Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Durability: yay or nay? Neither says me: new idea

\o/ thanks! and yush every time I use a repair hammer it vanishes. The tongs are forever so now I gave all of my characters a tong in their backpack ^_^

Ah yes, the old "everyone in my party is prepared to barbecue" build. I too am partial to such a notion! But you know what I'm really looking forward to?

Well, let me tell you through a story.

I was told, when I was younger, that I had a funny shaped head. It's fine now, but back in the day, man oh man would kids laugh at me for how big my head is. It made me the unpopular kid in school. However, I had a really cool friend who lived next door to me, named Dylan! We were fast friends, as we were in the same grade, had a lot in common. I would go over to his house in the mornings, and I would play video games with him until it was time for school, and at night, we would stay up late watching Adult Swim. One day, he gave me some really solid advice. I said to him,

"Dylan, how come people like you so much? You are charismatic, for certain, but is that something I can learn?"

And he turned to me, and said:

"Noone has as many friends as the man with many cheeses!"

lol =p

Nice story


Regarding to our playthrough, we hardly ever had to repair. Most of the time you find something better to replace an item, before you ever needed to repair it. Durability seems so far be pretty pointless, same goes for the benefit indestructable.

Durability is only pointless if there aren't any consequences tied to it. That being said, it doesn't seem hard to make it an option that the player can choose to set on or off.

Although I would use the feature as a gamemaster for my custom adventures, I'd want a chance of failure where the item could be destroyed. I'd like my players to enjoy their items, but not get too attached to them.

I'm in favor of this idea. I'll likely ignore it (I'm not a big fan of inventory management) but it sure it a lot better than forcing durability on us. The idea is fun by reward instead of the current implementation which tries to be fun by ... punishment, I guess.

I also like something like this

Yeah, I don’t think something as gimmicky as durability belongs in a game like D:OS, where all the mastery and thoughtfulness is in the strategic combat, IMO. Having played and loved games like Shining Force since a kid, I have a bias towards these creations – and it’s just my humble opinion, but D:OS really aced this genre. To me it’s a strategy masterpiece, completely original and the best in its field by a long shot.

In other words, durability adds nothing to the game’s main appeal, which is the strategic combat.
Likewise I believe Baudolino05 has raised another highly relevant point, and one that’s probably going to get lost in this thread: item identification is another tacky rpg gimmick that doesn’t belong in a game like this. The lore skill is a bland investment, and identification is another ‘open menu & mindlessly click’ chore that’s so weak, they even had to add an ‘identification progress bar’ to raise the suspense that never existed in the first place.

Why not come up with a cooler, more original talent to invest in that replaces lore – and get rid of identification as well? The designers behind this game are, I believe, ahead of their time, and have come up with so many original ideas that pushing these clichés of the genre undermines the cleverness of everything else.

I hate (well resent, I suppose) the luck thing as well, BTW – but anyhow…

I'm leaning more towards removing Durability altogether, but if Durability is going to be kept, a bonus for keeping stuff in good condition is better than the current system.


I like both those ideas. I think being able to deconstruct items to get crafting components should absolutely be in the game.

I think Identification is okay because it does add that little bit of excitement as an item is being identified.

What would you propose? I would personally be a big fan of something like Gather Information or Spellcraft from D&D, which tells you neato tidbits about the lore behind items, people and concepts. Heck, they wouldn't even have to rename it. Just call it Loremaster, and have it involve examining things for detailed information, including enemy's stats and item's hidden attributes, such as range, attribute scaling, and they could even hide other stats like crit chance until you get a high enough level in loremaster. By not requiring identification, it circumvents tedium, while also still being useful, especially in the case of things like random loot, where you wouldn't be able to look up the specific stats on a wiki. Also, it would provide a civil skill for the more "casual" or story focused amongst us, that allows the writers to explicate without bogging down the rest of us with lore.

Thoughts?

Hi SlamPow - I'm not aware of the Spellcraft or Gather Information items you're talking about (from other games), but I do like your idea around turning lore into something more focused around revealing combat stats of the enemies.

I think this is already in place, however (yeah, I'm too lazy to open the game and check). So...better be careful not to make any commitments to that comment, lest our more rabid online friends pounce and collectively cannibalise us!!

I joke. But I'm not really used to this online community biz, and am only learning the ropes re: the civil and not-so-civil forum dwellers. This game, I feel, is worth the bit of agro online comments provokes, however.

