Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Response to Swen Vincke PCGamer Article

Yes I know what complexity theory is referring to. What I mean is in an environment like DOS 2, where the game is turn-based and actual possibilities fall within a very limited context, the pressure to compute things quickly is not as important or as hard as say, formulating sentences and communicating with people in real time without them figuring out you are a robot. And I'd argue that having a deterministic system is exactly a way to facilitate easier AI development. You are making it easier to have perfect prediction on the result of each action after all.

I think you mistook my point. I'm not arguing about time complexity in reference to the AI at all. I'm basically saying that trying different combat systems instead of focusing on tweaking one would make it easier to find one we all like.

And you bring up a very good point about the AI and the current deterministic system. It works well, but the problem lies in that it'll never work better than a player, ultimately. And like chess we will eventually reach the limits of how "surprising" and how many "oh shit" moments such a system can give. Things Swen himself has expressed to want give more of in this game. He want's players to adapt and feel a constant pressure to improve to combat. He wants consistent difficulty that involves more than learning how to perfect a system of decision making; at least thats the impression I got. In the last game we all learning to perfect our decision making by using CC on round one, then combo, and so on.

The question at the moment isn't whether or not the AI can be made better. But if the AI will difficulty curve can ever really give a consistent challenge to all player levels? Ideally, yes, but realistically will fall short at master levels where "trick" plays come into account where strategy has more to do with learning to predict opponent moves and reactions. Will the a perfect AI make the system more fun? Certainly challenging, but fun is more ... intuitive. Will it make it like chess? Assuming perfect players on both sides -> yes it will. AI's in this game have lots in common with chess after all. Is it possible to make a perfect AI for this game? Technically, yes, but I don't know if I'd bank on it with all the variables and how long it might take an AI to go through all that in a reasonable time frame given current algorithms. Than that brings us down to the BIG QUESTION: Should combat be like chess? And can combat withing chess be improved?

This requires user data. I'd answer No and yes, respectively, but we won't really know till we try new things and take feedback.

At the current moment combat is more like chess than not and I don't think that's nearly the best way to do things; regardless of how hard you can make it

I am just gonna' throw out points here - I kinda' want to just bash on Hassat (some of your reasons are pretty sus) all day but I think that might just be due to a misunderstanding since it seems like this thread has arguments going in parallel rather than actually being directed at each other.

In the EA, the current system struggles when mobs/players don't have resources and the AI is dumb as all hell (it runs through fucking terrain effects with zero fucks). Thus, making CC seemingly lead to an instant victory which is dubbed by Quiox and Hassat as 'instant' win.

The problem with that argument, which both Quiox and Hassat miss, is that in order to point out that the system is broken you are reliant on the AI and the players not having enough resources and one side being dumb as bricks.

There's also another problem with that argument which is that the detractors have yet to prove that actually CCing something leads to an instant victory. Under which conditions is this actually true and which conditions does this become untrue?

Then lastly an argument from left field is that the system is boring because it's predetermined or some shit or that the current system is a 'Chess' or 'spreadsheet' like system. This argument is 100% mind boggling. Who the fuuuuuuuck comes up with that line of reasoning?

How the fuck is the sub-system 'Chess/spreadsheet' like? All it says is the following "so long as you have armor, most status effects won't work against you". Where the fuck is the 'Chess' in this? Please, someone educate my ignorant ass self as to where the Chess is, bruv.


Plz. Halp. I am confused.

@Limz
I was using Chess as a parallel.

Just as in Chess:
We have predetermined units and abilities
We have given set of rules for how we take turns and what we can do and when
We know exactly how one action effects another
There is a clearly optimal reaction and or set of reactions for each given action

Combat is generally nothing like chess in any other context except in simulations that ignore chance. It removes pressure and surprise in any given scenario once you've gained enough information and, given that loremaster exists and people replay these games, obtaining that information is really easy. I do not feel like that is an improvement so much of a trying to find a way around a given problem from the last game.

