Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers, part 2

[DexGames]

As far as builds go, at least we are getting an expansion where there is an opportunity to correct any glaring pot holes in the game's mechanics.

 

I'm of the mind that new-comers will be so enthralled by all the customization that they won't be too badly hurt by a sub-optimal build, unless they hit the hardest modes. In which case they might blame that instead.

Exactly what I thought, New Comers won't even bother with that.

& probably won't even go for a Path of The Damned at first Run.

 

@Achilles : Drama Indeed... 

[SaruNi]

 

 

 

 

This https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/172139237541/how-are-priestdruid-wizarddruid-multiclasses doesn't sound good. Tell me if I understand wrong but Josh implies that multiclassing two casters can lead to a bad build (what Pillars is specifically designed to avoid)?

He's just saying it's easier to step on your own toes if you multi-class, say, a Wizard and Druid and pick spells doing the same thing. In that case, you may as well be doing a single class. But, if you are picking complementary spells you'll potentially be doing very well, from a min/maxing point of view. That's probably true of almost any multi-class though, just more so with wizards because you are only picking spells, not really passives.

”I have a wizard fire spell and a druid fire spell and they both suck more than if I just had one”

Actually it is: "I have a wizard fire spell and a druid fire spell and now they sucks unless fighting creatures weak to fire".

No.

 

Which is better: two fireball spells, each of which can be sorta empowered or one fireball spell that you can empower to the hilt?

 

“The former is sub-optimal, but hey it’s your game.” That’s all he’s saying

 

 

Which is better: the bonus damage from +2 power level (for being single class) or the bonus spell damage from +20% wildstrike lash (or +60% spiritual weapon lash)? 

 

Which is better: getting access to the higher level Wizard fire spells we know of so far---Wall of Fire, Flame Shield, and Torrent of Flame---or getting access to 4 more fast or medium cast fire spells? WoF and ToF both have long casting times and require special positioning. If not cast to initiate combat ToF has a high chance of interrupt because you need to be within 2.5 m of your targets.

 

(Of course an even better answer is: also taking non-fire spells so you're not screwed against fire resistance....)

Edited March 22, 2018 by SaruNi

[Gromnir]

 

 

 

Josh seems to be helpless with his system. "There can be a bad build if Players take twice bad abilities I can do nothing against that"...

 

I m sorry but a good way to create no bad build is to "open the door" with stacking rules and play with a thing called Power Level.

 

Stacking rules in POE1 was the thing I dislike the most.

 

Like the feel in Dark Souls 2 when you realize there is no fun to play Magic because nothing stack with spells. (Except Unleashed magic with a big malus and 3 slots... That is < to take an anoth crystal soul spear for example : p).

 

Perhaps the worst decision of Pillars 1. Nobody understand why weapons stack (Might +1 + Might +1) and not the rest. Why 6 priest can stack 60 accuracy with one spell, but others no.

Drama much?

 

All he’s saying is that multiclassing opens the door to allowing people to do stupid things. Doesn’t mean the system is broken.

You cannot accuse someone that plays a new game for the first time that hey are stupid. It's design fault not the player's.

So “don’t give backers, who knew what they were signing up for, what they want because ‘casuals’”?

 

I’m pretty sure everyone here has re-rolled a character at least once because they learned something new about the mechanics of whatever game they were playing at the time.

 

We can’t expect them to cater to the lowest common denominator *and* make a challenging game

 

heck, the developers has warned, numerous times, how MULTIclassing nullifies the no bad build objective and during character creation new players is specific warned o' the potential pitfalls o' multiclassing into impotence. HC SVNT DRACONES is clear added at the edge o' the map.  

 

'course, the developers must needs be aware o' actual player behavior.  if, regardless o' obvious and repeated warnings, players ruin their gameplay experience 'cause o' failure to heed warnings, then such a result is not good for the developer.  don't matter if is stoopidity o' the player which leads to disappointment if too many players end up disappointed.  is a consumer product, and obsidian needs for players to enjoy themselves as 'posed to becoming frustrated.  

