Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General One Man Army challenge

Getting to the trader is not the issue -- it's once you leave Fort Joy Dallis' event at the front gate triggers and everyone leaves, so in that respect you are limited.

Besides that words like achievement, challenge, and even exploit are subjective -- each player has their own definition that varies from yours or mine. That's why I don't mind doing stuff like the One Man Army challenge or defeating Dallis at the start, because it means something to me.

I think it's a good way to find out what the exploits are so we can bring them to Larian's attention. The game was designed to be played with a full party, so doing the One Man Army challenge kind of forces you to find out what's exploitable.

Although, my main purpose behind this challenge was to illustrate that the game's not too difficult as some people have been complaining. If I can beat it with just one character, then the problem is not the difficulty of the game.

I should have restricted Flee in the OP. I can't edit it now. I guess I didn't restrict it because I abused it in my run, but I really should have restricted it.

You know, there is a difference between: Finding it easy because you are exploiting the hell out of it or finding it difficult because you are not trying to exploit it. The first is not the way how it is meant to play it, so it can't be taken in comparison. Every game is easy, if you 'cheat'.

With any luck, this challenge won't survive the exploits getting fixed and balance changes (unless they remove the level restriction on One Many Army, in which case it should). I did only exploit fleeing for the final battle, though. The rest of the game I didn't exploit anything except Enrage + Crippling Blow. So, it's still pretty easy.

I'm doing another run as a memory mage, but this time I'm not exploiting anything but CC (no fleeing). It's easier than the Enrage Knight was so far, but I guess I'll have to see about the final fight.

But, yeah, without doing a One Many Army challenge, I'd have never realized how broken Fleeing was, because with a full party I never once felt like I needed it.

Kalrakh, who defines what is cheating/exploiting within the game? You, me, the next person? Sneaking, fleeing, barrels, distracting an enemy with a conversation, preparing for a battle with a bedroll. I think the lines are a little more blurred than what you believe. Am I exploiting the game by playing warrior? By using teleport?

I believe in topics that bring these things to light, but if your argument is -- that's cheating because I think so, well that's not much an arguement.

Sounds fun Darxim! I'll be giving this challenge a shot and posting back with my results.

Exploiting is when you're using some mechanic that works in a way other than intended to give yourself a significant advantage that you weren't meant to have.

For instance, using a blood rose potion, doing a quicksave then quickload, and repeating until you have 100+ in all stats. The potion isn't supposed to give you extra stats each time you save/load, but it does. The ability to pick up barrels and crates weren't meant to give the player the ability to wall off enemy paths, as is evident by the AI's inability to deal with it, but you can do it. Fleeing wasn't meant to allow you to kill 1 guy, teleport away from any situation at the click of a button, go rest up, come back, and repeat until all enemies dead, but it does. I don't have any experience with sneaking exploits, so I can't say anything about that.

Many people would consider using an exploit to be cheating, but that's a matter of perspective. I think most people would only consider something to be cheating if they were using something outside the realm of features intended to be used in normal play, thereby clearly separating exploits from cheats.

I'd hoped that my rules for the challenge would prevent people from using already-known exploits, and instead we'd discover other things that should be addressed before release. I think the game is more fun for people if they can't just use some exploit to get past obstacles.

For me exploits are also stuff that defies basic logic:

- A mob boss who keeps talking with you, while your group slaughters his men in open sight.
- Monsters who don't care, if there are appearing dozens of high explosive barrels out of nowhere.
- Attacking someone from behind and suddenly disappearing from his sight, without moving an inch.

Such exploits are mostly AI flaws, it's hard to tell how good they could get solved. Even so it's called AI, there is still no real artificial intelligence.

Playing warrior, using teleport or perma freeze enemies are not exploits, such things are just broken game mechanics that need to get balanced.

Topic: Bedroll *Spoiler on it's use*
Kalrakh: Yeah, the stat-bonus is unnecessary exploitable stuff.

Perparing for a battle is an exploit?

You are missing my point (or avoiding it) on topics that are actually debatable. There are things in this game that may seem -- overpowered/broken/exploit/bug/cheat -- to one player and different to another. I just gave a few examples that could be debatable -- some less so than others. What about using scrolls or grenades? Using the Warlord Talent? I mean really the list does go on.

There are enemies about 15 m infront of you, and you go to sleep? Freely, without any fear, so well recovered, that all your abilities and senses are totally sharpened? The logic behind a bedroll is: You roll it out and get to sleep. To profit from the stat benefit, you need to be in attack range of desired enemies, other wise the buff would wear of, before you reach the battle zone.

