Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General The Good the Bad and the Ugly

I'm hopeful that they're just tinkering with stuff during the alpha phase of the game. I must admit I find myself concerned by the idea of a single-player campaign being compromised for the sake of multiplayer expedience.

I completely agree!

You prefering it doesn't make it "objectively better".

And yes, you are more limited than in DOS1. And that's BAD imo.


You're rigth, the learn/relearn mechanic in DOS1 was pretty crappy. The rest was good. I'd really love it if DOS2 had the stat system and combat mechanics of DOS1 but without the tiresome learn/relearn mechanics.


Nobody said that the system is fundamentally flawed. We say that the system was more fun in DOS1, for reasons already stated multiple times.

Balancing for a fun RPG campaign experience against AI and balancing for a PvP arena modus against real humans is pretty different. The latter must be fair at any point, with the same rules applying to everyone. The former on can be much freer and the same rules that apply for the player doesn't have to apply to AI-controlled enemies and vice versa. A fun experience always trumps the notion of having rigid and inflexible, but "fair" mechanics against AI at every given time. That's why "it's a PvP-MP based system" isn't always the "objectively" better way of doing things.


@dlux
Fighting again for SP, hm? The same old guys playing Don Quijote? Well, we fools probably never learn (or we just never give up, no matter the odds)...

It's not about preference, it's about facts.

One limits you to a set number of skills, which you need to unlearn and learn/re-learn, in order to use more.

The other only limits which ones are available to you within a single encounter.

It is literally as simple as increasing the number of skills allowed in a 'deck' to make the second one clearly superior.
Which is a change in tuning/balance, not a change in how the system works.



As established, the rigidity of the current system is a function of tuning, not the fundamental rules it operates on.

Regardless of that: Enemy balance is not set in stone.
They can be made weaker or stronger to compensate for the amount of power a player is able to exert.
AI Enemies can be tuned to a power level that makes it 'fun' to fight them from a position of superior power, with the same abilities that are balanced in a PvP scenario.

That fact makes it(I will use that word again) OBJECTIVELY(based on fact, not opinion), a better approach to balance a game with a PvP component, around that component, and fine-tune the rest from there, rather than the other way around.

Yeah, whatever...


I already said that the learn/relearn mechanic was crap. That's something I don't want to see again. But other stuff in DOS 1 was imo better.

I'd actually prefer a system that combines the systems/approaches of DOS1 and DOS2. The memory system in DOS2 is a good replacement for the learn/relearn mechanic of DOS1, but it's too rigid and limits the player too much and doesn't reward player progression. So it needs to be mitigated. At the same time I'd prefer the game working with more APs again, giving both the player and the systems more flexibility and also the capability to better balance the game.


Increasing the number of skills allowed in a deck is exactly what you so intensively rejected if I may remember you...


That's true. But you are actually against every suggestion I made so far for "tuning" the system. I never suggested to completely abandon any combat mechanic that is currently present in the early access version...


The issue is that it's pointless and "counter-fun" to excessively limit the range of possibilities for the player in the campaign. Having only a very limited set of skill makes much sense in MP because it reduces the complexity for balancing (you always have to make sure that nobody is preferred and no build is objectively better than another). But in the campaign there is nothing wrong with the player becoming excessively powerful in terms of having a huge range of available skills. You can balance that with making enemies really strong as well (and by adjusting other mechanics like AP skill costs. In such a scenario sticking to the PvP-MP rules doesn't make the campaign experience better, but worse.


Again, I don't think that it's good idea that PvP-MP and the campaign are based on the very same rules. I actually think that exactly THIS is the original sin: balancing a SP RPG with PvP-MP in mind. That's bound to fail.

Perhaps you should share these facts? So far you have only justified your opinion. For these to be considered fact, you would need to point to research demonstrating that this balancing technique is superior to the alternatives.

That said, I am confident that I can say that objectively, balancing a game for PVP and balancing it for PVE are different. My expectation is that this means that you can't just focus on one of these experiences, but you must actively put effort into balancing and tuning both experiences, and that this potentially has the effect of squaring (not just doubling) the difficulty of balancing the game if you plan to use identical mechanics for both experiences.

I too regret the loss of granularity that came from reducing the number of AP being operated on, but it is unrelated to the fact that you continue to confuse tuning of a system, with it's operating principles. There is nothing to combine, Memory just needs to offer more slots and better granurality of how they're filled.



You may remember lots of things, but this one you remember wrong.





Nowhere is it said that PvP balance is somehow equal to a reduced variety of skills available. And even if it were: there's more types of variety than just the quantifiable, surface, level of it, and that in itself does not strictly imply the result being less fun.
Some of the most fun games out there are based on a limited set of rules and mechanics, where the variety comes from the way they interact, not their number.

