Removing non class specific talents was a bad idea

[morhilane]

Also I think reintroducing general talents would cause a big problem for single class casters in this system. Since spells/abilities/talents have been merged, and you only get one per class level to choose from, you might end up with a caster that has zero picks in a particular spell level because the player felt they needed to take a few general talents for their build.

Not just a problem for the single class casters. If general talents are back, some of the other class will have to have features that are nerfed or lose class talent to compensate.

 

Also, I think lots of people have issues with the active/passive selection at every level up. It's like they want the game to limit how much they can take on each side instead of them making their own builds. Right now they see all those passives and they believe they have to pick all of them or something.

Edited November 16, 2017 by morhilane

[DigitalCrack]

I agree with Gromnir on this. While a lot of these general talents had uses in experimental and off the wall builds by players on these forums, I think many of them felt useless to the majority of the player base and were never picked. As has already been pointed out, getting rid of them makes single classes more distinct yet also more limited. However every single class(with the exception of the ranger) still has at least a couple of roles it could perform well in the party, and if you want to expand on those there is the subclass and multiclass features available to the tinkerers on these boards.

 

Also I think reintroducing general talents would cause a big problem for single class casters in this system. Since spells/abilities/talents have been merged, and you only get one per class level to choose from, you might end up with a caster that has zero picks in a particular spell level because the player felt they needed to take a few general talents for their build.

Understand the point you make but I dont think it can be denied that its too rigid across the board currently. There is definitely room for a "meet in the middle" compromise that I think could be reached with those who are looking for more single class flexibility. Edited November 16, 2017 by DigitalCrack

[IndiraLightfoot]

While a lot of these general talents had uses in experimental and off the wall builds by players on these forums, I think many of them felt useless to the majority of the player base and were never picked.

In fact, I'm almost sure it's the other way round. They were rather often picked. I have a handful of friends and relatives who only played PoE1 once, and most of them didn't finish the game.

When I've asked them what kind of build they made, they looked at me funny. When I said, what choices did you make when your character levelled up, it was pretty clear that the list was very varied and often anything but effective builds (they were almost anti-munchkin choices), like more slots for items or some specific resistance that sounded great, or more and more spells for your caster. 

The very claim "were never picked" must come from someone with a pretty good understanding of the PoE1 ruleset, i.e., a person of the kind that populates these forums.

[tinysalamander]

Alternative idea: double down and make multi-classing mandatory with full progressing maybe over more character levels. Which would make it into kind of Rule of cool’s Legend system where every character picks 3 tracks of abilities (each track has 7 circles each granting a new ability, or more if needed; sometimes you can choose). Somewhere between class-based and classless. Ok, this, probably, won’t work because PoE wasn’t designed for this, but one can dream…

 

// I haven’t actually played backer beta myself.

[morhilane]

 

While a lot of these general talents had uses in experimental and off the wall builds by players on these forums, I think many of them felt useless to the majority of the player base and were never picked.

In fact, I'm almost sure it's the other way round. They were rather often picked. I have a handful of friends and relatives who only played PoE1 once, and most of them didn't finish the game.

When I've asked them what kind of build they made, they looked at me funny. When I said, what choices did you make when your character levelled up, it was pretty clear that the list was very varied and often anything but effective builds (they were almost anti-munchkin choices), like more slots for items or some specific resistance that sounded great, or more and more spells for your caster. 

The very claim "were never picked" must come from someone with a pretty good understanding of the PoE1 ruleset, i.e., a person of the kind that populates these forums.

 

Wouldn't those players be a good reasons why the passives were fit into specific classes and not available to all around?

 

 

Saying that, thinking about some of the passives I saw in the class trees last night, I think some exist to just exist. Example, the Gunner passive is Ranger only. First, Ranger doesn't spell guns to me so I'm not sure why it is in that class. Second it only affect a few weapons (3 from memory) who are way too slow with out the passive with the "slowed down" combat.

 

Seems to me that instead of forcing people to max Dex or pick Ranger to use these weapons, the weapons themselves should be improved based on what the passive did and the passive should simply be removed.

 

Same goes with the "stats resistance" passives, especially the bundles. I would suggest to remove them and tweak spells/abilities to deal with them instead.

