Casters are still slow...

[theBalthazar]

The idea is good yes. But Pillars is not Original Sin. There is no battle of 10-15 minutes.

 

So casters with long cast time suffer of bottleneck effect (I don't if this term exist in english)

 

In short, it is like rogue arquebus+stealth against an ennemy with 2 pv left.

 

It is better to attack more frequently but with less damage.

 

This is two reasons for not taking this option.

[Breckmoney]

The idea is good yes. But Pillars is not Original Sin. There is no battle of 10-15 minutes.

 

So casters with long cast time suffer of bottleneck effect (I don't if this term exist in english)

 

In short, it is like rogue arquebus+stealth against an ennemy with 2 pv left.

 

It is better to attack more frequently but with less damage.

 

This is two reasons for not taking this option.

I don't think anyone wants OS length battles, just maybe longer than they are now combined with further tweaks to casting times. Like I don't play min/maxed at all and my wizard probably gets to cast 3-5 spells in a normal combat as well as moving a bit, auto attacking etc., and that feels pretty good. So my thought continues to be that melee scale too well in optimal situations if people are really running into combats so short that their wizard only gets off one spell before everyone else cleaves through everything.

 

If combat was 30ish seconds of non-pause time instead of 10-15 I don't think we run the risk of combat being drawn out and tedious and casters actually get to cast more. The idea of long cast, high risk/reward spells is cool and id like to see it worked out rather than removed.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Breckmoney

[JFutral]

 

The idea is good yes. But Pillars is not Original Sin. There is no battle of 10-15 minutes.

 

So casters with long cast time suffer of bottleneck effect (I don't if this term exist in english)

 

In short, it is like rogue arquebus+stealth against an ennemy with 2 pv left.

 

It is better to attack more frequently but with less damage.

 

This is two reasons for not taking this option.

I don't think anyone wants OS length battles, just maybe longer than they are now combined with further tweaks to casting times. Like I don't play min/maxed at all and my wizard probably gets to cast 3-5 spells in a normal combat as well as moving a bit, auto attacking etc., and that feels pretty good. So my thought continues to be that melee scale too well in optimal situations if people are really running into combats so short that their wizard only gets off one spell before everyone else cleaves through everything.

 

If combat was 30ish seconds of non-pause time instead of 10-15 I don't think we run the risk of combat being drawn out and tedious and casters actually get to cast more. The idea of long cast, high risk/reward spells is cool and id like to see it worked out rather than removed.

 

 

This is an interesting thing to ponder and I appreciate everyone's contribution here which makes me think. 

 

One of my biggest gripes about PoE I was that everything was balanced so well that I never felt like I either was or became an epic hero. That's what I want out of an RPG. I ran a play-through with a party of all 10's for attributes and it wasn't all that much more difficult over-all. Once you add all the paraphernalia and resting bonuses, it all kind of worked out.

 

Which, on one hand, is actually kind of good. That makes the game approachable for new comers to CRPGs.

 

But what makes a CRPG an epic quest is really going to vary depending on the main character. At some point i want to be able to one shot those pesky Xaurips and be able to stand toe to toe with a dragon without running like a frightened little toddler. Then I want to find that one magic item (or more appropriately for the analogy, destroy that one magic item) that makes me able to tackle the evil Sauron who would be invincible otherwise. Or be the voice that convinces the people to band together to defeat the evil who cannot be defeated by anyone alone.

 

In reality it requires a different story line that is main character class driven. A fighter wants to bash through the enemy. A wizard wants to spell through the enemy. A priest wants to be blessed by his deity and cast pillars of fire or turn the enemy into pillars of salt. Etc.

 

Point being, balancing for character class is no mean feat in a party based environment. If I'm a fighter type then I like the new melee advantage, and support from spell casters is just that, support. But if I am a spell caster I need the party to be a buffer while I cast the spells. But that is impossible if the rest of the party is able to plow through the enemy before I shoot off spells.

 

I can't identify with a whole party being the hero, no matter the story line. I guess I need the trajectory to adjust depending on if my MC is a spell caster or melee class, at the least. Otherwise it is a miasma of lack of dynamics. The story is already set up well for different story lines based on how aggressive, or not, one wants to interact. Is being able to rebalance for MC class too difficult?

 

Just some more thoughts,

Joe

[IndiraLightfoot]

@JFutral: Very thoughtful post, and I do agree that PoE1 to quite an extent reined in your character and party so hard that you really felt mediocre all the way through (sure, after act II, it got a lot easier, but your characters didn't feel badass, as it were.) Mind you, it's not about you character or party mopping the floor with enemies. It's about a clear sense of character development, including combat and spells and what not. In Deadfire, we thankfully start from level 1 again, but this game seems to be made for grand adventures and endless pirate-y shashbuckler exploring on the high seas.