Restrictions, in general, serve to create a challenge.
If you're the type of person that does not want to be challenged, there will surely be a mode in which that's not a problem, but then why would you care about the number of spells at your disposal?



Because I think you make bad suggestions.



That's just childish.

I don't confuse anything. I just state the changes I'd like to see in clear words. How you want to brand that is up to you.


I thought you were against my suggestion to reduce the memory requirements for higher level spells once you level up in a school but maybe that was somebody else. In that case I'm sorry.


Well, ok, that seems to be obvious. I think that your opinion isn't any more valid than mine though.


But it is in Divinity, as we can all clearly see in the EA version.

But sure, fun is subjective. I clearly stated why I think that it's more fun the other way. You might think differently and that's ok.

But maybe you can enlighten me which types of variety beyond the surface should compensate for the lack of options in combat, the unsatisfying level progression and the inflexible, low-point AP system in the campaign...


We don't talk about other games, we talk about Divinity. And if DOS1 proved anything it's that the more options you have the more fun it is to play the game, both in the world and in combat. Divinity is all about options and possibilities, not about limiting them from the start.


How often do I have to repeat if for you?
I WANT AP COSTS AND COOLDOWN TIMES TO BE EQUALLY IMPORTANT FOR BALANCING.
I don't want a smaller challenge. I just want to have more opions in combat. I want reduced memory requirements but increased AP and cooldown requirements (if necessary). It's really not that hard to understand...


It's childish claiming to speak for the objective truth on the field of GAME DESIGN. I have no problem if we both state our opinion and bring up good reasons and argumets for it. Shutting down others by claiming to speak the ultimate truth is imo indeed childish though.

You got the right person, but you got the scenario wrong.
What I want is higher granularity, and a slightly higher capacity.

What you want is to trivialize the requirements for slotting stronger skills into a deck for "specialists", by making all skills eventually cost the same amount of memory.



In order:
-Having less options to exert your power makes you think harder about which ones and how to use. Figuring out how to use a limited arsenal to deal with a situation offers a greater variety of combat scenarios than always having the correct loadout would.

-The sole purpose of progression(in the sense used here) is to gate your access to new areas and abilities. Even if the only thing unlocked is the raw stats necessary to take on a new group of enemies with your existing skillset, that is still an increase in the variety of combat scenarios you get to participate in.

-This is unrelated to the issue of variety.
Gradation of your actions only modifies the rules by which you experience the variety of combat scenarios, and altering it does not necessarily improve of diminish the variety of results.




A choice carries significance inversely proportional to the number of options. Just increasing it for the sake of doing so does not constitute an improvement.

Separately from this, what you suggest sounds like what you actually want is a dozen flavors of fireball(or another spell of your choosing).
What you suggest reads as follows: instead of having a fire spell with a 3 turn cooldown, let's have 3 other spells that set things on fire, give all of them a 12 turn cooldown, and make sure you can only cast one per turn.

That's about as surface level 'variety' as it gets, and all it does is let you blow more spells before all of them are on cooldown, which paradoxically would reduce the variety, because instead of thinking which one to take and when to use it, you'd just always end up using all of them(or all the ones that don't cost source, if you want to nitpick).


When you're getting called out, the least you could do is to not comment further.
Especially when you lack the understanding of how a fact is different from an opinion.

This is factually incorrect. To use the example of Go, if you make the board bigger, you will have more options for making your move, and the game becomes strategically deeper.

The beauty of Go is that it's easy to simply expand the game board. The rules have been very designed to scale with this added complexity.

The reason why it may seem like added options/complexity work against strategy is that many rulesets are not designed appropriately to scale to that added complexity. Imagine taking a game of chess and trying to make the board bigger.

The specific challenge with D:OS2 is that they want to include a smorgasbord of abilities, with room for expansion, but they are having trouble balancing a character with 10 abilities against a character with 5. Thus, they enforce memory limits in order to level the playing field.

This example has one critical problem, in that by expanding the board you do not create new types of moves a player can make, but rather the directions existing moves can be made in.

Which is exactly what I advocate: even if there is only one spell, there can be plenty of variety from how it is used.

Which only proves that despite what you opened with, my position is in fact, a fact.

I'd just like to say I dislike the idea of keeping up with the Joneses type of stat scaling, it feels like you're just treading water. I get it, you don't want people to just put a few points in things and be done, but I'd rather stat points be super rare and have strong benefits than have to continually invest to not feel like I'm drowning.

You mean kind of how it is a fact that most people in here disagree with your opinion on what the facts are? ^^

Criticising my example doesn't prove your point. I really don't think you understand what facts are.

You've moved the goalposts. What do you define as a "new type of move"?

If you have the choice between a fire spell and a water spell, that gives you two choices. It you're given a third option (eg an air spell), then that adds complexity. Instead of having 50% chance of making the best move by accident, it's now 33%. You either have more choice and more complexity, or you have less. That's just maths.

