Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General A thought exercise: Balance

@SlamPow
I'm pretty sure we hashed that out last time and my response was the same. Those issues have less to do with CC chance in the EA currently and more to do with how broken warriors are at the moment. Ideally Wizard CC would be a lot more likely to proc and they'd have a plethora of more options (Ice Shard, Fireball, Thunder Bolt/Jump, Smoke Screen) and a crap ton of combos they could set up and powerful spells that cause status effects, set up combos, and deal good damage. Alternatively, warriors are more tanky, have some some CC that's all single target base with average proc chance, and high singular target damage in comparison to the squishy wizard having both good AoE or Single target damage. As for fighters chewing through physical armor and mages not chewing through magic armor well, it'd be cool if they did more with the air bonus to attacking magic armor so while fighters could still chew through phsysical armor and then health with bashing things, mages could stategically use spell types, specific skills, and combos to do the same. Maybe a high air spell and air ability bonus would create the same product: Strong 2h knight eats armor and health in crit and strong mage eats magic armor, some health, and then stuns...both doing this in the same rounds ideally when both are min maxed.

A mage is about control and tactics and a fighter about causing damage are the roles they should be balanced around ideally.

That's issues that stem from the skills, stats, and how they function for "class" balance. Not really anything to do with how the system itself functions.

Also, I wouldn't know about sub-optimal mages in EE *shrug* I min-maxed all my characters. My Knights hit like trunks, my tanks were immortal, and my mages played god. They each fulfilled a singular role particularly well. Fighters couldn't CC naywhere near as much as mages but were tough and could dish out the damage. Mages could combo for powerful tactics, AoE the crap out of everything, and had God tier field control. Hell in Classic I'd just thunder jump, shield myself, and then go invisible each turn for lolz.....Couldnt touch or find me and shield acted as free health. EE helped balance this more.

In this EA they simply made warriors too powerful to make up for the difference in past games. Oblivion and Syrim come to mind where the same power dynamic took place between games (mages > fighters in one and fighter <mages in the other).

I don't know if I can ever give you a scenario where'd prefer my system though. We both know each others preferences after all.

I only restated it here since you wanted a unified thread on ideas and I wasn't even the first to suggest it. You've also said you'd be all for at least trying it out. I gave the armor system a chance and while I don't think it's perfect I also like it for what it does well. I just think it can be improved. Just be open minded to the chances that a combo system can be done well; I think it's been shown through comments that a not insignificant portion of players have shown an interest in the idea.

EDIT: They could also push for more health needed on fighters so they don't just pump STR. And then by tying CC to the stats like in EE, an INT focused mage would have good CC for his being a glass cannon and fighters would have to truth between being the same or not. And given that they wont have the range advantage or as many CC options it'd make them more like fragile cannon balls: good at killing something but as soon as the enemy catches them they're dead. Then the glassy mage steps in and control the field and keep his health decent to allow the fighter free reign without worry to his health.