 

In the same optic though, I understand why the weapon style are in the Fighter class, that's actually a very 5e D&D thing to do and the other none-caster class have their passives that improve using weapons in general (well not the Ranger, who only has Gunner).

[veteran81]

 

 

Also I think reintroducing general talents would cause a big problem for single class casters in this system. Since spells/abilities/talents have been merged, and you only get one per class level to choose from, you might end up with a caster that has zero picks in a particular spell level because the player felt they needed to take a few general talents for their build.

If a player thinks they need to take a few general talents for their build, even that means they haven't pick spells, its the choice made by ppls, and they shall be ALLOWED to do so. I really don't think your argument is very persuasive/reasonable here. It might be a newbie-trap, but thats all.

The very fact that PoE1 allowed for this build diversity and build choices at level ups is a testament to how well that system worked, how much depth it had, despite a few shortcomings here and there.

Yeah I agree with you here. PoE 1 was a great system. I'm hoping that they have enough time to adjust this game back towards that system.

 

I'm not thrilled about any of the classes right now honestly outside of wizards subclasses. There's to little diversity & power for single classes and for me most of the subclasses have too many penalties or restrictions that does equal out any real pros.

 

PoE 1 was obsidian' corner stone of mechanics and gameplay to me, that I thought they would continue to use into the future. PoE 2 to me is almost unrecognizable to PoE 1 atm.

Edited November 16, 2017 by veteran81

[Enoch]

I haven't gotten a chance to load up the beta yet, but I'll voice my opinion that the Pillars 1 level-up was kind of awful.  Even to someone like me-- a longtime RPG player with some grognardy tendencies, but who doesn't want to spend all of the 1-2 hours of gaming time he gets in a typical evening reading Talent descriptions-- it was pretty daunting.  I can only imagine how it looked to the kind of player who doesn't hang around on message boards like this. 

 

If the typical player's reaction to a level-up 'ding' is less "Oh, cool, I get to unlock some neat new abilities," and more "Uhhhh... [ALT-TAB to browser; Google 'Pillars Cipher build']," you've got a problem.

 

Deadfire appears to be putting more of the decisionmaking at character creation, rather than at each level-up.  That should be a welcome step in terms of approachability.  And it is absolutely understandable that a system with the plethora of multi- and sub-classes has less within-class flexibility than one with just 11 single-classes.  If making a gishy Wizard (for example) is going to require a multi-class with a more traditional melee class, that's fine with me. 

 

That said, there should be more than one viable way to play any given class (single or multi).  I wouldn't want to go all the way back to pre-3ED&D-style on-rails character development.  That's the kind of feedback I'll be looking to provide if/when I get around to seriously tinkering with the Beta.

[draego]

I haven't gotten a chance to load up the beta yet, but I'll voice my opinion that the Pillars 1 level-up was kind of awful.  Even to someone like me-- a longtime RPG player with some grognardy tendencies, but who doesn't want to spend all of the 1-2 hours of gaming time he gets in a typical evening reading Talent descriptions-- it was pretty daunting.  I can only imagine how it looked to the kind of player who doesn't hang around on message boards like this. 

 

If the typical player's reaction to a level-up 'ding' is less "Oh, cool, I get to unlock some neat new abilities," and more "Uhhhh... [ALT-TAB to browser; Google 'Pillars Cipher build']," you've got a problem.

 

Deadfire appears to be putting more of the decisionmaking at character creation, rather than at each level-up.  That should be a welcome step in terms of approachability.  And it is absolutely understandable that a system with the plethora of multi- and sub-classes has less within-class flexibility than one with just 11 single-classes.  If making a gishy Wizard (for example) is going to require a multi-class with a more traditional melee class, that's fine with me. 

 

That said, there should be more than one viable way to play any given class (single or multi).  I wouldn't want to go all the way back to pre-3ED&D-style on-rails character development.  That's the kind of feedback I'll be looking to provide if/when I get around to seriously tinkering with the Beta.

