Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Armor and Shields

I.....okay, just no it's not the first game for one very important fact:

No armor -> 100% chance to CC with no ability to resist

In game one you had bodybuilding/willpower to increase chance to resist CC based on how many pints you put into it. Worked the same for enemies

Again: once armor is gone there is no defense from CC. The first game had this in the form of two defensive abilities. So no they're not the same at all: that's a drastic change.

CC'ing an enemy to death is really really really easy for players in this game. Hell you can do it to the boss. Just double down on one armor type and then the fight might as well be over

And the amount of armor doesn't change this -_-

A fight is practically over for all intents and purposes once armor is gone

@aj0413 - ok grand, now you've got to the guts of your argument.

To say the fight is 'practically over' once armour is gone is a bit dramatic though, no?

I don't disagree with your point. However, I'm more in favour of evolution of a new mechanic than ditching it because it's got a few small flaws. If willpower and bodybuilding were to be brought back, it's problem solved for what you're saying.

But I never liked them. It was a stat-dump gimmick and a lottery mechanic (% chance for it to work in your favour). That doesn't add to the thinking element of the game. A dice is rolled for you and you might come out better because of it. Think chess - it's the greatest strategy game in existence, and all of your pieces only have 1 hitpoint.

In other words, hitpoints add depth. Dice gimmicks like bodybuilding and willpower are too lotto, too random. Best remove them and improve the strategy potential for the new 'alternative HP' mechanics.

You've got a point! Don't get me wrong. But I just think there needs to be a new idea around the new HP mechanics, that's all. Heal capabilities for different HP categories - that would go a long way in solving the problems you mention and really adding complexity.

One: It is like chess....that's also a gripe o have with it. A player shouldn't be able to predict every action to victory or long feel some tension/pressure each turn. Chess is no more complicated than tic tac toe at the highest levels when all players are aware of optimal action sets. It's how chess AI are made in fact. Giant tree of possible moves and states.

Two: I like the RNG system of game one

Three: changing out the defensive abilities means leaving the current armor system -> we both get what we want and it solved the problem

Four: the RNG did follow player choice -> you could raid it to increase your chances if you felt it needed

Five: even if you dislike RNG, I offered two system options to improve the current one. The second one was a literal evolution of the current system without adding anything new but allowing you to let players control how much of an attack is absorbed by armor. I don't quite kike this since it'll degenerate into some perfect ratio but if they tie the ratios to armor types than I can see it working well and even making players be more selective of gear builds since currently it's a no brained to out everyone in heavwsit armor you can find

Six: I didn't see a need to expand on why the current armor lets CC death work or expand on the difference to game on that makes health moot cause I've restated it multiple times in the thread or someone else did at least

Chess has no lottery. It’s all strategy – you must calculate to win. Sure, they’ve made AIs that can compete with and even beat today’s grandmasters, but saying chess is no more complicated than ‘tic tac toe’ certainly doesn’t hold up. Check out the IQ level of some of the world’s greatest – I definitely can’t claim to hold a candle to that, and I’d venture the same is true for most D:OS players.

Aka – D:OS is casual. And the more lottery you bring into it, the more casual it becomes. You say a player in chess can ‘predict every action to victory’, which is false. You can never predict what your opponent is going to do. There are ‘openings’ and standard move sets, but none of these are sure ways to victory. If it was that easy, we’d all be chess grandmasters.

The point I’m trying to make is that if you’re clever about your calculations/strategy, it’s more rewarding to achieve victory this way than it is through dice rolls.

Randomness does add an element of tension, yeah. % chance to miss is cool with me. But when it becomes the deciding factor for what constitutes complexity, count me out. This is just my opinion – let’s agree to differ. I don’t enjoy having to depend on ‘cool gear’ that gives me ‘X %’ of a chance to win the lotto. I’d rather have cool gear, but still have to carefully plan out each move to succeed. I’d rather have to calculate and have my opponent calculate against me. Neither of us has a predictable path to victory, but neither of us is hoping on dice to get that upper hand either.

Again, it’s a case of preference. I’m not saying this is how it should be – I’m just saying calculation is what entertains me, and lottery simply doesn’t.