The issue is balance. Was this particular enemy already vulnerable to air? The problem in this example is that in this case, having more options also means having increased utility, and that changes the balance of the game. That means rebalancing.

Nah, M Bison has no okizeme. Buff Bison. So much for 'thinking harder' right there.

You should clarify things by defining what you mean by what an option is and do so concisely.

Also, what is a limited arsenal? What is a correct loadout?

Does having the correct loadout exclude having variety in combat? By that I mean if I have the correct loadout will ever battle be the same? Does having a limited loadout necessarily mean a greater variety in combat?

Variety that comes from ignorance, is a kind of variety one would be unable to perceive.

It is fundamentally different to understand that you are unable to make the optimal play(you don't have air spells against an enemy weak to air), and to be ignorant of it(you don't know that the enemy is weak to air, even though you have the spell).

If one eliminates ignorance from the equation, which is how a game should be balanced(i.e.: assuming the players know the rules), having the optimal move available means that the player will(aside from being deliberately ignorant), use that move.

Further more, if, as LordCrash argues, we give to the player a significantly wider range of tools, the odds of a scenario where the optimal move is unclear(there are two targets weak to air) diminish significantly, as the cost of opportunity in making the optimal play is diminished by the ability to repeat it if necessary.

Essentially, as the player becomes more likely to have a clear 'best move', the challenge of combat is shifted away from decision making(when and how to use the limited toolset).

In simpler terms: Just because you have more spells, it doesn't increase the variety if you'll end up using them the same way each time.



-One that forces a player to choose between various aspects of combat.
-One that offers a clear optimal move within a given scenario.
-Obviously not, but as part of advocating variety, there should be both encounters for which your deck works well, and ones that it doesn't(and not just the former).
-As mentioned in the previous answer, having a limited loadout makes it more likely that the player will find themselves in an encounter that they cannot resolve in the optimal way, and more likely that their unique solution will have to be different.

Man, this is a hard argument. Despite the obvious antagonism going on there are some good points here and I'm having a hard time picking a direction I like.

I'm for the opinion that MP balance in a free system where you can have multiple characters is nigh impossible and though I think it would also 'objectively' make for a better game. I've never really seen it happen.
The reason I say this is because some people are complaining about SP balance, their 'build' is less effective than a straight archer or that a straight archer is so effective that their other characters feel unnecessary. With properly balanced MP - no one will ever say this. No one will ever complain about glass cannon arch mage archetypes being simply better than other options (as was often said in D:OS).
The problem is that 'balance' in an RPG game with options is essentially made up. It can't happen. Balance comes when everyone has the same options all the time. Chess is balanced. High level multi billion dollar Esports games... not balanced. And they spend 90% of their resources on multiplayer balance. LoL, SC, SC2, Overwatch, WoW, DoTA - are massive games based on multiplayer and have never been balanced.

So, the goal then should be to make all possible options so powerful and fun in unique ways that no one cares if you killed that mob in 1 activation or two. And because this game will be sold for it's SP and small party friend based co-op, this is an excellent goal. This game will not be sold for it's arena mode, the arena mode will be a fun past time for people to put in their super omgwtfbbq characters and see what happens. It shouldn't be competitive, it should be an enjoyable thought experiment. And characters should be made durable enough in MP to allow for clever in game decision/variety and tactics to shine above build types.

I feel that min/max balancing based on stats and abilities leads to fotm and four archer cheese. Balancing in multiplayer should be based on the environment and tactics.

Here are a few issues:
1. In the current system, you're limited by memory slots, cool downs, interactions, the meta, the unknown or yomi, and probably more I missed. That means your definition of options should include these facts (which you really didn't).
2. What is optimal in a given situation? You have no fucking idea actually, but what you can optimize are the decisions you make to execute your game plan. Don't confuse the two.
3. You should say that you're aiming for meaningful variety and give an example of that; in general, you should be aware that depth is not necessarily attached to variety.
4. You're only looking at yourself and not at other factors on the field; you're already being limited, and perhaps it is the opponent that is being limited too much. Also, there are other balance factors that need to come into play.

In short, there's already a framework in place that has limitations and really it should be pushed harder on higher difficulties in order to tax strategic and tactical resources to a 'reasonable' amount in whatever capacity. Currently, on Classic, that is not the case. Right now, it's like playing a full competitive MTG deck while your opponents are running starter decks.

It should be noted that we have no idea what the next few chapters/sections/whatever will hold in terms of encounters, gear, or abilities.

Hey, while every one is discussing variety and clearly optimal options technically limiting variety:

About those staffs vs wands ............ Surprised this hasnt come up given the clear winner between the two with how much more important stats are for mages....especially in this new game.

Wait, I missed something; which is better than the other?