 

am personal satisfied with clear and obvious here be dragons warnings for new players.  complex is actual a selling point for Gromnir, just so long as such complexity is clear identified and made understandable.  as an example, much o' poe combat were complex as well as hidden and obscure.  were genuine a long time 'fore folks were certain if crits were multiplicative or additive and even the developers were confused 'bout crit maths.  complex is bad if is hidden.  hold+shift is the single best feature o' deadfire as it makes combat mechanics more transparent.  personally, we want transparency and complexity, which is why am tending to multiclass main characters.

 

even so, am needing be recognizing how obsidian is creating a consumer product, and hardcore boardies is representing an exceeding small % o' actual players.  ever watch some o' those twitch or youtube gamer site plays o' poe or deadfire beta?  is guys who run game/crpg sites and when they go through deadfire beta character creation am frequent baffled by the choices they is making.  such videos suggest to Gromnir how even s'posed hardcore gamers is common making brain freeze kinda choices during character creation. thankfully, 'cause o' poe/deadfire rules flexibility, even relative bad builds is still gonna be viable and even fun, but if is curious disheartening to us as we watch how folks approach character generation choices, then developers must be heartbroken.  as such, efforts to protect players from themselves might be understandable even if is disappointing to us.

 

HA! Good Fun! 

[Aramintai]

They couldn't even properly balance single classes in POE1, so ever since the announcement I thought it was very safe to assume that expanding to multi-classes will make balancing job ape **** impossible. Dunno why some people were so hopeful. But hey, at least there will be more choices to gimp yourself, right?

[DexGames]

They couldn't even properly balance single classes in POE1, so ever since the announcement I thought it was very safe to assume that expanding to multi-classes will make balancing job ape **** impossible. Dunno why some people were so hopeful. But hey, at least there will be more choices to gimp yourself, right?

As to why, My 1st Run : Everyone > Single Class

Only then, I'll start messing with goofy builds.

 

[Although, Assassin/Soul Blade with the Soul Annihilation Ability is f**king appealing to me, gotta admit...]

I'm still mad that we can't make a Rogue / Cipher who can cast "Ripping Knives" on themselves... 

Josh said No. 

 

Assassin // Soul Blade // Ripping Knives // Soul Annihilation... 

Edited March 22, 2018 by DexGames

[Achilles]

 

 

 

 

 

This https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/172139237541/how-are-priestdruid-wizarddruid-multiclasses doesn't sound good. Tell me if I understand wrong but Josh implies that multiclassing two casters can lead to a bad build (what Pillars is specifically designed to avoid)?

He's just saying it's easier to step on your own toes if you multi-class, say, a Wizard and Druid and pick spells doing the same thing. In that case, you may as well be doing a single class. But, if you are picking complementary spells you'll potentially be doing very well, from a min/maxing point of view. That's probably true of almost any multi-class though, just more so with wizards because you are only picking spells, not really passives.

”I have a wizard fire spell and a druid fire spell and they both suck more than if I just had one”

Actually it is: "I have a wizard fire spell and a druid fire spell and now they sucks unless fighting creatures weak to fire".

No.

 

Which is better: two fireball spells, each of which can be sorta empowered or one fireball spell that you can empower to the hilt?

 

“The former is sub-optimal, but hey it’s your game.” That’s all he’s saying

Which is better: the bonus damage from +2 power level (for being single class) or the bonus spell damage from +20% wildstrike lash (or +60% spiritual weapon lash)?

 

Which is better: getting access to the higher level Wizard fire spells we know of so far---Wall of Fire, Flame Shield, and Torrent of Flame---or getting access to 4 more fast or medium cast fire spells? WoF and ToF both have long casting times and require special positioning. If not cast to initiate combat ToF has a high chance of interrupt because you need to be within 2.5 m of your targets.

 

(Of course an even better answer is: also taking non-fire spells so you're not screwed against fire resistance....)

*sigh*

 

Please don’t move my goalpost and then call it a counter argument.

