-8?do=findComment&comment=1966941

[draego]

Cipher update 

 

 

we are increasing the pen of “low pen” weapons to current mid pen and moving mid pen to high and balancing around that. additionally, we are increasing the focus gain rate of ciphers significantly.

[Boeroer]

No one needs to wait for us to release another Backer Beta build to experiment with this stuff. That said, I think people will find that if they adjust the Average and Slow cast speeds by more than a second, Deadfire will become The Land of Supreme Casters.

 

That's not true. Instead of wildly speculating the "what if" I played a mod this week which reduced casting speeds by shifting most of the spells' casting times (especially cipher's) one category to the "left" (6 to 4.5, 9 to 6 and so on. Also summoning weapons was changed to 1.5 secs.

It's still easy to do an interrupt if a spell takes 4.5 secs or 3 secs instead of 6 secs to cast. Interrupts favor fast weapons though - or you have to wait a bit before attacking just to see if the enemy will start casting something horrible. And that adds a bit more tactics.

But the combat overall feels MUCH better with casters. Much better.

 

But still it's easier to do the playthrough with melee character than with casters!

 

Main reason is that combat movement is too fast in comparison to the rest and combatants like to change position very often. Most of the time because somebody dies while the caster is casting. Chars die so quickly in melee. I think weapon damage is too high. If you compare weapon damage to PoE you will see that base damage of weapons is higher.

 

It's difficult to land an oh so mighty Fireball when during casting time the situation on the battlefield is changing thrice because melee chars kill two people while doing a 6-sec-cast.

[Boeroer]

Also remember that in PoE a casting time of 4.5 secs was the slowest while in Deadfire it's medium.

 

Placing a fireball in PoE was also easier because it was a fast cast instead of a 6-sec cast in Deadfire. All the damage on the world will not help the Fireball's viability of you have to cancel it all the time because situation on the battlefield is changing so frequently.

 

Spells that target single enemies are in a big advantage because of that. Also because most of them scale really well with Power Level (see Missiles).

 

At the same time some spells which are supposed to help with damage are inferior to a simple auto-attack with a weapon. The high PEN of Thrust of Tattered Veils is nice, as is the targeting and the fast cast, but I do more damage if my fighter just smacks the enemy with a great sword without spending any resources. Some spells need more balancing. I mean upwards. Look at Kalakoth's Freezing Touch: still the worst spell in the game. At least that didn't change...

Edited February 16, 2018 by Boeroer

[Gromnir]

 

Yeah, as somebody who only really jumped into the beta in the past week, I haven't found the casting times to be nearly as onerous as I expected after reading these forums. 

 

^I don't have the beta, so basing on what I've read it seemed like combat was nearly over before the wizard got a spell off - or maybe two spells for a longer fight.

If that's not the case then it's probably fine.

Are there faster, lower damage spells vs. slower, higher damage (or substitute damage for CC-effect/buff/malus, etc)?  In which case it's a tactical decision to make.

E.g. are level 1 spells faster than level 3?

 

spell level has little impact on casting time and recovery.  big damage spells typical have longer cast times.  larger aoe or longer durations also typical result in spells having longer casting times, regardless of spell level.  such a result shouldn't be too much o' a surprise.  thrust of tattered veils is cast quick and has high penetration, but it only hits a single foe.  thrust is an ideal interrupter spell.  fireball (level 3) and chill fog (level 1) can both be cast before or to start combat and have slow cast times.  chill fog is level 1 but it imparts the blind affliction and has a significant duration.  fireball simple does big damage, although penetration is low, but against foes with poor burn armour who you can confront in an actual or functional doorway scenario, fireball is a killer.

 

as to the speed o' combat, the beta folks is being either hyperbolic or intentional misleading.  in a typical encounter, would Gromnir rare have difficulty firing off a couple fireballs, though am ordinarily not casting fireballs. am using expose vulnerabilities and other 3rd level spells before trying fireballs.  didn't use fireball much in poe either as we rare have the patience to lure foes into doorway combat. if facing lagufaeth, which show up frequent in the beta, we need account for the fact that they is quick, just as they were in the poe expansion.  chances are if we do not block fisheads in a functional doorway, they is gonna encircle our party before we can get a fireball cast.  minoletta's bounding missiles is gonna be a superior option, eh? also, kalakoth's minor blights has been kinda op, even with the switch from might to strength.  fireball is not our first choice but is for reasons other than cast time.  for example, we do use chill fog (an equal slow cast) for pretty much any battle save for those which include foes immune to blind. in spite of slow cast, we use chill fog almost every encounter, and is not as if our wizards is standing 'round impotent after doing so.  hell, it is not unusual for us to survive battles in which our 6-9th level wizard complete exhausts their spell repertoire and is forced to resort to weapons combat... which would be a problem save for the fact that am typical playing wizards with strength o' 5 and constitution o' 17 to take advantage o' the quirky strength v. might change.  pew-pew with 5 strength wizard wielding a wand (for debilitating blows) and a tower shield is Not boosting our wizardly damage totals.  