Thus assuming perfect information and player skill, we can assume matches will play out a certain way given a specific scenario -> I find this significantly less enthralling

EDIT: Less enthralling in combat strategy games that are turned based

I think you're misattributing a lot.

That is a mind-bogglingly stupid argument.

Let me spell it out for you since you have no idea what you are talking about.

AFTER YOU CHEW THROUGH THE ARMOUR AND THEY HAVE NONE LEFT THE FIGHT IS ESSENTIALLY OVER AND HOW MUCH VITALITY THEY HAVE MEANS NOTHING BECAUSE IT IS SO FREAKING EASY TO PERMA CC THEM.

Not one thing I said before this post has anything to do with decisions you make while your target has any armour left. Unfreaking believable that you didn't understand that. And yet that's all you keep talking about!

Who cares about what happens when they still have armour. That's not the issue.

Not once have I said anything about having CC land on me. NOT ONE FREAKING TIME!

What the hell are you talking about?!!?!?!

I am only talking about how stupid easy it is because our characters can CC at will after you chew through enemy armour.

A CC'd AI cannot use skills.

Therefore your point makes no sense.

Doesn't apply.



Not a direct analogue. Premise is sound. Conclusion is not.



Accepted.



Clarification required. But, to hop to the fun parts, I'll remap your premise: We understand that using an ability such as an attack or a spell, ignoring accuracy, will lead to IMMEDIATE determinable effects.



Untrue.



Untrue. Also has nothing to do with the rest of your argument.



This is more interesting. You should dig deeper at this and expand your thoughts on this matter.



Unrelated.



You're making a lot of assumptions.

Don't state your guesses as if they were facts. Going into the final fight dual wielding earth/fire wands it was quite easy to do over 600 damage with 6AP of attacks. No skills, just plain old wand attacks where the earth hits first followed by the fire.

Just for clarification purposes is English not your native language?



Identify the resources at play here.



That's because I rejected your premises - I understand you very clearly. You're making two arguments here.



When you identify the resources at play then you can evaluate the system. Sigh.

My most recent trip through the game was solo on a mage type character. I never grouped.

In the final fight I picked off all the add-ons while Alexander and the Worm fought each other. Alex won. That left just me and Alex. He Phoenix dived next to me and one-shot me for 400+ melee in one swing.

I reloaded and took a second try. I did pretty much the same thing. I let Alex and the Worm fight each other while I killed everyone else.

Then I backed off breaking combat so then Alex and I would go at each other with full armour up.

I attacked from range with an aoe earth ball thingy. He walked out of the oil then hit me with a spell that did nothing because of my armour.

I then used all my AP on dual wand attacks taking out all his armour in that 1 turn.

He walked up beside me and then saved his remaining AP.

I cc'd him.
Then I cc'd him.
Then I cc'd him.
Then I cc'd him.
Then I cc'd him.
Then I cc'd him.
Then I cc'd him.
Then he died.

There you go. That is exactly what I am talking about. Once you take out the armour how much Vitality they have means absolutely nothing.

Currently it's a balance issue with one spell where the cooldown is the same as the CC duration, meaning you can CC lock with just 1 skill. Yet if they fix that it just means you have to alternate between 2 skills instead. And on a memory focused mage with 26 Memory like I had at the end fight, I had so many CC's to choose from it would take cooldowns so long as to make non-memory focused builds feel useless as all their skills will be on cooldown too much of the time.

Guaranteed CC after amrour is gone trivializes the game. And no, CC removal will not help that if they are all CC'd and can't cast the removal.

It's interesting that you're a CS major, maybe I can speak more freely because of this. Let me draw from experience to explain this to you. What AIs have you worked with? I've done AI work with modding for Crysis in CryEngine, Lua for various games, and most relevantly, in the Aurora engine, for Neverwinter Nights 2. That one, I'll go on about, because it is remarkably similar to Divinity: Original Sin, in that it is a real time turn based strategy game. The AI had the capability to be more than competent. In fact, it was crushingly difficult once you started customizing how characters acted and behaved. Individual AIs were not customized very much, though. Every ability had its own AI: fireball, aimed itself at the biggest crowd of enemies it could without hitting an ally, and had a weight for fire immune or absorbing enemies, and exceptions for allies that are the same. These AIs, when put together, formed a creature, together with the basic creature AI, which varied by type. The AIs had a priority order, and would enact themselves in the order you put them. There were special scripts for abilities that interacted, and use cases that didn't come up often, like if an enemy could tell a player had lots of negative levels or was weak, Enervate would shoot up in priority and get used.

