Baldur's Gate PoE vs IE: Do wizards need to have more stuff to do in combat? DISCUSS!

[Delterius]

Yeah, it should probably be worded like:

Whenever a wizard uses an implement (a wand, a rod or a sceptre) they generate a "Blast" on their target. In addition to its standard damage, the Blast also hurts nearby enemies with a modest damage.

 

[octavius]

I don't think I've seen the "mages are heavy artillery that win fights for you 25% of the time and are idle 75% of the time" concept in any CRPG made since the early 80s (japanese Wizardry clones may be an exception). In a blobber mages could hit enemies with staves while being safely in the back line, and in other games you'd use darts or slings. In both cases this meant doing low damage that was only really useful to finish off weak critters that already took some damage from the fighters (and in later games such 'caster weapons' would have a decent chance of inflicting some status effects to make them more useful against typical mook encounters), but I don't remember non-casting mages being useless party-fillers at all. And if shit got serious, you could always make the decision to spend your mages' limited resources on 'trash mobs'.

The Gold Box games are good examples of games where the mages would be idle most of the fights, at least at lower levels, if you don't find clever ways to use them. My preferred use for mages in fights where I don't need their magic is to use them to set up backstabs for my Fighter/Thief. Also, armed with Darts they get 3 attacks per round. That means they can theoretically finish off 3 wounded Kobolds or similar low-life in one round. So there's usually something useful for the mages to do even if they conserve their spells.

edit to be a bit more on-topic: for me in BG1/2 most of the fun related to casters was to squeeze out as much usefulness from their spells as possible and resting as little as possible (usually no resting at all in a hostile area until I cleared it out). This also increased the value of scrolls and potions quite a bit. Blowing my entire repertoire on any remotely challenging fight and then resting to get it all back again for the next part of the dungeon doesn't sound fun to me at all.

 

[octavius]

When I first eyeballed this topic title I thought it was some kind of parody. I always figured the most common complaint for "they have nothing to do in combat" are martial classes, ESPECIALLY the thief types in early RPGs where their role is basically "play with a smaller party size for combat, but you can get more loot through trapped treasure chests and you won't die to traps"

Seriously, when was wizards not having things to do in combat ever a problem except very early on in D&D games and maybe some of the older Wizardries where you can't rest after every battle to restore spells? What a weird academical debate.

Thieves should never be single class in AD&D; always make them Fighter/Thieves. They fight almost as good as a pure fighter and have the backstab ability.
Personally I think that in older AD&D games it's the Cleric that has the hardest time finding something useful to do, at least at higher levels, when their THAC0 is too poor, they are forever stuck with one attack per round, and Hold Person no longer cuts it. The only spell that cuts it is lvl 6 Blade Barrier. And lvl 6 Heal can change the flow of the battle. In Pools of Darkness my single character Cleric was definitely the most idle character in combat. Single class Clerics make more sense than single class Thieves, as you want to get Hold Person ASAP, and to be as effective Turning Undead as possible.

The BG games changed the dynamics by giving Clerics lots of spells that improve their prowess in battle, like for example Invoke (Un)Holy Might or whatever it was called.

 

[WalmartJesus]

Like others stated, i'm fine with having my mage hang back and occasionally use their sling while saving their spells for important encounters or emergencies. Giving them an "awesome button" trivializes the satisfaction of starting as a low lvl glass cannon with only one or two measly spells into a god that rapes everything in sight end-game.

 

[TigerKnee]

Thieves should never be single class in AD&D; always make them Fighter/Thieves. They fight almost as good as a pure fighter and have the backstab ability.

Um yeah, I'm familiar with the intricacies (if you can call it that) of AD&D character building.

Of course, that statement there (Thieves should never be single class) seems like quite a bit of game design failure to me, but I digress.

Cleric stuff

Goldbox games spell selection is surprisingly not great. Kind of a shame since I really liked blobber dungeon crawl + tactical combat style.

 

[Renegen]

I once had other players in a P&P campaign get mad at me because for 1 round on my spellcaster I chose "nothing" as my action, telling them my dagger (for RP reasons) was too short range. They proceeded to buy me a spear and insist that I use it instead of doing nothing. Fucking popamoles, they're everywhere.

 

[Delterius]

I once had other players in a P&P campaign get mad at me because for 1 round on my spellcaster I chose "nothing" as my action, telling them my dagger (for RP reasons) was too short range. They proceeded to buy me a spear and insist that I use it instead of doing nothing. Fucking popamoles, they're everywhere.

Critically miss your target through their backs. You know you want to.

