SAWYERISM BETRAYED - Might turns back into Strength, Resolve will affect spell damage

[Osvir]

 

A foolish goal if there ever was one. No bad builds can only happen if your choices have next to no consequences, which is in essence the least interesting way to make an RPG. I think Josh among others have realized this mistake.

 

Ambitious, not foolish. An idea that your choice of attributes should change the way your class plays rather than making it unplayable is a good one. If picking a class forces you to choose certain attributes, than there is no point of an attribute system as class already defined it. Later D&D edition made the system better, but frankly the whole thing is extremely convoluted. 

 

Never played PnP D&D but as much as I love IE games and NWN2 the system doesn't really translated well into real time cRPG. Searching for new way of doing things (even if it creates new problems) is the only way forward I can think of.

 

What if Attributes was a value shown on the screen during Character Creation through all screens? All having a value of 10. Choosing Race, Sub-Race, Class, Sub-Class etc. giving +1 or -1.

 

Brainstorming an even more advanced "version" would be to include Abilities into it too... "Mirror Image" giving +1 Dexterity, but maybe -1 Constitution. Of course, not everything would have to have Pro's and Con's. Just brainstorming.

 

Or points invested in a Class giving +1/-1. E.g. in the case of a Single-Class Fighter, putting points in the Tree giving +1 Constitution or something. And in the case of a Multi-Class, let's say Fighter/Wizard, getting +1 Con for every point into Fighter, and maybe +1 Int every point into Wizard.

 

Convulated and difficult to track sure. I'm just writing up stuff~ might inspire someone to find or see something better *shrug*

 

In the case of such a system, or similar system, perhaps a lower starting value for all the Attributes would be better, so that Attributes evens out at Max Level and reaches the current Max Attribute values.

 

It's an indirect way to deal with Attributes. Players still having choices and control of how their Attributes spreads out, but over time rather than at the get-go. Could fit with Deadfire's plot too how you get down back to Level 1 and get to start all over, regaining your former power level over the course of the game~

[Wormerine]

 

- The people who want Might first did so simply because they wanted to be perceived as different and sophisticated, and now they have argued so long for it that they cannot change their 'side' even though they know that they are wrong. This stuff should be obvious to anyone who isn't a complete loon.

Uhm. Using bulverism followed by appeal to shame doesn't look really efficient in making a point.

 

Ninjamestari constantly tries to pass an intimidation check.

 

 

The answer is probalby business related - licensing, money, etc. So they went with their own ruleset. Here's another question - does it need to be complex? Like for example take a look at Dragon Age Origins. I think it's overrated but it's a nice game nevertheless. Obviously it's roots are in D&D but does it have a complex new ruleset? No, it doesn't. It has a simple system of skills and classes which works for that specific game.

Licensing is one issue, the other is that tabletop design is different than cRPG design. It seems like Obsidian tried to create their own system, inspired by D&D, but one that would better support structure and design of IE games. In many ways they succeeded. Some aspects still could use improvement.

 

The simpler the better, as long as its as complex as it needs to be. DA:O in my book is a great example of a game which went way too far, making gameplay flat, uninteresting and samey. 

[Ninjamestari]

The simpler the better, as long as its as complex as it needs to be. DA:O in my book is a great example of a game which went way too far, making gameplay flat, uninteresting and samey. 

 

 

If you think DA:O went too far, I wonder what you think of inquisition xD

[Wormerine]

 

The simpler the better, as long as its as complex as it needs to be. DA:O in my book is a great example of a game which went way too far, making gameplay flat, uninteresting and samey. 

 

 

If you think DA:O went too far, I wonder what you think of inquisition xD

 

I didn't play it. As it requires Origin I probably won't. 

[Ninjamestari]

A wise decision.

[gGeorg]

Great ideas people.

Lot of your new improvements rise the game complexity.

Complexity is good to some point, where it helps to simulate a working world, however an abstract is required to keep it gamey. Fun, you know.

