Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Constitution rework?

All combat where you don't control your oponent's actions depends on "luck".

"Luck" as a factor is not eliminated from the game by making the armor work as it does, there's still critical hits and dodge mechanics present, even a successful hit has variable damage, and you can have the luck of rolling the maximum, or the misfortune of rolling the minimum, value.

People jerking themselves off over how the current armor system makes the game somehow better by removing the "RNG" are both deluding themselves and lack any comprehension of why chance based mechanics get put into games in the first place.

Because crits and dodge usually don't dramatically change the battle like cc does? Not liking the lack of randomness is your opinion. Liking how armor blocks cc is mine. Please don't attack me as being delusional and having lack of comprehension just because you don't like my opinion. I think I know better then you do which system I prefer.


@Bullethose sure, I'd be happy if more people discussed this idea.

IMO it removes alot of the busywork associated with a luck or rng system. In the case of divinity EE there were Bodybuilding and willpower which each resisted X and X statuses. In order to optimize your build you had to have prior knowledge (guide or experience) as to the percentage chances the enemies have and the spells available to them. Levelling accordingly or you run the risk of perma-stun/petrify/freeze whatever. With the percentages removed and magic/physical armor acting as a blockage there is alot less information to perceive creating less room for displeasure. Yes there is still crits, miss chance and damage variables but those are easily played around. The new armor system makes the game more enjoyable for me whom has played barely any rts games.

@Baardvark
Yes... and what do imunities actually stand for in the end? ... they're just another form of how the system is disabled.

20% pierce slightly lowers that dilemma, but going all the way to 100% would be one step, while increasing armor with constitution as it is right now, would actually just make it worse, as the bolstered armor would just increase the gap.

Seems that proposed solutions in the end always boil down to what I distilled a couple of times already:

- combine magic and physical armor to prevent the hinderance for mixed parties (and maybe rename it to reflect that, like stability, endurance or whatever)
- disconnect the mechanic from damage (!) > only blocked effects influence it (freeze -15, poison -10, KD -20... you name it)
- make it entropy based and rework amounts accordingly

Personally...

I'd actually expand the system of "anti-CC" effects like "rested" instead and generate defenses around that. Willpower and Bodybuilding then could simply add one (or more depending on balancing) stack(s) of these effects every X turns and/or affect the maximum number a character can have.
This additionally would allow for the creation of tailored defense-effects like a dragon could have "dragonic scales" that defend it from a different selection of effects. It could have for example 10 stacks of the scales that protect him against burn and knockdown but only 2 stacks of "strong will" that would block a cripple or charm.
Something that could add a lot more diversion.

Having armor not be affected by actual damage, but only taking damage from effects is interesting, but given the cooldowns of CC spells, you'd have a hard time breaking armor with CC effects before the combat is over. You spend your load of CC spells to break the armor on one enemy, but then what? You no longer have CC spells to actually apply to the enemy. And that is for ONE enemy.

Only surfaces would really work for breaking armor. The net result would be that it would be easier to just wipe out enemy health instead of bothering with CC at all.

I'm not attacking you specifically, I just really dislike the line of thinking people like you reason along.

RNG in RPG games represents your character's ability to perform actions that require input you as a player cannot provide, such as aiming their attacks at specific locations or overcoming the enemy that attempts an opposing action.

If the issue is that it alters the flow of combat too severely to be tied to RNG, the proper solution is to make CC weaker, not alter the rules by which it is applied(though the latter may be part of the former).
There are ways to change that that do not involve removing the RNG. Like for example making it so that not all CC is multiple turns long, or not having four identical hard CC effects with different flavor text(I'd go even as far as not having hard CC at all).
The solution chosen by Larian and subsequently paraded by some people as the best thing ever right now generates more flaws than it has benefits.

Fights are still about chaining CC, the condition for getting a chain going so simply changed from a lucky roll to concentrating attacks. A strategy that was already optimal due to the way every fight in the history of fights works: the faster you get rid of a pawn, the less moves it'll make, and one that still offers little to no opportunity for the enemy to respond once it gets going.