So yeah - your idea here gets the thumbs up from me, but I'm partly suspicious that it's already implemented in some form (lazy, lazy me, won't check). Maybe someone can politely enlighten us??

I also think it's an interesting idea, it could be used to allow secretly cursed items in the game, like in the old Baldur's Gate/DND games. As for looking at enemy stats, I think it could be made very useful but not gamebreaking, if high levels of loremaster let you see maybe 1 - 3 skills that an enemy has equipped for use.

I'm also always up for more lore and flavor text in games that let you know more about the world and its inhabitants or history.

Yeah, it takes some getting used to. Some people are just out to provoke reactions, and I'm still giving in occasionally myself. Everyone has to learn sometime, though.

Plus, I feel that a lot of people are on here to contribute - take, for example, aj, Stabbey, HassatHunter, Testad, Ellary etc. just to name a few. Others are on here because they are having fun, like Ellary, Limz, aj and Testad, so it takes some getting to know people before you really know who you can make jokes around and who's here for something more serious.

That, and there is a nasty subset of trolls (I won't name names), who you also have to learn to identify and learn to ignore. It takes time, and I'm still not sure who all's what right now myself. But it'll sink in, no worries!



I know that examining enemies for their info is in. But getting extra lore from statues and locations is not. You do, however, get varying degrees of insight and distinct perspectives depending on who or what you play, which might be what you're thinking of. If something else is the case, then yeah, I could use some enlightening up in here.

Welcome to the forums! It is my utmost wish that you can take away a positive experience from what we've got going on here.

Are you purposely repeating some of those names or are you really thinking we could survive two superfluffy Ellary muffins?


Better stats for just keeping stuff in top shape is just to much busy work, regarding how much equipment there ist. And a repair all button just would turn it meaningless again. This is no survival game, so I think durabilit gives hardly anythig, that makes the game more chalenging.

Dismantling stuff would be nice tough.

Durability just gives players more immersion imo.

It is not really a major game mechanic itself.
I do like OP's idea of integrating durability into the combat mechanics. Being able to break specific armor and weapon introduces a whole new layer of tactics.
That being said, it needs to be further expanded on and not be such a simple system. There are some games with Armor/Weapon break mechanics but they end up being mediocre since they're not fleshed out enough.

[quote=ImariKurumi]Durability just gives players more immersion imo.

It is not really a major game mechanic itself.
I do like OP's idea of integrating durability into the combat mechanics. Being able to break specific armor and weapon introduces a whole new layer of tactics.
That being said, it needs to be further expanded on and not be such a simple system. There are some games with Armor/Weapon break mechanics but they end up being mediocre since they're not fleshed out enough.[/quote]

Yeah, generally for games the durabilty is not inside the game, it´s just there, maybe break skills would perform a great new array of possibiltys, also for this the lore skill could indentify others armors and weapons (depending how high it is), it would also favors to indentify the possibility of the battle changes if you could break or damage that weapon/armor/item.

I really like the idee of combat durabillity, it adds to tactic and combat mechanics.
The next question would be tho, how would the durabillity work in combat? would you loose 1 durabillity/hit, which would still make durabillity pointless, or would it be that you for example loose like 10% of the weapons durabillity dpeending on how much armor/magic resist the mobs have? it would not make that much of a difference in normal fights, but in tougher fights it would make a bigg difference how you plan your fights. And if a weapon should break during a fight, would it be broken for the rest of the fight or would it just be for a certain amount of rounds? Would it change depending on what difficulty you play? would it also exist spells that could enhance the durabillity for a certain amount of rounds?

Forgot about this thread, and I'm glad people get what I was saying here.

@Samma3l (and the previous poster) - you both got it right. The boring, nuisance durability system that's currently in place is replaced by a combat durability system.

1) Whatever damage is done to your weapons and armour during combat is reset after combat

2) Durability 'hits' during combat act like CC hits - they have a timer that lasts several rounds before they become undone

3) There are tiers of durability strikes - higher level spells and combat abilities have a bigger impact on durability damage

4) I think the percentages system I outlined covers everything about the above-mentioned 'durability strikes', and how they should be handled

Oh! SO smokey was the one who came up with durability combat stuff! I was wondering where that came from when I was trying to make acomprehensive post on good feedback

Judging by the responses to the durability post, I really think I should have kept selling this idea and just forgotten about everything else. Alas, I'm too stubborn for that, so you'll keep getting the elemental armour idea as well, until the game launches with or without it. And that, by all accounts, will be a very long time from now...