 

I know its not as bad as i am about to say but i can turn this around and say its more work upfront. So you if you want a tank you have to got through all skill trees and figure out which class can do that role and then when you come up with the handful that can do that you get to pick between them. Instead of saying oh i like rangers, I like tanks, i want tank ranger let start playing and pick abilities that fit that role. Or i like priest and i like tanks let try that and see what happens. If you did that without looking at all the abilities you would be surprised to find that not a lot of abilities or maybe few to none support that. This is where some general abilities come in handy. I get its not quite this restrictive but this is the direction POE2 is going.

Edited November 16, 2017 by draego

[DigitalCrack]

"That said, there should be more than one viable way to play any given class (single or multi)."

 

This is the heart of issue a lot of people have. right now single class is an on rail experience and the only way to play a class outside of one singular role is to multiclass.

 

Edit: which some classes/subs still arent even viable outside their designed role even with multiclassing

Edited November 16, 2017 by DigitalCrack

[DigitalCrack]

 

I haven't gotten a chance to load up the beta yet, but I'll voice my opinion that the Pillars 1 level-up was kind of awful. Even to someone like me-- a longtime RPG player with some grognardy tendencies, but who doesn't want to spend all of the 1-2 hours of gaming time he gets in a typical evening reading Talent descriptions-- it was pretty daunting. I can only imagine how it looked to the kind of player who doesn't hang around on message boards like this.

 

If the typical player's reaction to a level-up 'ding' is less "Oh, cool, I get to unlock some neat new abilities," and more "Uhhhh... [ALT-TAB to browser; Google 'Pillars Cipher build']," you've got a problem.

 

Deadfire appears to be putting more of the decisionmaking at character creation, rather than at each level-up. That should be a welcome step in terms of approachability. And it is absolutely understandable that a system with the plethora of multi- and sub-classes has less within-class flexibility than one with just 11 single-classes. If making a gishy Wizard (for example) is going to require a multi-class with a more traditional melee class, that's fine with me.

 

That said, there should be more than one viable way to play any given class (single or multi). I wouldn't want to go all the way back to pre-3ED&D-style on-rails character development. That's the kind of feedback I'll be looking to provide if/when I get around to seriously tinkering with the Beta.

I know its not as bad as i am about to say but i can turn this around and say its more work upfront. So you if you want a tank you have to got through all skill trees and figure out which class can do that role and then when you come up with the handful that can do that you get to pick between them. Instead of saying oh i like rangers, I like tanks, i want tank ranger let start playing and pick abilities that fit that role. Or i like priest and i like tanks let try that and see what happens. If you did that without looking at all the abilities you would be surprised to find that not a lot of abilities or maybe few to none support that. This is where some general abilities come in handy. I get its not quite this restrictive but this is the direction POE2 is going.

 

I would say it is that restrictive at minimum.

[ghostwriter]

If a player thinks they need to take a few general talents for their build, even that means they haven't pick spells, its the choice made by ppls, and they shall be ALLOWED to do so. I really don't think your argument is very persuasive/reasonable here. It might be a newbie-trap, but thats all.

 

 

It will definitely be a newbie trap and that's no small consideration. New players tend to make choices that are the least intimidating to them which is especially applicable when it comes to spellcasters. If they are forced to choose between spells whose descriptions they can barely understand and two handed style, for example, which gives 20% extra damage, what do you think they would go for?

 

It's one thing if you choose to pass up spells because you're going for a certain build, but it's different when you don't pick spells because you don't know what you're doing. This was obviously never a choice in the first game, and I don't think it should be one here.

[Ashen Rohk]

I for one would like to see the general talents back, but you have to remember that there were more than a few that no one ever took. I think we're saying we'd like to see our favourites back like Triage/Field Medic or whatever it was called. The Slayers were cool flavour but I don't think anyone took some of the boosts to Reflex/Fortitude/Will over building their character properly.

 

It is a bit sad to see what were general abilities locked to particular classes. But as Josh said, the beta build is not feature complete so this very well may change.

[TheC]

While I definitely DO NOT want 'baby' versions of class moves for all classes, there need to be 'general' talents that any class can take (Bonus ranged accuracy/beast slayer).

There should never be a Rogue or a Barbarian doing moves like 'Flames of Devotion' or 'Prayers' unless they multiclass to those specific classes. But while focusing classes more is a good thing, the classes right now feel TOO focused. This leads to sometimes not even caring that you lvled up with some classes because there is nothing interesting to take.