I personally think there's different flavors of randomness. There's fun randomness, and there's frustrating randomness. Crits feel like you gained something through randomness, and random loot can be exciting. A range of damage is kind of inbetween, not very interesting, but sort of feels a little realistic I suppose. Randomly getting your CC resisted or getting a bad roll on resisting it yourself just feels lame. Sure, it's a factor for balancing, but not a very fun one for most people. Missing isn't much fun either, but the stakes usually aren't nearly as high (a single hit vs. a crucial CC with a long cooldown for example).

RPGs don't require randomness. In fact, I could see an entirely non-random D:OS2 without losing all that much. All attacks hit, no crits, no misses, no damage range, all placed loot. While it would require some rebalancing, it wouldn't be that much. You say RNG represents character abilities to simulate their skills based on their statistics. That's just one way to represent character skill; decision making, represented by the player, is another, ultimately much larger factor. Basically, an RPG Tactics game, which is mostly how the game is designed already. You can still roleplay and develop characters and have skillful combat without a drop of randomness.

Now, slight randomness can help make the game feel a bit more organic, which is fine. I personally wouldn't want to see zero RNG whatsoever, but it would hardly kill the game to do so. The armor system needs some work for sure, but I don't think Larian is throwing it away. I'm still a fan of minor and major statuses for armored/no armor opponents respectively.

I think you're right though that hard CC is pretty much a no-go with an RNG system. Less dramatic statuses could absorb some more randomness.

You really did a number on that sentence,so let me correct:
RNG in an RPG(or any other game) is there to simulate input or feedback that the player cannot apply or experience through the game's controls:
In a shooter, you aim your gun yourself, in an RPG, you tell the character to aim their gun.

Sure, you can remove the RNG and make everything static, but that'd be just plain boring.
While it is true that some types of RNG are more fun than others, that fun always comes from the balance of risk versus pay-off.
CC being poorly balanced in that regard isn't a flaw of the RNG being used, it's a flaw of the risk/reward tuning.

Weaker CC, effect gradation, etc. are all superior solutions that remove the problem without introducing new ones, instead of throwing the old system, that was just poorly tuned, under the bus and replacing it with garbage that simply moves the issues around.

Yeah i agree with the idea of fun randomness and i yeah i hate perma-stun. I don't want it to be on the levels of EE but i do like some spell randomness. An idea i have is to make some weaker cc's (think chilled, bleeding and shackles of pain) have a chance to go through armor so's to increase their overall value.

As I already mentioned some time ago in a different topic:
The problem with den RNG in D:OS1 was, the gap between fail and success was to large. If a stun did not apply it should at least have applied a weaker effect with a bigger chance, increasing the chance of any kind of success.

The Delta of Randomness - Can You Balance for RNG? - Extra Credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V5eq4IQ6Go

More Ways to Use Randomness - What is the Goal of RNG? - Extra Credits:
https://youtu.be/GiOA_CS25Kw

With current CC conditions it is not a good idea to make it random. They are too strong.

This is good. And bad too. Currently, cc's in the game are extremely overpowered. They took entire turn or even more from the character.

Maybe it will be a good idea to make cc's weaker. E.g. stun removes 1-2ap per turn, silence increases cost of all skills by 1-2ap, and so on. Make it "soft" cc, not "hard" ones. Maybe, make it last several turns instead of one-two for compensation.

I think this could work.

This has been brought up to death during discussions, if CC is 100% at 0 armor, your hp is utterly worthless, because you'd be chain stunned anyway. Is why people can kill the 11k hp troll just by chicken/stun him until death. But alas it was willfully ignored.

Everything in the game right now is still a dps until armor down then autowin the game. Plus now late game absurd stats one shotting everything with a sneeze, this applies to both sides.

I actually like the armour system. The only thing that bugs me is that vitality is worthless, therefore the constitution stat is useless save for a couple points to equip a shield, and the picture of health trait is then also useless. Having more vitality doesn't benefit you in any way.

I've also found with my necromancer that life drain is useless, he's either better off not getting hit or taking damage to 1 vitality with living on the edge. I'd love to be able to make a viable build which makes use of life drain with things like shackles of pain to use health as a buffer to sustain damage instead of armour, but it's just not a good build because they'll get chain CC'd.

If you don't like the armour system then that's a whole different topic, since I for one do like it. The issue here is that vitality/constitution is currently useless.