From Dan R on Discord:
*edited a bit to add paragraph breaks*
I had some thoughts re: “Game Design: Combat”: Design tension
Agree completely, the loop of fast-fast-fast-pause-think-slow-done-fast-fast-fast is really good and a strength of this game.
Tactical complexity and priority targets: “I am trying to intentionally introduce enemies that when encountered in a group become the Priority-Target and must be eliminated as soon as possible. By introducing these Priority-Targets we get a lot more varried tactics in the combat since, based on the enemy group composition, layout on the Game-Board, and abilities available to the player it can take quite a bit of work to actually kill the target.”
Absolutely, except that the current limit on talent points hurts that, primarily because talent points are so precious that everything ends up reverting to the same standard build with a few tiny changes. As an example, say I’ve got a warrior and I’m attacking a group with some melee, some ranged, and a healer in the back. I want to get to that healer first because its buffs are really bad. I can use blinks if I have them, but I may not. I can try to kite around corners until I can loop behind, but “not using abilities” is kind of boring, particularly if that’s my only option. If I had any of charge, dash attack, jump (over intervening obstacles), blood portal, flame portal, shadow step, sprint, etc., etc. that would be great.
But in the upper levels of the dungeon, even if I find them in tomes or books, I’m probably not putting points to those, because I need them for power strike, fortitude, and shields up (for example). Like if I’ve only got 6 talent points to use by the time I reach the librarian, I’m probably shooting for 2 points in each of those, rather than spreading them out amongst other things.
Similarly for mages - mana is so scarce that I’m not only drinking all of my potions right away for the permanent gain, I also pretty much have to put two points in mental clarity as soon as I can. I’m not likely to put any points to one of those big mobility talents until I’m halfway through the game, so the drive for tactical complexity in the upper dungeon is just lost.
Like as an ice mage, I’m almost always going to put my first point in freezing cloud, my next two in mental clarity, then my fourth in either shield of ice or freeze. Who has time for, say, dash attack or sprint? Maybe I consider them for talent point #10 or 12, but by that point, I’m deep in the side dungeons. So I really like the concept of tactical complexity, but I think it works better if we get more talent points, with a large variety of talents such that each run, we’re picking different options. Maybe one time, I get blood portal from a tome with a point in it. Maybe the next I get sprint.
Incidentally, this is why removing the free “+1 talent point” from tomes is a great idea - it encourages trying something new. And also incidentally, the talent point stinginess really discourages new players from trying new talents. If I’m a new player and I don’t know whether blood lust is really useful, I’m probably not going to take it from a tome even to “try it out” even if the other talents aren’t that good, because I’m not going to waste any of my few talent points in it. (edited)
Heck, I just had a run where a tome had four talents that I thought were “meh” compared to my other options, so I just picked one randomly with no intention of ever putting a point in it. That feels bad, man. Like you win the proverbial lottery, and then the lottery person says “oh, but before you get your prize, you have to pay all of the taxes up front. If you can’t, no prize for you.”
tl;dr: tactical complexity is great if there are many ways to approach a situation. Having few talent points drastically reduces the number of ways to approach the situation. Better would be more talent points, and more “wild” talents that don’t appear in the stock character sets. Similarly, re: more frequent but weaker abilities: “Since each ability is weaker and is unlikely to finish a fight all by itself, its much more likely that the player will use a wider variety of abilities during a fight. This increases the tactical complexity of the combat as the player is using a much wider range of abilities rather than just 1-shotting things.” Absolutely, but we need more talent points for that. I’ve had several runs where my ability bar ends with like three-four talents (the rest of the points being in passives).
Also, more talent points addresses one of your concerns under hard counters: “Reflection, elemental resistance, protection or strict immunities all fall into this catagory… the trouble arrises from the relative short length of the game and the linearity of the dungeon. There simply isn't enough opportunity for the player to build a character to overcome hard counters…” More talent points means that, say, a fire mage can also pick up life spike or confusion, which will help if the first side dungeon is the core, or a ranger can pick up an AOE spell or power strike to fight reflective golems.