Do all classes have an ability resource cost now?

[smjjames]

Bad:

1. It could hurt class variety to have all of them using a resource.  Are ranged rogues and rangers going to feel similar because you have to take the exact same considerations in combat?
2. It could move classes away from their original core design.  Fighters were designed to be low maintenance does adding an automatic active resource change the build to make active abilities more attractive?
3. Bond is a really stupid name for a power-source.
4. Will this combined with the lack of dailies encourage rote behavior?  

 

1. Not really, they already have a 'resource' right now, just not always obvious.

 

2. The point of multiclassing is to move beyond the pure classes, some combinations will be good, some will be bad. Pure single class fighters should still be the way they were designed.

 

3. Yeah, it is kind of a wierd name and it doesn't quite fit with the class in the same way that the others do. I suppose if anybody has any better ideas, they can message the devs about it.

 

4. Not sure what you mean.

[Gromnir]

am not having new concerns 'bout monks, chanters and ciphers-- same old system means same old concerns for these classes.

 

am not having a concern for the former vancian casters, 'cause the change to per encounter is overdue. 'bout freaking time.

 

 

our major concern for paladins, rogues, barbarians and fighters is balance.  useful abilities has gotta be available to low-level players.  as the resource pool for the aforementioned classes grows with leveling, am seeing the potential for effective overuse o' certain initial/low-resource abilities.  perhaps a per-encounter cap, regardless o' resource cost might be something worth considering.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited May 6, 2017 by Gromnir

[Boeroer]

No! 11 FoD uses in each encounter for the win!

[Gromnir]

No! 11 FoD uses in each encounter for the win!

based on the image we got of paladin abilities, FoD is indeed having a relative cheap resource cost. reviving exhortation costs 4x as much as FoD, so is not difficult to imagine a high level paladin getting at least 10 uses o' FoD per encounter.

 

am doubtful the numbers is exact correct, but josh observed

 

"A 10th level Rogue may have 7 Guile while a 10th level Fighter/Rogue has 5 Discipline/5 Guile."  

 

is not ridiculous to assume for the nonce a 10th level paladin gets 7 zeal.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited May 6, 2017 by Gromnir

[Infinitron]

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3807509&userid=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=4#post472057845

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Infinitron

[Boeroer]

At lvl 20 it's 11. At least that's the case atm. FoD costs 1 point of Zeal. So - 11 FoD per encounter at max. But FoD will not be as powerful as in PoE1 I presume, even if it scales with level.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Also, spamming FoD repeatedly will restrict your use of more powerful abilities. At least that's the tradeoff it's supposed to create.

[Boeroer]

Right. But if you can skill around FoD like you could in PoE1 (Intense Flames + special talent like Remember Rhakan Field and such + Scion of Flame and so on) you might want to use FoD only anyway. Also spares you ability points to specialize on one single offensive ability.

[Gromnir]

as will be recalled by many, FoD real power is not gonna occur in a vacuum.  while FoD and immolation might appear balanced in the hands o' obsidian testers, those abilities is gonna be used different by actual players.  FoD will, in point o' fact, be utilized as one aspect o' a synergy. the predictable exploitive potential o' any number-based crpg is not gonna be obvious to josh today.  no matter how singularly op the community manages to make immolation, it will be usable 2-3 times in a battle.  FoD, and/or some other low-level abilities, will no doubt be far more effective in our hands than in obsidian's. 

 

FoD will be useful at level one and level 20.  if FoD is scaled to be useful 1-2 times at level 2-3, then am seeing a genuine balance concern when useable potential 11 times.  no matter what, FoD is gonna be better than a standard attack at level 20.  is probable FoD will be considerable better if it genuine scales.  after all, josh has said numerous times obsidian intends to keep low level abilities useful throughout the game. if FoD is only a smidge better than a standard attack, then am not thinking it will genuine be seen as useful.  so if is something a player would serious consider using with one use at level 20, then am seeing a problem at near a dozen applications. 

 

am not suggesting FoD is inherent broken 'cause o' eleven uses.  however, if folks ain't seeing the potential problems, they ain't looking hard. is all the more reason why poe2 needs a genuine comprehensive beta with full range o' levels and abilities made available, if only via some kinda arena scenario.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Infinitron]

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/160375258916/is-the-per-rest-empower-resource-still-a-thing

 

Empower is still a per-rest resource that can be used 1/encounter per character. 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Infinitron

[Doppelschwert]

The proposed system for martial classes seems strange. When all your active abilities compete for the same resource, and you can choose between learning an active or apassive ability, the passive abilities become much more lucrative once you have a set of basic active abilities. In particular, situational abilities become much less worthwhile, unless the situations they are needed in really necessitate them, and specializing in certain active abilities seems much more worthwhile than having a broad set of skills. I can already see myself investing heavily into passives in favor of active abilities.

 

I can only see this working in one of three ways to not lead to natural min/maxing:

- active abilities do radically different and desirable things so it makes sense to take several of them

- acquiring active abilities increases your resource pool (I don't see that happening)

- you only choose between different active abilities instead of active vs passive (I don't see that happening either)

 

PoE used the second option, but if PoE2 blocks this option, I honestly hope they will open up the first one with proper encounter design.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Doppelschwert

[MortyTheGobbo]

Right. But if you can skill around FoD like you could in PoE1 (Intense Flames + special talent like Remember Rhakan Field and such + Scion of Flame and so on) you might want to use FoD only anyway. Also spares you ability points to specialize on one single offensive ability.