 

“not bad, just underpowered, and only in cases where the player specifically selects redundant abilities. there's really not much we can do about that unless we design all 11 classes to have 0 overlap with each other.

 

e.g. you could make a druid/wizard and insist on only selecting AoE reflex-targeting burn/freeze damage spells for both classes because both classes have access to those things. i'm not sure why you would, but it is possible and allowed.

 

i think it's also important to note that because multiclassing is inherently more complicated, we discourage inexperienced players from building MC characters. during character creation, there is a pop-up that explains this clearly.“

[Gromnir]

They couldn't even properly balance single classes in POE1, so ever since the announcement I thought it was very safe to assume that expanding to multi-classes will make balancing job ape **** impossible. Dunno why some people were so hopeful. But hey, at least there will be more choices to gimp yourself, right?

developers specific noted they were not trying for actual balance o' poe classes.  the developers created poe with the idea min-maxers and build monkeys would get benefits from their efforts.  goal were all classes being viable and fun.  sure, some classes and builds were better than others, but developers were attempting to avoid disproportionate balance issues which would make some classes/weapons/abilities/attributes/etc pointless or no-brainers.  

 

'course the developers did kinda throw in the towel on balance with the expansions.  go figure.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited March 22, 2018 by Gromnir

[Aramintai]

 

They couldn't even properly balance single classes in POE1, so ever since the announcement I thought it was very safe to assume that expanding to multi-classes will make balancing job ape **** impossible. Dunno why some people were so hopeful. But hey, at least there will be more choices to gimp yourself, right?

As to why, My 1st Run : Everyone > Single Class

Only then, I'll start messing with goofy builds.

 

[Although, Assassin/Soul Blade with the Soul Annihilation Ability is f**king appealing to me, gotta admit...  ]

I'm still mad that we can't make a Rogue / Cipher who can cast "Ripping Knives" on themselves... 

Josh said No. 

 

Yea, I'm gonna play with single classes first too. Though I think they're not safe either with all the rebalancing going on. We shall see.

[Achilles]

 

They couldn't even properly balance single classes in POE1, so ever since the announcement I thought it was very safe to assume that expanding to multi-classes will make balancing job ape **** impossible. Dunno why some people were so hopeful. But hey, at least there will be more choices to gimp yourself, right?

As to why, My 1st Run : Everyone > Single Class

Only then, I'll start messing with goofy builds.

 

[Although, Assassin/Soul Blade with the Soul Annihilation Ability is f**king appealing to me, gotta admit... ]

There are a couple of characters where I think it quickly becomes apparent that multiclass is the way to go. Aloth and Pallegina spring to mind.

 

You level up, go to the character sheet and discover that your options are...kinda boring. Aloth now has some spells that set up some sweet, sweet sneak attacks, but you don’t have a rogue. You could single class another character to exploit this, or just make Aloth a Spellblade.

[injurai]

 

They couldn't even properly balance single classes in POE1, so ever since the announcement I thought it was very safe to assume that expanding to multi-classes will make balancing job ape **** impossible. Dunno why some people were so hopeful. But hey, at least there will be more choices to gimp yourself, right?

developers specific noted they were not trying for actual balance o' poe classes.  the developers created poe with the idea min-maxers and build monkeys would get benefits from their efforts.  goal were all classes being viable and fun.  sure, some classes and builds were better than others, but developers were attempting to avoid disproportionate balance issues which would make some classes/weapons/abilities/attributes/etc pointless or no-brainers.  

 

'course the developers did kinda throw in the towel on balance with the expansions.  go figure.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Specifically they were trying to allow for min-maxing without creating any dump-stat, and instead a focus on an additive and linear power gains from attributes so no build all of a sudden lacked the basic faculties to be even minimally viable.

[SaruNi]

 

 

 

 

 

 

This https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/172139237541/how-are-priestdruid-wizarddruid-multiclasses doesn't sound good. Tell me if I understand wrong but Josh implies that multiclassing two casters can lead to a bad build (what Pillars is specifically designed to avoid)?

