What exactly are 'power levels'?

[thelee]

I only kind of half pay attention to news about the backer beta (no watching twitch streams, just the email updates), so sorry if I'm missing some context.

 

But several abilities in the game reference "power levels" in a way that doesn't make sense to me. I thought "power levels" were just an abstraction for the purposes of multi-classing, but some of the cipher kit descriptions, for example, imply that you can get buffs/debuffs that modify your power level. I'm not sure what this means in terms of game mechanics, and there's no in-game tooltip for it, nor can I see any obvious effect in other tooltips (like an ability that says it gets stronger based on your power level).

 

So please, help a backer beta noob out: what on earth is a power level in this context?

Edited December 14, 2017 by thelee

[Heijoushin]

You know what? That's a good question. We know that the "pure" (single) classes gain power levels more quickly to reflect their focus on a single power source, but the link between power levels and individual abilities is a bit blurry. I guess I always assumed that the power levels just added a few bonus points of damage across the board.

 

Perhaps one of the more technical minded backers could elaborate?

[Katarack21]

You know what? That's a good question. We know that the "pure" (single) classes gain power levels more quickly to reflect their focus on a single power source, but the link between power levels and individual abilities is a bit blurry. I guess I always assumed that the power levels just added a few bonus points of damage across the board.

Josh said in the recent stream that power levels effect *everything*; health, accuracy, penetration, number of projectiles, etc. However, I'm not clear on what exactly it is or how exactly it works. The connection between Power Levels, actual Levels, and you actual abilities...I do not understand.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Katarack21

[dunehunter]

Power level feels useless to melee class.

Edited December 15, 2017 by dunehunter

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Mine is over 9,000

[Heijoushin]

Played a quick game with a wizard now. When casting a spell, the power levels seem to give bonuses to accuracy and penetration, though not to damage ironically. 

[SaruNi]

As for spells:

 

 

Generally speaking, increased Power Level gives a spell more Accuracy, Penetration, and Damage/Healing (a small amount per Power Level). Additionally, we do some further scaling based on the type of spell it is. A spell will get additional scaling based on the following criteria (as soon as a spell matches one of the following criteria, it stops, so you don't get all of the following on any one spell):

• A spell with a projectile that bounces (Spreading Plague) will gain more bounces. Each PL is a fractional bounce, so it takes a couple of bonus Power Levels to see an additional Bounce.
• A spell with multiple projectiles will gain more projectiles. Each PL is a fractional additional projectile, so it takes a couple of bonus Power Levels to see an additional projectile.
• A spell that deals damage or applies effects with a duration will increase the damage/healing amount and duration of the applied effects.
• Anything that doesn't meet the above criteria gets bonus Accuracy.

 

The UI and tooltips aren't always accurate, but it seems like summoned creatures and summoned weapons only get a bonus to duration. 

 

Apparently the damage bonus for most spells/abilities isn't getting listed in the tooltips or the UI, just the penetration and accuracy bonuses (except for Soul Ignition, which has no penetration listed in the tooltip and is treated as 0 penetration in the UI combat log, but whose tooltip lists a significant bonus to damage from power level)?....

Edited December 15, 2017 by SaruNi

[ShakotanSolari]

I think it would be nice if there were an option to see exactly how higher power levels will effect each ability or spell simply by looking at it's description.

[Katarack21]

I think it would be nice if there were an option to see exactly how higher power levels will effect each ability or spell simply by looking at it's description.

That would go a long way towards making things more clear.

[Heijoushin]

I think it would be nice if there were an option to see exactly how higher power levels will effect each ability or spell simply by looking at it's description.

 

Yup. I feel like a lot of information is left out of spell descriptions, especially at character creation. While an information overload might be confusing to new players, it would be nice to be able to "look under the hood" if you want. 

[peddroelm]

I "they" won't provide them somebody needs to either dig up or reverse engineer the progression formula for all those stats "everything" health, accuracy, penetration, number of projectiles, etc. 

and then judge the influence of the power levels from there ..

[Katarack21]

I'm honestly not a fan of the whole Power Level system. At this point I find it very unclear and needlessly confusing.

[AndreaColombo]

I did mention in a post in this thread:

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94591-ui-minor-ease-of-use-tweak-request/?fromsearch=1

 

That it would be nice if tooltips could show the effect of Empower on abilities and spells. As Josh mentioned in the latest stream, all Empower does is add 10 power levels to the ability it applies to. At this point, a section in the tooltip that shows the effects of +1 power level would suffice; we could take it from there.

 

I like the mechanic myself. It’s kewl to have spells, especially, scale with power level and gain additional projectiles and bounces. As is the case with many mechanics in Deadfire, it just needs better communication via the UI.

Edited December 15, 2017 by AndreaColombo

[Katarack21]

I like the mechanic myself. It’s kewl to have spells, especially, scale with power level and gain additional projectiles and bounces.

Right, but why does that have to be tied to a separate and arcane system from the actual leveling system? I *love* having spells and abilities scale--I just don't like have to figure out Power Levels and how they work themselves. I'd rather it was a simple "as you level your spells scale" system.

 

I'm pretty sure Power Levels was implemented as an internal tracking mechanism that makes things easier on *their* end. It's just another level of arcane system added on top of an already complex system, to me.

[AndreaColombo]

The problem with making spells scale with actual character levels instead of power levels is that multiclassed casters would be straight-up better than their single-classed counterparts. Scaling via power level is a way to give single-classed casters an edge (the extent to which that edge is effective is of course debatable; but IMO the principle is sound.)