 

Assuming that it works like in PoE 1, yeah. So they will need to balance everything around an entirely different set of assumptions.

[MaxQuest]

In particular, situational abilities become much less worthwhile, unless the situations they are needed in really necessitate them, and specializing in certain active abilities seems much more worthwhile than having a broad set of skills. I can already see myself investing heavily into passives in favor of active abilities. + [...]

Good point.

I suppose through that there are some extra to the 3 listed ways/options. Like:

- packing some active abilities in groups. For example paladin auras will become available altogether. In POE1 zealous charge was quite situational to guarantee it's picking. While in POE2 we will be able to use it, without spending extra ability point. Maybe they will do similar thing with exhortations and other stuff.

- our parties will probably end-up with ~4 specialist characters (3 dps/cc, 1 dedicated tank) and with one versatile support most of the time. We don't usually expect much damage from that support, and there is a high chance that he will be built for flexibility (i.e. more actives versus passives)

- non-stacking actives. For example there is less incentive in spamming FoD with Enduring Flames upgrade. And in meanwhile paladin will use other stuff.

- actives that target a specific defense and lower the other. This would would promote chaining them, instead of spamming just one.

 

But yeah, the best one you already listed. If there is a high-desired higher-costed actives like Sacred Immolation, player will use that one first, instead of just FoDing over and over again.

 

---

Also, it was quite interesting to notice that resource pool correlates, but is not equal to power level.

For example:

- maximum zeal (pool) is 11. (source)

- 10/0 rogue may have 7 guile (pool). (source)

- 5/5 rogue/fighter may have 5 guile (pool) and 5 discipline (pool). (source)

- lvl 13 Pallegina has 9 zeal. (source, src)

 

At the same time:

- max power level (for a lvl 20 character) is 10. (as it corresponds to max spell rank)

- 10/0 rogue has 30 guile power_source points which corresponds to power_level 5. (source)

- 5/5 rogue fighter has 20 guile power_source points and 20 discipline which correspond to to power_level 4/4. (source)

- 13/0 Pallegina has 39 power_source points or power_level 7 (if the progression holds, which it should)

 

Which results in:

10->11

7->9

5->7

4->5

power_level->resource_pool

 

And looks like: resource_pool = 2 * ceil(power_level / 2) + 1

Edited May 8, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Caeyrii]

I'm really liking what I'm reading. The feeling of certain classes being left out in combat is slowly being eked away.

[anameforobsidian]

I don't like the idea of all classes having power pools.  One of the great strengths of Pillars is how unique the classes are, the resources for each class are part of what makes them unique.

[smjjames]

I don't like the idea of all classes having power pools.  One of the great strengths of Pillars is how unique the classes are, the resources for each class are part of what makes them unique.

 

They're unique for every class. Also, the second part of your second sentence contradicts the first part.

 

Two classes already have power pools, Ciphers and Chanters.

 

Besides, conceptually, it's no different than Mana.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I don't like the idea of all classes having power pools.  One of the great strengths of Pillars is how unique the classes are, the resources for each class are part of what makes them unique.

 

The variety of resources remains the same, though. Classes that used per-rest spells divided by levels still use them - they're just per-encounter now. Classes that build up resources still do that.

 

Fighters, barbarians, rogues, paladins and rangers now share a resource, but they already did. They all used a mix of passive, per-encounter and some per-rest abilities.

 

That being said, I hope those five classes earn abilities at a faster pace than in the first game now. A resource pool won't help much if it takes several hours of gameplay to have more than three active abilities to use.

Edited May 11, 2017 by MortyTheGobbo

[Boeroer]

Monks have a resource pool, too. 

 

You can see how monks, ciphers and chanters are more flexible at what they want to do in an encounter than - let's say a rogue with strike abilites is. 

 

If a monk meets enemies which are immune to prone he wouldn't want to spend his resources on Force of Anguish but use other abilites instead. When a rogue has one blinding strike and one crippling strike and meets an enemy who is immune to blind he will still use the blinding strike at some point if there's nothing else left - at least it's better than an autoattack. If he had a resource system (guile) he would choose 2 crippling strikes instead of 1 crippling + 1 blinding strike. 

 

So I think the resource system works for the player. The uniqueness of the classes is not necessarily that one uses fixed per-encounter abilites and the other one resource based abilites, it's more about what abilites they have. Even with a resource pool a rogue will never play like a monk.

[smjjames]

Exactly, they already use resource pools (and thanks Boeroer, I forgot monk, whoops), just not very visible in some classes, now in PoE2, they'll just be more obvious. Each class will still use it's specific resource pool in a different way.

 

Also, kudos to Obsidian for resisting just calling the wizard power pool 'mana'.

[hilfazer]

Also, kudos to Obsidian for resisting just calling the wizard power pool 'mana'.

Kinda hard to do when mana is used for rangers/fighters/rogues etc.

[smjjames]

 

Also, kudos to Obsidian for resisting just calling the wizard power pool 'mana'.

Kinda hard to do when mana is used for rangers/fighters/rogues etc.

 

 

I meant "being creative and calling it something else than 'mana', which is used so often that it's a trope in itself".

[hilfazer]

 

 

Also, kudos to Obsidian for resisting just calling the wizard power pool 'mana'.

Kinda hard to do when mana is used for rangers/fighters/rogues etc.

 

 

I meant "being creative and calling it something else than 'mana', which is used so often that it's a trope in itself".

 

I meant "If Obs was to use 'mana' they would more likely use it for rangers/rogues etc (because their resource works like mana) than for wizards".