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Originally Posted by aj0413
Skyirm is a good example of them streamlining things. I find Oblivion much better game over all.

Morrowind beats both(better lizards, machine gun enchanted rings), but what works in those, doesn't have to work in Divinity.

Divinity doesn't go for the simulation aspects, nor does it go for compulsive micromanagement.

From my post just above:
Originally Posted by Naqel

The fantasy for a blacksmith character isn't "I won't have to pay a sucker to fix my gear", it is "I'll make the best <favorite weapon> ever."
[...]
Using a "blacksmith's hammer" to dismantle an item for upgrade components would be infinitely more fun than using a "repair hammer" to make it not break can ever be.

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Originally Posted by Naqel
Originally Posted by aj0413
Skyirm is a good example of them streamlining things. I find Oblivion much better game over all.

Morrowind beats both(better lizards, machine gun enchanted rings), but what works in those, doesn't have to work in Divinity.

Divinity doesn't go for the simulation aspects, nor does it go for compulsive micromanagement.

From my post just above:
Originally Posted by Naqel

The fantasy for a blacksmith character isn't "I won't have to pay a sucker to fix my gear", it is "I'll make the best <favorite weapon> ever."
[...]
Using a "blacksmith's hammer" to dismantle an item for upgrade components would be infinitely more fun than using a "repair hammer" to make it not break can ever be.


I actually never played morrowind so I wouldn't know, though I've heard good things.

And your right, they're differen't games. Doesn't mean I can't want aspects of both.

As to your second point:
Didn't I suggest the same thing? I mean, I know I've brought up dismantling things for components at least a few times O.o

Well, at the very least, we can say we both agree on that. Though I feel that's more an aspect of 'crafting' than durability/repair. No matter what happens with durability, being able to break things down for crafting should definitely be a thing.

*shrug* We should probably have a thread about the ways that crafting itself can be/should be expanded on....though I think I've also convered some of those points in the whole fix loot thing too. Lol so much bleed over between topics on gear

Originally Posted by vometia
Originally Posted by aj0413
Skyirm is a good example of them streamlining things. I find Oblivion much better game over all.

Oblivion still remains my favourite RPG overall. Out of the box, it has some issues with scaling and loot, but they're easily enough fixed with an overhaul like OOO. I think the point being is that even if it needed some tweaking, the basic mechanisms were present in the game rather than being removed entirely.

Which is what I'd like to see in D:OS II: I don't want to chuck away durability completely (and yes, I usually play on explorer mode because I'm not very tactically-minded) but would just like to see it somewhat revised to be a bit less tedious. I'd probably be happy enough with a "repair all" option and slightly more durable repair kits, though as with Oblivion, it'd be nice if repair kits could become unbreakable with a high enough skill level.


bow Pretty much this. You're thinking apparently mirrors mine.

I'd much rather see work put into fixing things than removing them.

Last edited by aj0413; 28/10/16 07:03 AM.
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Originally Posted by aj0413
I actually never played morrowind so I wouldn't know, though I've heard good things.

At risk of wandering totally off-topic, I'd recommend it. It's its own thing, but definitely worth a look. Though I'd strongly recommend a few graphical and animation tweaks as it hasn't aged well visually, but it's an awesome place to lose yourself for a few weeks.


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Oblivion had practically heat-seeking guards though. You steal one thing, those bastards will apprehend you even if they have to walk on water, swim through the sewers and blast through walls to get at you.

Last edited by Kelsier; 28/10/16 10:03 AM.
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That's true. Some of the bad guys were also really annoying like that, especially some of those added by the overhauls: one time I got chased halfway across Cyrodiil by a witch I encountered in Lipsand Tarn and only managed to get rid of her when a bunch of handy guards decided they felt like doing some pwning.

I've noticed that the psychic guard thing is also a feature of the magisters, rather annoyingly...


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Larian has said that they have great ambitions for their AI system, so we can expect much polishing to happen there. But yeah, the psychic guard thing needs to be looked at.

It's also quite stupid that if you pickpocket a Magister and get caught, everyone in the slums will attack you. And remember Magister Ames, the guy spying on Gareth's Rallying Point? I pickpocketed him, got caught and guess what? Gareth and all of my allies decided to attack me for that too! Who knew these guys were so staunchly moralistic

Last edited by Kelsier; 28/10/16 11:33 AM.
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I think there's a bit of a bug around that area. If you unearth the chest near to where Gareth's people are hanging around you'll get attacked if you lockpick it, even though it's marked as unowned. I also had serious crashing issues there, at least prior to the latest patch (I've decided not to push my luck so I've left it alone since!)


