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Casting times... and grazes

kbot

By kbot
in Backer Beta Discussion

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kbot

kbot

Posted
Posted

I apologize in advance for the harshness of this post.  I am a big fan of the developers and loved POE1 and CRPGs in general. Now that is out of the way...

 

The POE2 cast times are, to put it as gently as possible, terrible. I know the developers are aware of this, but really, they can't be made aware of it enough. I think I've got 450+ hours in POE1 (hard and POTD) and I struggle to push my way through a second play through of beta. Not due to difficulty - but due to how unenjoyable casters are. I'm not a grognard, I can deal with change. I know "it's just beta" (Insert your standard disclaimers here). It's just not fun watching my casters sit around for 3-9 (!) seconds to cast a spell (that might just miss, since graze no longer exists) followed by a 3 second recovery.

 

Probably my biggest fear is that the game is already balanced too deeply based upon these cast times to change. Say it ain't so?

 

 

 

 

  • Like 3
AndreaColombo

AndreaColombo

Posted
Posted

Fairly sure they also said they’re looking into casting times.

  • Like 1

"Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

— Fall-From-Grace, Planescape: Torment

"It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question, and he'll look for his own answers."

— Kvothe, The Wise Man's Fears

My Deadfire mods: Brilliant Mod | Faster Deadfire | Deadfire Unnerfed | Helwalker Rekke | Permanent Per-Rest Bonuses | PoE Items for Deadfire | No Recyled Icons | Soul Charged Nautilus

 

Wormerine

Wormerine

Posted
Posted

I personally really like casting times. PoE's spells were very effective, but casting them felt unsatisfying. No doubt there is some serious balancing still to do.

  • Like 1
Clean&Clear

Clean&Clear

Posted
Posted

I personally really like casting times. PoE's spells were very effective, but casting them felt unsatisfying. No doubt there is some serious balancing still to do.

 

This.

I also love the long casting times, the problem atm is in spells not having enough of an impact after they have been casted. Rather then having quick casted spells that barely do anything, I would like to have long casted spells with significant impact. With long casting times, another strategic layer of interrupting enemy casters and not getting interrupted yourself while casting comes into play, which is good.

  • Like 3
AndreaColombo

AndreaColombo

Posted
Posted (edited)

The problem is that if it takes my caster 10 to achieve the same result my melee guys do in 5, there’s no reason for me to take a caster. (Numbers are in an arbitrary unit of time for the sake of exemplifying.)

 

At present, by the time I’m done casting most enemies are dead or badly hurt. My melee guys got it; no need for the caster to do anything. Also no reason for summoned weapons to be anything but fast cast, to be honest :)

Edited by AndreaColombo
  • Like 2

"Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

— Fall-From-Grace, Planescape: Torment

"It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question, and he'll look for his own answers."

— Kvothe, The Wise Man's Fears

My Deadfire mods: Brilliant Mod | Faster Deadfire | Deadfire Unnerfed | Helwalker Rekke | Permanent Per-Rest Bonuses | PoE Items for Deadfire | No Recyled Icons | Soul Charged Nautilus

 

Wormerine

Wormerine

Posted
Posted

The problem is that if it takes my caster 10 to achieve the same result my melee guys do in 5, there’s no reason for me to take a caster. (Numbers are in an arbitrary unit of time for the sake of exemplifying.)

At present, by the time I’m done casting most enemies are dead or badly hurt. My melee guys got it; no need for the caster to do anything. Also no reason for summoned weapons to be anything but fast cast, to be honest :)

Sure, Therefore rebalancing is needed, whenever it is shortening casting time or increasing spells effectiveness. If you use one handed weapons on you melee keep in mind that those are broken right now. They don’t have recovery time, resulting in way higher DPS than intended. Will be fixed in next update.

AndreaColombo

AndreaColombo

Posted
Posted

I know. I elevated the achievement of no recovery on my frontline to an art, though, so it won’t super make a difference for me ;)

"Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

— Fall-From-Grace, Planescape: Torment

"It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question, and he'll look for his own answers."

— Kvothe, The Wise Man's Fears

My Deadfire mods: Brilliant Mod | Faster Deadfire | Deadfire Unnerfed | Helwalker Rekke | Permanent Per-Rest Bonuses | PoE Items for Deadfire | No Recyled Icons | Soul Charged Nautilus

 

kbot

kbot

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Eh, if they beef up spells to compensate for the longer cast times, they would feel better. Not sure I'd like the pace, personally, but at least it's workable/improvement, and you can feel like a return on taking the time to cast a spell. Right now, you have the worst of both worlds:

 

Long cast time

Little result

 

It's readily apparent just by glancing at POE1 spell list. Concelhaunt's staff, for example, was a "fast" (.5 second) spell in POE1. Now it is 6 seconds (plus 3 second recovery time). That's 8.5 seconds before you can even do anything with it.

 

I wish this was an outlier but that's common across the board. More disheartening is JS seems to think people think casters are slow just because melee is moving at a brisk pace and/or some bugs with melee. No. People think casters are slow because most everything takes an additional 3-8.5 seconds.

theBalthazar

theBalthazar

Posted
Posted

The main problem is.

 

Long cast time = risk of auto-interrupt.

 

"Holy crap, I MUST heal my team... and I charge since 8 seconds..."

 

If atm you cut your move = Big loss of time AND loss of power source point.

 

No this system is very very bad...

dunehunter

dunehunter

Posted
Posted (edited)

The bg2 system has similar cast time... A lot cleric spell takes very long to cast. But the maximum is around 6 second I think, and they can be cast before battle...

 

And there are a lot method to fasten your spells, some gears, spell sequencer and etc.

 

If the Deadfire wanna keep the cast time long, they really really need to enhance the spell effect. Now the spells have the same damage/radius and duration as POE 1, but with longer cast time.  They should be either fast and low effect or slow but devastating.

 

I remember in some video they said the cast time is longer but the spell would be more powerful, I only see the former not the latter.

Edited by dunehunter
  • Like 1
theBalthazar

theBalthazar

Posted
Posted (edited)
And there are a lot method to fasten your spells, some gears, spell sequencer and etc.

 

 

Like Physical classes.

 

Atm, there is no wizard, cipher and priest in my projected team. Truly...

 

1 abilitie point = 1 spell point now.

 

Disciplined barrage (Instant) VS The excellent... the wondrous Necrotic Lance (6 seconds). I hesitate... I hesitate...

 

No seriously...

Edited by theBalthazar
  • Like 1
dunehunter

dunehunter

Posted
Posted

 

And there are a lot method to fasten your spells, some gears, spell sequencer and etc.

 

 

Like Physical classes.

 

Atm, there is no wizard, cipher and priest in my projected team. Truly...

 

1 abilitie point = 1 spell point now.

 

Disciplined barrage (Instant) VS The excellent... the wondrous Necrotic Lance (6 seconds). I hesitate... I hesitate...

 

No seriously...

 

 

I mean bg2 :p

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