He's just saying it's easier to step on your own toes if you multi-class, say, a Wizard and Druid and pick spells doing the same thing. In that case, you may as well be doing a single class. But, if you are picking complementary spells you'll potentially be doing very well, from a min/maxing point of view. That's probably true of almost any multi-class though, just more so with wizards because you are only picking spells, not really passives.

”I have a wizard fire spell and a druid fire spell and they both suck more than if I just had one”

Actually it is: "I have a wizard fire spell and a druid fire spell and now they sucks unless fighting creatures weak to fire".

No.

 

Which is better: two fireball spells, each of which can be sorta empowered or one fireball spell that you can empower to the hilt?

 

“The former is sub-optimal, but hey it’s your game.” That’s all he’s saying

Which is better: the bonus damage from +2 power level (for being single class) or the bonus spell damage from +20% wildstrike lash (or +60% spiritual weapon lash)?

 

Which is better: getting access to the higher level Wizard fire spells we know of so far---Wall of Fire, Flame Shield, and Torrent of Flame---or getting access to 4 more fast or medium cast fire spells? WoF and ToF both have long casting times and require special positioning. If not cast to initiate combat ToF has a high chance of interrupt because you need to be within 2.5 m of your targets.

 

(Of course an even better answer is: also taking non-fire spells so you're not screwed against fire resistance....)

*sigh*

 

Please don’t move my goalpost and then call it a counter argument.

 

“not bad, just underpowered, and only in cases where the player specifically selects redundant abilities. there's really not much we can do about that unless we design all 11 classes to have 0 overlap with each other.

 

e.g. you could make a druid/wizard and insist on only selecting AoE reflex-targeting burn/freeze damage spells for both classes because both classes have access to those things. i'm not sure why you would, but it is possible and allowed.

 

i think it's also important to note that because multiclassing is inherently more complicated, we discourage inexperienced players from building MC characters. during character creation, there is a pop-up that explains this clearly.“

 

 

Still not sure exactly what you're trying to say. You mean, in contrast to single-class Wizard or Druid, a multiclass would have enough AoE burn/freeze options to pick only those spells, and then be limited when facing resistant enemies? Okay, fair enough. 

 

But your other argument---"which would you rather have, one more powerful fireball or two weaker fireballs"---is more complicated when applied to the actual game, especially with the druid/priest lashes boosting spell damage more than +2 power levels, and higher-level spells having longer casting times or being more situational.

[Achilles]

Still not sure exactly what you're trying to say. You mean, in contrast to single-class Wizard or Druid, a multiclass would have enough AoE burn/freeze options to pick only those spells, and then be limited when facing resistant enemies? Okay, fair enough.

 

But your other argument---"which would you rather have, one more powerful fireball or two weaker fireballs"---is more complicated when applied to the actual game, especially with the druid/priest lashes boosting spell damage more than +2 power levels, and higher-level spells having longer casting times or being more situational.

You’re defending the “bad build” that Josh is warning against. You may want to consider that the person who designed the game is saying that isn’t a good idea.

 

But whatever blows your hair back.

[SaruNi]

 

Still not sure exactly what you're trying to say. You mean, in contrast to single-class Wizard or Druid, a multiclass would have enough AoE burn/freeze options to pick only those spells, and then be limited when facing resistant enemies? Okay, fair enough.

 

But your other argument---"which would you rather have, one more powerful fireball or two weaker fireballs"---is more complicated when applied to the actual game, especially with the druid/priest lashes boosting spell damage more than +2 power levels, and higher-level spells having longer casting times or being more situational.

You’re defending the “bad build” that Josh is warning against. You may want to consider that the person who designed the game is saying that isn’t a good idea.

 

But whatever blows your hair back.

 

 

He admits he's never tried any caster-caster multiclass and doesn't cite any telemetry data. I guess it's possible that lashes affecting spells is unintended and they've just never bothered fixing it.

 

He also seems to think that a Wizard/Priest multiclass would want to go with Wizard DD and Priest inspirations for self-buffs... even though the Priest inspirations take a long time to cast and the vast majority are AoE, while Wizard self-buffs are fast cast/no recovery and self-only. 

