Saving ability points

[OlleDenStore]

I've been reading some of the feedback on the latest backer beta and a lot of people seem to be complaining about not having any viable ability options to choose from, especially at lower levels. It sounds like it also varies between builds where some builds suffer more from this problem than others. I wonder if perhaps allowing the saving of ability points between levels could be a solution to this problem? So if you don't have any viable options at a certain power level you could just hang on to that ability point until you reach the next power level and spend it then. Much in the same way you could save skill points in POE1. Thoughts?

[Boeroer]

That would be nice.

[AndreaColombo]

Quite.

[JerekKruger]

Yeah, I'd like that.

[M4xw0lf]

But... wouldn't everyone simply go and re-level their character at max level and take all the high-level abilities and completely wreck any balance those trees were intended to have?

[JerekKruger]

But... wouldn't everyone simply go and re-level their character at max level and take all the high-level abilities and completely wreck any balance those trees were intended to have?

 

Given the resource cost of abilities goes up at higher levels I don't know that that would be all that great an idea. I suppose high level passives might be more powerful, though at lower levels the passives don't seem to get better at higher power levels.

[theBalthazar]

If Obsidian don't create more passives abilities, a big +1. Sometimes there is nothing inspiring at a specific level so this will be a good feature.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

But... wouldn't everyone simply go and re-level their character at max level and take all the high-level abilities and completely wreck any balance those trees were intended to have?

 

Given the resource cost of abilities goes up at higher levels I don't know that that would be all that great an idea. I suppose high level passives might be more powerful, though at lower levels the passives don't seem to get better at higher power levels.

 

 

 

Well, it would make Ascendants kinda whacky at least. 

 

I think the answer is more open talents at low levels. Once you get a few levels under your belt it's much less of a problem, but initially it's a bit ehh.

[JerekKruger]

Well, it would make Ascendants kinda whacky at least. 

 

Not sure it would. How many different high level abilities are you going to spam realistically? I suspect no more than two. You'd have those anyway so it's not like having a bunch more would actually make you more powerful.

 

I think the answer is more open talents at low levels. Once you get a few levels under your belt it's much less of a problem, but initially it's a bit ehh.

 

That would also be nice. I find that, for a fair number of builds (both single and multiclass), I just don't want anything for the first few levels.

Edited April 3, 2018 by JerekKruger

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

Well, it would make Ascendants kinda whacky at least. 

 

Not sure it would. How many different high level abilities are you going to spam realistically? I suspect no more than two. You'd have those anyway so it's not like having a bunch more would actually make you more powerful.

 

 

 

A lot more tactical versatility. A lot of low and high level abilities overlap -- for example, low level powers and high level powers often give the same inspirations / afflictions, but with different costs or secondary effects. So there's tradeoffs and choices as to which to get at what level so you have a full spread of tactical options. If you could save points, you could blow that game out of the water and just take the highest level versions of everything.

 

Said another way, yeah, in any one fight you're only using one or two abilities (generally in the beta, block pain and silent scream) but from fight to fight that changes depending on what you're facing and what you need and so forth.

[anfoglia]

It depends what the ability progression looks like at higher levels. For the levels we see in the beta, this seems workable to me. The abilities you get at level 7/8 aren't that much more powerful, and the actives are still limited by your power source or spell allotment and the fact that many of them have lower-level pre-reqs. It might not take many tweaks to ensure that a character who takes, say, the full 2 abilities at Power Level 3 is not strictly worse than a character who holds off and doubles up on the "better" abilities at power level 4.

 

But in the end it's probably easier to continue tuning when certain abilities become available to make sure that each class has interesting choices at each level.

[OlleDenStore]

A lot more tactical versatility. A lot of low and high level abilities overlap -- for example, low level powers and high level powers often give the same inspirations / afflictions, but with different costs or secondary effects. So there's tradeoffs and choices as to which to get at what level so you have a full spread of tactical options. If you could save points, you could blow that game out of the water and just take the highest level versions of everything.

 

Said another way, yeah, in any one fight you're only using one or two abilities (generally in the beta, block pain and silent scream) but from fight to fight that changes depending on what you're facing and what you need and so forth.

I guess you could cap the amount of ability points saved to one or two. But I don't think that's necessary as I don't think this will be an issue. Obsidian seems to put a lot of effort into making sure all abilities are viable throughout the game and that higher lvl stuff isn't just the same as the lower lvl stuff but better. Otherwise you would have this issue anyway even without saving ability points. You would retrain and select some bad passive you don't really need to replace that ability that you now have a higher lvl version of and are no longer using.

Edited April 3, 2018 by OlleDenStore