Huge amount of races, subraces, clasess, subclases, signleclases, multiclasess and their all variations is insane already.

 

Could I play this game as commoner, or do I need a master degree of Obsidian Order, like half year of intense course to be able go thru tutorial ?

Edited December 30, 2017 by gGeorg

[Lephys]

^Meh... if it's all intuitively and concisely designed, almost any amount of complexity works well. You learn the basics of attacking in combat, then you learn of a couple of other things you can do to affect that, etc. Or, you even have things like Dragon's Dogma, in which a lot of the complexity is just discovering that X affects Y. It's not so much 730 different controls you have to juggle. Granted, a lot of the things in that game aren't very intuitive (like how pawn behavior works in accordance with the various dispositions -- it just doesn't tell you the rules well enough, and that system could've been designed better).

 

So yeah, if you've gotta use every single key on your keyboard just to play the game -- if you're QWOP-controlling your characters legs and ankles to get all 5 party members to jog around in combat at the same time -- that's terrible. If there are just a whole ton of different cool interactions, effects, and results to be had as a consequence of concise and intuitive controls for choice-making, then the more complexity the merrier.

 

 

Now, as to the whole "Might -- an awesome idea, or a terrible idea?" subdiscussion that's been going on over the last couple of pages... The problem with Might is not that it consolidated all damage into one stat conveniently. That's the only good thing it did, but the problem is that it's still a stat. If they just removed damage altogether from the stat system, and the only way you could do it was via talents or something (i.e. "+7 damage with ranged weapons, or magic, etc,."), then that would work nicely. However, to have stats that individually represent different things, then just say "one of them's gonna do stuff for EVERYTHING!", that contradicts itself. It would be like putting all your damage mitigation into one stat, and just going "Meh, damage mitigation is damage mitigation. This makes it easy." No... it makes it lame. Might as well just combine all the magic spells into one class, since magic is magic. The same effect is achieved. The same lessening.

[Qumi]

This is a single player game... if somebody enjoys optimizing, I don't see an issue with that. 

 

I personally like the change, Resolve always felt to me a bit uninteresting mechanically, I've only picked it cuz I liked a conversation style characters. Also, since casters are usually low hp and defenses, it makes a good combination.

[Jojobobo]

Personally I think if you're going to have an import system from PoE 1 to PoE 2, it's better for several non-subjective reasons to keep attributes more or less true to their original incarnations rather than change their function. I think regardless of all the subjective abstract ideas about whether Strength or Might is better, the idea of any sort of import (even if you don't import their attributes) makes such a change jarring.

 

From my point of view, the main issue was that in PoE 1 one of Resolve's primary advantages was Concentration. In Deadfire, the interrupt system was more or less done away with, and so Resolve lost an advantage. What the interrupt system was replaced with was longer casting times, as with nothing to interrupt a caster any more it made sense to have casting times longer (though admittedly this solved other problems too, like Vancian casting).

 

So why not have Resolve receive a new advantage to reflect its lost advantage and the changes to core game mechanics? As I've said elsewhere, I think Resolve should now increase casting speed for spells and abilities (at the 5% level most likely, giving how long casting times are) which reflects the changes to the game mechanics, and Strength should go back to Might.

 

This would give it some overlap with Dexterity, but Dexterity itself already overlaps with effects that reduce Recovery, so I don't really think that is a problem - and it certainly seems more elegant than lifting mechanics from Might and dumping them into Resolve. Dexterity could also be buffed slightly, something along the lines of, "5% attack speed bonus to physical attacks, 3% speed bonus to all other actions". Way too often in PoE 1, people would just reduce Recovery to optimise DPS, this would now give Dexterity a much larger role in melee DPS while keeping it not useless to casters (as for optimal casting DPS, you would need both Dex and Resolve).

 

If you moderate ability casting times well enough, Resolve could also be not entirely a dump stat for melee classes too (or at least only for the most pure of melee fighters who use abilities hardly at all).

