Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Feedback after killing Braccus

I completely agree with this. I have no idea why you guys added damage to Crushing Fist, it was fine as just a knockdown.

Here's the problem with skills:

• They ignore armour.
• They ignore resistances.
• They don't have a damage penalty.
• And they have other uses besides damage.

Skills shouldn't ignore armour and resistances, that's just silly. On top of that, some skills will also need a damage penalty, like Flurry, which does 4 hits, and so should do at most 67% of weapon damage a hit. (If I'm mistaken and it does 5 hits, make that 50%)

Crushing Fist and Rush don't need to do any damage at all, you use those to knockdown and to close the distance, that should be their primary purpose. Whirlwind and Dust Devil's use is an AoE attack, so they should probably get a penalty.

Damage-over-Time skill should get a damage penalty.

The solution to the Ranger's Arrow Spray skill wasn't to bump it up to a higher tier and leave it as is. No, the solution is to have armour and resistance affect it, and have it hit only once per target. The benefit is you can hit multiple enemies with it, that's your reason for using it.




Yeah, I know. I made good use of the Fire Elemental in the first Fire Twins boss fight. It drew a lot of attacks which didn't hurt it at all. and I just had it skip all its turns.



A high-level optional boss would be great, although I do kinda think Braccus should probably be the highest-level enemy in Cyseal, just on principle. That Source Nightmare spider should also heal itself partially when it is drawing water from the sea.

I agree with Stabbey. Many warrior skills shouldn't put out damage after all.

For example:
- Crushing fist: high knock-down chance on one enemy + maybe armor penalty for X turns
- Rush: low knock-down chance on multiply enemies in the way

Note: Imo knock-down/stun effects should work for one turn at the maximum. Knock-down/stun effects which last for two or even more turns are heavily overpowered...

Other high-level warrior skills should cost way more actions points (for example like David already mentioned, more action points than usually available in one turn).

If a skill does crushing/piercing/slashing, it gets damage reduction from armour and resistances. If a skill does fire/water/air/earth, damage gets reduced by resistances. If that isn't so, it should

Chance to set status gets reduction from resistance or from willpower or bodybuilding.

If KD/stun/... statuses don't last longer than one turn, why would there be skills that can "fix" these statuses? I agree that some last too long (probably the ones early in game), but on higher level, these statuses should last a bit longer so that the spells that fix these make sense and need to be used.

Oh, and I also agree that bosses are too easy atm.

Well, I meant that in respect to the enemy. In fact, enemy AI atm never casts spells or uses skills to release these effects.

Either you improve enemey AI to actually use these skills as well (which is still problematic because not every enemy group has a mage or character in their party who has those skills/spells available) or you reduce the stun/knock-down time caused by the player on the enemy drastically (a highly increased resistency against stun/knock-down for high-level enemies/bosses would be another kind-of-solution)...

For example: Braccus Rex fight again. If you succedd in knocking-down Braccus he will stay that way for at least 2-3 turn, completely defenseless. None of his companions is able (or willing?) to release him from that effect...

That doesn't mean that enemies can't use attacks which cause long-lasting knock-down/stun times on the player who is actually able to release those effects with the respective spells/skills.

Well, when I do a normal attack, I see "Absorbed: X", and when I do a skill attack, I don't, which is why it seems like skills ignore resistances. I could check the Evelyn fight again to see if Fortify works properly.

I attacked a Fortified archer with a normal attack ( 36-53 Crushing) and did 17 damage (Absorbed: 37). I then did a Rush attack (35-50) on that same cultist and did 47 damage, no absorbed. Skills ignore resistances and armour.

What do you guys think about spreading out the usefulness of talents like two handed et all?
I thought about giving each bonuses ,exemple with two handed
- lvl1 +10% damage with each level on it
- lvl2 +10% accuracy with each level (numbers can be adjusted)
- lvl3 splash damage on attack (in an arc)
- lvl4 increased range
- lvl5 decapitation: kills on hit if hp<(20% -resist)

exemple with one handed
- lvl1 +10% damage with each level on it
- lvl2 +10% accuracy with each level (numbers can be adjusted)
- lvl3 -1 ap for attacks and and attack based skills
- lvl4 retaliation : once (or twice) per round, retaliate with an attack against an ennemy attacking the warrior, absorbing part of the damage as well
- lvl5 decrease the cd of attack based skills by 2 (or 40%)

The same would apply to most talents so that way of the warrior/ranger/roque/element isn't the obvious choice for each lvls. Each specialization would have a them, two-handed would be about dealing with several ennemies, one-handed about duels (lowering cooldowns and ap for attacks, bow would decrease cds of attacking skills, willpower increase spell damage, etc...).