To me, at least, the sucess of the game pivots a bit around how much Josh & Co dare to open the Fun Valve. The more fun we get, the more grand we get to feel (at least if we choose certain character paths), the less balanced the game will be. Personally, I'd be pretty generous with the Fun Tap, if just only to celebrate all the fantastic work the Obsidz have done here.

 

 

Long bouts of combat drag is not my idea of fun. I'd like to see combat get resolved as fast as it generally is in BG1, for instance.

Edited December 30, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Breckmoney]

I mean, the fun tap was opened pretty far by the end of Pillars 1. Barbarians were leaping into groups and one-shorting packs with HoF, Ciphers could make your party basically invincible, Paladins were just a walking column of flame, monks were splitting into multiple aspects, kicking people all over the place or punching people from range with mystical energy, druids turned into a werecat and tore through enemies while a storm raged around them. I don't think I ever had a problem with progression in PoE1 after the expansions came out and got us out of the mid levels. I'm all for ramping it up a bit more but I don't think we should undersell the first game either.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Breckmoney

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Breckmoney: Yeah, PoE1 was overall a great CRPG. It's story was pretty solid. I liked the somber mood, and especially the two WM expansion parts. But in vanilla PoE1, the stuff after Act II, and the keep chores, well those were underwhelming parts to me. They felt rushed. Also, I adored the build freedom we had in PoE1, character-wise, and combat was pretty good. I had a hard time seeing what was going on, though. All the overlapping effects, plus baddies moving crazy fast. I always used slow mode and lots of autopause. My favourite run was a solo PotD Ironman with my beloved cipher. Then, almost every encounter counted, since so much was on the line. It was pretty exciting!

Edited December 29, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[Breckmoney]

Well I think those parts were rushed by Obsidian's own admission, so no real surprise there. Pillars 3.0+ with the expansion was were they finally nailed it imo and put it up there with the cRPG greats.

[JFutral]

I mean, the fun tap was opened pretty far by the end of Pillars 1. Barbarians were leaping into groups and one-shorting packs with HoF, Ciphers could make your party basically invincible, Paladins were just a walking column of flame, monks were splitting into multiple aspects, kicking people all over the place or punching people from range with mystical energy, druids turned into a werecat and tore through enemies while a storm raged around them. I don't think I ever had a problem with progression in PoE1 after the expansions came out and got us out of the mid levels. I'm all for ramping it up a bit more but I don't think we should undersell the first game either.

 

That is an interesting take. The expansions did add, but in a way that when ever I play through again I either skip the expansions and play the finale section or I play the expansions and forget the final section. The expansion was pretty much incongruous to the main story line. I rarely play the whole campaign anymore. I might feel differently if the expansions were made to add "after finale" story lines.

 

I do like epic battles as part of a story line. But I still never felt like an epic hero.

 

Joe

[Breckmoney]

Having the expansion out into the middle of the game does make it a little incongruous, sure. I still think I prefer it there rather than being end game only content that not many get to experience. I just think there needed to be more adjustments to the rest of the game when the expansions came out to bump it back into line difficulty wise.

 

I guess I just don't think of Pillars 1 as being a game about being an epic hero. It was far smaller in scale and more personal than that which I loved. I expect Deadfire to branch out a bit in that direction and even more if Pillars 3 happens, but I hope that they do what they can to keep it as little about saving the world from A Big Bad Guy as they can. You can still feel like a very powerful and accomplished warrior/wizard/whatever without creating some scenario where you're all that stands between Eora and Certain Doom or whatever.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Having the expansion out into the middle of the game does make it a little incongruous, sure. I still think I prefer it there rather than being end game only content that not many get to experience. I just think there needed to be more adjustments to the rest of the game when the expansions came out to bump it back into line difficulty wise.

 

I guess I just don't think of Pillars 1 as being a game about being an epic hero. It was far smaller in scale and more personal than that which I loved. I expect Deadfire to branch out a bit in that direction and even more if Pillars 3 happens, but I hope that they do what they can to keep it as little about saving the world from A Big Bad Guy as they can. You can still feel like a very powerful and accomplished warrior/wizard/whatever without creating some scenario where you're all that stands between Eora and Certain Doom or whatever.