The point being, AIs for games like these are remarkably flexible, and very much so doable. Perfect AI? I think so. In Neverwinter Nights, against player AIs in one certain arena module that was quite popular, the game was almost unwinnable. Because the AIs were so darn good. and they're flexible, too! If you level drained an enemy, and they could no longer use a skill, its AI would adapt because of it. If you put on Fire Shield, it would stop casting fire spells, if your team was mostly down it would switch to single target spells for those that were left, etc. It's not hard to emulate this. The AIs, from the jargon I worked with, were not very complicated. They were just laboriously and meticulously crafted, each and every skill, until near-perfect combat was achieved. It was beautiful. I'm sure something similar could be done for Divinity, since the games are so similar, correct me if I'm wrong. I would highly recommend looking up and reading about the aurora engine; it was a beautiful thing, and very relevant to this debate.



I'm not sure I follow? Air abilities don't do much damage to magic armor. I know the skill itself helps, but without hail strike, and with Rage and Savage Sortilege, the highest amount of single turn damage I've seen, with 6 AP, is 400. That's not even enough to break the worm's armor, and it's immune to CC anyways.

I'm sure bodybuilding would be there as well. But it wouldn't help you against a 400 damage rage/crippling blow combo, and that's the damage that my mage does with Crippling Blow, not even my warrior. As for field control, Phoenix Dive is used by like half the warriors in the game right now, and we're only in Act I. It's clearly many times less important than it was in the first game, and magic armor only serves to emphasize this point.



This kills the mage. Seriously. I can think of no quicker way to make a class less relevant than to take out the only thing that made them relevant in Honour Mode. Like I keep saying, who would play a mage when their damage is lower, their mobility is nonexistent (barring self-casted netherswap), their armor is low, their HP is lower due to having to pump their main stats, and Warriors can do twice the damage in one click than a mage can do in their whole turn, with three cooldowns and saved AP? And especially when warriors have more CC? Why would you? Because they have range? Archers have more range, more damage and special arrows will probably provide more reliable CC. Mages would be useless if their CC wasn't guaranteeable, just like every bodybuilding based CC ability was in EE.



Uuuuuuh... I don't think I need to say anything.




Yes! I will absolutely concede that implementing the system and trying it out is a great idea! I would gladly drop another 100 hours on it if this was the case. But you can bet I wouldn't touch my favorite class with a 10 foot pole.



The AI can certainly be better than a player. Have you played a pub lately? I could make an AI that does nothing but hit barrels, and it would probably teamwipe someone. The AI doesn't have to be perfect, again: it just has to provide a challenge. The Starcraft AI was hand-coded to take advantage of specific strategies and combos, and was able to beat professionals. Machine learning was used to eliminate only the worst strategies. I know it's not turn based, so it's different, but Neverwinter Nights has convinced me that this AI could be perfected, too.

In short, I believe that my #1 criticism, would be that you underestimate the potential of a good AI. My second criticism, being equally important, is that you do not seem to have a good grasp of the meta of DOS or DOS 2. I would recommend getting Enhanced Edition and trying an honour mode run. Try it with mages, then try it with warriors. You will see a night and day difference in difficulty, tactics, and general survivability between the two playstyles, and will most likely come to agree that CC was not the #1 problem in that game. Not by a longshot. You should also play some pubs in #2. It was eye-opening for me the first time I saw a warrior do 1200 damage to the last boss, killing him before our pyromancer could break his magic armor (he had already dropped a full combo, starting with Flesh Sacrifice). I absolutely insist that you become more familiar with the power discrepancy between powerful warriors and CC enabled mages before continuing on your current line of logic. And if you still think there is an issue with mages having 100% capable CC, then I will listen intently, as I cannot fathom someone familiar with the meta and capabilities in this game saying it is too powerful.

