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

Also, I'd like the point out that the issue of 1 vs 1 combat with an AI does indeed devolve into who can get rid of the others armor first.

Group based combat can and will eventually mitigate this with good AI, but ultimately an opponent focusing on keeping a character alive cause of lack of armor is an opponent playing defensive while I'm playing offense.....and well know how much better offensive playing is vs defensive in D:OS games. Quicker you kill the enemy one by one, better chance you outright win.

There's also the fact that good, patient players using teleport and sneak and so on can turn what would be planned team fights into mini 1v1 or if I'm running a group 4v1-2 fights....in which case it becomes quite easy to focus down and destroy armor much faster than the AI will with a good build.....at which point I just CC them to death.

It essentially turns matches into resources management games where the goal is to make the opponent use up his. When you out number the opponent, this becomes super easy. When the opponent outnumber you, this becomes much harder. When you have the same amount, this becomes a matter of how you approach the problem. But given how creative players are......(ie set up barrels before hand and throw grenades while hidden out of sight before combat).......and the fact that players will always have the advantage it just how much freedom they have and what they can do......I just see lots of issues with balance down the line o.O Many of which relies on specifically targeting the advantages and exploits players can bring to bear. Some of this can be mitigated with "immune" enemies...but I'm not really a fan of that as it just means gear towards what they're not immune to.

Anyway, yeah. SlamPow, I do think we have fundamentally different opinions. I understand where you're coming from with wanting your skill level to be the ultimately determining factor. I just think the game environment itself gives players so many tools and options to leverage skill level that highly skilled players need to be knocked down a peg or two to increase difficulty and force them into "oh shit, what do I do now?" moments.