What's the general consensus about the current rest system?

[Boeroer]

The spellcasters can cast their most powerful spells at each encounter, without thinking about the next encounter... But they're "more balanced" ?!?

 

Of course. 2 uses per encounter per spell tier is easier to balance than 4 uses (or even 5 or 6) per rest. If you can't or refuse to understand why then you are beyond my reach.

 

Besides that nearly all casting times and recovery times for spells have been prolonged so that spamming nukes in quick succession is not possible anymore.

 

Actually in the beta (which I played/still pay and you didn't/don't) most spellcasters feel balanced or even underwhelming compared to most martial builds.

 

It also feels zero like Dragon Age Inquisition or anything like that.

 

But if you insist to play the Rumpelstiltskin...

[Gromnir]

 

Yes. It's more balanced because the encounter output  (...)

 

Bla bla bla bla....

 

In POE, mage, druid and priest are the most powerful classes.

 

In POE2, they will be even more powerful.

 

isn't bla bla bla.  should be axiomatic.

 

"we didn't have a major issue with poe resting save for our general issues with the silly and impossible-to-balance-for quasi-vancian casters o' poe.  were prohibitive for developers to predict how well rested were a particular player's party casters for anything save boss battles.  a well rested 10th wizard with all spells available to him were a complete different level o' power than a 10th level wizard down to his last level 2 spell slot. unnecessary design hurdle."

 

quasi-vancian poe casters were a mistake form the start as they are impossible to intelligently design encounters which are balanced when such casters are involved in the equation.

 

and a high level poe caster could actual unload more spells during a single combat encounter than could a deadfire wizard o' the same level. sure, the poe wizard's spell repertoire would be exhausted and they would rest following a battle in which they spammed every available spell, but so what? the change you hate were necessitated by how spammable were caster spells at level 12+.  woulda' been far worse to maintain the same dynamic with even higher levels and more spamming opportunities.

 

​as to the belief casters will be op in deadfire, we tend to agree wizard will be, but the reason is they will, 'cause o' grimoires, have potential 18 free talents by end o' the game, and such is the result o' one grimoire.  by end game, am suspecting a wizard with multiple grimoires, will effective have access to every arcane spell in the game.  compared to the frugality necessary for priests and druids when choosing spells/talents, grimoires appear... excessive.  even so, while am not one to point to general consensus as being at all meaningful, at the moment, weapon-haver multiclasses is the clear win as far as power.  paladin+anything is arguable op, and not 'cause o' casting.  berserker/_______, assassin/_______, soul blade/______, nalpazca/________, and other classes which is gonna be exploiting low-level passives and talents for big weapon damage is the serious threat to balance at the moment, which is why single classes got a big powerup during the most recent beta. 

 

got it bass ackwards.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps (edit) am suspecting the actual op classes and combos which is gonna need be getting an early nerf is tanks.  votaries and crusaders, from the limited acces we got via the beta, is well nigh indestructible and is simultaneous capable o' exacting terrible punishment on individuals or groups.  the beta material doesn't challenge tanks overmuch, so is tough to judge tank efficacy, but am thinking votaries (in particular) may be getting the nerf bat soon after release... much as tanks got a general nerfing following poe release.  

Edited May 1, 2018 by Gromnir

[Kerozevok]

@Occursus, Boeroer and Gromnir.

 

I have a feeling that the game was simplified (for the bioware community...) and for the time, I canceled my preorder on GOG.

 

I'll take a decision after the release and the reviews.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Kerozevok

[MortyTheGobbo]

My stance on the health/endurance system is that it was a good idea but didn't really shake out too well in play. In concept, it's a middle ground between the old-school unforgiving attrition (which can go die in a big fire) and the more modern model where health goes back after every fight (which is much better but has issues on its own).

 

In practice, though, it just felt randomly punishing. Rather than slowly wear down our party, what happened most of the time was that one party member got focus-fired and lost a bunch of health. Often a spellcaster or a less tanky frontliner. And then everyone had to rest even if the other characters were doing fine. Unless of course you rested to get the per-rest spells back. I'm so glad those are gone.