You do realize that Chess has a finite number of moves at any one state and that it's possible to account for every variation based on opponents reaction to a move?

I'm trying to explain to you that, just as in tic tac toe, in chess, it's more than possible to account for every possible action an opponent can take and then plan optimal route to victory. It's it even hard. Just write a well done algorithm and let it run for a bit on your PC.

Human players have the simple failing of not bein smart enough to do this because of how many states they'd have to calculate and keep in mind at any one time. It's more intuitive. You took my explanation way too literal.

And I'm not even talking out of my ass. I literally made an algorithm to do that in class. It's well known that it can and is routinely done. The only problems was that it took too long to be considered playable in a routine full game. That problem was solved by using better algorithms to traverse the tree and possible states to victory better.

The problem with causal games like tic tac tow and divinity is that they're not as complicated as chess and thus players *can* account for everything they need to when you remove RNG completely.

Thus my issue with chess like gameplay in casual games like this.....it's too easy. There's no pressure each turn that you might fail. There's no enough variables to account for that really matter for any one match to give you much trouble after the first/second pass through and you have a rough understanding of the enemy units.

This is mitigated by slanting terrain and numbers in the advantage of the AI usually though. Unfortunately, there are too many ways to get around that aspect as well

I do like RNG mechanics from d20, but I have legitimate reasons for those feelings.

If they want no RNG, then that's fine, but that's more work on them honestly. It's much harder to account for all the tactical flexibility of a creative and intelligent player to keep everything feeling like strategic decision making and allow for difficulty to remain feeling consistent

1st: I think we should keep in mind that in the current state some skills/classes are pretty much overpowered and make it because of that, it is much easier to clear the Armor bars.


2nd: The fire elemental is only a placeholder as announced from official side.


3rd: Because of 1st and because Warfare-Skills are most effective with a two-handed one-handed is pretty much the weakest weapon skill in my eyes.


4th: D:OS1 defence skills were far more important than D:OS2 defence skills. For me as a roleplayer it gave me the impression of my chars getting really stronger, because they could withstand more.


5th: Regarding these two videos, the problem with Willpower/Body Building was probably, that the delta was to large. You either succeeded or you failed:
Extra Credits: The Delta of Randomness
Extra Credits: More Ways to use randomness


6th: Regarding elemental resistances, there are already different HP bars in the game:
An enemy has 400 HP, 25% against fire and -25% against water, that means his HP against Fire attacks are 500 and his HP against water attacks would be only 300.


7th:

Do you mean Fortified/Armor of Frost with Armor Regeneration spells or are you refering to my suggestion of partial regeneration every turn? Regarding last there is nothing at current state, it was a suggestion, because getting stripped of all armor gives the feeling of being stripped naked. Could get combined with the suggestion, that the armor would only absorb a part of the damage, but not everything. But on the other hand losing your full bar resembles the state of your armor being shattered into pieces. (But on the other hand that does not really happen anyway.)

@aj0413 - you need to research chess a little more, my friend. Here’s a snippet to get you started:

‘Chess is infinite: There are 400 different positions after each player makes one move apiece. There are 72,084 positions after two moves apiece. There are 9+ million positions after three moves apiece. There are 288+ billion different possible positions after four moves apiece. There are more 40-move games on Level-1 than the number of electrons in our universe. There are more game-trees of Chess than the number of galaxies (100+ billion), and more openings, defences, gambits, etc. than the number of quarks in our universe!’

A human can’t devise an algorithm to account for this. I’m a programmer by trade too, by the way, so I’m not talking out of my ass either. The infinite nature of chess is the reason even supercomputer AIs still lose to grandmasters – an algorithm for a guaranteed win doesn’t exist, and can’t exist.

From just a few simple move sets, you have infinite strategic complexity. That’s the genius of the simplicity of this game.

Regardless, by your own reasoning, the average human would struggle to balance all of these possible outcomes in their brain – that’s a good thing! It means you can never predict a path to victory, and therefore never be bored. No matter how hard you think, you’ll never get it perfect – but it’s the thinking that gets your brain fired up. Dice rolls don’t make you think – they constitute luck of the draw, which is a trite and limited path to victory.

Again, I’m just giving my philosophy on this. You gave yours and I believe it’s flawed. That’s all.

There's no such thing as a number of states too large to account for.

The only reason humans beat AIs is cause people don't always play optimal moves on purpose. Psychological high level strategy is where you do something like leav an opening to draw in the opponent. Computers don't have a solid grasp on scheming like this.

As a programmer, I ask if you've worked extensively with AI before? If you'd like a second opinion on this there's SlamPow who also works with AI in the forums.

Anyway, at this point we're debating something totally off center :P

You can think my philosophy is flawed, but my basis is simple: the game just ain't complicated/hard enough to make everything and anything under the sun deterministic.

@Kalrakh – Yeah, I had a feeling someone would mention elemental resistances, but that’s not the equivalent of the elemental HPs I’m talking about.

Say I cast a fire spell – the enemy has X amount of resistance to fire, and they take Y amount of damage to their main health bar as a result. Your main health bar just got damaged in this instance. In my version, your main health bar stays undamaged and only your fire health bar goes down.

I’d like elemental resistances to stay the way they are and also have the elemental HPs as an extra layer. As long as my fire HP is some-value/100, my main health bar doesn’t get damaged. There’s still a resistance check as well.

Hope that makes it clearer.

@ aj0413: PHP/SQL are my tools – I don’t work with devising AIs. That aside, I don’t believe you have to in order to have a logical opinion on the subject. Do some further digging on it. Tic tack toe can be ‘solved’ with current technology, but chess can’t. Another excerpt:

‘It is thus theoretically possible to "solve" chess, determining with certainty whether a perfectly played game should end in a win for White, a draw, or even a win for Black. However, according to Shannon the time frame required puts this possibility beyond the limits of any feasible technology.’

This is a simplification of the arguments I’ve read around this, but you simply can’t make tech to win in every chess scenario – at least not yet.

The only thing I’m arguing against in D:OS is more lotto mechanics. Dump points into X ability to get Y % of not getting knocked down by whatever. The game doesn’t have to be as complex as chess for me – but I’d like for it to have more strategic aspirations, as opposed to stat-dump-to-win-by-luck aspirations.

Anyway, it’s off to bed for me! Work in the morn. Hopefully something that’s been said here is of constructive use.

That quote is pretty much what I said earlier. Time complexity is the only real limiting factor for chess AI. That and scheming. In order to account for both shortcuts and error margins have been accounted for. You should double check recent chess AI history, the last time a human won was years ago I do believe. It's theoretically possible for chess AI to lose sure....but they still haven't for years.

*shrug* and your opinion on RNG mechanics is fine. I again pint to my proposed evolution of the current system. It has no RNG involved at all.

Anyway, good night, man have good day at work. Bah, im sure the devs are taking something from this. Even if it's just that the new system needs to evolve and isn't perfect at the moment

Edit:
Also.....ewwwwww, >< PHP!?

What you're talking about is, in fact, no different than shields so don't complain when someone calls them shields.

The game also already has elemental resistances. So your ELEMENTAL SHIELDS idea is also added complication for no benefit. I do not think adding in enemies which are super-hard to kill with physical attacks but weak to magic X is the best thing for balance, especially since if you make one enemy like that, you'll have to make 4. That means if you don't have two mages, sucks to be you!!

What you call Fire HP is a fire shield, it's similar to a skill we had in DOS1. A skill that was pretty op and in this kind it would even be more broken, because this shield can only be damage by fire? And as long the fire shield isn't broken, a charater would be totally immune to damage? It would force people to use every kind of magic, because otherwise some enemies are perhaps unkillable.

I really like the Physical and Magical Armor system. Moving away from Willpower and Bodybuilding is a good move. Without RNG you have more control over the course of the battle moreover the Armor system prevents the insane 2-3 turns game ender of Crowd Control + Burst dmg spell/skill spamming combo in D:OS. Fights are now comfortably longer, well paced and especially more tactical, requiring much thought and planning.

That being said, i wish damage reduction and blocking were still major mechanics in D:OS2. I feel that DR and Blocking from gear should go hand in hand with the new Phy/Mag Armor system. It adds another layer of min/max and strategy. It might make DR and Blocking OP but i'm sure it can be balanced down eventually.

