Redo Memory to just use a 1:1 ratio on active skill cost.
No more slots nonsense, just a straight: you have X memory, this or that skill uses Y of it(usually about 2).

It adds more granularity, and makes 1 Memory a point worth actually investing on it's own.

Also, Ability points spent in Skill-trees should add Skill-tree specific Memory.
For example: Memory 10 character with 2 points in Necromancy has 10 Memory for use with any ability, and 2 points that can only be used for Necromancy spells.

They should either be a 1:1 ratio on memory, or rebalance how much memory a skill costs, imo. A lot of the source skills don't make any sense. They cost a scarce resource and large amounts of memory (walk in the shadows doesn't make sense as a source skill especially in its current state.

I also have trouble warping my head around how a summon skill book costs 3 memory when you plan on adding a summoning class in the game that's supposed to use multiple summons, detonate them, heal them, and siphon health from them to heal the party. Unless they are planning to make it where intelegince and other other stats not effect how summons will work, and make it purely based of player level, which I personally consider to be a really boring way of doing progression.

i like the memory concept per se (vancian magic systems i like a lot). i dont like the cost-system, though. it does not add something valuable. its a rather boring "spell shop system" with fixed cost per spell.

id rather have something like: 1:1 basic cost for all spells but the more slots you use for one spell the more powerful that spell becomes (like 1 slot fireball does x damage, 2 slot fireball does x+y damage, up to a limit of "spendable" slots course)

and points spent in skill trees add one or more special effects to the spells of that school (more effects the more points spent, could be quite costly to balance the effects, eg cool down reduction or life leech (like as of now in necromancy) or something else)

Can you explain to me how the current system doesn't add anything valuable and why it's just a boring spell shop system?

you spent one or more slots to get one spell. done (esp. boring since the slot cost for a particular spell is fixed. spell x costs y slots.).

the value you get for spending slots is of course a spell. but thats it, nothing more nothing less. and since thats the very foundation of the system i would not call that "adding value".

just like i spent 1 or more Euro to get 1 pen. always the same pen, always the same price.

id rather have different variations of that same pen (ie, cheap - expansive), so i could add (more) value by spending more slots

The issue is that memory is a solution to a problem... while at the same time also creating a whole new problem... while also being subject to the new problems in the game.

1) So you have a memory system that gives you very few slots per point (1 for every 2 you spend).
2) You have a attribute system that constantly wants to keep your primary attribute and constitution as high as possible or else you receive penalties or become helplessly squishy.
3) You have skills that can take 1-10 memory points (3 in the game)
4) You have skills that have very limited use, are not always helpful, or rely HEAVILY on other skills to be useful... and whose points don't necessarily reflect this fact.
5) All the while certain skills are far FAR better than others and have the same cost.

So you are in a situation where you never gain memory points, don't have any points to put into it, have skills that take far too much points, or that rely on skill combos...

And the game often reflects this by making some skills far better then their first game counterpart. Oil, my favorite earth spell of the first game, now does damage as well.

Yet what you often had in the first game that this game cannot do due to it being a waste of memory points are combos...

The whole Blood Rain, To contamination, To Fire combo? 3 memory points... For subpar damage in a game where Zone control is almost completely useless. It would be an amazing combo in the first game! In this one? Pointless and detrimental.

You are actually FAR FAR more rewarded for just choosing 3 high damage CC attacks (because CC doesn't come with the weakness of low damage anymore)... then for choosing skills because they work well together. The only combo I tend to do is Rain + Ice because Rain is an impossible skill to live without.

Which makes Memory feel even more pointless because you aren't looking for combinations or to fill in gaps... Your just flat out looking for power now.

I like the System of Memory. All they have to do right now is balancing of the skills.
3 Memory Slots are to much for a simple summon. Better decrease Memory cost and increase AP costs..or something like that.
I guess, nobody will use a Summon spell, when he could use 3 other Spells instead.

Also I like the idea to complete the memory system with Class-spezific slots.
Something like: All 3 points in Pyro you get one Pyro-memory slot.

And we should'nt forget that we get "skill-crafting" in the future. That will change a lot, too.

Skill crafting as presented is just the ability to craft new skills from skill books.

These new skills are preset....

So it is better to think of "Skill crafting" as access to 1-3 extra skills per skill tree and that is it.

i agree, since spells are rather costly AND spell balancing is kinda awkward it is more efficient to get a few very powerfull spells and invest the remaining points NOT into memory. using spell combinations - one of the most fun aspects of dos1 - is gimped in effect

I don't think I can agree with any of you wholeheartedly without more information.

Expanding capacity to hold abilities that have variable cost in lieu of expanding damage is adding value -- you're adding utility or the possibility of generating a stronger combo rather than directly increasing your current damage.

Let me address a few things I've come across in my game-play:

I've also lived without using rain; didn't bother with it at all unless I was being particularly impatient on classic difficulty. I am sure even on the harder difficulties it will be the exact same because there are solutions to everything currently.

Your skills in the current build can shore up the differences from neglecting your primary attribute for quite awhile as well as picking up the right combos along the way or simply having extra abilities to make up for the deficit. All your abilities scale upwards with you anyways and the penalties are to offset that. So you can be several levels behind and still be competitive.

Zone control isn't useless; it can be exploited depending on how much of a scum bag you are or simply it can be used for CCing while reserving your larger spells to deal with more troublesome foes or if you're in an endurance fight it can also help out as well since most of your spells by that point are on cool down depending on your party composition.

If you're interested in gaining more power you're going to need memory one way or another. One shotting Alexander, for example, will probably require you to have more than the baseline memory.

Goodness ok here we go.



Going without rain means you often have to remove obstacles by waiting a lot of extra time and would often mean taking full fire damage.

My point about Rain is that it is the only combo I use because Rain is useful on its own, in fact a detriment not to have (Or its cousin Blood Rain). Not that you couldn't live without it.



Some of them do that. However attributes remain the largest effect on your current combat effectiveness.

A Single point of constitution means a lot more then the 5th dot of Vitality (In fact the most useful dot is the first).



Here is kind of the thing
1) Enemies can move much MUCH further then they could in the first game and often have teleports in some way. It is rare that enemies will not be able to reach you in a single turn
-I'll add to that, Ranged attacks are POWERFUL in this game. In fact they are often just as powerful as melee attackers, or even more powerful.
2) Enemies with armor or magic armor can ignore it
3) Zone control is a lot less powerful then it is before.
4) Enemies can also clear zoning, corrupt it, or benefit from it.

As soon as enemies close the distance your attempt at zone control is pretty much over except for possibly a teleport.



Yes, the game makes that painfully clear. No one was disputing that.

Given how many points you need to invest into Memory to get a single slot I cannot see how any skill which costs more than 3 Memory will every be worthwhile. 4 Memory slots? That'll take the full attribute points from 4 levels, and one level means a lot in this game. Hello to fighting charged frogs at level 3, hello to fighting Void Salamanders at level 5.