 

[roshan]

My other post ended in the Lilura thread and I think it bears repeating: unlike the IE games, PoE is being made with strategic resource management in mind. As much as I and some others preferred to play Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate without rest spamming, PoE will have demands and incentives to that effect out of the box. That's the most important change here because that is the very premise of an interesting Mage. Wether or not you want more things to do during lesser encounters, everyone here looks forward to that time to shine, which is when you unload the spellbooks.

The second most important change is that those spellbooks themselves are changing. For each of the game's 6 spell levels, the Wizard holds a certain allotment of spellpoints which he can use to cast what he needs on the fly, this selection being only limited by what spells are inscribed in his spellbook. The spellbook itself can be changed during but preferably in between combat. This hybrid of a Sorcerer and a Mage is, in my opinion, a very important change because it may have been necessary due to the demands of no less rest spamming. It also turns the Mage into a much more powerful focused spell caster than he was in the IE games since the Sorcerer's versatility completely outclassed everyone who wasn't Edwin in BG2.

In face of these two changes, the per encounter/ always there powers Blast, Arcane Veil and Grimoire Slam are relatively minor additions which should be on par with other classes'. A straight wizard wouldn't necessarily want the opportunity to use either Veil or Slam, the former meaning you allowed him into danger and the later being basically a touch attack. Blast itself is meant to cause 'modest damage' and since it is tied to auto attacks it shouldn't matter in the balance of spells. The thematic change from stone slinging to wands and rods is welcome regardless of preference. Ultimately, the things that matter are also the more sensible ways to improve the Mage's standing: the changes to spellcasting and resting directly influx into the game's encounter design and pacing. Adventures will be controlled environments where your resource management, from health to spells, will hopefully be tested by the developers.

POE will not have rest spamming because it will have auto heal, auto resurrection, and apparently also auto spell recovery! All the benefits of rest spamming and you do not even need to rest at all. Obsidiot and it's pretensions at being old school.

 

[roshan]

Bingo. And that's the main reason i disagree with Sawyer's 'balance" Screw low level combat. My worry is for the late stages of PE and for expansion/PoE2. In Sawyer's design, there is no room for the magic to be..."magical". The High magic in PoE will be less interesting than IE magic was. There will be no Time Stop, no insta-death spells, no PS:T High level ones, no summons.

This is what happens when leftards and male feminists are put in charge of designing games.

 

[Delterius]

POE will not have rest spamming because it will have auto heal, auto resurrection, and apparently also auto spell recovery! All the benefits of rest spamming and you do not even need to rest at all. Obsidiot and it's pretensions at being old school.

Doesn't know much about Health and Stamina, do you?

 

[roshan]

POE will not have rest spamming because it will have auto heal, auto resurrection, and apparently also auto spell recovery! All the benefits of rest spamming and you do not even need to rest at all. Obsidiot and it's pretensions at being old school.

Doesn't know much about Health and Stamina, do you?

Of course I know about it, and of course I also know that apologists and fantards that lack common sense buy into all of Obsidian's bullshit.

Let's look into this a bit critically:

1. In IE games, when your health hit 0, you were out of battle and dead. In POE, you are out of battle when your stamina hits 0. This means what POE calls "stamina" is actually a health bar. But, it regenerates, and when it depletes, you are not dead and end up waking up (resurrecting) after battle, and every class has it's own way of recovering stamina. So stamina is an auto regenerating, easily replenishable, universally healable health meter.

2. In POE, as long as you have health left, you can resurrect after battle ala NWN2. There is no equivalent to this in any old school RPGs, certainly not the IE games. What is being termed "health" is actually a new kind of resurrection resource. It allows your characters to be eliminated from combat and still keep coming back to life.

So what the system essentially is - regenerating, quickly replenishable, universally recoverable health, plus a less easily replenished, automatic resurrection resource freely available to all. But Obsidian calls it "health and stamina" and 80% of Codexians are turned into gibbering fools.

 

[Delterius]

In POE, you are out of battle when your stamina hits 0. This means what POE calls "stamina" is actually a health bar. But, it regenerates, and when it depletes, you are not dead and end up waking up (resurrecting) after battle, and every class has it's own way of recovering stamina. So stamina is an auto regenerating, easily replenishable, universally healable health meter.

It is also more vulnerable than both the same game's health and the IE equivalent, hitpoints. It is a per encounter health bar. Wether or not it is easily replenishable doesn't matter on the long run. It matters in each encounter. This means that a character's fighting capacity isn't hampered until the health bar itself is low. Somewhat the same as in the IE games where you won't risk fights who still have a large number of remaining hitpoints.

It allows your characters to be eliminated from combat and still keep coming back to life.

As far as we know, it allows your characters to be eliminated once and to limp on, considerably less useful and under a risk of permanent death until you rest. Since there are actual rest limitations this is actually important. If anything, PoE might be more punishing than the IE games, especially in higher difficulty modes.

