Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Why break such a great game?!

You can STILL make yourself immune and heal from specific element. ffs.

Sounds more like people who have issues with the patch have issues with Steam auto-updating and should contact Steam and complain.

Wow. There are a lot of angry nerdragers out there right now. I'm enjoying a game that doesn't have a bunch of quest marker exclamation points all over the place telling me where to go. It has an isometric type camera view, all sorts of rpg mechanics, ways to do quests without always fighting, solid graphics for the type of game it is, a solid price, and yet still people whine. I'm looking at what this game is trying to do and I like it. It's not perfect, but I haven't played a perfect game yet, no matter how good some of them were.

Are the complaints really nerdrage?

Isn't it just a case of getting to know the rules (an enjoyable endevour for most rpg players) working your way through the game then realising that they've gone and moved the goalposts?

That's what angers me. I don't give a shit if the game is easy or difficult, just leave the godammned rules alone and let me play my game without screwing me over halfway through and forcing me to restart (which at this point is getting a bit annoying considering all the changes since release.

As for their continuous efforts to 'balance' the game.. IT'S NOT AN MMO! Balance wasn't an issue in the past, why is it now? and why is it such an issue that changes to it are allowed to break the game?

Balance was an issue in beta and was always being tweaked. They only released the first act to us, the rest of the game wasn't play tested enough, so that is why you have what you have. I'd use a save game editor and back out some things then that one doesn't like and put points elsewhere, even though from the latest hot fix a lot of the tactics are still possible, just not the extreme cheese.

I thought you were going to say is after we started playing, we realized we had to move the goalposts back further.

What happens to the group that would love a classic game with a challenge and one isn't to be found on the Hard Difficulty setting?

I love the changes, please don't listen to the whiners. People are complaining because they can't be flat out invincible, LMAO. "Single player" game or not, no one wants a game that cheesy. I want to feel like I'm playing a legitimate game. The ability to be invincible via 1 turn cooldown invisibility is still a glaring issue, however. I currently have to ban myself from using the spell to make the game feel legitimate, I shouldn't have to do that.

The whole mechanic involving lower cooldowns for spells based on intelligence needs to be changed. Tweak the cooldowns but remove this feature please. Str and Dex skills don't get reduced cooldowns, and it's not like Int characters have any of the restrictions they usually have, like mana or spells per day, so why do only they get this benefit again?

The overall game engine and concept are GREAT. This is a good game that will be great with reasonable balance changes.

I'd argue that several posters should cut down on the [Intimidate] dialog choices around here. Making an effort to work on their Charisma points might be a good idea also.

What Larian should have done (and still can do it, iirc) is leave the last build version of the game as a "beta patch" in steam (I am not sure if this can also be done for GOG & others). That way, those who are unsatisfied with the recent changes can revert to the last patch and finish their game without needing to restart due to their style of playing the game not being viable. Forcing some of the changes on the player (like they did with the resistances) and not providing some alternative, is what (imo) is causing some (or most) of the outrage.

You know what I'm sure modern age developers miss?
Not everyone having access to the internet.

Despite what you may or may not want, or enjoy, the logical and irrefutable facts are thus:

1) The game belongs to Larian. This means they can alter or change any part of the game as they see fit. If you don't like it, please seek life elsewhere without complaining and moaning ad nauseam.

2) All games, whether they be multi player or single player, require balance. If you are using the false argument that due to being a single player game it doesn't require balance, try starting anew in ANY game, cheat/mod yourself to invulnerable-one-hit-kill god mode, and play the entire game from start to finish. See how far you get with no challenge or restrictions on your power curve. Balance is an integral and essential part of any game.

3) Before you complain about alterations to the game or rule-set that don't suit you for one reason or another, consider the corollary: you get fixes and alterations to the game or rule set that DO suit you. You don't stand on a soap box and complain ad nauseam then, do you? Why not? Alterations that suit you are likely to not suit another group.

In this specific instance, players can still have resistances in excess of 100%, for limited periods of time. Being mostly resistant to specific damage types the majority of the time, and outright immune to those types on demand for short periods of time, sounds reasonable, does it not?

It might restrict a single over-used and over-efficient play style, however the system change itself expands the overall tactical game play by increasing the number of decisions and sacrifices that need to be made during battle.