Ten slots is 10 levels worth of points. Ten levels out of probably 20 or 30 at the most - so you'd better hope that you get incredibly lucky with the RNG drops because losing 10 levels worth of power into Memory will cripple you. A spell which takes 10 memory to cast shouldn't just kill one enemy on the screen in one shot, it shouldn't just kill everything on the screen in one shot, it should kill everything on the current map, and the next three maps.

Memory seems like it was intended to murder the mage classes. Especially odd given that two additional mage classes were picked as the users choice skill sets.




Actually, the hope for skill crafting is that the game does the hard work for the developers - a system which smartly combines skills into appropriate combinations without the developers having to hand-craft animations for each one, because there would be way too many combos to do it by hand.

The thing is that what they have on the table SEEMS like it would make memory worthwhile.

As I said the Rain + Contamination + Fire (and fire causing skill) would be AMAZING in Divinity Original Sin. It is a pretty amazing combo! Heck Blood Rain makes the combo even better!

Things SEEM like they have pretty nice combos and that skills are even more powerful than ever before! They focused a LOT on making sure that skills work well off one another and meld together to create powerful combos.

But because of the way the game is designed... Creating a giant field of bleeding, poison, and explosions is... a waste because enemies will far too often be immune and if they aren't immune why aren't you using CC?. 6ap and 3 memory... to do what often 2ap + 1 memory does.

and I am not even done with what they have done to the skill system... On paper... because on paper it is amazing.

In execution though...

I think that's just your hope, and it's largely unrealistic.

Great idea there BTW. Totally agree.

It's not just MY hope - there are way too many possible combinations for the developers to hand-craft more than a tiny fraction of skills, but yeah probably unrealistic. It's hard enough getting good balance from the baseline skills, never mind if an algorithm combines them.

I like the memory system but needing to put two points into the stat to get any benefit feels pretty bad, I would like one point to reward one skill slot. Currently, I find it very hard to justify taking skills that cost three memory slots and I'm not convinced it would be worth it even with my suggestion. Perhaps combining that with lowered memory slot requirements for a certain number of points put into Pyromancy (for example) would make everything feel better, and allow characters to specialise more.

There are more ways to deal with fire than with rain and are more precise in dealing with it. You can also choose to ignore it if you have the resources. The point is you have resources at your disposal and you're choosing to ignore them for reasons you have not explained yet. Hence, it's a hyperbole when you say you can't live without rain.

Your point about rain does not reflect my experience at all since there are so many ways to deal with burning or fields of flame in general. Something is only detrimental if not having it does not allow you to play your game plan. I would almost want to argue that your usage of rain is a crutch rather than an alternative.

Your combat effectiveness is determined by a mix of skills, abilities, gear, and context. In some cases, each attribute point beyond a certain threshold gives less value than a point of a skill would.

Certainly, some skills need to be reworked, but you really aren't weighing them at all in your current analysis. Some of those advantages are kind of massive too as well as opening up playstyle specific tactics.

As for zoning the opponents what you say is pretty much true up until you say that zone control ceases the moment they reach you. You have just as much mobility if not more than your opponents do and there are PLENTY of situations where even after they have arrived at your threshold you can still control their movement (by withdrawing then CCing the area or teleporting them back etc). There are also plenty of situations, due to positioning, the enemy will not reach you in its entirety till the second round.

And, yes, it's true, they can run through your lands of fire and lightning but they also lose out on their magic armor along the way which... makes them vulnerable to CC. Zone control is still effective as it makes the opposition pay a price. Just remember whatever the enemy can benefit from you can as well. If that's the case then it comes down to simply playing your cards right.

As for the last point, let me rephrase it and say that memory has a pretty good relationship with combat effectiveness. There's always going to be a break point for what you want and that there is more than one way to play.

Skipping the section of what you wrote that I am finding annoying. Don't take it as conceding or dismissing.



That is because they do not alleviate the attribute spread even remotely right now. You especially do NOT use it the way you suggest because having good Strength and Two-handed = Good.

The stuff with attribute points and memory/memory slots specifically has me curious if they're not pitting future usefulness on itemization. In the starting island I've found gear that gives like +4/+7/+4 to finesse, intelligence, and memory, respectively, and I think it was on a single piece of armor. It was probably one of the best pieces of gear in the loot table, but if that's what we get to start then I think that might become the norm later on. So, sure, your base, naked character might be all 10's with investment mostly in their primary stat but geared up can easily be 16's, 30-somethings, and 20-somethings. If so, that's pretty decent and we just need wait for the extra content.

Anyone who says zoning is useless in DO2 does not know how to use wooden crates properly. :3
With enough boxes you can turn the odds of any battle in your favor.

PFT! exploits :P

And please no dividers? :P

As has been said before, relying on the RNG to provide the player with necessary stat boosts is a questionable-to-poor design choice in a game with limited XP and loot available, especially since there is relatively little pre-placed loot.

It locks you into the items which have the best stats you need even if there are upgrades. For instance, I've found some daggers which do much higher damage, but using them means giving up on the +2 Finesse from the weaker dagger. It creates an unstable cycle where you need to get better and better RNG drops for each upgrade.

Actually even if the RNG wasn't involved... I'd have a serious question with the game sort of making the attributes arbitrary by flooding the player with 20-30 attribute points from items.

Technically you could just RNG the stores to death though that will take some time. Also, there is crafting too and when the full recipe list comes out we can then complain that it either isn't enough or what have you.

Furthermore, the soft caps are pretty easy to reach which, while it doesn't get rid of the RNG, does reduce some of its influence. So you actually have a decent amount of points to play around with.

I agree that the memory system needs some tweaking
My problems with memory right now are:

-I don't like the 2 points per slot concept. The 1 point does nothing?! That is not satisfying. I would much rather have 1 points for 1 slot but have the abilities rebalanced so that much more of them take up two or more slots.
--OR give memory some other bonus in addition to the slots.
--OR give characters 3 ability points per level, which I think would be great to allow more flexibility. and the stat system needs a rework/rebalance anyway so it wouldn't hurt too bad

I really like someone else's idea of giving every ability an extended or bonus version by allocating an extra slot to it. That would be awesome

What if all characters started out with 5 Memory instead of 10, bonuses to Memory on items were cut in half, but 1 attribute point in Memory = 1 Skill slot?

That makes each point in Memory useful, and lets you get more value per attribute point without giving you too many starting slots or too many slots from item bonuses.

So basically half of what I suggest, and done far less ellegantly.

You wanted to keep Memory at 10, but increase the usual memory cost per skill from 1 to 2. The reason for cutting +Memory bonuses on items in half is because 1 point in Memory is now worth twice as many skill slots (from 0.5 to 1). Which approach is the more elegant one is up to personal opinion.




I haven't fully made up my mind one way or the other on the idea that points into skills increase your skill slots by 1 for that skill only. One point into a skill-granting ability gives one specialized slot. So 1-5 special use slots. That would allow for splashing of points, but powerful skills would be unavailable without specialization.