[Achilles]

 

 

Still not sure exactly what you're trying to say. You mean, in contrast to single-class Wizard or Druid, a multiclass would have enough AoE burn/freeze options to pick only those spells, and then be limited when facing resistant enemies? Okay, fair enough.

 

But your other argument---"which would you rather have, one more powerful fireball or two weaker fireballs"---is more complicated when applied to the actual game, especially with the druid/priest lashes boosting spell damage more than +2 power levels, and higher-level spells having longer casting times or being more situational.

You’re defending the “bad build” that Josh is warning against. You may want to consider that the person who designed the game is saying that isn’t a good idea.

 

But whatever blows your hair back.

He admits he's never tried any caster-caster multiclass and doesn't cite any telemetry data. I guess it's possible that lashes affecting spells is unintended and they've just never bothered fixing it.

 

He also seems to think that a Wizard/Priest multiclass would want to go with Wizard DD and Priest inspirations for self-buffs... even though the Priest inspirations take a long time to cast and the vast majority are AoE, while Wizard self-buffs are fast cast/no recovery and self-only.

I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we can’t wait to hear how that works out for you. Have fun!

[Yenkaz]

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/171289309831/various-deadfire-changes?is_related_post=1

 

> * There are certainly some goofball combinations floating around, notably monk/wizard when console hacked to higher levels*

 

 

(Sorry if someone already did this)

Edited March 22, 2018 by Yenkaz

[SaruNi]

 

 

 

Still not sure exactly what you're trying to say. You mean, in contrast to single-class Wizard or Druid, a multiclass would have enough AoE burn/freeze options to pick only those spells, and then be limited when facing resistant enemies? Okay, fair enough.

 

But your other argument---"which would you rather have, one more powerful fireball or two weaker fireballs"---is more complicated when applied to the actual game, especially with the druid/priest lashes boosting spell damage more than +2 power levels, and higher-level spells having longer casting times or being more situational.

You’re defending the “bad build” that Josh is warning against. You may want to consider that the person who designed the game is saying that isn’t a good idea.

 

But whatever blows your hair back.

He admits he's never tried any caster-caster multiclass and doesn't cite any telemetry data. I guess it's possible that lashes affecting spells is unintended and they've just never bothered fixing it.

 

He also seems to think that a Wizard/Priest multiclass would want to go with Wizard DD and Priest inspirations for self-buffs... even though the Priest inspirations take a long time to cast and the vast majority are AoE, while Wizard self-buffs are fast cast/no recovery and self-only.

I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we can’t wait to hear how that works out for you. Have fun!

 

 

Here's what Boroer wrote about playing Evoker/Fury (granted, with mod that reduces casting times):

 

"Evoker/Fury

Pure nuker. I wanted to expand the resource pool for damaging spells and only chose friendly fire spells that either do burn or freeze damage - as well as Returning Storm of course. I took a pale elf and gave him Bulwark and the Stormturner Cloak, too. He wore a breastplate then. With that much AR against burn/freeze I could easily cast Fireballs (also empowered, although that still hurts) on myself while doing a bit of baiting/tanking. Pretty nice - but only with the aforementioned mod that reduced casting times (and recovery) a bit. Else I could never spend all the spell uses during one encounter."

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94957-what-multiclasses-have-you-played-with-so-far/page-2

 

And multiple people have reported that healer/healer multiclass is good.

 

The major benefit of single-class Evoker is that the missile spells gain a huge boost from power level. Though with the echo % nerfed from 30% to 10% it loses some of its edge....

[Achilles]

Does the fact that Josh has played the whole game and knows what all the things are (whereas Boroer has only played up to level 9) matter at all or nah?

[SaruNi]

Does the fact that Josh has played the whole game and knows what all the things are (whereas Boroer has only played up to level 9) matter at all or nah?

