Fighter/Mage/Thief: Developer's Priorities These Past 20 Years?

[Chippy]

So with the recent slew of RPG efforts from developers; what class and playstyle has actually evolved since the IE games? Using them as a benchmark.

Weapons don't really seem to be evolving that much; was it TOEE and P:K that really implemented reach weapons well?.
It seems that the progress we make with one iteration is lost on the next (I always liked speed factor personally - what's that now in P:K - initiative?). And restricting weapons that suit classes/abilities. What's this shit with sneak attack & halberds?.

Nobody has really bothered with the rogue stuff like tracking. IWD had it (forgot about stealth-less IWD2), it was basic in TOEE, and heat vision in W3.

I haven't played any of Larian's games. But it seems to me that 20 years on, everyone's priority still seems to be magic and fireballs.

 

[Shadenuat]

I would say all playstyles degenerated a bit.

Magic, developers shun its use anywhere but combat and turning spells into what does more DPS.
Stealth, usually not even allowed out of combat and stealth approach is suboptimal to speech or killall approach.
Melee, fighters got more abilities, but they follow same design as Magic (aggro lol) instead of following their own system so not much of an upgrade at least if you prefer simulationism vs. gamism.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Magic is just flashy DPS because 'balance', fear of breaking design, and lazy design. Stealth is mostly ignored because fear of breaking design and lazy design. Warrior have lots of new abilities and all content is design around keeping this class successful because it is the easiest to design around.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I mean, if you want an idea of why non-dakka magic breaks things, Morrowind is a pretty good example. Flying across continents in seconds, having arbitrary numbers of all stats, infinite money...

Hell even without abusing any of that, you still have things like permanent perfect invisiblity or ever so slightly levitating people so they're essentially paralyzed, rendering all thief and stealth skills irrelevant with magic versions, summoning creatures that restore the magic you used to summon them and then some... if you include utility magic in a game you should pretty much expect the game to be a broken mess.

 

[Ysaye]

Based upon the name, I thought this thread might have been referring to the AD&D 2nd edition multi-class for elves.....

 

[V_K]

I mean, if you want an idea of why non-dakka magic breaks things, Morrowind is a pretty good example. Flying across continents in seconds, having arbitrary numbers of all stats, infinite money...

Hell even without abusing any of that, you still have things like permanent perfect invisiblity or ever so slightly levitating people so they're essentially paralyzed, rendering all thief and stealth skills irrelevant with magic versions, summoning creatures that restore the magic you used to summon them and then some... if you include utility magic in a game you should pretty much expect the game to be a broken mess.

Which is precisely how magic should be - OP as hell. The only thing they needed to do was balance this out by tying the access and number of spells to some rare resource - like they did with the enchanting system and souls.