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I do not know if durability has been decided to be put into the game or not but I do have some pretty good ideas on what you could do for either or.


Without durability:

Allow equipped and un-equipped weapons or certain items to break wooden doors and chests. With chests you have the chances of 3 different things that could go wrong, breaking the item inside the chest, breaking your weapon before the chest breaks, or both at the same time, or the best out come, breaking absolutely nothing. For example: 70% chance to break the chest with no bad outcome, 15% chance to break the item inside the chest, 10% chance to break the weapon that you used to bash the chest, 5% chance to break both at the same time. Only items that can be realistically broken from smashing in a chest should have a chance to break. Broken weapons or armor that either dropped from the chest or were equipped should be salvageable to later be reforged and used.

The STR and FIN attributes, along with your weapon type, should alter the chances of the outcome as well as how long it takes to break the object. STR+weapon type alters speed at which the object is broken. FIN+weapon type alters how precise you are breaking the object; the overall percentage of each outcome.

For example: A character with a high STR stat that's equipped with a 2-H weapon will deal more damage as opposed to a character with a low STR stat that's equipped with a 1-H-weapon. A character with a high FIN stat that's equipped with 1-H weapon will be more precise in breaking the object and will have a higher chance of the getting the best outcome as opposed to a character with a low FIN stat that's equipped with 2-H weapon. Worst case scenario; A character with a high STR, low FIN stat, equipped with a 2H-weapon.


With durability:

Create a talent that allows your weapons/armor to be able to withstand more wear and tear during your journey. You could call it ''Gear Handler'' because only the best of adventurers know how to properly treat their equipment on and off the battlefield. To add on to this idea, you could decrease the amount of durability loss that you take on all pieces of equipment, across the whole board, for all actions, that lower the ''quality'' of your equipment.






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The patch before last dropped Durability for combat and pretty much everything except bashing down locked doors and chests.

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So weapons will still need to be repaired after crushing in a chest or door?

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Honestly I have never seen durability pulled off in a game in a way that made me enjoy it as a mechanic. Hell, even the new Zelda drives me nuts. It is just an annoying mechanic. If I find an awesome weapon, I want it to stick around.

If you want people to not be able to destroy chests with weapons, make them nearly invincible like you have some doors. OR just make the items inside the chest get destroyed. Destroying a chest with spells should ruins most of the items inside.

The only idea for a durability system I like would be the following:


The weapon has a durability where the lowest it can get to is 1 and 35 being the highest. Every -1 durability = 1% less damage from the weapon and roughly every 3-5 hits(or whatever feels right) reduces durability by 1. So the least % of damage a weapon could ever do is 65% of its original damage and you have the added benefit of it not being destroyed and unusable(which is annoying as hell).

This also would add a cool factor where you would have to repair your weapon at important fights to maximize your damage.

It also seems like a more realistic result of weapon degradation.



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I'd say durability has no place in a singleplayer game. It is a pointless mechanic that does not enhance the game in any way, and only succeeds in being annoying.
Once can make a case for it in MMOs as a way to control the economy, but in singpleplayer games it is just awful.
Something similar can be said for level restricted items.

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If it ain't broke, why am I fixing it?

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The durability mechanics added nothing but tedium to Divinity:OS. Simply remove it or make it optional or at most a single click of a button so i wont have to go through repetitive inventory management for a pointless mechanic. Divinity:OS floods you with items, so every bit of reduction of inventory management is an improvement in my opinion. Larian realized this apparently themselves, since they reorganized crafting into menus later on, which was quite an improvement.

All those hypothetical ways to make the system better are way too contrived to be practical and contain other downsides so far. I agree that there should be a downside to bashing objects but the current durability mechanism is not the way to go in my opinion.

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How about penalizing bashing things open by adding a *dazed* debuff that reduces your AP and/or initiative?
Whenever you try to bash something open there'll be a slight chance for it or it gets applied every time. Bash more = higher penalty.
That debuff could also only tick down in combat so you couldn't just wait it out.