Would you sleep in the open, if there is a horde of soldiers ready to kill you just 15 meters from you ready to strike?

Warlord is broken game mechanic, I suggested at least one, it needs to get solved. Regarding your video my friend is probably right and just reducing the bonus AP to +1 won't be enough, better only once per round. Scrolls and grenades are combat mechanics, if there are some to strong, they would need a rebalancing, that they still won't have to do with any kind of exploit. Exploit meaning stuff, that doesn't seem to get used the way it was intended or stuff that defies basic logic.

Sure, taking advantage of a broken game mechanic is also kind of an exploit, but those things are more a matter of balancing. The stuff for example Darxim and I are refering to are things, that are abusable game mechanics regarding combat, but often not really part of the 'combat mechanics'.

The fact, that you are free moving out of combat and turn based in combat is also easily exploitable.

The problem is also, when people exploit the hell out of the mechanics and moan that the game is to easy afterwards. While more casual players have to fight really hard.

Honestly in my opinion, if there is an ambush in game, you shouldn't be able to sneak past it or even sneak at the ambushers, that makes the ambush just pointless. It's one of the out of combat issues with sneaking, being there far to strong aswell.

I guess you do miss the point - which is maybe my fault - I gave examples but not so I could debate you on them (I'm actually in total agreement on many of the points that you and Darxim bring up). I was specifically trying to address that the lines between something being powerful and broken are not always so clearly defined -- it can be completely subjective. Just like what someone considers a challenge or achievement is subjective.

Speaking of exploits, I found a pretty good one during my solo-challenge.

Equip a piece of gear that gives a bonus to a skill and you can learn the abilities for that skill without any actual investment in it.
This allows you to learn abilities that require many different skills without having to invest the talents in any of them, allowing you to save all of your combat points for other, more helpful investments, like weapon skills.

If someone made a neat random list generator we could do a new challenge. The list shows what you will select as your specialization (Combat/Civic abilities) as well as what Talents to select. You can adjust your attributes as you see fit.

I'm trying to be as objective as possible and I guess Darxim does the same. If there is an item, that gives you +3 or even more on everything just for one click, it makes pretty every potion quite unneeded. It gives even better benefits like most of your equipment and it needs no real effort.


That you need no real investment anymore is a known issue, it's because elves can learn spells by eating corpses, so they need to be able to use anything. But without enough Memory there is hardly any profit from such an action even so, putting 1 point into every needed skill class hardly hurts anyway. Benefits from skilling are so meager, you hardly feel a difference anyway. Defence skills being far the worst.

For my case, it makes a huge difference, about 60% more damage at lvl 5. I'll walk through the calculations.
I use a fire wand and fire skills for almost all of my damage and put all points in Pyrokinetics.
At level 5 I have earned 7 points so far.
7 points in Pyrokinetics is +7 fire and 28%(4%*7) bonus damage.
The average damage of my wand is 22 posted.
(22+7)/22 = ~1.32, so a 32% increase, and a 28% increase.
29*1.28 = 37.12;
Starting 22 damage, boosted to 37, 22/37 = 1.68. (I'm actually unsure if the +7 comes after or before the % bonus, so it may be a little less).
So I've gotten 68% more damage from Pyrokinetics to wanding. A huge bonus. A little less bonus for fire skills with higher base damages.
Now, there are 8 skills. Assuming I wanted to learn abilities from each and swap in what helps for a particular fight, this would mean I'd still need another point to have all by this level. So, I'd have only +1 in Pyrokinetics. I'd have 23*1.04= 23.92; 23.92/22 = 1.087. A meager 9% bonus, cause of only 1 point. And there's still 1 skill I haven't unlocked yet.
Granted, I would have the bonuses from the other skills, but they are pretty minor to DPS. Pyrokinetics is the only combat point that yields as large of an increase to damage done, and the only skill point that comes close. 1-handed and 2-handed weapon points can come close too (2-hand requires you to crit to get half the bonus though, and 1-hand is bugged and doesn't work for wands).

And, the best part, I still am able to learn all the skills from temporarily equipping +1 bonus items, but I retain a much higher damage bonus!

Also, fire naturally does tons of extra burn damage. Usually I see 3 big damage numbers come up every time I wand, probably from causing the target to take burn damage. Wands work with Rage too, so pop that after any spells. And, fire can do great AoE. Comboing teleport to create an enemy pile, fossil strike, 1 fire-wand attack, and Spontaneous Combustion kills packs. After Warlord, it's still your turn to clean everything else up with wand hits.

