Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Creating an incentive for magic specialization

Sure, having skill specialization lower cooldowns with more points is another good approach. I'm a bit less keen on it though, because cooldowns have a larger range: some skills have a 1 turn cooldown, others have cooldowns as long as 20 turns. I assume Larian will want some skills to have a minimum cooldown to avoid spamming and for balance, which means some skills won't be affected, and on long cooldown skills, even a 4 turn shorter cooldown won't matter.




I must be missing something, because that sounds almost exactly like the system before the second-most-recent patch, except that in the current system, ability rank bonuses were transferred to Talents.

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I must be missing something, because that sounds almost exactly like the system before the second-most-recent patch, except that in the current system, ability rank bonuses were transferred to Talents. [/quote]

In one of the betas the skills / spells that you could learn were limited by ability rank not by level.

So for example if one put all of ones ability points into water specialization one could learn summon elemental at around 4th or 5th level. However this would be at the cost of having little or no ability in most of the other spheres of magic.

Now because spell acquisition is limited by level there is no reward at all for specializing in a particular sphere. In fact specializing becomes a waste of time because you don't get anything for the investment. Yes, you get more spells or skills but you don't get access to those skills before a certain level. Therefore their is no benefit to investing points in that sphere until the level is reached.

The strength of the opposition increases all the time. If one invests points with no benefit ones character does not grow strong enough to survive. Consequently specialization is penalized and characters are forced to become more generalized simply to survive.

... Yes, we know. That is what this whole thread is about. That answer has nothing to do with the question I asked.

My question: What's the difference between your proposed system: ("A simpler way to re establish flexibility would be to remove the limit on skills / spells by level and reinstate the limit on skills / spells by ability rank.")

...and the old system, whose shortcomings Forktong has already explained here?

The game starts very open without any restriction to character builds. As you venture on your journey you create your own special class through your actions and choices on how to build your character. If you invest deeply into a single play style you should be rewarded just as much as if you spread out your abilities. In the end you will create your own, truly unique, character.

To get this right, you need to strike a fine balance between freedom and a clear path of progression. The current game system are off balance in that regard.

I think it is easier to tweak the old system to be more flexible, than it is to reward specialization (and dedication) with the current system.


For any kind of mage character the current system just feels extremely generic and I think that is not fixable with some tiny tweaks or bonuses.

Why is that?

The old system had "way of the warrior" and "way of the ranger", but not just "way of the wizard". Instead it had "way of the fire wizard", "way of the water wizard" ...

The current system has just a generic "way of the wizard", it is called intelligence.

In short - there is no difference.

The previous way of doing it was better than the current one.

As a player I want the freedom to design a specialist or a generalist. The changes take away that freedom and force a generalist approach to everything.

Shifting the specialization to abilities will also artificially force players into builds. The world will be swamped by thief bowmen because both gain dexterity bonuses.

Fighters will be straight fighters because of the requirement to invest in strength for improved effectiveness of skills.

In the previous version - strength or dexterity might affect the armor you could wear or the weapons you could use ( all good practical reasons to invest in different abilities). but they did not force your character into a particular build.


The argument for the recent changes was (in my opinion) flawed. It showed a lack of trust in the players. So what if to start off i want to create specialists? Once I have done that I will create a generalist, then a different sort of specialist, then a duel class, and another sort of specialist, and so on. I will explore the depth of what the game allows me to do.

These change to the current way of doing things massively reduces the number of ways the game can be played, without actually improving the quality of the gaming experience.

Some changes in 1.0.93 (not in the changelog):

ability description states: "Determines how many X skills you can learn and how many Action Point it costs to use higher level X skills"

It would be interesting to know some details. I guess we have to find out how big the effect will be.

I think it's something like this: skills are divided into tiers, which you can learn at different character levels: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, 20.

With ability Rank 1, there is no additional AP cost for level 1 and 4 skills, but each level past that gets a +2 AP cost penalty per tier.

With ability Rank 2, there is no additional AP cost for level 1, 4, and 7 skills, but level 10+ gets a +2 AP cost penalty per tier, and so on.

There's sort of a grace period built into it, but if you want to use skills which require level 7 with no AP penalty, then you'll have to sink a second point into the associated ability.

Looks like they have made investing more points into the skill make skills of that school take less action points to cast.. which is a nice incentive to invest more points.. solves the whole problem with the system i think... i like it anyways.

I think differences in AP will be minimal. But anything at all, any difference is good.
Maybe there will be more to it.

And dangerous surfaces were sorted out.

It states +2 ap required in char build on some skills because low ability score. so i'm guessing 2 ap penalty for low skill points of said school?

Yep just needed a little something.

It's like Stabbey says. The higher the skill level, the more specialization is expected. You can still learn the skill, but you'll get an AP penalty for every point you "fall short".

So a skillbook will now show you the level of the skill. The higher this level, the more penalty you'll get if you have a low score. You will notice if there is a penalty on a skill because the description of both skill and skillbook will TELL you (in red I believe, under the AP cost line).

Is there anything else planned in this regard?

I still kinda miss something special if you fully commit into an ability .

Currently, all the talents that required rank 5 in any of the magic schools seem really lackluster, compared to talents for man at arms or the rank 5 ranger talent.


suggestion:

Make a talent for each of the schools, unlocking with ability level 3. The talent gets upgraded with an additional effect at rank 4 and 5 of an ability.

water (req. hydrosophist 3)
talent rank 1: 25% chance to chill enemies that attack with melee weapons (-25% fire resistance)
talent rank 2: immune to falling on ice surfaces (can still be knocked down by other things)
talent rank 3: you heal 5% of you max health each turn

earth (req. geomancer 3)
talent rank 1: + 10% armor
talent rank 2: immune to enviromental effects
talent rank 3: + 1 turn duration for all summons

fire (req. pyrokinetic 3)
talent rank 1: 25% chance to burn enemies that attack with melee weapons (-25% water resistance)
talent rank 2: +20% movement on fire surfaces
talent rank 3: immune to burning

wind (req. aerotheurge 3 )
talent rank 1: + 10% movement
talent rank 2: 5% to get hasted for 1 turn when dealing air damage
talent rank 3: immune to stun

witchcraft (req. witchcraft 3)
talent rank 1: healing from blood surface
talent rank 2: 7% chance to cause random status effect on doing damage
talent rank 3: immune to charm


Of yourse this would be expanded to ranger, fighter and rogue abilities, too.

The new change doesn't really do anything at all. Instead of having only 100% chance for a spell to work, its now 130%. So what? The effect is what needs to be 130%, not the chance of a spell's success. That is irrelevant. I guess if a creature has 100% resistance to your spell, it still might get hurt, but you should just use another school.

There is a reason for effects to go above 100%: Saving throws for effects are boosted based on the target's Bodybuilding or Willpower. You see things like "Target rolled 91. Target needed 90 (100 - 10 from Willpower).

Right now in Cyseal, enemies may only have 1 Willpower/Bodybuilding, but later on, expect that to rise a lot more.