 

It’s the UI’s job to explain to you how the mechanics work in a way that is informative and unambiguous. I think we can all agree that the Deadfire UI in its current implementation falls short in that department.

[Sedrefilos]

It's very clear and simple: power levels are levels of power.

[Katarack21]

The problem with making spells scale with actual character levels instead of power levels is that multiclassed casters would be straight-up better than their single-classed counterparts.

I meant make spells scale with class level, not character level. From what I understand, it's like you said--Power Levels were implemented as a way to control interactions with multiclassing and control the exact placement of abilities, spells, etc. by tracking power levels. As a bonus, since *everything* is attached to power levels they can also use +power level as a modifier, but I believe the intent was for an internal mechanism to track and control the distribution of numbers easier on their side of things.

 

From a player standpoint, I don't think Power Levels add anything useful, but just make things murkier and harder to track by adding an extra layer of number and system complexity.

[Sedrefilos]

I don't know how it works 'cause I haven't played th ebeta but I do believe, too, that is an extra complication that shouldn't be there. If abilities became better with each character level that would have been much clearer and easy to grasp.

 

I understand the devs wanted to have "single" dual-class characters that gained levels the same eway as the others but at the end they couldn't reach the full potential of a single class, so they implemented power levels.

 

What if multiclass characters gained levels slower and had a lower level cap, say 17 instead of 20. Could it work so the game sticks to the initial philosophy while keeping a unified system based on character levels at the same time instead of adding power levels to the mix?

[JerekKruger]

Personally I like the idea of power levels, though I agree the tooltips really need to do a better job of explaining how they interact with various spells and abilities (which I am sure they will on release).

 

As for using character levels instead, one of the things that power levels do is allow a more elegant way to boost the power of spells and abilities. For example, a Nature Godlike gets +2 power level if they are under the effect of a Might, Constitution or Dexterity Inspiration which, if it were couched in terms of character levels would have to be "spells and abilities are cast as though by a character of 1 level higher" or something similarly inelegant. Power levels separate out the ability scaling part of levelling up from things like getting extra hit points, which I like.

[Sedrefilos]

Personally I like the idea of power levels, though I agree the tooltips really need to do a better job of explaining how they interact with various spells and abilities (which I am sure they will on release).

 

As for using character levels instead, one of the things that power levels do is allow a more elegant way to boost the power of spells and abilities. For example, a Nature Godlike gets +2 power level if they are under the effect of a Might, Constitution or Dexterity Inspiration which, if it were couched in terms of character levels would have to be "spells and abilities are cast as though by a character of 1 level higher" or something similarly inelegant. Power levels separate out the ability scaling part of levelling up from things like getting extra hit points, which I like.

I see. Yes in that way they are more flexible than using standard levels. Still the concept is a bit confusing. Maybe an indication in ability trees helped. Like there are 3 columns if I'm not wrong: one shows power level the others the abilities. Maybe they should just write on top of the fiest column "Power Level", like they write "Active Abilities" and "Passive Abilities". It'll be clear what this 0-9 is.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[JerekKruger]

I see. Yes in that way they are more flexible than using standard levels. Still the concept is a bit confusing. Maybe an indication in ability trees helped. Like there are 3 columns if I'm not wrong: one shows power level the others the abilities. Maybe they should just write on top of the fiest column "Power Level", like they write "Active Abilities" and "Passive Abilities". It'll be clear what this 0-9 is.

 

Definitely, but I assume (or hope at least) that much of the current UI is very much a work in progress and things like this will be improved for release.

[AndreaColombo]

Agreed. Though I believe the devs rely a lot on our feedback to make changes to the UI; such was my impression after listening to Josh and Brian on the latest stream. I would encourage everyone to contribute to the thread I linked earlier with ideas and suggestions to make things clearer, unambiguous and user-friendly.

[Sedrefilos]

Agreed. Though I believe the devs rely a lot on our feedback to make changes to the UI; such was my impression after listening to Josh and Brian on the latest stream. I would encourage everyone to contribute to the thread I linked earlier with ideas and suggestions to make things clearer, unambiguous and user-friendly.

Posted there AndreaColombo. Nice thread. Thanks for the reminder!

[Katarack21]

Personally I like the idea of power levels, though I agree the tooltips really need to do a better job of explaining how they interact with various spells and abilities (which I am sure they will on release).

 

As for using character levels instead, one of the things that power levels do is allow a more elegant way to boost the power of spells and abilities. For example, a Nature Godlike gets +2 power level if they are under the effect of a Might, Constitution or Dexterity Inspiration which, if it were couched in terms of character levels would have to be "spells and abilities are cast as though by a character of 1 level higher" or something similarly inelegant. Power levels separate out the ability scaling part of levelling up from things like getting extra hit points, which I like.

What's so confusing about "+1 Caster level"? It's only the standard way to describe ability and spell scaling in pretty much every game ever made, used and understood by just about anybody ever. You say "+1 Power Level", okay, that's great...once you explain what a power level does, in detail, so we can understand what that means. Once we learn to integrate the power level system, once it's explained and we learn how it works, once we learn this additional system.

 

But other, simpler and more direct setups that didn't involve additional complex systems, would have worked fine, too. That's my point. Not that Power Level is bad; just that it's another later of complexity that obfuscates the system and isn't necessary.

[Wormerine]

I do also agree that power mechanic is good but needs better presentation. I would personally like to see power levels listed in skill tree sheet (as well as this sheet being visible outside levelling) to easily check how much power levels I gain, and when I will reach new power levels.

 

I would also like to see how power level influences skills when checking its discrition and how much it gains with each power lvl. I would also like to see “empowered” version’s stats under regular ones.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Wormerine