 

 

I've always kinda viewed PoE 1 as the equivalent to BG1, and hoped that Deadfire would be the equivalent to BG 2 in terms of larger scale and scope.

[demeisen]

​

They are so bad, it's really upsetting me although this is only a computer game.

 

​I have some confidence the situation will be improved.  It's an early beta, so they have time and the feedback is pretty overwhelming that casters are broken.

​

​I think we feel it's upsetting because POE1 was just so good on so many different levels, including by and large the combat mechanics.  What I was really wanting from Deadfire was more world and stories to explore, with refinements and tweaks, but generally the same underlying system.  So far in DF the basket of things I categorize as "world building" is still very much top tier, but there are some real problems introduced by combat changes.  I think they'll be able to polish it up from where it is now and improve it somewhat, but that the new direction just has fundamental aspects I don't care for.

 

I feel like some of those problems are introduced by caster changes away from per-rest towards per-fight.  Per-rest has its issues, but this isn't the way to fix them.  Once you start down that road, there's a logical series of steps that leads you in directions that people who love to play traditional casting classes don't like.  It is logical... problem is, it's only logical if you took that very first step in the wrong direction.  Once you can spell-spam because there's no balance from limited uses per rest, you need to make spells much weaker (longer casting and/or harder to hit and/or less impactful) to balance, which annoys people who like casters.

 

The Pillars world itself is insanely good, so the idea of slogging through it with a combat system that I feel moves way too far towards Diablo-style instant health and spell regeneration is kind of heartbreaking .  I guess that's what happens when you create an awesome first installment.  People get passionate about it

​

Edited December 29, 2017 by demeisen

[Breckmoney]

 

Having the expansion out into the middle of the game does make it a little incongruous, sure. I still think I prefer it there rather than being end game only content that not many get to experience. I just think there needed to be more adjustments to the rest of the game when the expansions came out to bump it back into line difficulty wise.

 

I guess I just don't think of Pillars 1 as being a game about being an epic hero. It was far smaller in scale and more personal than that which I loved. I expect Deadfire to branch out a bit in that direction and even more if Pillars 3 happens, but I hope that they do what they can to keep it as little about saving the world from A Big Bad Guy as they can. You can still feel like a very powerful and accomplished warrior/wizard/whatever without creating some scenario where you're all that stands between Eora and Certain Doom or whatever.

 

I've always kinda viewed PoE 1 as the equivalent to BG1, and hoped that Deadfire would be the equivalent to BG 2 in terms of larger scale and scope.

I definitely think Deadfire should be a broader game, sure. And all indications are that it will be. I don't know that I would personally have it go as far as BG2, though. Certainly not as far as ToB. I think I prefer not becoming what are essentially demigods. I won't be too bummed if it goes that way, I just hope it stays a bit short of it.

[demeisen]

It was far smaller in scale and more personal than that which I loved. I expect Deadfire to branch out a bit in that direction and even more if Pillars 3 happens, but I hope that they do what they can to keep it as little about saving the world from A Big Bad Guy as they can.

 

Agreed 100%.  POE1 was at its best when it was giving you intimate, personal little stories and situations.   Things that impact one person, or a small group, or maybe a village.  Those are meaningful if they are well written and presented with some grace and poignancy.

 

Avoiding the "One-Upsmanship of Super Leet Epicness" feel of lesser games is part of its brilliance.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

I definitely think Deadfire should be a broader game, sure. And all indications are that it will be. I don't know that I would personally have it go as far as BG2, though. Certainly not as far as ToB. I think I prefer not becoming what are essentially demigods. I won't be too bummed if it goes that way, I just hope it stays a bit short of it.

 

 

 

Pretty much any fantasy series and especially any fantasy game series, eventually hits the god tier. I was thinking more Athkatla than ToB, though. The ToB stuff can be saved for PoE 3.

[Breckmoney]

 

 

I definitely think Deadfire should be a broader game, sure. And all indications are that it will be. I don't know that I would personally have it go as far as BG2, though. Certainly not as far as ToB. I think I prefer not becoming what are essentially demigods. I won't be too bummed if it goes that way, I just hope it stays a bit short of it.

 

 

Pretty much any fantasy series and especially any fantasy game series, eventually hits the god tier. I was thinking more Athkatla than ToB, though. The ToB stuff can be saved for PoE 3.

Yeah I assume it'll continue to trend that way. Just saying I would personally like it to continue remaining somewhat more restrained within that context, because the restraint is what I think sets the world apart from most fantasy series for me. I'd like to be dealing with gods and maybe other interdimensional beings about matters of import to Eora rather than casually stopping time or striking them down with my own hand.