Just found another great exploit.
1st, find a piece of gear that boosts memory. Then, after adding a new ability to the bar, unequip the memory item and you will still have access to the ability that you no longer have enough memory for!
You can trade the piece around to have every one of your party members get the benefit.
On my skill panel I see "Memory slots used: 8/5", and can still use all 8 of those abilities.

This is better for full party playthroughs as the temporary gear sharing gets 4x the effect.

Update:
I've observed some really weird behavior the more I've played around with this.
Some steps to help this work:
1. Pull everything from your memorized skill list (to ensure no 'hidden' abilities are in there)
2. Add all skills you're interested in using.
3. Remove memory equipment.
4. If one of your skills was removed after taking the equipment off, remove that skill, add a different one, and start again from step 1.

The skills seem to have some sort of hidden queue for how many extra slots you can have before they get removed. The removal ordering for the skills I know seems to be Crippling Blow -> Battering Ram -> Rage -> Rain. If you know the first 2, and aren't using them, you can get 1 free memory slot, then an additional free slot for each one next in the 'removal list'.
I think this is based on the abilities you have learned, so you may have to learn a few abilities you won't use to make this work.
I'm unsure if there are other abilities that may be lower in the list, it doesn't seem alphabetical, and it isn't how they're ordered in the skill tab either. Of note, it did use all 3 of the warfare skills I had before moving on to a Hydro skill. I don't have enough memory to determine what is next in the list. If I don't use those 4 abilities I can have 8/5 for all my other skills.

Edit: I learned some necromancer abilities, and then I couldn't keep Rage memorized at all w/o full memory. Could still get 8/5 with other skills though.

That does not work for me. I have 8 slots with 16 memory, if I unequip the amulet with +1, one of my skills turns grey, because he does not count as memorized anymore. He may be still in the list of memorized skills but will not usable.

It has weird behavior.
I'm able to use as many as 3 more skills than I have memory for, but I'm not sure what causes some abilities to go grey after and others to stick around.
Warfare abilities seemed to almost always go grey, except for the 1st memory slot I removed.
I'll play around more and see if I can nail down what causes some abilities to stay and others to leave.

Edit:
Also, I always had +2 memory items, IDK if that affects it.
And, I have learned many more skills then what I'm attempting to equip.

Edit:
I updated my original post. I have been able to identify the consistent behavior based on the abilities I have and know. Still need more research on this exploit though, but it certainly has large abuse potential.

Just finished my 1-man army challenge, and it went very well!

I played an Elf Fire Mage. I started as 'Knight' so I could have Rage without a point in Warfare.
Using temporary gear that gave +1 to various skills, I was able to learn nearly every skill, but I mostly used the same 8/9 for every fight.

The stats I had going into the final fight:
Level 7
34 int, 18 memory, 1 Hydro, 1 Scoundrel, 7 Pyrokinetics. This gave me maximum fire spell and wanding damage.
Talents: Pawn, Warlord, Savage Sortilege (Spells can now crit!).
My main skills:
Tactical Retreat, Rage, Spontaneous Combustion, Bless, Teleportation, Impalement, Adrenaline, Fortify, and Armour of Frost.
Weapons were fire wand + shield.

I'd try to start every fight the same way. I'd pre-buff Fortify, Amour of Frost, and bedroll rested bonus.
This gave me a large amount of armor and magic armour to prevent getting CCd.
I'd then start either by teleporting the closest enemy far away or opening with Impalement, due to its long range.
When I'd get my turn I'd unequip my shield. The shield was only for extra physical armor before my first turn to prevent me getting knocked down etc. Unequiping it takes no action points and reduces the cost of wanding from 2 down to 1.
Next I'd pop Rage into Flesh Sacrifice, and if available, teleport 1 of the enemies on another, Impalement them, wand to set them on fire, and Combustion for the kills. Adrenaline would get thrown in if needed. Warlord would then go off to help me clean up or I'd Tactical Retreat to a more defensive position until my next turn. I didn't have to use stealth or flee, the run was very straightforward.
Early in the game I used Winter Blast to CC stronger/extra enemies, but pretty quickly I was too strong for this to be necessary.

I had a lot of fun, this was a pretty good build. My damage felt a bit weak for the final fight (the health of these enemies was much higher, and the boss drank a few potions for big heals), but I was able to AoE everyone gathered around the worm as they killed each other, and with retreat I was in no danger of getting caught and killed.

Tactical Retreat was my MVP skill. It made getting the ideal starting position for my fights easy, positioning was a breeze, staying out of range of enemies, accessing extra areas in any order, etc. It is a monster skill. At first I used the Scoundrel variant, which is virtually the same skill, but as I didn't stealth I swapped to Tactical Retreat after picking up a +1 Huntsman bow.