Criticism of the changes to the magic system

[PrimeJunta]

One of the defining characteristics of D&D is a really big and broad magic system that's mechanically largely unrelated to the rest of the game. Casters have a big pool of spells to draw from, but they're restricted by having to rest in order to replenish them. The changes to magic in Pillars 2 pretty much sever this connection, and turn spells into just another set of abilities picked on level-up.

 

Since characters now have far fewer spells to draw on, tactical options are much more limited. Since I pick my spells on level-up, that choice is much more critical. This discourages experimentation and encourages "safe" choices -- spells that I know I'm going to use a lot. And since everything is per-encounter, I chain-cast continuously. Moreover, the decision to make Empower the per-rest resource has forced a nerf of the spells: they feel ineffectual, little more than special attacks with FX. A lot of the richness of gameplay that the IE games had and Pillars 1 retained has now been lost. Now all casters feel like ciphers or chanters (minus the "charging up") and that's a big, big loss. 

 

I really hope the team reconsiders the decision to make everything per-encounter and restrict casters with spell selection and overall weaker spells, and brings back the rich, big, broad spell selection restricted by resting instead. Everything per-encounter works fine for most other classes, but wizards and priests at least should be the exception. The old way was not only more in tune with tradition and made for richer, more creative tactics and gameplay, it was just plain more fun.

[Mikeymoonshine]

I more or less agree with all of this but I think the final decision has most likely been made already. Maybe after it's tweaked a bit and I get used to it I'll learn to appreciate this system more and I guess the combat in the first game was far from perfect anyway. 

[Novem]

It was more fun for you. I feel exactly the opposite and I always have ever since I played Baldur's Gate for the first time. A lot of this was because spells in that game were straight up far too powerful, and thus you could often not use your spells because you needed to save them for when you had to fight against enemy spellcasters. In POE2 I feel a lot more comfortable with using my spells every fight than I did in POE1, and in fact I think THAT encourages more creative strategies. Because removing options from your range of tools means that there are inherently fewer possibilities. I really like the spellcasting system in POE2, it strikes a really nice balance between POE1's Vancian system (which suffers from save scumming and balance issues) and Tyranny's far too simplified cooldown system (where spellcasters became hilariously overpowered because they could just keep casting). 

 

I agree with you about the strength of spells though. They feel much too weak in the current build. It feels like while balancing them they only took into consideration that Empowers were a thing and decided to nerf spells in general to compensate, but they forgot that they added a massive casting time where spellcasters that are poorly positioned can be easily interrupted. It's weird that something like the Priest's instant heal feels like it has an enormous impact on the pace of combat but a Fireball it took like 5 seconds to cast barely does anything.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Novem

[TheC]

You have to remember that you can use other Gregoire/spell books you find so you are not limited to the spells you pick at lvl up.

 

Also in POE1, most magic users were basically extremely weak party members most of the time as you needed to conserve spells. (which is why I loved Cypher)

 

There are also other aspects to Spells that they added that I am looking forward to testing. The sound/volume rating of spells seems very interesting in particular. If enemies target/notices the spell caster more/less depending on how loud the incantation and distance from the enemy, it would add SOOOO much to combat and spellcraft in general. I am very optimistic about the direction they are taking.

Edited November 16, 2017 by TheC

[IndiraLightfoot]

I'd like to discuss the AoE spells and the paralyze spells. Since all baddies rush around so fast, a toxic cloud in a limited area doesn't change much (I tried), and casting a web didn't do particularly much for very long either at caster lvl 6. And having my Herald use his paralyzing tune gave me percentages of success, ranging from 9% to 38%. I feel that these types of spells, control spells, need to be more reliable and impactful. Right now, they're road bumps, at best.  

[demeisen]

​Agreed with thread originator.  I feel a core differentiation of caster class gameplay mechanics is being sacrificed and replaced with a dynamic too similar to other classes.

​

Casters should be "limited, but powerful".  They usually have a few weak abilities they can use a lot, and some powerful ones which are very use-limited and need to be used carefully.

​

​There's a real risk here of losing important class diversity.