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Originally Posted by Naqel
Originally Posted by aj0413

If you're going to move away from things like durability, remove food as well, and drinks too I guess. No point there either. And plenty of other RP related mechanics that don't directly related to merchants, story, and combat...


Ah, but you see, if gear maintenance was anything like food, it'd actually be a good system.
Effect duration aside, food is a great form of optional management.

Preparing and managing your meals(and potions, it is done the same way after all) is a task that takes some effort to perform, but it is entirely optional when you don't want to go through the effort.
If you don't take the time to eat before every fight(which should really be "eat in between fights"), you don't get the benefits from that, but you can win fights without it.
The system is also usable at a minimum effort: just eat whatever you have mid-combat and hope for the best.

When you choose to interact with the food system, you gain benefits.
When you're forced to maintain your gear, you do it to avoid penalties.


If you look at it as a Penality. Maintaining an Weapon is like Maintaining your Character with food. Properly done it shouldn't be less funny than work with Food in an Game. Tha't why i'm also up to they should change Durability to Maintaing. The more you use it, the more it gets schredd, not so far that it is unlplayble, or weak, but so far that you benefit if you maintain it properly. Maybe even add an more complex core, so you have different ways to maintain it and the way you maintain it gives you different benefits. So like if you use that certain whetstone it holds longer until the maintainbar reaches 0 - if you use that certain whetstone it shredds normal, however its sharper so make slightly more damange - and so on.

Except some exceptions, where the whole Game is build so it works(like BotW), most of the Games out there have an pain in the Ass durability which adds nothing. Often there fall down this word "casual" and such, if you remove durability, but Hands down: In what way mit makes it more complex and challenging? Players who have the knowledge, there isn't any challengin nor depth/complexity in it. It slowly grows as an anoyance 'cause you know how it works. The only group who will find it "challenging" are the newcomers, and if you ask me, that is NOTHING which is fun to learn or where you feel rewarded afterwards, that you did it. Its not like an amazing Bossfight where you have to think, use tactics or (in case of Action RPG like Dark Souls) learn move pattern/polish your reflexes. That simply something which gets in your nerves after awhile - and it isn't even that realistic to begin with(if some people argue about Realism/Immersion). Like an Weapon would break SO FAST? Maintaning is in this Case more realistic and more immersive, and also beats the issues. In one Hand it's not forced down to the throat about people who don't care, in the other Hand (if properly done) it also can add a bit depth.

About this Streamlined/Mainstream argument:
The Question is, what Larian aims for. Which targed Audience they want to maintain. It might be only my Opinion, but from the Feeling which i've gotten from the first Game, they don't aim particiular only for the diehard dungeon and dragons Roleplay-Nerds, but want to deliever an Proper Pen & Paper similiar Feel with freedem and easy accessibility. If that wouldn't be they case, they wouldn't even begun this topic here to ask if they should get rid of it or if some people have suggestions for improvements/fixing.

Also this whole "Argument" of "Durability doesn't fit an Single-Player RPG":
Firstly: Now either most people are to young or don't have that much knowledge, but Durability isn't something which is introduced recently with MMORPG - but was an big Part of RPG way before this whole Multiplayerconcept was Popular. Thought i can't tell if in the origins of cRPGs - the Pen and Paper Games, durability was an thing.
Secondly: Even if that would be the Case, Divinity isn't exactly an Single-Player RPG. Often if some People here in this Forum(or Steam Forum) read about things like class-balancing and such, and dislike it because they mindlessly want stomp everything and blablabla and such, they tend to forget the uniqueness about Divinity Original Sin - and even more what Larian want to achieve with this Series. To draw this Pen & Paper feeling back to Videogames, and this with an 4-player-multiplayer-co-op. They seem really to focus on this Part, due their ideas like everyone have its own origin-stories which might cross with other quests of other storys, so you have to decide to do your own thing or stick together with people, which you play with. They even offer an Game-Master and Arena Mode. Divinity Original Sin 2- even if the SP crowed don't want to hear it, is clearly focused on this part. Obviously Larian tries also to please the SP Crowed due the origins of this Series, however they won't tradeoff SP for MP - and they shouldn't. For pure SP there are alot of ton other Games like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny etc...

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Originally Posted by zamp
How about penalizing bashing things open by adding a *dazed* debuff that reduces your AP and/or initiative?
Whenever you try to bash something open there'll be a slight chance for it or it gets applied every time. Bash more = higher penalty.
That debuff could also only tick down in combat so you couldn't just wait it out.