 

I do wish they'd found a way to make it work. Plenty of games use two health pools, one that's easy come easy go and one that can't be regained so easily. 4E D&D has a good take on it with healing surges, which mean that while healers' ability to heal is only limited on a per-encounter basis, everyone's capacity to be healed is capped between long rests. I have no idea how they'd translate that to Pillars, though. So I can't really blame them for just going with what works. I don't exactly mind resting rarely. It feels weird to just lie down and sleep eight hours in the middle of an adventure.

[Voss]

Your feelings are one thing (and honestly no ones concern but yours), but the arguments you're presenting are pretty much exactly the opposite of how the system changes actually work.

[HAWmaro]

Again my problem isn't with per encounter spells or injurys in particular(although I'll allways say that health/endurance is a much much much better system than those) the problem is that with the current way the system is balanced: it can be replaced with a free rest button like the IE games(without the random encounters) and have food be similar to POE1 and nothing would change about how you play with the system, because there is no ressource management whatsover involved with it. So if you're gonna have such a half-hearted system trying to please both traditionalists and people who blow 4 fire balls on a wolf and then complain, I'd rather not have a rest system at all.  

 

Also I don't want to come off as overly negative, because this system and the reduction of party size are my only annoyances with deadfire, and even with those am still expecting it to be my uncontested GOTY.

Edited May 1, 2018 by HAWmaro

[PatrioticChief]

 

It is a question of taste, I guess. (...)

 

With this system, a mage of level 5 will be able to cast "50 bounding missiles" or "50 fireballs" by day !!... It's ridiculous.

 

I understand that Obsidian love the bioware fans (they're numerou$$$...), but as for me, I just sent an email to GOG to cancel my pre-order.

 

 

Seems like an absolutely bizarre overreaction to me. But hey your money. 

[z_liquid]

Yeah, pretty much. Sounds like they weren't interested in playing the game anyways, just needed a "reason" to dump on it

[mrscojangles]

I also don't understand the aversion to just avoiding features you don't like in a single player game. I don't particularly like consumables (besides healing potions), so I simply don't use food/drugs/other potions most of the time when I play PoE or BG2 (invisibility potions are usually the exception to my "rule") or other similar games. Obviously there are features like health/endurance that you can't avoid but its always odd to me when people get upset over single player features that are entirely avoidable if you just put some self restrictions on your play through and hold yourself to those guidelines. Don't like how many spells you can cast before you rest? Then self restrict and just pretend you can only cast 5 spells per level before needing to rest. Its a single player RPG, its not like there is some scoreboard/ladder/ranking system and you're not going to place if you play the game a bit different than other people.

Edited May 2, 2018 by mrscojangles

[Gfted1]

In my observations, the answer typically boils down to: "If even exists, I will be unable to control myself from abusing it, even to the detriment of my own gaming experience". Theres no debating with that.  

[Gromnir]

is unreasonable and even stoopid for folks to complain 'bout how unplayable a game becomes 'cause they is voluntarily, knowingly  and repeatedly utilizing a busted feature or broken mechanic to make game too easy.  so what?  developers is stuck with fans as-is.  convince fans, after the fact, o' the irrationality or unreasonableness o' knowingly hitting the win button while simultaneous complaining o' game ease is ultimate pointless.  

 

two most common complaints from fans o' every black isle and obsidian game:

 

it was too easy

 

it was too difficult

 

not necessarily in the order given, but is always the same top 2. why is balance important in a sp game?  'cause top two complaints o' games is always balance related.

 

so you got purchasers who play a game while spastic pummeling a functional win button exploit.  some folks enjoy such, or claim to.  however, many people is genuine, if inexplicably, disappointed by the gaming experience which is excessive easy.  the disappointed folks complain o' game ease and they is justifiably ridiculed for their self-destructive lack o' impulse control, but they is genuine disappointed and they is therefore less likely to buy future titles from the developer.   