​

[Novem]

I'd like to discuss the AoE spells and the paralyze spells. Since all baddies rush around so fast, a toxic cloud in a limited area doesn't change much (I tried), and casting a web didn't do particularly much for very long either at caster lvl 6. And having my Herald use his paralyzing tune gave me percentages of success, ranging from 9% to 38%. I feel that these types of spells, control spells, need to be more reliable and impactful. Right now, they're road bumps, at best.  

 

I totally agree. Spells take a really long time to cast in this game, you would think that the impact of each spell would be greater to compensate but currently many spells feel far less impactful than they did in POE1. Especially because CC spells in particular seem to have very low rolls and are almost never greater than the Fortitude of the enemy. Most rolls seem to be in the 40-50 range, but enemy Fortitude tended to me to be 60+ in many situations from what I observed.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Novem

[Boeroer]

Also in POE1, most magic users were basically extremely weak party members most of the time as you needed to conserve spells.

This is not true. Each caster class had very useful per-encounter abilites that had a an impact on the outcome of battle. Even without spending one single spell a caster could contribute to a fight. And then you can get camping supplies like everywhere for basically nothing and inns an taverns everywhere. No reason at all to conserve spells.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Since it's all per encounter now (I haven't even touched Empower yet - it feels like it encourages rest spam), demeisen's point about "limited, but powerful" and "a few weak spam spells, and some powerful use-limited ones" is all the more valid. That magic-using order of things needs to be nailed down hard.

 And I love to add the need for reliability, if they are supposed to be this slow and limited.

 

As it is right now, I feel like the wizard has only slow, weak non-spammable spells, and fighters and paladins at least have fast, mediocre semi-spammable talents, like knock-downs and such.

 

Healing will be important in PoE2, trust me, and I've tried a few healing spells, and the casting time was nearly instant, IIRC.

 

EDIT: I forgot to add that retargeting seems broken, so it's hard to replace that toxic cloud.

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Boeroer]

 

I'd like to discuss the AoE spells and the paralyze spells. Since all baddies rush around so fast, a toxic cloud in a limited area doesn't change much (I tried), and casting a web didn't do particularly much for very long either at caster lvl 6. And having my Herald use his paralyzing tune gave me percentages of success, ranging from 9% to 38%. I feel that these types of spells, control spells, need to be more reliable and impactful. Right now, they're road bumps, at best.  

 

I totally agree. Spells take a really long time to cast in this game, you would think that the impact of each spell would be greater to compensate but currently many spells feel far less impactful than they did in POE1. Especially because CC spells in particular seem to have very low rolls and are almost never greater than the Fortitude of the enemy. Most rolls seem to be in the 40-50 range, but enemy Fortitude tended to me to be 60+ in many situations from what I observed.

 

I also agree. Most spells take too long and get interrupted too often while their effects are too weak to compensate for that.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[Novem]

 

Also in POE1, most magic users were basically extremely weak party members most of the time as you needed to conserve spells.

This is not true. Each caster class had very useful per-encounter abilites that had a an impact on the outcome of battle. Even without spending one single spell a caster could contribute to a fight. And then you can get camping supplies like everywhere for basically nothing and inns an taverns everywhere. No reason at all to conserve spells.

 

 

This is true. It's the primary reason to me that Pillars of Eternity is so much more tolerable to play than Baldur's Gate, where that was absolutely the case.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Whatever they do, daily spells are the worst and best forgotten. They're nigh-impossible to balance and mean that the classes that use them either don't contribute much or contribute overwhelmingly. Yes, in D&D spells are basically a game within a game. This is a bad thing. D&D magic is horrendously imbalanced and barely-functional.

[Infinitron]

 

I'd like to discuss the AoE spells and the paralyze spells. Since all baddies rush around so fast, a toxic cloud in a limited area doesn't change much (I tried), and casting a web didn't do particularly much for very long either at caster lvl 6. And having my Herald use his paralyzing tune gave me percentages of success, ranging from 9% to 38%. I feel that these types of spells, control spells, need to be more reliable and impactful. Right now, they're road bumps, at best.  

 

I totally agree. Spells take a really long time to cast in this game, you would think that the impact of each spell would be greater to compensate but currently many spells feel far less impactful than they did in POE1. Especially because CC spells in particular seem to have very low rolls and are almost never greater than the Fortitude of the enemy. Most rolls seem to be in the 40-50 range, but enemy Fortitude tended to me to be 60+ in many situations from what I observed.