You won't bash during a combat, so you don't care for AP at all.

Bashing stuff open is already painful and annoying. Giving a daze effect you could aswell just make everything unbashable.

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Originally Posted by Kalrakh
You won't bash during a combat, so you don't care for AP at all.


That's why I said the daze only ticks down during combat. If you smash something open you'll get dazed debuff until the next time you enter combat. For the first few turns a dazed character would be less useful

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If we are basing solely on the premise on whether or not we should keep the durability system as a consequence or punishment for bashing doors and chest open then I don't believe we need it.

Currently many people will avoid this by either using worse weapons, magic, or save scumming and most implementations will have people taking the chest to a remote location out of sight and just going full hadoken on it.

So what can we do to make opening doors and chest in unconventional ways(ie without a key or lock pick) more interesting and less time consuming?

First lets figure out the states in which a door and chest can function as:

1)Most doors and chests will be found in a locked state. It's function is to keep unwanted or perhaps a better way to phrase it would be an unworthy person to open it unless a condition is met.

2)The second state is opened. This is the desired state and after the initial state change it loses almost all value.

So I believe to reduce time on dealing with a chest or door, there should only be two states it exist and that is open or locked and that trying to spend years breaking a chest or door to be an unnecessary state. With that in mind lets figure out on how to make it more interesting.

In opening a door or chest we go through a process of elimination on how we should open it. First we would try to just open it with the assumption it might be open. Second we would look for a key. Third we would try to lockpick it. Fourth we would look for some weak point that we could pry open. Fifth we would try to break the the lock. Finally we would go barbaric and either try to bash the chest open or blow it open with magic.

To make door opening and chest opening interesting I suggest we have multiple different answers:

1) If you are a warrior you would need a certain amount of strength and a proper weapon to break open a chest or door.

2)If you are a rogue or archer you would try to spot a weak or vulnerable point in a chest or door and try to pry it open with some finesse.

3) If you are a mage you could have several different ways to open a chest or door. A user of pyrokinetic could force open a door as long as they had the right amount of skill and know the right spell but would burn all contents in a chest. A user of hydro spells could freeze the lock on a chest or door and have a companion break the lock. An aerothurge would require immense investment into that stat to break open a chest or door. A geomancer could easily throw a boulder through a door, and use poison to corrode a lock on a chest and the list goes on.

So with this solution we will prevent the need to save scum or move chest around to break them open, save time from smacking or burning chest and doors, and make it more interesting to play/build around with a simple check.

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With the previous post I hopefully gave them some insight if not a solution to the problems with opening doors and chests.

This post will be on how to make durability less of a tedious task and something that is fun and rewarding.

Durability before the previous change was a system where anytime you used your weapon or your armor took damage it would lose a charge in the durability stat that had a set number of times it could endure before breaking.

What people dislike about this is that repairing is a tedious task and does not add anything fun to the game with several examples on how much it sucked in other games.

So lets look at the reasons why we find it tedious and not fun:

1) Gear is put into three states with only two of them that matters. We have fully repaired, damaged, and broken. For all intents and purposes fully repaired and damaged are the same thing and having a weapon broken in combat will just lead to players reloading a save, repairing the item, and going back to combat effectively wasting time.

2) It mentally feels bad because its not something that increases damage but decreases damage. Nobody enjoys seeing their numbers go from 15 to 1.

So how do we make it less tedious and more fun?

1) We change Durability to be called Condition.

2) Condition is always set at a number below the maximum condition excluding special reasons.

3) You can only increase condition by using a repair hammer or shopkeeper to increase the value of Condition which will in turn increase the damage it does.

4) Condition will never go down in value but only up to its maximum value. So fighting(or anything for that matter) will not decrease condition.

5) Shop owners can only repair the condition of an item to a certain threshold decided by the developers and not go any higher to keep repair hammers relevant and prevent overpowering levels extremely through gear.

By making it so Condition never goes down we remove/reduce the amount of time people go back to town to make sure their combat effective doesn't decrease. We give players a good reason to go back to town to increase their weapon damage, but it is never necessary to do so giving the players choice. Condition makes it so that weapons and armor are good, better, or peak performance so it feels good increasing Condition because you have more effectiveness.

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