Yeah, that sounds okay. It might be a bit tricky to code, figuring out "okay for this 4 Mem skill, the first two slots go into the free slots in the specialization, but the other two require two free slots in the general use category".

If that issue can be solved, that sounds like a good plan.

I've been thinking about it for a long time and the best way I thought about "fixing" it with the least change possible was:

- Keep the 2 points per slot.
- Give 2 free Memory slots every 5 levels.
- Rebalance the skills that need more than one slot. They already cost more action points to cast, not to mention the ones that need the extra source point.

It is objectively provable that your idea is the less elegant one.

10
10
10
10
10

^this is how a raw stat sheet looks when no points/racial bonuses are distributed in my variant.

10
10
10
5
10

^this is your idea

That 5 there that breaks the neat pattern? That's objectively disgusting.

Not to mention the practical implication of one point in that one stat being worth twice as much of it's base value, whereas my version simply increases the granularity, by making 1 point a valid increment.

Stop overreacting and sperging out over "the numbers don't line up, the numbers don't line up!" No one has 10/10/10/10/10, there's always a 12 in there somewhere.


Your idea is OBJECTIVELY less intuitive. "You get 10 Memory points, each point is one skill slot. (P.S. Skills typically take 2 Memory.)"

"One Memory point equals 1 skill slot, skills typically cost 1 Memory" is OBJECTIVELY more intuitive.


EDIT:
Lord Crash's idea just below is definitely a better way of handling it than giving extra skill slots reserved for a specific skill type.

I have another suggestion. Imo the memory requirements for skills should be reduced once you climb up the ladder in respective schools. The memory spots a skill or spell needs should be reduced by one point every time you spend a point in the respective school/ability (up until it's at a minimum of one spot).

Exmaple:
If you have the pyro ability at level 1 a medium-powered spell costs 3 memory slots. When you spend another ability point in pyro (once you level up) the memory requirement for the same spell is reduced to 2. And on pyro level 3 (and above) it only needs just 1 memory spot.

That way the overal memory limitation (and freedom!) is still fully in place and simple to grasp while at the same time the better you get in certain skill schools the less memory space the respective skills and spells need (this is imo also a pretty intuitive solution since learning and mastering a school should make you better at performing the respective skills and spells).

With such a system you didn't even need any spell-learning restrictions. There is nothing wrong with learning a high-power spell that requires 5 memory slots if you're only at level 1 of the respective school since you can't combine it with a whole lot of other skills and spells in that case due to the high memory spot requirements. Gaining ability levels in certain schools then only serve to reduce the memory spots a respective spell/skill needs. So the more you climb up the ability ladder in a school the faster and more efficient you are at performing its skills or spells and the more spells and skill you can remember at the same time.

This seems like the best system. Memory as a derived attribute from memory the stat is needlessly complex - just make them equivalent, and increase costs if need be. Adding extra school-specific memory, or a school-specific discount would be a great addition to the mostly lackluster spell school skills.

LordCrash offers an excellent suggestion on how to improve combat abilities and Memory slot usage

Thanks.

What I don't understand is why Larian would promise new features like this without already having a strategy to make it work.

It reminds me of the No Man's Sky debacle. (Though I'm not suggesting that D:OS2 will be a similar trainwreck.) They kept making promises even though it's now clear they had no idea how to keep them.

It seems like there are really obvious issues with the memory system, armour system, spell-crafting, etc, and they should have been aware of these issues long before now. I'd be much happier if they'd limited their promises and focused their attention on a few features they could implement properly.

I disagree. All the elements above WORK. They may have issues and they aren't perfectly balanced, but they work and they work in a way that creates a fun experience for a lot of people.

And tbh this is only the alpha version of the game. To balance the game properly is exactly what this here is all about. The final release of the game is months away. Larian also changed a lot during the early access development of DOS1, all based on community feedback.

If you really think that, you have no idea what Elegant or Objectively means.

Elegance in design is about more than just making it simple to understand. It's also about consistent patterns.

Both solutions might make 1 point of memory a worthy investment, but yours is disgustingly crude in how it achieves it's goal.
As I mentioned, it breaks the pattern of a base value each stat has, and it alters the relative value a single point has compared to others.

The system we have already has a "P.S. Skills cost 1-3", that much doesn't change either way.
What I suggest is simply increase the granularity of it, so that 1 memory is a valid increment of investment.
What you suggest is altering the value in relation to other stats, so that the benefit increments line up with the current cost increments, as though they were set in stone.



This runs into a big problem though: eventually, skills of vastly different power will end up occupying the same amount of memory, leading to scenarios where there's an obvious best choice, and eliminating the cool mechanic of filling up your kit with smaller abilities.

A person with 12 slots won't be choosing between 4 meganukes or 12 combat-tricks, they'll be just able to equip all the meganukes they have, and still have spots for a few tricks.

It's essentially gutting the interesting parts of Memory as a mechanic.

Perhaps, just a thought, you could try getting off your high horse and not using phrases like "That's objectively disgusting" and "disgustingly crude" because someone dared to have a slightly different opinion than you.

Hurt feelings do not constitute an argument in a meritorical discussion, nor do feelings in genera shield from criticism.

My only sin would be an arguable degree of exaggeration, which in no way detracts from the merit of what I say.

That is good because he didn't argue anything. An argument has a premise and a supporting statement.

He was telling you... Stop being a jerk.

Not everything someone says directly relates to the argument at hand.

I've assumed that Stabbey is right about things like spell-crafting, which obviously doesn't work yet, so we'll see.

My point is essentially that Stabbey's realism doesn't justify the outcome of that realism. Sure, some things are hard to achieve. But if you know they're hard, then you should think hard before you start making promises you can't live up to.

I mean, what does Stabbey's version of spell-crafting actually add to the game?

I think the word you are looking for is symetry, not elegance.
Symetry does not automatically mean elegance. Also your proposed row of numbers is broken up as soon as you even begin to create your character.
So the other guys moment is less symetrical for a brief moment during character creation.
To make a big deal about having a symetrical character sheet before you start putting points in it is really autistic, and no sensible definition of elegant game design.

Among the qualities of elegance are simplicity and neatness.

It is also important to note that what I speak of is specifically the baseline values, which in turn also define the value any increase of one point has thereafter.
In that sense, the base value of each stat is 10, and the racial talent and starting points are what alters it(and each point is 10% of that base value, etc.).

So no, there is no mistake here, what I say is exactly what I mean, and exactly what it is.

Allow me to correct you there.
What you say is what you exactly what you mean, and exactly what you think it is.
Obviously since people are not agreeing with you there are multiple opinons on what makes a game elegant on the table.
Now surely you are not going to go full retard and claim that only your opinions are the objective truth?

Honestly... Just keep the Memory stat at 10... Give the player only 5 memory slots to start.