 

 

You guys should remember that it's not clear whether the party you're given for this beta is at the power level you'll have when you get to this same area in the final game.

[Novem]

Healing will be important in PoE2, trust me, and I've tried a few healing spells, and the casting time was nearly instant, IIRC.

 

EDIT: I forgot to add that retargeting seems broken, so it's hard to replace that toxic cloud.

 

I noticed much the same thing. Priests feel super powerful now, since even the early power level heal can get back about 25+ percent of someone's HP and the cast time is like 0.25 seconds.

 

I also had retarget break for me at some points. More than once the icon to reposition the spell would disappear. Plus, I'd appreciate it if they made it so recasting the same spell re-positioned it instead of cancelling.

 

 

You guys should remember that it's not clear whether the party you're given for this beta is at the power level you'll have when you get to this same area in the final game.

 

But the content was level-scaled, was it not? These problems are as such perfectly valid, because it could mean that the level scaling is not functioning as intended.

[theBalthazar]

 

Since characters now have far fewer spells to draw on, tactical options are much more limited. Since I pick my spells on level-up, that choice is much more critical. This discourages experimentation and encourages "safe" choices --

 

 

Exact. In the same way, personnaly, I will have to add a lot of TALENT/SPELLS.

 

Excuse-me obsidian, excuse-me for that (I like a lot of things in the beta) BUT... Personnaly I expected 2 news spells by level/line AND much more new talents.

 

Because yes, IF YOU want stay in this "locked" (Class bound) system, the importance of number of talent in each CLASS TREE is -critical-. (Like x 2, easily, for me...)

 

OR, to stay with less talents (like POE1), but in general pool.

 

If not, I am a little bit... disappointed.

 

It is a new game, not an extension.

Edited November 16, 2017 by theBalthazar

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

Since characters now have far fewer spells to draw on, tactical options are much more limited. Since I pick my spells on level-up, that choice is much more critical. This discourages experimentation and encourages "safe" choices --

 

 

Exact. In the same way, personnaly, I will have to add a lot of TALENT/SPELLS.

 

Excuse-me obsidian, excuse-me for that (I like a lot of things in the beta) BUT... Personnaly I expected 2 news spells by level/line AND much more new talents.

 

Because yes, IF YOU want stay in this "locked" (Class bound) system, the importance of number of talent in each CLASS TREE is -critical-. (Like x 2, easily, for me...)

 

OR, stay with less talents, but in general pool.

 

If not, I am a little bit... disappointed.

 

Yup, and very soon there will be guides on the internet, based on meta-knowledge, telling you that there is only one correct path in that very limited spell tree to take. This gets claustrophobic very quickly. 

[Novem]

Excuse-me obsidian, excuse-me for that (I like a lot of things in the beta) BUT... Personnaly I expected 2 news spells by level/line AND much more new talents.

 

I agree with this. I think the intention was to make it so you aren't overwhelmed by abilities, but right now levelling is really slow so only getting one talent when you pick from so many feels really sucky and like I'm not making as much progress as I should. I've also had multiple situations where I've unlocked a new power level for my spells, but I hadn't picked all of the options I wanted from the power level I'm currently on.

 

What I think they should do is give you one talent point for an active and one talent point for a passive ability every level. And maybe on multiclassed characters, you would get that for both of your classes but only once every other level to balance things out. Right now it feels like there's a ton of things I want to try or feel I need for my build, but most of it is out of reach.

[Gfted1]

...(where spellcasters became hilariously overpowered because they could just keep casting).

I don't understand this line of thinking. In the PoE universe, spells don't scale. For example, the Chill Fog spell does roughly the same damage as a War bow. Yet for some reason casters need to be "reigned in" via hard casting limits while physical weapons can attack all_day_long without restriction. How are casters OP without casting limits?

[Infinitron]

 

But the content was level-scaled, was it not? These problems are as such perfectly valid, because it could mean that the level scaling is not functioning as intended.

 

 

Well, there's also the matter of items. In particular relevant to this thread - grimoires.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Infinitron

[Novem]

 

...(where spellcasters became hilariously overpowered because they could just keep casting).