 

Sawyerism would be restored, stats reflect their PoE 1 counterparts, something is done about the tedious casting times, there would be no obvious dump stats and everyone would get a nice cake of their choosing on their birthdays.

[lostwormonitswayhome]

I personally don't like the change to strength from might and moving spell damage to be a function of resolve for three reasons.

 

1) I think people have a good point regarding limiting the effectiveness for potential multiclass combos as well as certain classes.

 

2) it creates dump stats. Dump stats are bad. It should be possible to design the attributes in such a way that while they are not equal to all classes, they are at least appealing to all classes. This does not mean that all attribute builds need to be equivalent in terms of function. They may be able to accomplish different things and thus perform differently though (somewhat) equally.

 

3) Might reflected the Pillars setting. If I remember correctly it was intended to represent the might of the soul, which jives with the setting. I understand the desire to find an allure for resolve, but I think that if a stat is generally considered a dump stat, perhaps it should not exist. Why does PoE need specifically six attributes? My most ideal situation (probably too late in the development cycle) would be to redistribute the functions of attributes into the number of attributes NECESSARY to make all attributes appealing. I haven't put much thought into it, but Pillars could probably achieve this with 4 or 5 attributes. Further, I think it would make sense to rename the new list of attributes to give names that can apply to a person's very being rather than a physical or mental characteristic in order for the attributes to describe the soul of the character. For example, dexterity could be renamed to swiftness or celerity, (doesn't roll off the tongue but this is off the top of my head), as either could be envisioned to be applied to mental or physical actions.

Edited January 10, 2018 by lostwormonitswayhome

[Tigranes]

At this point, either Might or Strength will; have legions of people complain about how it's unrealistic or whatnot. Given how people opposed Might when it was first proposed, I think it's fair to say that's not the key problem - you get used to it, they are all abstractions and they're both pretty reasonable ones. So it really should be purely a factor of gameplay.

[Jojobobo]

I was trying to think about it's impact on gameplay in more detail. I think the way I see it is, in PoE 1:

 

1) Pure tanks would go for high Res for Deflection, and middling to good-ish Might.

2) Offensive builds had the option of dumping Res, and could instead rely on healing from Might to make up for it.

 

This offering two clean broadly applicable paradigms to character building, as if one stat was poor (Res or Might) you could get by as a while rounded character to an extent with the other. Any character, from any class, could be balanced to be self-sufficient to an extent with these principles. Now with what's proposed for PoE 2:

 

1) Pure tanks benefit a lot, getting healing on top of Deflection.

2) Casters benefit a lot, getting damage as well as healing as well as Deflection.

3) Physical attackers get a big slap in the face, losing a defensive benefit while already likely dumping Resolve and having low Deflection.

 

I think the whole split was to give casters large benefits to make people less concerned about their casting times, but I'm not a fan that approach as it means physical attackers have been unduly punished and left in the dust. It seems like there's no easy way to make melee guys self-sustaining without compromising heavily on damage or DPS. I liked that potentially you previously didn't need any sort of Cleric in PoE 1 to support melee characters if you didn't want one, it seems like this has stopped being the case and strong melee characters are also now entirely unsustainable if you wanted to solo them too.

 

I think it also makes Strength too niche an attribute, giving that it only provides a single benefit, which is precisely why people are complaining about Con currently (and were complaining about Res before the change).

 

I guess I think that healing should still go back to Strength to appropriately divvy up defensive benefits more equally between casters and melee attackers, and the shortfall of casters should be addressed more or less independently from the whole attribute discussion. This would at least go back to making each style of build self-sustaining to an extent (melee attackers would get high healing, casters would get high Deflection), which I would say plays better as it's a bit of a drag to have melee attackers highly dependent on clerics for survival if you want to go for damage and DPS.

 

Really I think the devs should have looked at solving the casting problem first (potentially implicating Resolve) and then try and fix attributes. It seemed like the more fundamental problem, from an outsider perspective. However, if they're insisting this is the way forward, healing should revert to Strength in my opinion for the reasons stated.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Jojobobo