Good list, Maali.
My second concern is the most important to me: talents. We get way too many of those, and a lot of them are very situational or simply weak at best. We end up prioritizing which ones we'll pick out of a real choice of 5 to 6 talents, all of which we'll end up having soon enough anyway. The moment everyone picks the same talents over every other ones (i.e. All Skilled Up, Bigger and Better) every time, you know something is not right. So here my thoughts on talents:
- We should get one less often. On the full course of a game, we should end up with only a few picks, maybe 5 or 6 at best, not more. Why? So that committing to one of them feels like a real choice that has consequences.
I agree that right now, there's something off about Talents. You get those every other level, for a total of 2 + 9 = 11 Talents. There are 36 Talents to choose from, however, only a select few will appeal to any particular build. I'm at level 9 for my current party and I've acquired the ones that work the best, and I'm wondering, "now what".
I'm trying to avoid the easy no-brainers like "Bigger and Better" and "All Skilled Up" that are build-neutral, but I've already picked up most or all of the build-specific ones.
Reducing how often you get them is one idea, but another is simply to increase how many Talents you have to choose from. I think the game needs closer to 50 Talents. I'm not saying to add them in before release, but maybe a couple months afterwards, you could make a "Skills + Talents Pack" patch that adds in additional skills and Talents.
- They should be stronger. Fewer picks means we can get more powerful stuff. Immunity (or near immunity) to an element for example, the ability to lockpick without ever having to use lockpicks, almost never dull the durability of an item you repair, double potion effectiveness and duration (instead of food), immunity (or near) to certain effects (we already have one for fear, let's have more), a big one time boost to an ability, or critical chance, or critical damage, etc. These are just examples. Why? So that committing to one of them feels like a reward.
Stuff like this are great examples of Talents that could be added in at some point.
The way talents work ATM are just a list of prioritizing the better picks first, then the okay picks, the not so bad picks, and then whatever's left.
You nailed it.