 

the developer is in the business o' making games.  operative word is business. developer won't stay in business if purchasers do not buy their games.  am thinking efforts to correct years o' bad parenting or inherent character flaws which lead to the endemic impulse control issues we see 'mongst gamers is not gonna be productive.  instead, developers accept the limitations o' their fans and build games accordingly. reasonable response to unreasonable behavior.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[MoonWolf]

In my observations, the answer typically boils down to: "If <function x> even exists, I will be unable to control myself from abusing it, even to the detriment of my own gaming experience". Theres no debating with that.

 

This is an observed and documented behaviour that People Will Do That. They will actually feel bad about doing it but they will also feel bad about knowing a way to do something that is better and not doing it.

 

You can sit there and shout "just don't do it" all you want but that doesn't change anything on a population numbers level. Human nature is human nature and you can't argue people out of it.

 

If as a developer you know about degenerate game mechanics and you know about this behavioural trait that people have what are you going to do. Change it. Changing it is the only reasonable option.

[Gfted1]

Or, you know, they could Play a Role.

[Gromnir]

no doubt the reason why there were so many early d&d 3.0 characters with 1 level of ranger, or crit-focused weapon-havers wielding falchions, or priests o' benign deities spamming harm is 'cause they were such dedicated role-players.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps (edit) unnecessary clarification: am not caring personal if folks use or exploit broken or unbalanced features to make a game easy.  some folks genuine do enjoy crafting an ubermensh more than they enjoy balanced combat challenges.  good for them.  is their game.  nevertheless, please review the most common two complaints for all obsidian games:

 

it was too hard

 

it was too easy

 

am only critical o' the folks who knowingly utilize an exploit and then lament the absence o' challenge. 

 

even so, the developer don't have the luxury o' being critical of paying customers save in private. gotta develop games for the people who buy them, no matter how myopic and unreasonable they may be.

Edited May 2, 2018 by Gromnir

[Gfted1]

Do you suppose those same players also whine about being able to rest too much?

[Gromnir]

show us your venn diagram and data to support.

 

too ambiguous and hypothetical.

 

even so, if, as we noted earlier in this thread, a player resorts to empower-hardtack rest-empower throughout deadfire and then complains o' absence o' combat difficulty, we would likely be dismissive o' their concerns.  

 

*chuckle*

 

and if some joker resorted to a roleplay defense o' empower-hardtack rest-empower cycles, we would no doubt enjoy an unembarrassed chortle... or two.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Lamppost in Winter]

 

In my observations, the answer typically boils down to: "If <function x> even exists, I will be unable to control myself from abusing it, even to the detriment of my own gaming experience". Theres no debating with that.

 

This is an observed and documented behaviour that People Will Do That. They will actually feel bad about doing it but they will also feel bad about knowing a way to do something that is better and not doing it.

 

You can sit there and shout "just don't do it" all you want but that doesn't change anything on a population numbers level. Human nature is human nature and you can't argue people out of it.

 

If as a developer you know about degenerate game mechanics and you know about this behavioural trait that people have what are you going to do. Change it. Changing it is the only reasonable option.

 

 

Good video on this topic:

 

[Tommy1984]

Good video on this topic:

 

 

The video has good examples of how sometimes game designers can be wrong in judging what "fun" means for players.

[Daled]

True in a way (designers can certainly be wrong), problem is most players are really not that critical and devs shouldn't give much credit to that kind of players.

Taking the example of XCOM 2 they didn't give it a fair chance and play it and having fun, they just decided it was wrong because reason.

 

Ultimately I think they had the right call, turtling is awful in a tactic game, the pros were more than the cons and they already knew that people could easily mod them out the day after release.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Daled

[Voss]

Xcom2 is an odd example, at least to me. I couldn't pinpoint a specific reason for it, but I tried it and -didn't- have fun. I can think of several reasons that contributed (bugs that carried over unfixed from the first one, the proliferation of timers, the plot and al it's terrible cliches, etc, etc) but the game suffered from a lack of fun, not that I decided it wouldn't be fun in advance. I had actually been quite looking forward to it.