I don't understand this line of thinking. In the PoE universe, spells don't scale. For example, the Chill Fog spell does roughly the same damage as a War bow. Yet for some reason casters need to be "reigned in" via hard casting limits while physical weapons can attack all_day_long without restriction. How are casters OP without casting limits?

 

 

Just to make sure you understand, I said that in reference to Tyranny, not Pillars of Eternity. And spellcasters were very, very powerful in that game both due to having rather short cooldowns and because the spell crafting system was capable of creating incredibly powerful magic.

 

As far as Chill Fog is concerned, that spell inflicts a blind and it's an AOE that lasts a while. A war bow only hits a single target. The reason spellcasters are OP without limitations is because they can do things like that without limits, and that means that as long as the people standing on the front stay alive, you can keep doing that damage and applying that crowd control consistently. This is particularly overpowered with healing spells. Combine both of these things and not only are spellcasters OP but they can keep fights going for a very, very long time.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I just did a mental recap of all of my encounters yesterday, and I got more magic out of my mercenary wizard's fine quality rod than her grimoire and spell collection.

It's a kind of magic, as Queen put it, but it's not that impressive.

[Gfted1]

Just to make sure you understand, I said that in reference to Tyranny, not Pillars of Eternity. And spellcasters were very, very powerful in that game both due to having rather short cooldowns and because the spell crafting system was capable of creating incredibly powerful magic.

 

As far as Chill Fog is concerned, that spell inflicts a blind and it's an AOE that lasts a while. A war bow only hits a single target. The reason spellcasters are OP without limitations is because they can do things like that without limits, and that means that as long as the people standing on the front stay alive, you can keep doing that damage and applying that crowd control consistently. This is particularly overpowered with healing spells. Combine both of these things and not only are spellcasters OP but they can keep fights going for a very, very long time.

I do understand that you were referring to Tyranny, but casting limits have been a staple in almost all games. I don't want to get mired in the various secondary affects so lets switch the example to Minoletta Minor Missile. Straight up single target damage with no secondary. Using your example, with a Wizard and Ranger standing shoulder to shoulder in the back rank plinking away at the tanked mook, why is the mage done after a few casts but the Ranger is not? Maybe a system that offers spells that are unlimited and with spells that have limits is too weird?

 

I think at one time lower level spells were to become unlimited while the higher level ones would retain casting limits, but that plan went into the tank afaik.

[Novem]

I do understand that you were referring to Tyranny, but casting limits have been a staple in almost all games. I don't want to get mired in the various secondary affects so lets switch the example to Minoletta Minor Missile. Straight up single target damage with no secondary. Using your example, with a Wizard and Ranger standing shoulder to shoulder in the back rank plinking away at the tanked mook, why is the mage done after a few casts but the Ranger is not? Maybe a system that offers spells that are unlimited and with spells that have limits is too weird?

 

I think at one time lower level spells were to become unlimited while the higher level ones would retain casting limits, but that plan went into the tank afaik.

 

 

I think that kind of spell is actually perfectly fine with a cooldown. Healing and crowd control effects are the one's that are a real problem with a cooldown. As long as it's long enough that the spell can't be easily spammed, a pure single target damage spell is fine. Though it does kinda make you wonder what the point of such a thing even is. Kind of a boring spell, especially since it's an instant cast. It'd be more interesting if it did something like make for easy interrupts.

 

That sounds interesting, but I can see why they didn't do it. That seems too powerful. I liked how in the first POE you could unlock specific lower level spells as per encounter. I would like something like that again, per encounter (or even on cooldown), but separated from your cast limit.

[PrimeJunta]

.... moreover ....

 

the long casting times aren't doing it for me

 

Non-Empowered spells (also some cipher abilities) are pretty low-impact. With the long casting times and the consequent risk of getting interrupted, a lot of the time they just aren't worth it: I feel that I'd be better off straight-up attacking. 

 

Put another way, casters aren't much fun anymore. It's like the system is designed with martial classes in mind, and it works quite well for them, but surely that can't be the intention.

[IndiraLightfoot]

At least at level 6, it seems like even if the Wizard was able to spam the spells she has, it would still not compete vs a good melee build. 

Then you know something is wrong.

Edited November 16, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot