Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General About the game critique from players

This is something I would like to point out to everyone offering the good and true critique of this game regarding armor systems aso.:

While I do understand that it is not your actual work to fix what is broken in this game many of you seem to care deeply, yet most of the offered critique is plainly saying what you dislike.

If you think you can offer a better system I would like to suggest that we all band together in this thread and actually develop a combat system that is more satisfying to you instead of only saying what you don't like.

I think in this regard it is totally viable and acceptable to offer solutions that already exist, like pen and paper systems D&D or GURPS to name two or other games that solved this better, not excluding ofc. the first title.

TL:DR time for real applicable solutions, not critique.

minor spoiler below;
Keep in mind though, if you may, that heavy changes require money, so if we get big changes I think a dlc which include said changes is necessary to pay for the time and effort.

It might also be a chance to change the somewhat lackluster storytelling towards the end. I kept getting the expression that arx was meant to be the second station, not the last and that was a stale aftertaste for me.

We made so many suggestions since the start of the EA, most of them are buried under tons of new topics, topics kind of about the same topic. The old rabits of us are probably getting tired to repeat themselves over and over again. We can't even be sure, if they really read what we suggested in several occasions. Because they hardly ever give the slightest hint. Saying we read it all is easily, but it not so convincing, if it hardly ever gets proven.

I must admit I didn't read the whole forum, especially not the first entries since I came here way later. I just read the first 10 pages or so and the topics in it and there was this pattern of complains but no solutions. I only know dumbing down the game isn't the solution and obviously not what the waste majority wanted for this game, including me.

So take this thread as a way of getting back on track to concentrate on solutions and not complaining. As I said what you have to realize is how much work it would actually require to change the whole combat with all dependencies. We are talking about potentially hundreds of work hours.

What I'm missing though is what you mentioned, someone coming in and giving an official statement like: We understand you are not satisfied and because of the costs we can't change it for this game, but we see you folks in 4 years for the next title and we promise to change the system to be more challenging and engaging or something like that. But no company does this because the management is full of afraid chicken.

Just because you say it's bad doesn't mean it is. You may have been complaining about it since ea, but that doesn't mean you're right. Any solution you craft will impact those who prefer the new system. You should stick to making a mod that does what you want and not try to impose your wishes on everyone else.

I think that's an important point. They have clearly taken notice of a lot of the feedback but obviously can't totally accommodate every demand since so many of them are contradictory: you can't please everyone, and all that.

I sometimes wonder if some of the feedback wasn't ultimately very helpful as there was a protracted episode of people saying this, that and the other must be nerfed for "balance", which they were, and now a different group of people are complaining that too many things were nerfed and the game isn't as much fun.

The risk is if they pander too much to one group they risk alienating everyone else: and whether or not they're happy with that as artists, ultimately it'll turn into lost sales.

You are conflating completly seperate points of critique, which makes no sense at all.
There have been more than enough objective and well explained issues with the game design in this forum and I don't see why you would claim to know people enjoy bad gamemechanics even if the overall experience of the game is good, like I stated before.

I made this thread to speak about better combat concepts and not to argue about the validity of the initial claim.

There have been more than a few alternatives suggested (return to Saving Throws, percentile resist, etc), but the overarching trend that I've seen isn't that the Armor System is objectively bad, it's that its implementation is painfully bland, incredibly unpolished and restrictive, and had next to nothing built into and around it to make it interesting to anyone but people who are sated by the CC-Chaining being delayed a single round of combat.
The vast majority doesn't want a specific system, they just want literally anything else, even a better integrated iteration of the current system.

There are a couple of issues that I see with the armor system:

It's just an additional HP bar impacted by either physical or magical dmg. The name 'armor' would imply (for me at least) some sort of resistance mechanic that negates a portion of that damage.

It's against one of the classic RPG tropes of having a mixed party; why would you do that if splitting the damage type among the party is actually detrimental? This is reinforced by how the CC works now - needing to first remove that armor type means again that you shouldn't split the damage...

Anyway, I don't think an easy solution exists. I tried working with what is in the game and tweak it but I didn't like what I got. But what would I do anyway is change the itemization system in not allowing both types of armor on the same items - you should choose one to specialize in. If you want to wear both warrior armor (with physical resistance) and mage-relevant armor (with magical resistance) you can but you will be much weaker because of that. Versatility should have a big drawback.

The biggest issue will remain the bosses as they seem to have magical and physical armor of equal values. And for that I can't see an easy way out.

Regarding the statement of Igniz and Vometia... the problem is with that mindset you do exactly yourself what you blame others for: forcing your opinion on others.

Also I have yet to see a single post of one of the "new system is perfect" crowd to substantively disprove at least a part of the problems the people, that think the new system is subpar, brought up so far.

especially:

- armor affects damage and status-effects COMBINED and by that reduce the interaction of both significantly
(little example: "flay skin", If you chewed through up to almost 30k magic armor to apply an effect that affects the last... 5-10k health... it can't affect the 30k MA... but affecting "hitpoints" is basically the effects job)
- reduced importance of health as shield down means game over already by perma CC (unless one has imunities, but these are a lot rarer now, and would deprive it of it's prime function)
- the coercion of perma CC at all...
- the reduced versatility of characters and groups as nuking down 2 pools of shield is always less effective than nuking just 1 of them.

Have any of you armour haters played mass effect? It's the same deal. Maintaining your shields or armour whilst disabling the enemies is a core part of the game. Dos2 is the same and I'm not sure people have figured that out. Maintaining armour is core to the game and without it you get rocked hard.

Without going into too much detail (I'm at work), the offensive capabilities of magic and physical attacks differ. Magic handles aoe better, physical is more single target. Similarly, warrior armour has more physical armour, mage armour has more magical armour. Warriors beat on mages, mages beat on warriors.

There's a dynamic there and the game is built around that. It's not a case of me imposing my opinion, it's how the game is built and you're either for it or against it.

Additionally, I don't recognise all those points as being valid or true counter points. Not to say there aren't foibles, but just because you say them doesn't make them true.

I'm not forcing an opinion on anyone, simply pointing out that not everybody is in agreement. Nor am I saying the armour system is perfect, not least as I have my own issues with it but I dare say not necessarily things that others may care about especially since they tend to be matters of aesthetics. *shrug*

this is because this debate is ultimately circular, with different people who value different things about the game telling each other that their perspectives support bad game mechanics. what would constitute an argument that would reasonably disprove everyone's problems with the armor system? such a thing doesn't and can't exist because too many people have too many idiosyncratic problems with it and if the devs went with one person's solution they'd inevitably end up pissing off many other people, likely far more than they'd satisfy

nobody's forcing anyone's opinion on anyone, but the people who take the devs not acting on their specific complaints as "the devs aren't actually reading anything and don't care about player opinion" behaviour are putting too much stock into their own ideas of what constitutes good game mechanics, and assuming some kind of wide-reaching consensus built upon confirmation bias. if you truly believe that something about the game is bad and it's something that can be altered via mods, then my best recommendation would be to either look for a satisfactory mod or mod it yourself. larian's time right now is likely split between fixing bugs (of which there are many) and addressing other potentially gamebreaking gameplay issues. the game's been out for less than a month, overhauling the entire armor system is probably not on their schedule right now

personally i agree with a number of the problems people have with the system and would love to see it tweaked, but i could make 20 threads on here and see nothing done about it in the coming weeks (or months even) and not be surprised at all. and that's not a knock on larian, it's how any studio would deal with a game upon release

edit: don't interpret this post as fatalistic and saying that posting what you consider to be balance problems is bad; in fact, i encourage you to continue to let larian know what you think the game's weakest points are. that's the whole idea of criticism. the problem only arises when a lack of prompt action is interpreted as the devs purposefully ignoring you

Have you actually seen mid-game armor types? Because that's kinda how it already is.

Strength-based armors give a LOT of Physical Armor and a tiny amount of Magical Armor. Intelligence-based armors give a LOT of Magical armor and a tiny amount of Physical Armor. Finesse-based armors give a moderate amount of Physical armor and a lesser amount of Magical armor.

You don't get both unless you split your attribute points between STR and INT, which has a drawback of wasting attribute points.

Yeah, same. There's a world of difference between "not everybody is necessarily in agreement" (which is my standpoint) and "shut up and go away" (which most certainly is not). Feedback is important; they may or may not act on it, but past experience has indicated that they will incorporate some of it.

I agree. I like almost every change they made, to me the game is way less cheesy and better balanced vs the original was less than one month in. The bloated stats though, I can agree, where does that idea come from?

There are what 100's coming here commenting and they're going on a million players. Drop in the bucket, not trying to squelch, chat away, but I don't want this "Big change" some want. Again, in-game mods to do that, I'm all for it, but not to wake up one day and everything is just different. If this verbal battle is for DOS3 or any game using their engine, I'd say continue to work down DOS2's line of thinking, it's better, but not flawless.

i played 3 Mass Effect games, 2-3 and the sub-par MEA. The story in ME is completely linear including EVEN combat. Beside i never feel frustrated at shield enemy has because the game has completely different game mechanic than DOS. ME is TPS game which rely mostly on player input, thus beating it completely rely on player's skill. DOS is an RPG game which player input hardly matter, it doesn't care how fast you can type or how fast you can blink your eyes.
Comparing two make you look like an idiot. Beside, in ME most CC skill go through shield (or you can spec into it) with fast cool-down, high damage to shield (again you can spec into it) and ONLY has one type of shield on each enemy, and i quote "Only powerful enemies have a defense bar, weaker enemies are always vulnerable". Defense bar = shield(mostly) or armor (very heavy combat unit, like a miniboss, and they only has ARMOR, no shield).
At least ME has idea to put which kind of defense is weaker to what type of gun. In DOS2, nope, you only has one type physical attack, ONE type magic attack to magic armor.

As far as I remember, no enemie in Mass Effect both kind of 'armor'. Either they have 'armor' wich is an additional healthbar an lowers impact of damage, against against armor breaking attacks. A shield replenishs itself after a short while, but not reduce the incoming damage, if I'm not mistaken. Also there are several skills that are extremely effective against the specific type of armor. So depending on the enemies you will meat, you can take a different loadout of skills and team mates on every mission. So saying it is the same deal, is just wrong.

You probably could say, one of my suggestions would make the armor system more like Mass Effect:


Also there were probably dozens or even more suggestions, how to make CC better or the armor system more appealing.


@Ingiz13:
Of course I know, that my opinion is not the only right. I prefer the D:OS1 way of handling CC, other prefer the D:OS2 way. But only a minority seems to find the current system absolutely perfect. Also I think, I never imposed my wishes on anyone, I only argued why it and many other things make D:OS2 to a disappointing successor for D:OS1 for me and my friend. So don't put stuff in my mouth just to prove your point.


Anyhow I have so far nobody seen, who thinks that the current attribute system is fullfilling or that the talents are perfect as they are. Or anyone who says, that the stats bloat in endgame enriches the game experience.

I also don't like, how Larian seems to be handling the issue with all those delayed Collector Editions. It just proves even more, that only reading is not enough.

Anyway you seem to be confuse something:
Physical is not bad at AoE, Scoundrel may be bad with it, but that is pretty logic. But Warfare and Huntsman have many options to attack more than one target. Not without reason there were cases in EA, in which a warrior wiped all enemies in one turn with the old Warlord version.

Enough. Stick to the discussion please, guys. We've had enough of this sort of unpleasantness lately.

Martin Anward, a developer working on Stellaris once said something that I think could be relevant here (I think it was him who said it). The point was, that players are very good at finding out what is wrong with a specific mechanic, they can be helpful in pinpointing how and why it is broken. However, the players (collectively) are really bad on giving ideas on how to fix the broken mechanic they just helped bring to light. So, I think it could be a good idea to come to some sort of agreement on what we want from the mechanic, and let them (Larian) come up with a way to do it.

Shouldn't you have concluded, "We should show them what is wrong with a mechanic and not offer solutions"? You are doing what Martin said we're bad at.

The reason we are really bad at giving a solution is we don't have 1/100000 the details of all the mechanics and how it all works in code. We can suggest something that is virtually impossible for them to do at this or any point.