What happened to all the skillbooks? I'm not talking about th enew stat/level requirements, I mean that the collection of skillbooks now sold by vendors is significantly lacking. for instance the witchcraft/rogue trader sells only a a few different skills now and complains many duplicate skillbooks. do you have to craft the majority of skillbooks now or is their inventory borked?

Forktong mentioned in another thread that vendors will get more skill books to sell (they are still looking into the balancing process)

In my personal opinion, though, vendors sold too many skill books in previous beta builds. So, I am kind of glad that their inventory got reduced. (My reasoning is: if you know less spells, then cooldowns start to matter and you have to plan a fight more carefully)

Except that the point of the max_skills = 2 * Ability_Level + 1 requirement was to fix the too many skills issue.

The problem currently is that the vendor selection is really random - sometimes you find ones that need level 19, but they may not be carrying ones which need level 3 or 4. That's not helpful.

Yes, I know that the limiting is now supposed to be done by means of ability levels. I have not got too far into this beta build yet, so my opinion about vendors and their stock is mainly based on previous versions. Well, I have to play a bit more with this system now...

Vendors scaling the items they sell to either the player level or area level or both is commonly used and not a bad system to use. Certainly better than pure random, not necessarily ideal.

That is horrible reasoning Elwyn, because for mages certain spells are mandatory. Try winning a fight as a fire mage without fireball or firefly.

If you cannot get those skillbooks from vendors, you are pretty gimped.

That's not so bad for equipment, but I wouldn't want to see that used for skill/spellbooks. Especially since players can branch off to a another "class" line at any point.

To be honest, I have now done the area around Cyseal 2-3 times (almost) only with the starting skills of the characters (hard mode). Yes, fights get very tough but it is what I like. Otherwise, the abundance of spells and skills make the fights too easy for my taste. I am not arguing that vendors should definitely sell less books (it is now apparently bugged anyway), but any system which would put a restriction on how many spells you can learn would make a better balanced game in my opinion.

I think I'm less concerned about how difficult it is and more concerned with how fun it is (or rather, isn't) to find yourself limited to three options beyond a basic attack, particularly for that length of time. I worry that when a player's options are so limited they start to fall into very predictable patterns with their skill executions.

^ this. Sure it makes fights more difficult, but it also makes them take longer and with -less- to do. Making that mage cast staff of magus over...and over..... and over............and over. I'm bored already thinking about it. If a challenge is wanted, then add another layer of game mode with an even bigger challenge, Rather than changing the dynamics of the game. And I DO argue that this changes the entire dynamics of the game.


THIS ISN'T WAKFU!!!

This is a game not a competition. Games are meant to be fun but fun is different for each person. Afaik, there is nothing that forces anyone to buy skill books. So why not have people who prefer simple fun be allowed to buy the books while the people who like tough fun can abstain from buying them? Or is this too simple?

Guys, I really do not understand this whole excitement!

David aka Forktong has already stated multiple times now (here and on Steam forums) that vendors and their inventory are bugged right now. There will be most likely a hotfix next week which will give the vendors more spell books to sell - so no worries here!

In my PERSONAL opinion, the game is too easy because too many spells and skills are available too cheap and too fast - but that is fine! If Larian chooses to balance the game with myriads of spells available right at the beginning - I am not complaining and not demanding that they change this mechanics. "Fun" for my PERSONAL play style is equivalent to "challenge". So, if I feel like my characters can steamroll all the mobs if they know too many spells and skills - then I just do not buy any. In fact, that is what I have been doing the whole time since last December without demanding anything.

However, if Larian also thinks that players can buy too many skillbooks thus upsetting the balance of the game (and the limiting of spells your characters can learn via ability levels in the current beta build indicates that Larian indeed might think so) - then I will certainly welcome these changes because in my PERSONAL opinion this will make the game far better balanced.

Why don't they just let monsters drop a little more skill books? There must be some sort of rate, by which we have a chance of getting a skill book or some other items. If the skills which enemies use could determine their loot tables, that would be interesting.

Supposing we have killed a boss, and atfer the combat it drops some skill book which he has used. It's cool, isn't it?

I prefer there are various ways for players to get skill books rather than by them from the vendors in the town.

For example, could we meet some randome vagrant merchants in our adventures outdoors, or some stroy line gives us some skill books or temporary skills?

that last part is Scrolls. The idea of a wandering npc selling random skillbooks is interesting though.