1. In IE games, when your health hit 0, you were out of battle and dead.

It didn't. Even if you play with self imposed rest constraints, health potions and even healing magic isn't on short supply. Depending on the game there's also resurrection.

 

[Zombra]

I once had other players in a P&P campaign get mad at me because for 1 round on my spellcaster I chose "nothing" as my action, telling them my dagger (for RP reasons) was too short range. They proceeded to buy me a spear and insist that I use it instead of doing nothing. Fucking popamoles, they're everywhere.

Ha. You should know by now that role-playing has no place in a "Role-Playing Game".

 

[Lhynn]

I once had other players in a P&P campaign get mad at me because for 1 round on my spellcaster I chose "nothing" as my action, telling them my dagger (for RP reasons) was too short range. They proceeded to buy me a spear and insist that I use it instead of doing nothing. Fucking popamoles, they're everywhere.

Ha. You should know by now that role-playing has no place in a Role-Playing Game.

Lies, it totally does, them RP exp bonus mate.

 

[roshan]

It is also more vulnerable than both the same game's health and the IE equivalent, hitpoints. It is a per encounter health bar. Wether or not it is easily replenishable doesn't matter on the long run.

Of course it does. It means you are always at full health all the time.

It matters in each encounter. This means that a character's fighting capacity isn't hampered until the health bar itself is low. Somewhat the same as in the IE games where you won't risk fights who still have a large number of remaining hitpoints.

As far as we know, it allows your characters to be eliminated once and to limp on, considerably less useful and under a risk of permanent death until you rest. Since there are actual rest limitations this is actually important. If anything, PoE might be more punishing than the IE games, especially in higher difficulty modes.

Oh, so a character's abilities will be hampered after they have auto-resurrected several times? Whoa sounds punishing indeed

It didn't. Even if you play with self imposed rest constraints, health potions and even healing magic isn't on short supply. Depending on the game there's also resurrection.

I played every IE game with limited resting (only after depleting all combat spells - this allowed me to make use of a wider range of tactics than spamming the same uberspells all the time), no healing potions, no resurrection (all my characters have to survive every battle.)

If I played POE, I will be forced to autoheal and autoresurrect and will probably have lots of unlimited and per encounter spells and abilities. TEH AWSUM!!!

 

[Delterius]

Of course it does. It means you are always at full health all the time.

Do you believe that if you consider two 'fighter' characters, one taken from PoE and another from the IE games, the former's stamina bar can take as much punishment as the later's hitpoints?

 

[Mangoose]

If I played POE, I will be forced to autoheal and autoresurrect and will probably have lots of unlimited and per encounter spells and abilities. TEH AWSUM!!!

There's a bunch of per rest abilities too.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

things that actually affect gameplay quality - than making attributes have realistic effects.

Again, another weak justification on this that only proves my point by admitting that it's not realistic. Btw, I'm sure it'd take TONS of time to program attributes that make sense.

Have you ever programmed? I have.

So have I. Big whoop. I guess we're both video game programming experts then.

A stat system that makes sense isn't inherently complicated. I'm not talking about simulating reality to a tee, I'm talking about reassigning the attribute effects for certain classes. Tell you what, when the game is released you can go through the code and then post on here the proof of how much more elegant it is and how much more complicated it'd be to do it in a way that makes sense.

Of course, even if you did that, it still won't make INT affecting barbarian AoE make sense, which is kind of my whole point.

 

[Infinitron]

Mages not being constantly useful earlier in the game was not a giant problem. Infinitron remembering it sucking in retrospect after Josh pointed out the problem doesn't really count. It's not like BG1 itself was really that exciting early game.

So we should never improve on "good enough" and problems identified in retrospect aren't problems? What kind of backwards-ass attitude is that

Shit, it's not like fucking Fallout games themselves were exciting early on. But you know what, Fallout didn't give you some shitty energy pistol outside of the vault just so you can feel better about yourself for tagging that skill.

But New Vegas did.

There's a bunch of per rest abilities too.

Since this thread is about low level mages, it's worth noting that low level PoE mages don't have any per-encounter spells (let alone at-will). They only get those later.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Improving things is good, but i get the impression Sawyer is trying too hard to fix what wasn't broken.

 

[Zombra]

As far as attributes "making sense", there's an incredibly easy fix. Just stop reading the statistic names as English words and read them as game terms instead. There is no longer an "Intellect" stat, just a "Stat Blue" that determines AOE and duration of all game effects. There is also a "Stat Yellow" that affects hitting and dodging and a "Stat Red" that affects damage and carrying capacity, and some others. There, now it all makes sense.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

As far as attributes "making sense", there's an incredibly easy fix. Just stop reading the statistic names as English words and read them as game terms instead. There is no longer an "Intellect" stat, just a "Stat Blue" that determines AOE and duration of all game effects. There is also a "Stat Yellow" that affects hitting and dodging and a "Stat Red" that affects damage and carrying capacity, and some others. There, now it all makes sense.

