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Originally Posted by Naqel
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.

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.)

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

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.

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

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.

Last edited by LordCrash; 23/09/16 04:09 PM.

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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.

Last edited by Surrealialis; 25/09/16 05:35 AM.
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Originally Posted by Surrealialis
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.

Limz #589253 25/09/16 07:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Limz
Originally Posted by Surrealialis
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.

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Originally Posted by Surrealialis


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.

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Originally Posted by Surrealialis
Originally Posted by Limz
Originally Posted by Surrealialis
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.


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.

Last edited by Neonivek; 25/09/16 09:43 PM.
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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. frown








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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.

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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?

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Originally Posted by ShyCryptid

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.


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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Grondoth
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.

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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. mage

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

dlux #590086 29/09/16 03:22 AM
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Originally Posted by dlux
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. mage

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!

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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.

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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.

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So people get hung up with the UI displaying -5-18% damage


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.

Limz #590106 29/09/16 06:03 AM
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Originally Posted by Limz
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.

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.

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Originally Posted by dlux

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.

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