[DigitalCrack]

 

If a player thinks they need to take a few general talents for their build, even that means they haven't pick spells, its the choice made by ppls, and they shall be ALLOWED to do so. I really don't think your argument is very persuasive/reasonable here. It might be a newbie-trap, but thats all.

 

It will definitely be a newbie trap and that's no small consideration. New players tend to make choices that are the least intimidating to them which is especially applicable when it comes to spellcasters. If they are forced to choose between spells whose descriptions they can barely understand and two handed style, for example, which gives 20% extra damage, what do you think they would go for?

 

It's one thing if you choose to pass up spells because you're going for a certain build, but it's different when you don't pick spells because you don't know what you're doing. This was obviously never a choice in the first game, and I don't think it should be one here.

Some places to start imo for me would be moving weapon styles (two handed, sword and shield, etc..) to proficiencies. then at least non fighter classes could still be proficient with different styles expanding their potential roles at least a little. And the fighter loses nothing by making these general proficiencies imo. Just an idea of where to start.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I don't think talents should come back, honestly. A lot of the ground they covered is now handled by multiclassing. In PoE1, if you wanted a fighty priest, you took some talents to help you. In Deadfire, you should multiclass a Fighter/Priest. The dearth of options for single-classed characters that people describe is an issue, but it has to be handled by, well, more options. That's how I see it, anyway.

[DigitalCrack]

I don't think talents should come back, honestly. A lot of the ground they covered is now handled by multiclassing. In PoE1, if you wanted a fighty priest, you took some talents to help you. In Deadfire, you should multiclass a Fighter/Priest. The dearth of options for single-classed characters that people describe is an issue, but it has to be handled by, well, more options. That's how I see it, anyway.

A lot of it just feels overly simplified. Like take the ranger all it woukd take to make it considerably more interesting is to take all its ranged only talents and make them apply to both ranged and melee. This would also make the subs more pertanent for single builds as the sharpshooter incentivises the using those talents at range but then the stalker could actually take advantage of the sam skills but in melee.

[Gromnir]

 

 

That said, there should be more than one viable way to play any given class (single or multi).  I wouldn't want to go all the way back to pre-3ED&D-style on-rails character development.  That's the kind of feedback I'll be looking to provide if/when I get around to seriously tinkering with the Beta.

 

many deadfire classes have single-class options to allow different play styles. fighters, for example, have flexibility w/o multiclassing as can go sword and board tank or more dps even w/o considering the subclasses. however, the wizard and even moreso the priest, is constrained by ability trees almost wholly bounded by their spell catalog. priests have a reduced spell catalog peppered with situational useful spells and "school" prohibitions. as such, the options for a single class priest is largely limited to the initial deity choice.  given the current situation, am not averse to seeing a few more branches to the ability trees of underprivileged classes. 

 

in general, am not in favor of deadfire replicating the open talent scheme we saw in poe.  is too many classes and subclasses to make such an open approach anything other than pure chaos. even so, there is classes which could use a little love. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[IndiraLightfoot]

While I definitely DO NOT want 'baby' versions of class moves for all classes, there need to be 'general' talents that any class can take (Bonus ranged accuracy/beast slayer).

There should never be a Rogue or a Barbarian doing moves like 'Flames of Devotion' or 'Prayers' unless they multiclass to those specific classes. But while focusing classes more is a good thing, the classes right now feel TOO focused. This leads to sometimes not even caring that you lvled up with some classes because there is nothing interesting to take.

Like others have said. This seems to be the right time for compromise:

-No full turning back to all those general talents from PoE1 - but like TheC's examples, those which fit the "general" tag. I for one Think a few weapon and armour talents could be included

-Give single classes a Little more love and choices.

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Boeroer]

My main concern is that single classes (some in particular) feel very boring atm. Maybe this can change with more levels (10-20). But now, after only a few hours, that is my impression.

 

There are things I really like - for example being able to play a corpse-eating Ogre or a Skald-Berserker. I also like some of the new abilites/spells a lot. Like the Grteat Sword summon for the priest (of Berath). It's really good (although the summoning takes too long in my opinon). I can totally see that this might be great in combo with rogue or fighter or whatever. But most of the things that I like atm are connected to multiclassing. 