 

So you think special items or higher level spells or some other factor not in the beta might make single class strictly better? It's possible. We've gotten a sample of high-level damaging spells from scrolls that you can add get with the console, though scrolls have much shorter casting times than the corresponding spell (for example, 8 second casting time spell = about 1 second casting time scroll iirc). 

 

But those higher-level spells will probably have long casting times.

 

It's certainly possible that multiclass nuker is strictly worse, but logical and empirical evidence from the beta suggest otherwise. And that's a good thing. Since Josh admits he hasn't played (or presumably observed anyone else play) wizard/druid nuker it seems more likely that he just hasn't considered its advantages fully. He's probably more focused on other aspects of game design right now....

[Achilles]

Yeah, it almost feels like someone with first-hand knowledge has told us that most of those assumptions are true.

 

But since he hasn’t actually played it he can’t *possibly* know what he’s talking about [/sarcasm]

[SaruNi]

Yeah, it almost feels like someone with first-hand knowledge has told us that most of those assumptions are true.

 

But since he hasn’t actually played it he can’t *possibly* know what he’s talking about [/sarcasm]

 

Huh? I agree that it's possible. You're the one insisting that he can't possibly be mistaken. "He's an authority figure, therefore he's infallible. Putin Xi and Drumpf forever!"

[Yosharian]

This https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/172139237541/how-are-priestdruid-wizarddruid-multiclasses doesn't sound good. Tell me if I understand wrong but Josh implies that multiclassing two casters can lead to a bad build (what Pillars is specifically designed to avoid)?

Depends how you define bad.

 

What Josh said sounds perfectly fine to me.

 

The game has a respec option so if you make mistakes you can always correct them.

[Achilles]

lol

 

Has nothing to do with “authority”. Has everything to do with who is in a better positon to know what they are talking about. Replace “Josh” with “anyone who has seen the full game” and tell me that this is still an appeal to authority.

[illathid]

lol

 

Has nothing to do with “authority”. Has everything to do with who is in a better positon to know what they are talking about. Replace “Josh” with “anyone who has seen the full game” and tell me that this is still an appeal to authority.

 

I would argue someone who has played the class combo in question is in a better position to know what they're talking about regardless of whether the have seen the full game or not. 

[Madscientist]

To those those who say PoE1 was unbalanced:

 

I think PoE1 was the class based single player RPG with the best class balance.

Some builds were better than others, but each class had several viable builds.

It was very easy to make a viable build: You think about what char you want to have, read the tooltips for stats, abilities and talents and take whatever makes sense to you. Yes, You have to read a bit and yes, it is possible to create bad builds if you really wanted to.

My definition of viable: It is possible to finish the game on a difficulty below PotD without dying every second fight and without your char feeling useless most of the time.

 

In PoE2 multiclassing makes things more complex, but the game warns you that new players should take single class and it is still easy to make a viable char.

 

I think that "no bad builds" does not NOT mean that it is impossible to make a char who is worse than most others if you really want to do so. I think it means that it is easy to make a viable char if you read the descriptions and take options that make sense to you. I think PoE is very good regarding classes and PoE2 could be even better.

 

This is not a multiplayer game, so there is no need for perfect balance. In fact, perfect balance would be terrible. If all classes do exactly the same damage your choices do not matter at all and you might as well remove classes all together.

 

Lets look at older games:

 

In the IE games you had tons of options, but only a few ones were good while there were many bad choices. For new players it is really hard to tell which choice is good or bad. You can play a mage->fighter dual class with low int if you like.

 

NWN1+2 gave you many more options, so you could create more different useful builds. But some combinations were OP while others were still useless. And the rules for classes and multi classing and making good chars were really complicated. I needed to do lots of reading before I could make a good char and know why it was good this way.

[Achilles]

 

lol

 

Has nothing to do with “authority”. Has everything to do with who is in a better positon to know what they are talking about. Replace “Josh” with “anyone who has seen the full game” and tell me that this is still an appeal to authority.

I would argue someone who has played the class combo in question is in a better position to know what they're talking about regardless of whether the have seen the full game or not.

That person is making assumptions off of partial data. No one know what more than half the levels look like.