And every 1 memory point from then on = 1 memory slot

It might be ugly but I honestly don't think people will mind.

And in that scenario, what is the function of the other 5 points you start with?



Objective, means that it is true without bias for feelings or an individual perspective.

It is objectively true, that a pattern is more elegant in it's presentation than random numbers(chaos).

10 is race baseline. At the baseline you have 5 memory points.

Done.

It is far more important that the game works then for it to be elegant.

If a blunt force solution is required then it is required...

You can also lose points.

How many slots do you lose if you lose 1 memory? 5 memory? 9 memory?

And why would you brute force it when I have provided the best solution so far?
-1:1 granularity, which solves the complaint about Memory being only worth investing in increments of two.
-Tree specific bonus based on skill-tree invested, solving the common complaint of investing in a tree doing nothing to let you use more skills from it.

That's only a very late-game issue and imo it's not a real issue at all. That's exactly how magic functioned in DOS1. For once, you need both a high score in magic schools and you need a high score in memory. That's very unlikely to have in the early game.

What my suggestion actually does is that you have more possibilities the better you become in one school. I think that it is ok to be able to cast a lot of pyro spells when you have skilled pyro to 5. But at the same time it's unlikely until the very end game that you will have one or even two other schools on the same level. So high-level spells of other schools will still require multiple memory spots if you want to use them. My system gives the player more freedom and flexibility in the late game. I'm not that fond of the vision that even a very high class mage for example isn't able to cast more than 4-5 spells, especially since high-class spells still have high AP costs to cast and high cooldown costs (I strongly urge to have very high AP and cooldown costs for these spells/skills). We shouldn't forget that memory isn't the only mechanic that limits the skills you could actually use in combat. More than that, your deck is limited by AP costs and cooldown. It's very likely that you can't use most high-class spells more than once in combat due to these costs. So in the end the low memory spot requirements for high-class spells in schools you have a high score in won't erase the choice whether you want more spells with high AP/high cooldown costs or more spells with low AP/low cooldown costs. My suggestion gives you only more choice because the range of spells and skills you can use in combat would be extended. I personally played DOS1 a lot and one of the best things in character developement was the fact that you had that wide range of spells and skills you could use in combat. That made you flexible in encounters, especially in the late game.

So what I think memory should do is focusing a character's range of possiblities to the abilities the character's good in. It shouldn't serve as a rigid limit to only have a very small amount of spells at hand, especially in late game. I think that Larian should give the player more freedom not less. Memory is good to balance the game, but again it works together with AP costs and cooldown costs for skills. Less memory requirements don't give you a free pass on spamming high class spells. It gives you the chance to make full use of the possibilites a high score in certain skill class or magic schools should give you and it makes the game more fun by giviny you a greater range of spells you can actually use in combat encounters.

2 points lost = 1 memory point for below 10.

Done... It is never a factor except in that RARE situation... (In fact... How do you lose memory?)

I agree that a 1:1 approach feels best for the player/game.

I feel the base should be 10 to be in line with all of the other starting attributes, although if it were to be 5 I don't think it would negatively affect anyone.

From a back end, if 10 is the base and it is a 1:1 system, it could just have the base be 5 behind the scenes and add 5 for the player. (Calculate base 5 display base 10)

But all that is semantics if the general agreement is a 1:1

I will conceed that what you write makes some sense.
However, in it's raw form, your idea provides multiplicative benefits, which would quickly make all skills only ever cost 1 memory for characters who choose the corresponding skilltrees, and put a severe toll on hybridization.

Operating on the player's capacity is much safer in that regard, because your primary means of expanding the number of skills is already to expand the number of slots.
Adding to that is precisely that, 'adding to' not multiplying.





That's an inconsistency of rules, inconsistency is bad design.

IIRC you lose memory from the Ring of Braccus Rex(-1), and there are hopefully going to be other items with similar trade-offs.

Not necessarily. The ONLY times it comes up is a single item.

It completely and utterly doesn't matter... AND isn't the only game to do this.

Better yet the ring retains the rules either way. -1 to memory at 10... = 1 less memory stat.

Just a comment on your suggestion, Lord Crash - there's two things you might not have fully considered with how the ability point mechanics work in D:OS 2.

The split of Combat and Civil points means that I can worry less about whether I should invest all my points into Combat or boost a Utility skill instead because the points are separate. Additionally, ability points now seem to work on a 1:1 level instead of D:OS 1 where the amount of points needed went up by 1 per level of the ability.

Not to mention that the numbers on many of the Combat abilities - particularly the defensive ones - are so unimpressive that for lack of any other great ideas, pumping points directly into the skill school is where I'm spending most of them. I'm level 6 and some of my characters have 5 points skill schools like Warfare and Huntsman already, and Scoundrel isn't far behind. But it could be that the ability points cap is now higher than it was in D:OS 1.

I'm mixed about the new system. I realize this thread is focused on memory but there is also talk about the abilities and source. I'm at the point of the game where I have one painful fight left and have yet to figure out how to deal with the one shot kills and insta blinding (which should describe well where I am). My characters are all level 6 a few exp shy of level 7.
-
It took me very late in the game to realize about source points (a mechanic which I'm not overjoyed with but abstractly makes a lot of sense). I'm also concern that the combination of memory and source points is overly restrictive. I realize that one is attempting to limit diversity while the other is limiting more powerful spells in a single battle. However, combined they are somewhat painful.
-
Also skills points are radically changed; instead of focusing on which spells/skills you can learn they impact the strength of the spells/skills.

While I like this change (you can learn anything you just might not be very effective in usage). However, you now have memory which discourage the usage of being able to consider using ineffective spells/skills since for the most part you would want to make more effective spells/skills available given the limitations (esp as higher level skills/spells will suck up memory slots). So in the end flexibility is severely limited because you can only use a powerful spell a few times in combat (source points); you can only have a couple of spells available in combat (memory) and only a few of them will be maximize (skill points).
-
Some of what I said above presumes a certain scaling as spells become higher level (use more memory slots) but this scaling has not yet been shown. I would rather reduce the suffocating impact of memory in favor of strong attention to spells/skill behavior if not well known (few skill points) and expand on the concept of source (which needs greater emphasis during the game's introduction).
-

In general I like the new system even if I wouldn't mind a tweak.
In the first game a mage that really focused on picking up all the mastery skills could really trivialize every encounter by chaining mastery skills back to back, while still having the full repetoar of regular skills.
It was so easy to kill things that even honor mode felt like a cake walk.

just make source abilities cost no memory, u have already a pretty rare resource needed to use them, no reason to waste memory there.

Also make that every 2 points in one shool add 1 spell slot for that kind of spells. if u do so u can have an average spell pool with a for example full pyro mage. and at the same time if u wanna do a jack of all trades type u still have to sacrifice intelligence to amplify ur memory.