Stats like int/str/dext shouldnt boost so many things at the same time as well. Currently, each level boosting your main stat is just the obvious strat, if instead some of their benefits could be transferred to the other talents, you would get more choices. Moreover, it will give players a way to progress in power past lvl10 whereas right now, you pretty much reach the peak of your power at lvl15 main stat/ lvl5 main talent.

I'll cautiously say that's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's a great one.


Currently weapon specializations already do 10% extra damage a level. 10% accuracy a level is way too much, 2% per level at most.

(2H weapons) Splash damage on normal attacks seems like it could be really overpowered. You'd have to adjust the chance for decapitation - 100% chance is overpowered and make some enemies (like bosses) immune to it.

(1H weapons) -1 AP for normal attacks is HUGE, and would be very overpowered. There's a reason why only daggers cost 2 AP. Retaliation seems like it might be powerful, and it sounds like it's steppng on the toes of Opportunist. Decreased cooldown is also really huge and too powerful, especially stacked with the decreased cooldown for Way of the Warrior.

Keep in mind that those idea would go along with the nerf on strength/dex/int that currently lower cd ap/required as well as a boost on hp of ennemies. We do need something that would make those other talents somewhat useful compared to way of the warrior/other main talent. There's currently almost no reasons to ever take them as long as way of the warrior isn't at 5.

The -1 ap (could be something else) ,decrease cd and aoe is to differentiate the usefulness between two hands and 1 hand. The current problem with the difference between 1 hand and 2 hands or bows and crossbows is that both can use special abilities at the same rate, that's why I think the decrease in cds of skills or ap costs should be linked to bows/one hand instead of str/dex that benefits all type of weapons. The purpose of these changes would be to make 1hand for duels and 2hands for big melees which would seem kinda of natural. If ennemies skills and stats are adjusted to those changes, those talents wouldn't be op but their efficiency would be very different depending on the situation.

Keep in mind that decapitation and lower cds are only available after 15 points in the talent, compared to +4 ap/turns, it's not that strong. While the bosses would be more resistant to it, the usual mobs are currently already killed if you attack them with the 2 hand while they have less than 20% hp. Its use would mainly be on very resistant mobs (which should be most melees).
As for retaliation, it wouldn't do much if there are many ennemies but would only be powerful if you're receiving few but powerful attacks, and that's at the cost of 10 points, more than half of what you receive when you reach lvl10. The bonuses are big, but given how few points you have to use, their cost is also huge.

Of courses those bonuses are only exemples, they could be very different, I just put them here to give an idea of what I meant.

No really, normal one-handed weapons which are not daggers do a great deal more damage than daggers do. Making them cost 2 AP for any reason would be completely overpowered. I think that special abilities are supposed to take the AP cost of the weapon into account, so that part should happen. Maybe that's not working yet? I haven't checked.

You can find weapons and helmets and maybe other things with +1 WotW, so it's not necessarily 15 AB points.

Again, it is an interesting idea, but it has to be approached carefully.

I did make an idea to differentiate bows and crossbows, which was to reduce the effective range of Crossbows by 5m, although thinking about it now, I don't know how that would work with skills and special arrows, though. No one replied, indicating that they either had no opinion or thought it was a bad idea.

There is normally a simple rule for something like that: if people always take A over B you should just erase B from the equation. Either you make skills valuable or they don't have a right to exist.

Of course I didn't play enough to think about the whole balance of the game but from my point of view, attacking normally with daggers should do less than swords, assassins should be about setting up a huge damage spike on sensitive targets or crippling the ennemies, not exchanging blows. The assassin's balance should be thought about as well though. I didn't give any ideas for assassins because I haven't really played them.