 

regardless, am not surprised by enoch's experience with caster combat.  no doubt many who has read the beta feedback regarding casting times will be shocked once they get a chance to actual play the game and realize casters is not only viable but effective in deadfire.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited February 16, 2018 by Gromnir

[theBalthazar]

Personnally :

 

I prefer less damage and fast speed. But even with that, there is a misunderstanding :

 

30 % more damage OK. But 6s = More than average speed in POE1 like said Boeroer. (between slow and average)

 

So... Fast speed was = 2.20s

 

Yes... you gain 30 % of damage, but you are 66 % slower !!

 

Our perception is true. Numbers don't lie...

Edited February 16, 2018 by theBalthazar

[MaxQuest]

Anyone can experiment with cast times by editing CastSpeeds.gamedatabrowser or recovery times in RecoveryTimes.gamedatabrowser. The process for modding is pretty simple in Deadfire, even in the Backer Beta, so I’m surprised I haven’t seen much outside of one-off experiments.

Already experimenting for a week now.

 

Have changed casting durations from {0,3,5,8} to {0, 0.5, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, 6s} and recovery durations from {0,2,3,4,5,7} to {0, 0.5, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, 6s}, additionally speeding up a few spells (mostly cc powers) by one category, along with making summoning weapons a 1.5s cast, and tbh it feels much better now.

 

Am going to fine-tune the mod on the weekend, and likely post it for those interested to try it.

 

 

No one needs to wait for us to release another Backer Beta build to experiment with this stuff. That said, I think people will find that if they adjust the Average and Slow cast speeds by more than a second, Deadfire will become The Land of Supreme Casters.

I've tried setting different categories for many individual spells.

Summoned Weapons even at 6.0s/0 -> 1.5s/0 do not feel OP right now. Or for example Eyestrike 5.0s/2s -> 3.0s/1.5s doesn't make cipher Supreme. Or Merciless Gaze being kinda bad at 3.0s/0; (when taking into account it's effect and comparing it with opportunity cost) it's a very situational spell of choice even at 0.5s/0.

 

And these changes really feel good, despite of having an amplitude bigger than the mentioned 1s.

As for mentioned cast categories per se (average and slow), I technically only changed the slow one from 5.0s -> 4.5s

[Enoch]

hell, it is not unusual for us to survive battles in which our 6-9th level wizard complete exhausts their spell repertoire and is forced to resort to weapons combat...

This has been my experience as well.  Granted, I'm still finding my feet in terms of building/using melee combatants (playing on Veteran with a Wael/Nalpazca Watcher, a player-created Skald/Paladin, and the Mercenaries Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard), so I expect that I'll get a bit more efficient with experience.  The casting is slower than Pillars 1, but the 2/level limitation has been a greater constraint on my use of spells than casting times. 

Edited February 16, 2018 by Enoch

[Wormerine]

Personnally :

 

I prefer less damage and fast speed. But even with that, there is a misunderstanding :

 

30 % more damage OK. But 6s = More than average speed in POE1 like said Boeroer. (between slow and average)

 

So... Fast speed was = 2.20s

 

Yes... you gain 30 % of damage, but you are 66 % slower !!

 

Our perception is true. Numbers don't lie...

True, but you wouldn’t be casting fireballs or other high/medium level spells in majority of fights, would you. As matter of fact, you wouldn’t cast many spells at all, except 1nd or 2nd level one, you could use every fight later on and spend most of the time spamming main weapon. Than you would go to final fight, or the one you knew you will rest, and you would use your arsenal of spells making spellcasters a god class outperforming every other one.

 

Now we can cast less spells but every fight. Result - casters are just so much better than everyone else. So you nerf them with action economy so they can’t spam those powerful spells all day long. I still find fireball targeted at a group of enemies highly effective, dealing 30+ damage to most of them (playing on hard).

 

I am glad I am not the only one finding spellcasters fine - they tend to still be good damage dealers when they are build to do so. Just a question - people who complain about casters - are we all analysing caster as a part of a team or are we judging casters performance in a solo run environment? Because I can see how caster could be useless in solo runs, but than again, it is a party based RPG so classes shouldnt be judged in that environment.

 

Just like Gromnir, I found that my spellcasters cast quite a few spells before combat is over, with exhausting a lot of spells in major fights. If certain multiclass options break combat so much, that they roll over enemies in a matter of seconds (which is what people stated multiple times) it seems to me like those require closer examination more than spellcasters. Having every class be capable of killing enemies in less than 5 seconds just doesn’t sound very interesting.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Wormerine

[theBalthazar]

Viable yes. But compared to melee, not equal. I think I am more effective on a group with melee than with Wizard !

 

When there is 3 ennemies or more, Wizard MUST be more effective. Not the case actually. Except for few single class.

 

Problem is here.

[Lamppost in Winter]

Have you guys who've played with caster speed mods posted your experience with them in the beta forums? If not, might be worth doing so to get some dev notice on them.