 

Perhaps interestingly, I found that the youtubers and such I watch were really enthusiastic about xcom2 (to the point of liberally spraying their enthusiasm all over the screen) disappointed (and whiny) about ME: Andromeda, and in both cases I had a WTF reaction... Usually they have similar tastes to mine (which is why I watch them, as they're likely to cover games I'm interested in)

Edited May 3, 2018 by Voss

[Wormerine]

True in a way (designers can certainly be wrong), problem is most players are really not that critical and devs shouldn't give much credit to that kind of players.

Taking the example of XCOM 2 they didn't give it a fair chance and play it and having fun, they just decided it was wrong because reason.

 

Ultimately I think they had the right call, turtling is awful in a tactic game, the pros were more than the cons and they already knew that people could easily mod them out the day after release.

XCOM is a fun example: first game has some serious design issues, but instead of fixing those Firaxis added mechanics which force players to play against core design. Moving a little bit and overwatching isn't fun. However, being forced into making a bad decision isn't fun either. Here is a problem I have with vanilla XCOM2 timer system - I find myself way too often between:

1) rush for the exit, putting my soldiers in extreme dangers

2) don't rush and loose everybody because timer run out.

 

That would be ok, if the situation I found myself in was the result of my previous mistakes. I rarely felt that way. Of course, then you realised that granadeers are completely OP. So you run every mission with 3+ granadeers and game becomes really really boring. 

 

In WotC, Firaxis introduced multiple timed missions, which were simply better - gathering crates or assassinating a general. Both are on timers, but:

1) they make sense (lore wise - some of the vanilla mission's are plain stupid: enemies don't know you are here! Retrieve their stuff before they blow it up themselves... huh?)

2) They add flexibility to decision making. During the crate recovery missions you can slow down. You are getting punlished by loosing resources you can to gather but it is up to you how hard will you push. If you run into tough enemy or get unlucky rolls or activation you don't get automatically ****ed over - you can decided whenever you want to take a risk for a possible reward or play conservatively and save lives instead of money.

3) they create interesting situation to solve. 

 

XCOM2 was especially disappointing to me, as it came after Invisible Inc. which used timers in a much smarter and more sofisticated way. MB has a follow up video where he examines, what I would consider, much better solutions. Inv Inc is among them.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Wormerine

[Gfted1]

Ug, nothing will make me quit a game faster than a countdown timer of any sort.

[Voss]

My biggest issue with the way they did turn timers is it took players 'up' a gamer layer. Instead of focusing on tactical control of a squad, it became about moving pieces to unlock the -players- ability to click on a series of boxes to delay a count. The gamist element takes precedence and the narrative element is.... pretty irrelevant.

 

That's pretty backwards to me. A mechanic should involve more investment in the game's setting, not push the player out. And then there is the problem with map generation and stupid tactics. All to get {thing} that everyone needs but also want to blow up.

[PhroX]

I enjoyed the XCOM 2 timers once I'd installed the mod that stopped them ticking while you were concealed. As well as making a lot of sense - why is there a time limit if they don't know you're there? - it seemed to me to give the best of both worlds: there's as much time as you like to carefully prepare to fight, but once you've engaged the enemy, there's an active pressure to not just sit there and overwatch.

Edited May 3, 2018 by PhroX

[Daled]

For sure with WotC they improved both missions and timers (maybe even reduced the missions with them) I'm not saying they were perfect, not even slightly, but I still think that considering pros and cons they made the game better than without them.

 

Devs have to make a choice and good devs don't take this lightly, they know the ins and outs of those choices and simply pick which one is the less bad, with xcom 2 they took the choice that maybe wasn't perfect but fixed a BIG problem and considered that if someone really couldn't deal with that it could be modded out right away.

 

Most gamers were really mad about xcom 2 timers not because they weren't perfectly implemented but at the simple idea that they even existed, they couldn't play anymore in their exploity way, instead of acknowledging both that and the fact that they were not good tactical players, they "cried".

Edited May 3, 2018 by Daled