As for reducing the range of crossbows, it could be part of rebalancing it but there should be funnier ideas about it and giving special advantages when you boost bows or crossbows would give more liberty instead of just balancing the numbers. In my opinion, the main problem right now is that it's hard to balance different weapons or playstyles if they all receive the same bonuses.

Assassins are indeed about getting behind a target as quickly as possible, and delivering as many backstabs as possible. Daggers do not do much good with frontal attacks, to the point where if you miss a backstab and the enemy turns around, it's better to end your turn and save the AP than to keep attacking.

However, my warning about lowering the base 3 AP cost of 1H weapons isn't about dagger damage, it's about the damage of non-dagger 1H weapons. If 1H weapons cost 2 AP, that means they can do a lot more attacks than they can now, which would make them overpowered because they ARE meant for frontal attacks and so they have much higher damage.

One other reason why I'm not so sure about the "let's think of 5 levels of bonuses" for all weapon specs is because before this patch, Daggers normally cost 2 AP and could backstab, and those were taken out to put into Way of the Rogue, seemingly to find something to put in there. I'm not sure they could think of 5 levels of bonuses for 1H, 2H, Bow, Crossbow, and each bonus would have to be tested and balanced, and the game is supposed to release in less than two months.

***

I agree that it can be hard to balance different weapons. One of the reasons why I suggested lower crossbow range is because they have the same range and skills as bows, with greatly increased damage and an extra 2 AP cost.

The idea of lowering the effective range was to have different niche's for the two weapons - the crossbow does more damage, but requires you to put yourself at greater risk by needing to get closer to hit targets more effectively.




I'll just say this:

Right now, I'm not likely to ever put points into "Weapon Specialization" instead of "Way of the...". Weapon spec adds 10% damage a level, which will add up to 50% extra damage eventually, but inevitably, it's going to be secondary to getting the next tier of spells or skills. I'm not sure there's a fix for it, because a new tier of skills is basically always going to be more interesting.

I thought the biggest difference between bow and crossbow was in fact the action points needed for one shot with the crossbow. While using a crossbow my ranger could usually just shoot one arrow each turn while he was able to shoot two or even three shots per turn with a bow. Of course one crossbow shot makes a lot more damage than one bow shot which makes them pretty even.

Well, yes, that's true, but that seems less interesting. That's just different numbers. Still, when I came up with the idea, it was pure theorycraft, and I admitted it might just be a dumb idea.


I'm going to try and settle it, though. I've started a Dual-Raistlin-Ranger game. They'll be pretty close in stats. I ditched Elemental Ranger for Raistlin, because EleRng can be a disadvantage versus Poison/Fire absorbing enemies. Raistlin will also be interesting because it'll emphasize the fragility of the Ranger, and it'll let the crossbow user get off two attacks to the bow user's three. I don't need two Rangers with both Blacksmithing and Loremaster, so on one each I swapped it for Water Elementalist for healing and Water of Life and other goodies.

One ranger will be using a crossbow, the other will be using a normal bow. That should help me decide if the +2 AP cost is really an equal balance to the increased damage. I have to say that it's already looking troublesome for the Bow, because with my first level 2 attribute point, I got both char's Dex up to 9, and I bought a crossbow requiring Dex 9, and it looks really powerful.

Tip 1 for DRR: Outside the harbour gates, make sure you kill the Orc Shaman on your first turn. If you let him fireball you, it's an instant game over.

I thought the reduced effective range for crossbows was a good idea, actually.

Well, 2 ap cost for a sword attack isn't as op as you think, it's just a 50% increase in total dps, the real advantage I'm sseeking there is to differentiate between the dps of a 1hand that would be specialized in dueling and 2hands that deals with crowds. Combined with a general increase in ennemy's hp after lvl5, (the game being relatively well balanced before this point), those changes wouldn't make those bonuses OP. As you've said yourself, there's currently no reason to ever take 1hand or 2 hands over way of the warrior.

As for thinking about 5 level of bonuses, we don't have to do it immediatly but number games won't just cut it if we want to balance the game because right now, with this system, there's barely any gains in power past lvl 9-10 when you have reached lvl5 main talent/15 main attribute. Those changes would allow a smoother progression to the later levels instead of currently peaking at lvl10. That's a rather big problem considering that the Beta is only 20% of the game.

