Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 2 of 2 1 2
Joined: Sep 2016
S
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
S
Joined: Sep 2016
Originally Posted by Wraith367
Overall a decent idea.
The difference is that the latter is much more powerful and almost forces you to specialize: If Fire skills cost 1 to 5, and I have a -3 memory cost, then I can equip all fire skills at an average of half cost. This could easily be 20+ memory saved, for a few skill points invested. On the other hand, if that same investment gives you +5 fire memory slots, you still benefit by having a free fire spell or two, but not to the same extent.


This definitely depends entirely on the scale and balance though.


In my rough, base example, if Master skills cost 10, you would need 18 Skill School points devoted to bring that down to 1 cost.

To bring the Adept 5 Memory point skills down to 1 Memory, you would need 8 Skill School points invested. If the base cost of Adept was kept the same proportionally as live, it would actually cost 6 Memory (since its currently 3 Slots in game), and would thus need 10 points invested in a Skill School to be reduced to 1 cost, which actually upon review sounds like a much nicer number in general and keeps things standard with the current in game values. Investing 10 points in a Skill is quite a heavy investment.



The numbers clearly depend on many factors, such as "How many Skill Points can we get total?" and "What values work best to incentives specialization without squashing hybridization and generalization?"

Also, there would need to be a decison of "If a player goes all in on a singular Skill School, is it fair and balanced to simply let them memorize that entire School's worth of abilities on one bar, since they have specialized so deeply?"


My personal opinion is "yes" to the above. If you are limiting yourself to strictly "one" main Skill School and throw so much of your character's potential into it, I don't think the system should deny you the ability to slot all of your skill's abilities, considering you are now "master" level in the game's lore of that specific skill.

To me, this is like the difference between a "true pyromancer who knows each of his abilities by heart" and an archmage who "knows many fire spells along with his whole lexicon of potential spells, but must focus on keeping them learned alongside his other tools, and must select the right tools."


To me this just feels to reflect the actual reality of how memory and specialization works in the real world.

Someone who is a specialist in a given field can readily recall specific field related information very quickly and easily because they are familiar with it at an intimate level, while a generalist (think general practitioner medical doctor) knows a large amount of information about a wide subject area, but many times will have to consult additional materials to help make a more specific diagnosis or will have to refer you to a specialist in that specific area of medicine.

The specialist has that information on hand mentally and due to their experience, while the generalist has the information available through their ability to index and search for the information or to connect to someone who knows the information.


Last edited by Swiftwynd; 28/09/16 02:34 AM.
Joined: Jan 2009
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
I will repeat my idea here since this seems to be the new thread.

I still think that one point in Memory should equal one skill slot, so that if you level up, you can decide to increase attributes or open up to 2 Memory slots. I do not believe that 1 point in Memory = 1 skill slots should suddenly change the base cost of skills from 1 to 2 slots - to me that somewhat defeats the purpose of the change. If players want to focus on Memory and boost that up, they should be able to.

To compensate for the increased value of Memory from Attribute points, the amount of Memory provided by equipment should be cut in half compared to the bonus which other attributes. Thus if you can get +11 Strength as the highest amount on gloves at that level, you can only get +6 Memory as the highest amount. ...Actually is it the case that the amount of Memory is already much smaller than the bonuses you can get from other attributes? I don't recall hearing lots of people saying they found things which gave them +11 Memory. ... Well if you can get +11 STR max and +5 MEM max on an item under the old system, this would be +3 MEM as the max.

That would make attribute points the most reliable source of MEM instead of items, which is as it should be, because it forces more thoughtful choices for the player.


You start with 5 skill slots, so that could be changed so that you either start with 5 Memory and each point slot is worth 1, which is simple to understand even if that breaks the typical starting number of 10 for an attribute.

Alternatively, you preserve the nice shiny round number and start out with 10 Memory and the formula is Skill Slots = Memory - 5.

***

I also like the ideas of specialization being rewarded, but haven't decided what the best approach should be.

Joined: Sep 2016
S
member
Offline
member
S
Joined: Sep 2016
I think 1:1 with increased skill slots as suggested by Naqel is the superior idea.
http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=587638&page=1

The devs are trying something new with combat skills and abilities. Any solution that ties memory cost to ability investment is essentially the same as what they had before (but then it was AP cost in a big bad bar)

I personally like the new direction. It needs tweaking. And 1:1 is easy to tweak, and changing/increasing point costs for spells is EASY and allows even more variety. Making rain and rejuv a 1 cost skill but hail strike costs 2 makes some immediate sense. You also DON'T need to change current memory on items and memory on level up or starting memory.

Starting with only 5 slots and poor gear is needlessly annoying for the first few hours. Having the chance to put a few quality of life skills on my bar right at the get go without changing the overall scaling will make many of the players who haven't put as many hours as Limz has, to 'stress the system" as he likes to say, feel more adaptable and less limited while maintaining the balance of the rest of the game.

I don't think the combat skills NEED mem slot buffs (though if they did, Naqel is good on this one too). But they do need to be more fun than +#'s. +#'s aren't all that fun. Not when you're seeing them for the first or hundreth time.

Joined: Sep 2016
S
stranger
Offline
stranger
S
Joined: Sep 2016
Personally i really like swiftwynd´s idea, this will force you to plan ahead with every build and making the late game spells/abillities hard to impliment into your build without a smal sacrifice, for me like someone suggested to have a 1:1 ration, you can just as easily remove the memory stats coz it makes no big difference

Page 2 of 2 1 2

Moderated by  gbnf, Kurnster, Monodon, Stephen_Larian 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5