I agree that Memory should be changed to a 1:1 ratio. I understand that the developers are trying to force you to make the decision of either utility or damage/defense and that decision should have weight. But in it's current form you find some stupid situations -- specifically on level ups and finding gear with +/- Memory on it. I would like to add that I still don't think that Memory is the worst stat.

At the moment I prioritize:

Primary Stat (to cap) > Memory (to fit my build) > Constitution (all other points) > Secondary Stats

When talent points are so precious I don't even give a consideration to secondary stats.

I don't like the idea of lowering memory cost based on the spells respective attribute. It basically removes the mechanic of memory and memory requirements late game which were used to balance certain spells. The balance would no longer be there when you have 3 or 4 points in all the schools you want, giving all spells a 1 memory cost. Or the other scenario would be you put 1 point in a school and now you have to spend 3 or 4 slots for a good spell? that would never be worth it. In which case the freedom of hybridization is removed.

I like the idea of changing it to 1:1 slots and upping memory cost on most spells better than the current system, but it is going to feel kind of chaotic when you have like 20 slots right? You cant even have that many on your bar can you? And popping the window up to manage that memory could become a little tedious. Also, if there actually are almost no 1 cost spells, then it would just be transferring the irregularity from the attribute assignment to the memory slot assignment which does nothing. There would still need to be 1 memory spells.

Also, Naqel, you are being toxic. When someone brings up a different opinion, it is not them attacking you as a person. You aren't the epitome of logic in this thread so it would be nice if you stopped acting like you were.


Dude, someone else making sense is not a concession. Why do you think you are better than everyone else?

I don't think I'm better than everyone else(I know it ), it is however worthwhile in a discussion to acknowledge the merits of another person's position on an issue, even if one remains opposed to it in general.




Actually, there wouldn't.

So long as a reasonable amount of odd number cost spells(3, 5, etc.) exist, there doesn't even need to be a 1 cost spell to take advantage of the 1 memory slot a Memory point grants. Either way, I have quite clearly suggested that the costs would need to be altered to take advantage of the new possibilities.


As far as UI goes, it could be redone to only show the memory used as a X/Y, instead of rendering the exact number of slots, and filling them with an icon for each slot occupied(only a single empty slot would be shown to drag a new spell into).
This suggestion is however mostly concerned with the gameplay implications of the system, not the visual presentation of it.

I agree - memory feels too limited anyways. Making it 1 to 1 makes it a bit easier to get (even if one 'new' memory is less useful than 1 memory in the current system). This would also require rebalancing skill costs - instead of 1 to 3 memory, they might cost 1 to 6 or 7. A few of the current skills honestly feel like they are not worth it for 1 memory, but if rebalanced to 1 memory in the new system they would.

A nod from Larian's public relations or whatever might go a long way to ironing this out. If their is indeed gear with that many +stats than we must also throw out preconceived D:OS itemization ideas. Because in OS we were level 20-ish at the end game and had ~20ish in a stat for a hybrid with good items. If adding memory slots is really 10 levels of points then yes, that is complete shit.
BUT, in D:OS you gained more points in the higher levels, that could happen here? Also, we are seeing higher numbers across the board. And we are seeing level 10 characters in the completion of the opening act? Maybe the level cap is higher as well?
So, Larian may have opted to have higher numbers in general, with smaller individual effects, to even out scaling. After all, It's easier to balance smaller steps taken more often.

Unfortunately, most of this is based on too little information. Perhaps our goal should be ironing out what our concerns are for memory and the current stating and itemization so Larian can direct a response / focus their efforts.

My concern: I always play at least one play through of a battle mage, I love the flexibility and the aesthetic and what it offers, I'm not alone in that. However, from my EA experience I do not have the ability to
a - have enough skills to live that flexibility in combat. (memory being the largest contributor)
b - have enough +stat to be effective as a party member. (since I've moved from 2.5 to at least 4 stats i need to invest in, not including the combat skill investment trade off - which seems well compromised)
c - have the itemization to support that archetype (would be helped with crafting)

Completly agree on 1:1 ratio. It's really stupid having to invest 3 whole levels only in memory to have enough slots for a source spell. Wtf?

the more i think about it, the more i am of the opinion that pvp is the issue. i like the arena idea but it seems like pvp cripples the core game because everything only loosely related to pvp (ie eg skills) has ultimately to be balanced around pvp and hence the current system

I don't see the point. Memory and spellcasting could follow different rules in PvP and the campaign.

Well, that's not necesssarily true. The ability point distribution of course should cater to the experience which means that you maybe should get less ability points while leveling up. Imo you shouldn't be able to master two or more schools before very late in the game. Or at least not without sacrificing everything else in terms of character development.
And of course the balance is still there. You seem to forget that high level skills still have high AP costs and high cooldown times. So even if you have a huge range of spells at your disposal you probably can't use many of them more than once in combat.
The high and very rigid memory requirements that our currently implemented only severly limited the range of spells you can use in combat which imo reduces the fun of combat because you have less flexibility and a much smaller range of possibilites to adapt to your enemy. Lowering memory requirements once you level up in a school would give you real and tangible benefit for leveling up. It's pretty disappointing if you put another ability point in a school just to notice that you can't really use any of your new skills because your memory limit is still full. That takes a lot away from the enjoyment of getting stronger and leveling up. Leveling up should really make you stronger and should enhance your arsenal. Balancing (I only speak for SP here!) should be the result of multiple factors: memory requirements, AP costs, cooldown times, source point requirements and the price for spellbooks. Right now the memory requirement dominates the rest and is imo way too rigid and strong. Mid-level skills with a three slot memory requirement are hardly worth to be taken into your deck since they severly reduce your arsenal while still having high AP costs, high cooldown rates and source point requirements on top. It even goes that far that your wizard can come into situations in combat in which he has no ready spell at all during a turn because he has only very few low-level skills and his one or two high-level skills are still in cooldown. On top of that it's kind of boring to use the very same spells all the time because your arsenal is so small. That just doesn't sit right with me. Reducing the rigid memory requirements for level up in a certain school would imo soften that issue and would actually encourage people to level up and enjoy the new spells and skills they have at their disposal.

If you have 1 'mega nuke', you can fire only one 'mega nuke'.
If you have 3 mega nukes, you can fire 3 'mega nukes'.

If for each 'mega nuke' you are allowed to have, even if they all take a whole turn to deploy, you are still allowed to fire an extra 'mega nuke' within a single encounter.

If one 'mega nuke' competes with one 'regular nuke', the 'mega nuke' will always win.

If a 'mega nuke' competes with a number of 'regular nukes' of a roughly equivalent total strength, that's actually a choice to make.

Doesn't limiting the amount of slots for skills and or spell make most spells and skill near useless and promotes min/maxing ? Reminds me of wizards in D&D games for example wich have limited spells per spell lvl and 95% of those all spells are never used because of it.

the point is that there are not different rules as of now. you are correct theoretically but as long as the pve rules equal the pvp rules the issues remain

Again, you forget that memory isn't the only balancing tool. There are others, namely:

- AP costs
- cooldown time
- source points

Most 'mega nukes' nead at least one source point. So the number of these high-level abilities you can actually use during an encounter are already pretty limited.