[AndreaColombo]

No need; when MaxQuest releases the mod, everyone will have a chance to publicly state how they feel about it

[blotter]

Sawyer's thoughts on the goals for Deadfire's weapon proficiency system and how well they've been met so far. In regards to the current, situational approach to modals:

 

I think this is okay at the moment but could use more tuning for specific modals that either have massive drawbacks or advantages that apply in 90% of circumstances.

 

The proficiency gain rate is also changing from 1/4 levels to 1/3 levels.

[draego]

 

 

Sawyer's thoughts on the goals for Deadfire's weapon proficiency system and how well they've been met so far. In regards to the current, situational approach to modals:

 

I think this is okay at the moment but could use more tuning for specific modals that either have massive drawbacks or advantages that apply in 90% of circumstances.

 

The proficiency gain rate is also changing from 1/4 levels to 1/3 levels.

 

I really dont like the proficiencies. I would rather have a set of weapon talents that could be applied to any weapon you want and just do away with proficiencies. This should be about player choice and roleplaying. I find several of the proficiencies arbitrary and could be switch around and no one would notice.

 

Along with the above, to not discourage players from using non-proficient weapons - This is going less well.

 

You think Josh. That is what proficiencies do. Just set some back up as global talent modals and solved. Also i dont like switching weapons groups. i general either like to come up with build concept before i start and stick within a range of a few weapons. I dont want to switch and use every possible weapon type in the game. Some players use certain weapons for aesthetic reasons or whatever. Why this need to make us switch. It seems that was the whole point of the new enchantment system also. Although i havent tried in current beta so dont know how that turned out. But its ok if i dont want to change my weapons out. This isnt diablo or whatever i dont need constant loot level up every level to feel good.

 

Josh still does good work i just not into this aspect of the game.

Edited February 17, 2018 by draego

[the_dog_days]

I don't think I've ever used a weapon modal in the beta. Not that they're 'bad', but most of the time I don't see the point. I already have two to three weapon sets on each character, switching modals on top of that is more involved with weapons than I care to be. (Note: I'm definitely not saying they should be taken out.)

Edited February 17, 2018 by the_dog_days

[draego]

I don't think I've ever used a weapon modal in the beta. Not that they're 'bad', but most of the time I don't see the point. I already have two to three weapon sets on each character, switching modals on top of that is more involved with weapons than I care to be. (Note: I'm definitely not saying they should be taken out.)

 

Good point. I am also not saying take them out  . just dont force them on only one weapon. I also did find them a little annoying to deal with having to try to remember to turn on and off. I would rather a general talent like in POE 1 that i turn on and leave for the most part.

 

I think when people complained about weapon proficiencies they were thinking more in terms of points to spend to get better over time in weapon. Obsidian explicitly went away from this in POE 1 and now it feels like split the baby situation. They dont want to bring back d&d proficiencies but want to appease the complaints so we get this stuff.

Edited February 17, 2018 by draego

[Boeroer]

Proficiencies are half-baked stuff atm. You can see that its not the best approach since the designers obviously had trouble to come up with meaningful and sensible modals for every weapon proficiency. Like rapid shot for pistol (why is reloading a pistol any different from reloading an arquebus? Why can you get +20 ACC with a non-rifled arquebus but not with an arbalest or crossbow?). Would have been better to create those modals for a whole group of weapons like guns (faster reaload)/bows (better aim)/crossbows (faster reaload as well) and so on. But now we have them...

 

The idea of The Balthazar(?) that you can invest thrice in a proficency to:

 

a) get the modal

b) increase the bonus

c) decrease the malus

 

would be nice to see implemented.

 

You could then leave the modal on all the time after spending at least two points because it would be better most of the time. This also would mean that you wouldn't be forced to take a lot of different proficiencies that don't match with your idea of your character. For example as a rogue duelist who wants to use single light one handed weapons like rapier, dagger and stiletto it's just awkward to be forced to choose mace or axe or whatever just because you don't know where to put the proficiency points.

 

Of course this would render the Black Jacket even more meaningless. Besides Quick Switching builds that subclass is totally underpowered now. Especially since they plan to raise PEN of weapons (not of spells???). The Black Jacket needs something better to counter his harsh malus of not having Constant Recovery. Since the Black Jacket's theme is all about versatiliy, why not give him better versions of the modals - even if the aforementioned solution (a)b)c)) doesn't get implemented at least the Black Jacket could automatically get either b) or c) when choosing a proficiency. Meaning that a Black Jacket always suffers less malus from modals or gets a better bonus. For example: when choosing the proficiency for great swords (modal: Savage Attack) a Black Jacket coud either get +50% damage with only -10 ACC or +75% damage with -20 ACC instead of +50%/-10 like the normal modal would be. Sabre could give +2 PEN/+50% recovery or +3 PEN/+100 recovery instead of +2/+50%.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Boeroer

[dunehunter]

Yeah I totally agree that a lot weapon modals are half baked. A lot melee weapon modals are pretty similar to each other, like +Pen -Recovery or etc.