Instead of (easily) gearing immunity to elemental damage, you now balance gear decisions knowing that 200% fire resistance is a waste.
Instead of face-rolling elemental encounters due to immunity, you now need to make decisions as to when to immunize against what elemental damage. Timing and tactics are more involved when you have to decide on state changes, as opposed to always being in a specific state.

TLDR :
1) The changes made have expanded the game and complexity, not made it smaller and simpler.
2) Before you post, consider the overall changes to the game as a whole : Did the change actually reduce the scope, or only seem to have reduced the scope? In this specific case, the tactical game play has actually been expanded.

I don't think that sort of remark really enhances the point your making, nor does it encourage intelligent debate.

There's been a bit too much reference to "whiners" and what-not in this topic and I doubt if any opinions have changed much as a result.

You're correct of course.

I picked up the thread this afternoon, and started at page 1. After going through 3 pages of essentially the same false arguments and complaining, I wasn't in the most balanced of moods when I posted.

I appreciate you calling me out on that, and thank you for it, editing the post to be less self indulgent

YOU CAN STILL HAVE ELEMENTAL RESISTANCES OVER 100.



THE ONLY THING THAT CHANGED IS HOW EASY IS TO GET THEM. NOW YOU HAVE TO USE A SPELL OR A POTION TO GO OVER THE SOFT CAP IMPOSED ON GEAR.




Neither does this post of yours.

Cheers, and apologies if I was a bit of a grump.

That gave me a small chuckle. Thanks for that.

Blaze I am finding this one hard to balance as I mod the difficulty. I don't want nearly any spell less Magnus to have only a 1 turn cooldown, to make a skill spam-able. So the basic one hitters (Bolt/Flare and the like) in each elemental, how do you get that for the entire game as your Int continues to grow? So what I have to do is pick something like Int 12 is the last int level where the basic one hitters per elemental is 2 Turns to cooldown, but 13+ it goes back to one. But at the beginning then for these skills with Int 8 these are 5-6 turn cooldowns, which is a little long at that point. I go with it that way, makes the game harder, but in general this mechanic makes it hard to balance the game throughout.

These arguments can be used by the other side, of which I consider myself one. So....

First, note that it was "complaining and moaning ad nauseam" that seems to have compelled the resistance changes in the first place. Despite "seek life elsewhere" being the weakest possible form of "argumentation" in the history of reason, we could say the same thing to those who complained about impenetrable resists.

Second, "before you complain about [mechanics in] the game or rule-set that don't suit you for one reason or another, consider the corollary: you get fixes......".

You get the point.


Fortunately, not all of your argument is hypocritical. You bring up something that I don't remember being brought up previously:


That is sound advice.



With that out of the way, I consider myself on the "side" of "single player games don't require balance." I no longer consider this position tenable as it is stated in that quotation.

Single player games require balance. This has been well argued by people in this thread. So with that in mind, let me modify the position: "single player games don't require player sided balance changes."

And since most of the balance changes suggested on this forum seem player sided (as opposed to enemy/world sided changes), we are arguing against those potential changes.

Is that less controversial?

Exactly, the mechanic is hard to balance as is, that's why it needs to go away. Each spells should have a reasonable cooldown and it should not change with Int. The basic single target bolt spells should have a 1 turn cooldown from the start.

Ive played hundreds of games in my lifetime. Most of them were patched, most often more than once, most often nerfing an overlooked OP strategy inside the game mechanics. If someone knows paradox games (not RPG) he knows what I mean.

Already at the beginning of these discussions many years ago I found the utterly useless. For 3 very simple reasons:
1) They change nothing
2) They are completely predictable
3) Varied players normally donï½´t have any problems dealing with specific strategy cuts or balance adjustments, only the 1 World Wonder players do. As these normally donï½´t cointribute to balance and game content anyway, let them brag and move on

If I dislike a game or a game patch, I shelve the game. If that happens predictably I shelve the company for my buys, case closed.

And btw - I had a few days ago started a second campaign with the explicite target to aim for 100% immunities. But as I had learned crowd control in the meantime (RPGs are new for me) I did not even notice the soft cap before hitting the boards as I my characters really rarely get hit past the Luculla forest.

Regards,
Thorsten