In DOS 1 really high-level 'mega nukes' had really, really high AP costs for a good reason. You even had to spare points from a previous turn sometimes in order to have enough APs to be able to cast a 'mega nuke'. So there are of course ways to limit the number of 'mega nukes' a wizard can cast during an encounter. And cooldowns for 'mega nukes' should of course be pretty high as well, covering several turns.

My suggestion is primarily serving the purpose to enlarge your arsenal. You might still be only able to cast one or two 'mega nukes' during an encounter but you have more of them to choose from - which is currently effectively limited by the memory system. But on top of that I really think that climbing up the ladder in a spell school should make you effectively more powerful in using spells of this very school. If you are a pyro master with 5 ability points in this school you should be able to cast a wide variety of different pyro spells. If that's not the case being a master spellcaster feels imo pretty crippled and not very satisfying. Becoming stronger and enjoying a larger arsenal over time is one of the most important things in RPGs. Right now the system is way too restrictive.

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that the high-value AP system in DOS 1 was actually better. It offered a higher flexibility and more player freedom. The current system is imo only better for PvP gameplay because it allows for a pretty rigid balancing. But then again I think most people will play DOS 2 for the campaign and for the RPG aspects and I'm not convinced that everything that is good for a well-balanced PvP game is equally well suited for a (SP) RPG campaign...


True. But I really think (and you might agree with me) that this paradigm should fall. It imo doesn't benefit the campaign.

LordCrash, I think we are arguing on two separate wavelengths. I am not saying that the memory system isn't too rigid and that it doesn't need tweaking. I am saying that giving the player the ability to reduce the memory cost of spells to one with in a couple of levels would remove the mechanic for the most part. And the ability to balance around it. If you don't want the memory mechanic in the game that is definitely worth arguing, but if it is a good mechanic, then allowing it to be minimized so easily by the player is not good design. By only level 6 in EA I could have gotten I think 3 schools to level 3.

The purpose of the memory mechanic is to make players choose what spells they want to use in a battle, in essence what build they want to go with. It creates a good place of decision making and strategy, and also gives the game some "replayability" so to speak, because you will change how you play throughout the game by switching out spells and trying new things. Personally, I like the mechanic. It does have the drawback of making leveling up and finding new spells a little underwhelming as is, because finding a new spell and replacing a spell that you already liked does not really fell like great "progress". But it is still fun.

It is meant to be limiting, otherwise it has no purpose. That is why it needs some, I would argue, minor tweaking. I also think we are a little biased because we only saw the very early game which of course felt really tight due to so little memory at the start. In my opinion, if at end game I can use 8 to 10 different spells, some with varying memory costs, that seems fine with me. So if by level 6 I have 7 slots (which I did on 2 characters), that is well on its way. I don't want to have 20 spells on my bar, that would definitely defeat the point of memory. I already have 4 different characters for flexibility.

But that's wrong. I want memory to be in the game but for another purpose. Memory should limit the spells and skill you can use from schools you're NOT good in. In my system the memory requirements are only lowered when you progress in a special school. Skills and spells of other schools in which you don't have many points will still be efficiently limited by memory.


Nothing would be changed if you had a bigger arsenal at your disposal in that respect. On the opposite, you would have more flexiblity in combat. The choice would happen in actual encounters, not beforehand. I don't see the point in building up a pretty limited deck while I could do the same thing in combat. This is especially the case for a game like DOS2 where you often don't know the strenghts and weaknesses of your enemies. So what you often do right now is:

1) Building a deck.
2) Finding out the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies and dying
3) Noticing that your deck isn't perfect of that encounter
4) Reloading
5) Changing your deck
6) Fighting again

That's not per se bad, but unnecessary. If my arsenal was bigger (and balanced by both AP costs and cooldown times) I could decide right in battle which spells to use without the necessity to lose first and reload the game. Of course, failure can still happen and not every strategy is a winning one. But the memory system right now (in combination with all the other balancing elements) is just most tiresome than it had to be for the campaign.

And of course I know the roots of this issue: PvP MP. Being forced to build a pretty rigid deck makes balancing for actual PvP MP so much easier. It's how classical card games function and it's imo a good system for that purpose.

For SP (or coop MP), well, not so much imo, for the already stated reasons. AP costs and cooldown times are imo WAY better to make the campaign both more fun and more flexible, with less loading times and a more satisfying character progression. And again, on top of all that, there is still the source point restriction, even for medium-level spells. This game has so many possibilities for proper balancing, I really don't see why the memory system should dominate it all with all its unflexibility in the current state.


I'd still limit something, just not everything. And I really don't see how giving the player less options in combat is something that enhances fun.


I disagree. Especially in the end game you should be able to use a whole lot more spells and skills. Balancing should be way more heavy on AP costs and cooldowns, like suggested before. If you adjust both APs and cooldowns the game doesn't magically become much easier if you have more spells and skills to use. Just your flexibility rises and you have more way to react to your enemey, without the instant need to reload a previous game and to adjust your deck.

The soft level cap for players is around 30. Abilities now cap at 15 points, or so I've heard, and those "3 Memory" skills are considered level 2. Memory usage is supposed to go as high as 10 for some skills.

So I think there's probably some flexibility to drop the Memory cost for some skills as a reward for specialization without making things too easy.

Out of curiosity: Where did you hear that?

ya I mean that's basically saying you would prefer there really to be no memory system and use other mechanics for balancing, because you would like the game better if you could have all of the spells in your arsenal and decide during combat what to do. Which is a fine opinion to have. But I don't see the memory as a balancing system. It has nothing to do with preventing spell combinations, it has to do with creating a situation where your character becomes dynamic and your playstyle can change throughout the game by trying new builds.

Implementing skill tree related memory will actually serve to pidgeon hole your character into a single build more often that the current mechanic. How could I ever justify using a 5 memory Aero spell when I could use a 5 memory pyro spell for 1 memory instead? I would instead just have an Aero focused mage that uses Aero spells and a pyro focused mage that uses pyro spells. (of course each mage would probably spec 2 or 3 spell trees, but you get the idea). And their skills would be much more "set in stone" so to speak. They are of course changeable, but it will mostly be adding a utility here or there, or adding a new respective powerful spell.

No, I said the memory system is find, but for aspecific purpose. It's fine to limit the use of high-level spells for which you lack the proper school ability level. And it's fine to limit the overall amount of spells you can use (actually it's fine to have this general trade-off between more spells/skills and the possibility to upgrade your base characters values).