[MaxQuest]

Since majority in this thread agree that spellcasting should be faster, there is also another question:

- should there be a few consistent spell categories, or it's ok to have a ton of them?

 

And in order to start from something, here are the values for PoE1, and Deadfire Beta 2:

 

 

 

Notes:

- as you can see, spells in PoE1 did not always obey their displayed speed category, yet they still were more consistent than in Deadfire Beta 2

- unlike in PoE1, in Deadfire some instant spells can be used during pause (for example Disciplined Strikes and Second Wind, but not Swift Flurry)

Edited December 30, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Breckmoney]

Interesting. I wonder how much of that is just because it's beta and things are a little messy vs. intentional differences. Like the slow casting Cipher abilities seem like they should all have the same recovery but don't.

 

I do like that a number of spells seem to feature 0 recovery as something of an additional feature of the spell. Personally so long as the cast times get pared down into a small number of recognizable categories I don't know that I mind the recovery times varying a bit more.

[JFutral]

"should there be a few consistent spell categories, or it's ok to have a ton of them?"

 

Seems a relevant question. I can't figure out how to answer that when the change strikes me as completely arbitrary and unnecessary. I have no context to answer that question.

 

The chart is great to help me see the changes as numbers, but it doesn't help me understand why there were changes to begin with.

 

Joe

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Yeah, as I understand it, in Deadfire most spell characteristics -- cast time, area of effect, etc. -- seem to be defined by overarching categories in the game data. For example, most spells have either "small" "medium" or "large" areas of effect, which are all standardized. Cast times I'm not sure of the names of the categories but it's basically four -- instant (.5) /fast (3) /average (6) /slow (9). 

 

I don't have a particular problem with that in the abstract if it makes the game easier to balance by using defined categories.  I worry a little that it will lead to broad-strokes rather than nuanced balancing but I worry about almost everything. 

 

Note, however, that this means most Cipher powers -- Whisper of Treason, Mental Binding, etc., -- haven't just had their cast times lengthen as a result of the general move to longer cast times; their cast times are also in longer "categories" than in the last game. For example, Whisper of Treason was a "fast" cast in the last game, which meant 2.8 seconds cast, .2 seconds recovery; now it's an "average" cast, which means six seconds of cast time and 2 seconds of recovery. 

Edited December 30, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[JFutral]

but I worry about almost everything. 

 

Joe

[dunehunter]

The new system is really messy compared with POE 1 one... I agree that cast time should be categorized by a few speed level. Like self buff should be in instant cast, offensive wiz Spell in average cast and so on.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Yeah, as I understand it, in Deadfire most spell characteristics -- cast time, area of effect, etc. -- seem to be defined by overarching categories in the game data. For example, most spells have either "small" "medium" or "large" areas of effect, which are all standardized. Cast times I'm not sure of the names of the categories but it's basically four -- instant (.5) /fast (3) /average (6) /slow (9). 

 

I don't have a particular problem with that in the abstract if it makes the game easier to balance by using defined categories.  I worry a little that it will lead to broad-strokes rather than nuanced balancing but I worry about almost everything. 

 

Note, however, that this means most Cipher powers -- Whisper of Treason, Mental Binding, etc., -- haven't just had their cast times lengthen as a result of the general move to longer cast times; their cast times are also in longer "categories" than in the last game. For example, Whisper of Treason was a "fast" cast in the last game, which meant 2.8 seconds cast, .2 seconds recovery; now it's an "average" cast, which means six seconds of cast time and 2 seconds of recovery. 

 

Worrying about almost everything strikes me as a useful attitude in beta testing. If not so much elsewhere.

Edited December 30, 2017 by MortyTheGobbo

[DexGames]

You think they should be faster, I think they're ok.

I'm sure they'll figure out a middle ground for everybody...

[JFutral]

You think they should be faster, I think they're ok.

I'm sure they'll figure out a middle ground for everybody...

 

Maybe, maybe not. But in its current form it sure does shift the role of the spell caster and which spells take on new importance.

 

Joe

[AndreaColombo]

Let me reiterate that summoned weapons should be instant just in case this wasn't carved in stone already

 

I agree we need consistency. A good rules set should be maximally intuitive, which Deadfire's currently isn't. It's fine if it's a complex system, so long as it's internally consistent and players can reliably predict behaviors based on said consistency. Right now casting times and stacking rules are the opposite of that and the game's UI tends to be vague and thrifty when it comes to explaining how things work.

Edited December 30, 2017 by AndreaColombo