After reading through your replies, it looks like most of us are on the same page when it comes to shields/blocking. As for Armor, it sounds as if there are a few who prefer the new system and others who have issues with how it changes combat tactics. Magic armor and elemental resistance are a whole separate animal (maybe worthy of a new thread). Hopefully the developers are reading this and considering reintroducing the a blocking function and changing up armor/resistances.

@Aj0413: You've got some great suggestions. I'd like to see the old will/body/block instead of the new defense stats, however I think that if they're keeping the new defense bars, they'll probably keep stats that are directly tied to them. Developing a method of letting the player control the ratio of damage reduction would also be an improvement, though I'm not sure if that'd make things simpler or more complex.

@Baudolino05: I like your suggestion for a flat damage deflection rating for shields. If they're not going to use the old blocking system, I'd definitely support this one.

@error3: Thanks for pointing out how frontloaded the combat system has become. I agree that standard armor and shields become useless after a few rounds of damage absorption. The developers should see this a major flaw in the relationship between gear and combat.

@ImariKurumi: Though I disagree that moving away from RNG was a good move, I do agree that damage reduction and blocking would improve the new armor system.

@Kalrahk: The idea of armor/shields with regeneration would be a solid improvement, overall I feel like that's a small fix for a bigger problem but I'd take it anyways. I've got agree with you that with the current shield system, one-handed is the weakest weapon skill.

@Kilroy512512: In DOS1 you could use Loremaster to analyze enemy defenses and resistances, so I'd have to disagree with your statement that DOS2's physical/magic armor bars are introducing such tactics. In both games you choose your attacks based on the target's known defenses.

@Smokey-If you like the new physical/magic defense bars, I understand why you'd like to see more of them for each element. However, I have to agree with Stabbey that this would only further complicate character and combat management. I also understand that if you prefer predictable tactics with less chance, you'd be against bodybuilding/willpower rolls. However many players were drawn to this game because it reminds them of good old dice-rolling RPGs where even the underdog can crit, and the boss can miss.

I super dig the idea of armour bleedthrough, cause it'll help keep the tension more consistent in the fight and keep armour around longer so it matters more. It'll also help differentiate armour classes.

In that vein, I also think every piece of armour should have magical and physical on it. My reasoning is thus: It's just a plain silly idea to not have any armour of a certain type. If you're in nothing but plate, you gon' get zapped and freezed. If you're in robes, you gon' get shanked and crippled. While this is solvable by mixing pieces of armour, why make that a problem to be solved? That just makes it a trap. Instead, each piece could offer different mixes of magical and physical armour. Heavy plate being on one end with a bunch of physical and a little bit of magical, and robes being on the other with a ton of magical and very little physical. Then mixing and matching isn't about just getting a grey or blue bar, but how big it is.

With bleedthrough, that can also correspond to how much magical or physical damage is blocked.

As you said, it is solvable by balancing armor pieces, which I have tried to do. Unfortunately I end up with some pretty low scores for both physical and magic that way. I would like it if higher level armor items had both categories. For low level items, that probably won't be the case. It wouldn't make any sense for a pair of work boots to protect you from lightening or an magician's robe to block a sword.

Low end items no. But a higher end combat mage robe would be designed to face different enemies. Probably made of heavy cloth for minimal protection from stabby stab happy folks

EDIT:
Also, happy to see my suggestions gain traction

Well if you are discussing damage vs certain types of armor, then lets not forget that a person in plate wouldn't in most cases stand a chance versus a very light precision type fighter as plate armors has weakspot at critical areas which essentially would leave them crippled and to bleed out.

Besides even with magical and physical protection as they are now, undead are immune to poison, you have trait allowing you to heal from blood, and take damage from healing while getting healed by poison, I wouldn't put it past the item system to be able to enable such behavior(just like how there are cursed items needing bless to get rid of), health|magical protection - item reduces lightning damage by %, heal by %.

Afterall there are items in the game which makes immune to slowing for example.

I'd rather have items handle this as it would be pros and cons with switching out items(even if it is 10 levels lower than you just because of an awesome add) versus I put points on my character so I have 20% chance of ignoring everything just because.