I fail to see how limiting the player gives him a better experience here. There is nothing more dynamic in the current solution either. It's actually less dynamic and much more rigid. And DOS was a classless game for a good reason, in order to maximize possibilities, but of course with the whole structure of a classic RPG in mind. The current implementation is working exactly in the opposite direction, by giving the player less possibilities during combat. This whole "build" thing is derived from PvP-MP and it works pretty well there, for balancing reasons and for the very sake of trying out different builds. For a classless SP game with traditional RPG mechanics it doesn't. You don't need a build for dynamic gameplay or for different playstyles. On the opposite, having a bigger arsenal means that you can change strategies on the fly, without the need to reload and change your deck. Why introducing a mechanic that is inflexible and rigid when you can to the same thing better and faster without? But of course your character is kind of tied to the way your levelled him up which only makes sense in an RPG, even a classless one.


Of course you would and that makes only sense. Of course a master aero wizard should be better at casting aero magic than an amateur. It's pretty pointless to let your pyro wizard cast aero magic if you have an aero master in your party, so what's the point anyway? Why skilling any school if it's pretty much pointless in the end? Skilling up and becoming better in a school should give your character real benefit and a pyro master should of course be better at casting pyro magic than everybody else. DOS was never meant to be a game in which every character can do pretty much everything. And I don't think such a system would enhance the fun of playing the game, on the opposite. Much of the fun of playing a party-based game comes from finding a good combination of characters with different professions and skills. If everybody can pretty much do the same this becomes pointless. A classless system doesn't mena that everybody should be able to do everything equally good. It means that everybody can evolve into everything by climbing up the ladder in various skill and spell schools.


That's how games with skill schools work for a good reason (see above). Actually every RPG works that way, even solo action RPGs like the Witcher. If that's not good anymore we could ditch the whole RPG system altogether. Why spending points for skill schools if that only makes you character less flexible? It's a good question, really, but if you think it through, the answer is that if you really want a completely flexbile game in which everybody can do everything you can just ditch the whole RPG thing alltogether. What you want is truly a PvP-kind of experience, with everybody having the same basis and everybody has a set amount of skills they can use in whatever combination. But sorry, I like my SP RPG campaign experience and I honestly don't think that such a PvP-derived "everything is possible" mechanics serves this well.

If you read what I wrote, I specifically state that it is regardless of those other restrictions, that having more 'mega-nukes' still increases the frequency at which you can deploy them.

If increasing that number comes at the expense of multiple smaller ones, it is a choice to make.

If both cost the same, you take the bigger ones, because it'll diminish your flexibility to a much smaller degree.

I'd say get rid of the memory system but leave the source point requirement for the mega nukes atleast for the RPG campaign. If they want to balance for pvp then have 2 systems in place, 1 for pve and 1 for pvp. I strongly disslike busywork wich is what i call it when i have to swap in and out skills and or spells on a regular basis wich the memory system forces me to do as is.

I read it but it's wrong. Having more high-level spells means that you can actually use them. In the current implementation you can't use many high-level spells at all. So you don't increase the frequency, you increase the arsenal, the number of spells you can use in combat. And yes, I think that this makes combat more fun, not less.

(To decrease the frequency of spells you can use you had to decrease cooldown times.)


Yes, but a bad choice. I really don't think that the "choice" which spells to take into battle at the cost of others is a good choice. It's a choice that makes combat less fun and flexible and a choice that only leads to more save and reload.


And that's where you wrong. Smaller ones aren't worse because they cost less AP and have way shorter cooldown times. The best arsenal has both high-level and low-level spells and skills because this strategy gives you maximum flexibility, especially for longer encounters.
But for a very high-class character with maximum points in a specific school it's imo ok and good that this character can have an arsenal of many different skills and spells.

I think we again need to see how skills shake out in the end. If I can get a character or two to fill out that bottom bar with skills and these characters are still effective. I'll be happy. If I end the game with a character that's used 5-7 skills (no matter how high the various costs) I'll be a quite disappointed.

I don't think I need D:OS's 5 bars full of ten skills.. which I definitely managed to do.

Ended with 10 spells at the end of Chapter 1 (or Act 1 or whatever) with 28 int / 28 memory.

Were you trying to maximize your available skills? Did you choose a few higher memory cost skills?

I'm playing it with someone, so we are moving at a slower pace.

Epidemic of Fire, Spores were my rank 2 ones - so 6 slots there.

The rest were the following: Adrenaline Rush, Rage, Searing Daggers, Fireball, Fossil Strike, Haste, Spontaneous Combustion, and a flex slot (bless or whatever).

This guy was my primary source of spell dickery.

Well just take away 10 from each.

18 Int points, 18 memory... or about 18 levels worth! Though given you can beat fort joy with about half that... IF Limz invested every single point into int and mem that would get about half that.

So with about 28 = 14 memory points... It means Limz cannot possibly have 10 skills and use them all no matter how you try to cut them (and there are no 2 costs)

And I am assuming Limz was level 7-8. If Limz was level 6 when this happened (not the lowest you can be when you beat Fort Joy but still) then WOOSH!

With no bonus constitution (but Limz knows armor exploits so Limz can midmax like that)

Congrats! By midmaxing and ignoring constitution entirely you get about 4 slots through your own effort (outside talents that I know Limz also gets) and 5 slots through items and other bonuses.

So there you go. Even if you midmax, ignore constitution entirely, AND take every talent you can to raise your attributes and put that into it... Your growth will still be slower then outside sources.

You're kind of special, it's cute.

http://imgur.com/a/5NL4J

Actually, my growth is close to external sources as my gear break down is +8/+12 or +7/+12 and I am spreading out gear between two casters (the other one has 34~ int). Which means my base values are 21/16 by level 8 or level 7 it would be 19/16 or if I was level 6 then it would be 17/16 -- oh joy, there's an inflection point in there, can you see it?

By level 8 none of the gear on the island was useful to me from the vendors, so I spent 11 points in int and 6 in memory. The errant int probably comes from one of the flesh pieces I consumed or an event.

Also, I didn't take 'Bigger Badder', if I did then the parity between internal and external would be closer. So at level 8 I would say it's pretty close in terms of external sources (barring the usage of bloodrose pots). However, it's kind of expected that most of your power will come from gear at the end of the day for better or for worse.

As for armor exploits, I am pretty sure that gearing for a fight intelligently (current meta you observe - something you don't do - or by encounter) isn't exploiting; having 300 base in either phys or mag armor is pretty normal especially if you make more than one trip to the vendor.

Could I have diverted points into Constitution and have forgone some memory? Probably. Do I need to? No.

You do realize that you're trying to take my builds as elastic strategy and that is a complete mistake, right? You probably didn't.

I think memory could be handled a bit better.

Currently it's much more efficient to find a weapon or item that grants you a skill; it doesn't take up a memory slot, require you to learn the skill, or require you to meet the requirements to use the skill (IE needing Aerotheurge 1 to learn Teleportation from those gloves).

Additionally, this is even more impactful for items that give you access to Source skills. You're effectively gaining three memory slots (+6 Memory/3 levels worth with no primary stat sacrifice), and whatever proficiency in the school is necessary when this occurs. I don't mind finding powerful items, but I would prefer points invested in a character to be more impactful than having to rely on the loot I may or may not find.