No offense intended.

I did not guess. I went in game and tested it. Of course wands do decent damage, but it's just that - decent. You did, in 6 AP, what a warrior would do in 3 and a ranger would do in 4 from the same distance.



So what you're saying is, that in the High Judge fight, you were able to CC every enemy in the room, on turn 1? Please explain and post video evidence, if you can. I am genuinely curious.

You really have no idea do you?

You reject the premise that after armour is reduced to 0 that CC has a 100% chance to land? Is that what you reject?

Because that is the only thing I have ever been talking about. There is no 2 arguments here. It is your own complete lack of comprehension that is leading you to believe otherwise.

This disingenuous way you and others here keep pretending that I have ever said anything about what combat is like while the enemy has armour up is extremely childish.

All my posts have been about how the combat becomes trivial after armour is reduced to zero. That is the only topic I have discussed, outside the 1 post you are quoting and I only made it to counter a false statement that was made.

And yet you take that one comment I made about attacking a single target and shift the goal posts to pretend I was talking about a group of enemies.

Grow the hell up.

Oooo, someone's mad. So what you're saying is, that when you said


You meant something other than, I have no point? Because that's what I'm reading.
If not, then was I right?

Tell me. If

Then what do you do when someone uses armor of frost? Casts something with warm on one of the targets you froze? Subsequently CC's you, breaking your CC chain? Wait a minute. You haven't experienced any of this, have you? Of course not. Because, as many of us have stated multiple times before, the AI is a work in progress. Combat will change. It could very well end up being nontrivial.

But please, tell me more about how childish I am. Wait, did you say that? Or am I putting words in your mouth again? I could quote you, but, well... You don't like to read your own posts, it seems. Or others, apparently.

I sure hope Larian does not waste time listening to people with so little tactical knowledge of the game.

You keep going back to talk about a group of enemies and how the ones who are not CC'd will be able to free the ones who are. And about those who are buffed with immunity to CC.

Both of which are not the topic of conversation.

The 1st is irrelevant because all group fights can be split up into 1 on 1 fights. Your lack of tactical ability probably means you didn't know this. You see there's no reason to fight more than 1 at a time if you don't want to. And no, it has nothing to do with the retreat button. Not that it's even necessary in more than 2 fights (if soloing on a mage).

So please, drop that useless talk as it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Second, you talk about someone who is immune. Ok great, again you are ignoring the only topic that I have been talking about: an enemy with no armour can be chain CC'd until dead because the CC skills all have inherent 100% success rates.

If the only thing you have to say to that is "what about people who are immune?!" don't waste my time because you are just repeating the fact that you don't understand the topic.

Hmmm, maybe I don't understand the topic of conversation. I mean, me, Limz, Messenger, and AJ seem to be on the same page, but whoa man, I just can't seem to comprehend what your argument is. One might attribute that fact to the problem that you keep switching around and making a dozen different arguments about a dozen different things, or one might just say that you are, in fact, trying to have a totally different conversation than the one we are having. Either way, you seem to be more intent on attacking me directly than you are on saying anything with any meaning or merit, so I'm just going to write you off as a common forum troll and be on my merry way.

Have a day as pleasant as you are!

Given: 'when armor reaches 0, CC is 100%'

Qiox's conclusion #1: 'therefore, it is too easy to CC someone'
Qiox's conclusion #2: 'therefore, there is no need for adaptation'

To prove the first conclusion, you need to at least identify the resources at play and define 'easy'.

To prove the second conclusion, you need to define an objective (in your case, it's player victory) and then prove how the "given" directly leads to the objective.


Now, I would take a gander at your other comments, but I am afraid they would detract away from the main conversation point.

I am also strongly hinting (actually, telling you right off the bat) that you're confusing execution context with the function.