So instead of thinking about my dimwitted meat shield and my dextrous but charisma-free Rogue I can now think of a character strong in red stat but a bit weak in yellow stat? Sounds like the next step in the evolution of role-playing games alright... someone censor that post before Sawyer sees it and implements it in POE2!

 

[Shannow]

I strongly disagree with Sawyer's concept of "balance". I think RPGs should have classes that are week at certain levels/situations, different power curves for different classes/multi-classing builds. A possibility where intelligent players can find attribute/skill/class/spell-combinations that ultimately take the character into a wholly unintended direction that is more powerful than a character that was played "straight". With the caveat that you sucked for 5 levels or have some devastating weakness.
I also think power curves should be much flatter than in D&D. TDE is much better in that respect.

But, all that said: I don't mind Sawyer going for his weird "balance" in He-Man RPG. We already had Dual-Classing, Multi-classing, spell cheese and stuff in older games. So if Obsidian are not interested in designing a new and interesting system that can be meta-gamed to death, why not go for a simplistic "balanced" game? *shrug*
I expect it will be "ok", but at best it's truly a good system when played, and at worst we can say: "Told you so".

 

[Lyric Suite]

I disapprove of muh RPGs moving away from roal playang and LARPing. You need to have some of that shit or else why bother? Just make a tactical combat game and be done with it.

 

[Mangoose]

things that actually affect gameplay quality - than making attributes have realistic effects.

Again, another weak justification on this that only proves my point by admitting that it's not realistic. Btw, I'm sure it'd take TONS of time to program attributes that make sense.

Have you ever programmed? I have.

So have I. Big whoop. I guess we're both video game programming experts then.

A stat system that makes sense isn't inherently complicated. I'm not talking about simulating reality to a tee, I'm talking about reassigning the attribute effects for certain classes. Tell you what, when the game is released you can go through the code and then post on here the proof of how much more elegant it is and how much more complicated it'd be to do it in a way that makes sense.

Of course, even if you did that, it still won't make INT affecting barbarian AoE make sense, which is kind of my whole point.

I suppose it's not too hard to code, but let's look at the effects besides coding time.

Assume they have a single class AttributeCalculation, with a set of methods that increase/decrease certain values, e.g. a method setIntEffects (int Intellect) where you have a couple lines of code that relate your Intellect to Will, area of effect size, and effect duration. At this point, whenever you create a new instance of class Character, all the object has to do is call on the methods within AttributeCalculation, no matter what player class he is. Pretty simple. Two classes and you can create a character that its Damage, Fortitude, Healing, Stamina, Accuracy, Reflexes, etc. set.

Now, you want to change it so Barbarian INT does not affect AoE. To modify the code, you create a subclass BarbAttributeCalculation that extends the original class AttributeCalculation. You define a new method setIntEffects(whatever) to replace the setIntEffects(whatever) from its superclass, where Intellect affects Will, effect duration, and some other value you decide Intellect should affect. Now, you said you actually want to do this for multiple classes. So you add more subclasses that inherit from AttributeCalculation. Now you have a messy hierarchy where some player classes have a subclass that inherits from AttributeCalculation, while the rest of the player classes don't.

Now what do you do? Probably the least overhead solution is to make empty subclasses for the rest of the player classes that also inherit from AttributeCalculation. And then for the class Character, you can't just call on the superclass AttributeCalculation now, you have to call on the right subclass. In order to do that, you can create an instance of a specific subclass by passing the character's player class as a string with (Java example) Class.forName(Name of the player class).

So, I guess that wasn't too hard to pseudocode. But in terms of complexity, now you have a dozen extra (sub)classes and you are also using inheritance. You also have to make sure that the right class is passed as a string. What you have now is extra points of failure. If things bug out, the debugging process means scanning through over a dozen classes, whereas in the original situation, you have two classes to worry about. Debugging takes time away from developing meaningful content.

After all that, you have to rebalance things because now attribute(s) affect each class differently. Say Intellect stops increasing AOE size for (I'm assuming your intention) all melee characters. Are you going to shift AOE size to another stat? If so, which stat would you switch over to Intellect so that Intellect is not a weaker stat than the others? Or do you want to simply not have AOE size matter for a melee character? But what if AOE size matters because it affects interrupting or stunning abilities, which interact with the Engagement mechanic? Finding the optimal solution to these questions also take time away form developing meaningful content.

Finally, here's a possible explanation for Intellect increasing melee AOE size: What if a smarter character understands physics better, and thus knows best to adjust his stance to reach more enemies without falling over?