My thoughts on the high cost of source skills:

I think the high cost of source skills is unnecessary and ultimately limiting to a character's build options. Out of the source abilities I have found currently, the one powerful, situational skill is not worth sacrificing three other "normal" skills. There is no reason for a source skill to have this additional power gating of 3 memory points when the use of the skill is already gated by the requirement of source points and singular, long cooldown. However, I do think it is important for the slotting of source skills to feel like more of an investment than it is to slot normal skills.

There is another concern I have seen brought up on these forums about how investing points within school specializations feels inconsequential due to how bonuses received are individually small (+1-2%, etc) but cumulatively impactful. What if source abilities cost the same to slot in as other skills did, but were limited based upon your mastery of their respective schools?

For example, to learn and use the Warfare source skill "Overpower", your character would have to have a minimum of 5 points invested in the Warfare ability. Perhaps at 8, you could now learn and slot two Warfare source skills into your spell deck, etc. These are all arbitrary thresholds, the specific numbers themselves would have to be determined by balancing of course.

This would be similar to how D:OS1 had Adept and Master skills locked from use until you reached a higher mastery in the respective school.

It would help foster a sense of progression when choosing to specialize in a specific school by granting access to powerful, identity defining abilities without needing to sacrifice versatility. It would also lessen reliance on specific ability granting items that currently outweigh the investment of character specialization. Memory points would also become more individually worthwhile, as you would no longer need to invest 6 points (or more) to be able to slot higher level skills.

To achieve the same results as Epidemic of fire you would need way more than three slots and two AP; consider area, damage (that takes two slots alone), and effect.

With it properly amped, you're dealing 600+ fire damage on a pyrokinetic specialist to possibly five targets and then some then landing necrofire. Gooby, pls, that's not enough for you?

I like that idea. Right now Source skills are absolutely not worth it because of the 3 Memory cost. Yes, maybe later on in the game, we'll have Memory and skill slots coming out of our wazoos, but for right now, in Act 1, on the island of Fort Joy, we just don't have enough Memory to afford 3-Memory Source skills.

Consider the boss fight at the end. That's the kind of thing you want and need your most powerful stuff for, but to get the memory space needed, you need to cripple your loadout some other way. And that fight is hard so crippling yourself then comes at just the wrong time.

If Larian still wants power gating for Source skills, a minimum ability requirement might work. The downside would be for Hybrid builds and poly-school casters, both of which would find it harder to be able to use Source skills compared to single-school specialists.

I lose ~10% damage... in order to gain higher burst damage and utility. Huh. I guess that's crippling to you guys.

Oh yeah, and according to Stabbey logic, I guess being able to crit for 2.5k+ in a brainless fashion is also not worth it at all.

Thanks for answering my questions Limz. If the scaling in act 1 continues roughly equivalently though out the rest of the game (so by act three you're looking at 50-70ish memory) Then you'll have a wack of skills and abilities to play with.

We'll really have to see how the shape of the game is planned before we can argue this too much further.

Memory would be fine if you didn't have to constantly pump your main stat to avoid falling behind. As it stands, you just don't have the points to pump memory in any amount cause you'll fall behind your stat curve. Memory's a great idea, you need to limit active skills or it becomes too easy to make a character that's too good at everything and that kills a multiplayer RPG. But the stat curve's too nasty to let anyone make a solid choice at how diverse their character is.

Play the game then determine that.

Memory is actually the only really important stat because it (Donald) trumps all other stats by a very large margin. The only way you can really even gimp a character is by not spending enough points on memory, which is especially bad for magic users.

After reading the first few pages I am surprised to see that nobody has mentioned this yet.

I feel exactly the same way. After my first playthrough as an intelligence mage crashed and burned, I started a memory mage, and went through the game with only two characters. Somewhere in there, I did a rogue, and he was also pure memory with huntsman and rogue skills. So far, I have yet to find a reason to invest in anything besides memory. It's just too good. I just hope they add more skill bars for players like us!

It's because without paying close attention to your abilities or the forums it's hard to tell what those attributes actually do; the common initial impression is that you're losing damage as you level therefore you must put all points into primary attribute. However, it turns out that your abilities scale up and not putting points into your primary attribute simply normalizes you. So people get hung up with the UI displaying -5-18% damage.

It's also hard to see how the later spells have value since you're stuck at 5 Memory and constantly are dumping points into whatever stat making those 3 slot spells unusable because the other slots are dedicated to the usual suspects - adrenaline, rage, teleport, whatever.

But as soon as you shrug and say, fuck it, and take that 10% hit and look for gear that increases memory you suddenly get exposed to so many more options and the higher level spells simply outscale the lower level ones and you can finally actually use them.

I kind of think having your attributes get completely dwarfed by your equipment to be a separate problem in of itself.

I mean I guess it is possible that once you get the +7 intelligence vest... that even 10 levels later it might be only +10 that you find.



The problem here is that the game doesn't show how strong you actually are.

If the game is displaying -5% it is telling you that you are 5% weaker than average

What it actually means is that "For your level your 5% weaker than average".

If the player is just playing catch up with their attributes they lose out on the sense of progression.

Pretty much this. There is absolutely no reason at all to spend attribute points on your primary attribute. As a matter of fact it is pretty much just a complete waste. Finding more powerful weapons as well as armor with attribute bonuses is the only effective way to increase damage output.

So what do you do in the alpha? You pump up memory. If you happen to have enough memory slots, then you can also pump up constitution (+20 HP per point can be helpful). All other attributes can be completely ignored.

Well, I pretty much based my entire game plan around burst damage; so I got enough memory to waste 6AP worth of things and no more. I focused the rest of the points and gear towards directly increasing damage.

It worked out well since I could face roll even the final encounter, but maybe it would fail against other encounters where there were 3-4 more large waves since all my abilities would still be recovering from cool downs.

So I wouldn't say it was a waste, but if it turns out that my game plan does not work then yeah it would have been a waste.

Lol, the fact that you guys are saying this about memory means they still screwed the balance somewhere.
Limiting spells slots is a mighty hard thing to do. I have developed three rpg games from scratch to compete with my sporadic dissatisfaction with DnD and I can't say I've found an idea that's worked.

I am beginning to see something else that is bothering me however. If the majority of my stats comes from gear - leveling feels less important, and gearing is vital...
So, without reflecting much on this option at all.. I think they should give more attribute points if they keep the gear similar.

That's exactly why I suggested that skill's memory requirements should decrease once you level up in a specific school.

The interesting bit is that I have information that Larian might have alrady planned for such a feature. We just didn't progressed far enough in the alpha in order to get to a point at which this decreased memory requirement would happen.

I'd really like Larian (Swen?) to elaborate on the topic.


Hey, but I did...

The extreme dominance of memory became even bigger by the devaluation of APs...