 

Sure, I like builds so I judge everything based on that thought of building something unique. It's just one perpective. But still: leveling up single classes seems to be sooo boring. Priests have ZERO passives. Some of the most enjoyable priest build I had were based on melee combat. Maybe not the most powerful builds, but fun!
This problem could be solved by just giving classes more of those "shared" abilites. Monks and Druids already share some passives. I would just expand that to other classes as well. More abilites to choose from can never be a bad thing. And the amount of work is also not too big because it's just copy & paste. 

 

And I can't help it: this feels like Tyranny 2 and not PoE2. I can't even say why. Maybe the feeling that everything is so streamlined? No idea...  

 

Ah - and I really don't like the new penetration system. The old one had its drawbacks and quirks (looking at you, lashes!). But in general it was easy to understand at least. Now my Corpse-Eating Ogre has like 30 MIG and attacks with mighty force - but he can't smash a stinky Lagufaeth to death because it has 8 DR and my fat Ogre only has 7 penetration. And he can't switch weapon sets... 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[Ganrich]

@Boeroer - That Corpse-eater/Skald was one of my next ideas.  So, it works well? 

 

Also, Shifter/Troubadour is a blast.  Cast a few Druid debuffs, Spiritshift (your chants work while shifted even if you can't cast spells) and wreak havoc, when you return to kin-form you can cast a spell or two (Invocation and a Druid spell) while the CD on Spiritshift is ticking down, and you rinse and repeat since you can cast all of the spiritshifts once per encounter.  The long chant build up from Troubadour doesn't matter because you are destroying stuff while shifted anyway.  I built it around debuffs, and it works solidly. 

 

Anyway, I can see both sides of this after playing a while.  Multiclassing allows for a mega-****-ton of builds, but single classes need more variety still IMHO. 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Read all about it! "Lagufaeth Refuses to Be penetrated by Fat 30 Mig Ogre" A nightmarish, but still understandable headline...

Now my Corpse-Eating Ogre has like 30 MIG and attacks with mighty force - but he can't smash a stinky Lagufaeth to death because it has 8 DR and my fat Ogre only has 7 penetration.  

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[morhilane]

Barbarian, Rogue, Fighter and Paladin already have "weapons talents" in their "tree", it's just all unique per classes (Fighter and Rogue are the ones that force you into specific weapons the most). Ranger need a boost here (aka replace Gunner with something general and don't make them 100% ranged).

 

I didn't check Monk, so no comment there.

 

Now there is something that jump to me while looking at how the classes are made. There is 3 bucket of classes:

- depends on auto-attacks (Fighter/Paladin/Rogue/Ranger/Barbarian/Monk)

- depends on per-encounter spells (Chanter/Wizard/Priest)

- hybrid (Cipher/Druid)

 

The "weapon talents" are limited to classes that depends more on their auto-attacks, i.e. low maintenance classes, instead of depending on their per-encounter "spells". Cipher/Druid are hybrid because you can focus on either the shapeshifting/whipe improvement (passives) or picking more "spells".

 

As for the Priest, I remember the devs saying a few weeks ago that they haven't decided who spell selection would work, so I'm kinda surprised we got "Wizard-light" for them. I suspect that class is unfinished right now. Also, like the Chanter, it might be suffering from the state of the Affliction/Inspiration mechanic.

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Morihilane: For monks, see this new thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94434-frowning-upon-proficiency-page-as-a-monk/

[Enoch]

Anyway, I can see both sides of this after playing a while.  Multiclassing allows for a mega-****-ton of builds, but single classes need more variety still IMHO. 

The problem for the Devs, of course, is each new element of "variety" added to a single class spills out into 10 multi-class combinations, which consequent challenges in problematic ability interactions. 

[Christliar]

The classes in PoE1 didn't feel same-y due to the general talents, they were same-y even from a design standpoint. If they only removed general talents nobody will see a difference between the class design of P1 and 2. The classes need more creative and different ideas to make them stand out, the meager ones they had in P1 aren't enough.