As for way of the rogue, I thought about something else like that (daggers would backstab like before but their ap requirement would still be 3):
- lvl1 increase backstab damage and accuracy by 10%/ per level in way of the rogue (numbers may be lower)
- lvl2 avoid one attack of opportunity per round
- lvl3 at the start of your turn, if you aren't being sighted by any ennemies (sight determined by their perception and your sneaking level), you automatically go into sneak mode.
- lvl4 attacks done from sneaking can't miss and do 50% more damage
- lvl5 the first attack of your turn automatically crits

With various that can ONLY be used while in sneak mode like:
- shadow step (ap 1, cd 5): teleport to a place 15 meters away, that skill reloads when you go from visible to sneaking mode.
- deadly hit (ap ??, cd ??): does +100% damage.
- assassination (ap ??, cd ??): does +50% damage, if the ennemy dies from it and you are out of sight, you go back into sneaking mode.
I'm not sure how sneaking currently works in fights but it should have relatevily high ap cost for those skills to be balanced.

That way, instead of just being a dpser that attacks from behind, you become a real assassin that has to keep out of sight to do his job properly.

What I want, more than balancing, is giving each talent a different style of play that make it more interesting. Their main draw would start at lvl3 when it's relatively costly to get there.

Once you have a theme for each talent, finding 5 corresponding bonuses isn't that hard and could really improve the character building part of the game.

Not to be rude, but how many hours have you put into the game? Because your regdate and name suggest that you started with the April 25th patch. Now, I have seen some really good ideas come from people who are posting for the first time.

However, you lose credibility by claiming that that increasing the effective damage of single-handed weapons by 50% would not be overpowered and simple to do. Getting 1 extra AP in this game is really, really significant. It's not even just about weapon damage (although it'd throw out the balance between 1H and 2H weapons as well).

Everything becomes cheaper when you no longer have to choose between attacking normally, or using a skill or item. Or when you no longer have to choose between moving to a new target and staying put (because you haven't got enough AP to both move and attack). Lowering the AP cost means suddenly that skills are a LOT cheaper because you're now spending less AP on regular attacks. You can move farther and attack enemies you couldn't before. Scrolls, potions, consumables - everything. It would be an incredibly massive balance change, and I don't think you've played the game long enough to realize that.

I'm not saying that doing something about weapon specializations to make them more than something you get after your main skill is a bad idea - it isn't. But lowering AP costs for all single-handed normal attacks IS a bad idea.

Well to answer your first question, I started to play a bit before that update.

As for the -1 ap, it may have to be placed at lvl4 instead of lvl3 and Im aware it would be a great balance change that would also change the way 1H and 2H work, that was the declared purpose, make 1h much better for single target attacks, 2H for aoe attacks and have both of them be of closer in utility to way of the warrior. Way of the warrior lvl5 gives 4 ap, that's usually 50% of a warrior's ap but for ALL abilities and attacks on top of giving lvl5 abilities. If you get lvl4 1hand, you won't get those 4 ap so it better be worth it.
Moreover, the ap gain from that talent would be limited, you only gain 1 ap per attacks compared to without the talent, if you move and attack someone you couldn't attack before, it will mean you only attacked once and then only gained 1ap. It does give more flexibility but you seem to overestimate the utility it gives. It will though give more possibilities to attack with various attack based skills giving potentially more effects, but that should be part of the benefits when you take into account the cost to reach that lvl in 1hand.

Of course, I'm not stuck on those particuliar bonuses, if you have other ideas, feel free to expose them. But when you do, you also have to compare the utility of those bonuses to the ones we currently get with the existing talents.

The changes I propose are big because in order to make those talents interesting, you need something big compared to what they currently offer. If we want to have a sense of progression after lvl10 similiar to what we currently have from lvl1 to lvl9-10, either we need to boost meaningfully the current talents(and increase the ennemy's difficulty accordingly) or nerf significantly the current main talents and skills. Otherwise, people may feel there's no more character progression after lvl10.

I don't know how much it would impact the game but we will never know until we try and the Beta is the ideal time. Better explore those possibilities now rather than after the launch date.