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

1) Stat system:

This was discussed on the forums quite a few times, but I want to bring a little different perspective to this particular topic. People were mostly talking about how it is unsatisfying to become weaker, specially when multi-classing as you level up because the amount of points required to maintain a certain bonus goes up with each level. This was addressed by Larian, and it was said that the stat system would change to one that will give a flat bonus depending on level.

But this will probably mean that in essence the progression will be the same, it will just feel different and more rewarding. My issue is more about the fact that you need to increase a stat by 4 points each level to keep it at the same relevance level, and we only get 2. Which if we count ONLY Strength / Finesse / Intelligence means that in order to stay at the same relevance in a particular stat we are supposed to get a whooping 10 points of stat increase from gear PER level, so at level 7 in order to keep the same stat relevance gear is supposed to provide extra 70 points, not counting stats besides the main three, my character managed to squeeze out 22 and that is 48 short. That in my opinion is unreasonable.

2) Racial skills:

Some of these do not work very well compared to others.

Flesh sacrifice works well, because it gives a scaling bonus of 25%. Metamorph works well as well, because it is an utility skill.

The above two work well because their usefulness stays constant regardless of attributes and regardless of level.

Dragon's blaze doesn't work very well because the damage scales with intelligence.

Encourage actually does scale with level but in my opinion very poorly and could use a significant buff.

3) Armor system:

It's alright to have this system of protection in which armor protects the wearer from negative effects but for this to be an effective system armor needs have have a significant enough value, imo AT LEAST 50% of the total HP pool. Right now being decked out in the best gear possible, while being under fortify and frost armour the total armor AND magical armor both add up to about 30% of the total character HP pool, which means that 70% of the time the character is prone to being chain CC'd.

To make it better I personally suggest armor to take a certain high % of damage while letting some of the damage slip through to the HP, that way armor will run out slower and will be more meaningful. For example armor could take 66% of the total damage received and let the other 33% affect HP.

Yeaaah, the stat system should make one feel like there's constant progress and each bonus per point invested should be additive. Now if they want, they could use diminishing returns like Dark Souls, where the value each point in a stat adds gets smaller as time goes on until theres a point to just stop investing cause its inefficent or to keep adding for every minute increase cause you don't want anything else. There can also be break off points like in Dark Souls on how much one should invest for various kinds of builds

To clarify: I would not tie diminishing returns with level. The stat system should be well defined enough to stand on it's own

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! This is the best suggestion to tweak the armor system. But I'd add that players should be able to decide how much of an attack is absorbed by the armor and health. It would allow for player to decide if they want more overall health and protection, but limited time of CC resist vs greater alloted time for CC resist, but be more fragile over all. It'd create a spectrum of builds and make things like the current defensive stats actually matter and desirable! Vitality for those letting their health eat attacks to keep CC resist! More of an armor type for those relying on it as both CC and health for a limited time! Woooo ..though the numnbers would need tweaking and it doesn't exactly solve shields.