Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Stat inflation is downright stupid.

Lots of designers think that without big numbers, people don't feel progressing. It's the same in WoW, and it's reached such unbelievable height that they had to make a squish to reduce numbers because they had reach the limit of what could be stored into an integer.

It's stupid, it's annoying and it has countless deleterious effects. It's still done. Sadly.
At least DOS2 can be modded. It was really ruining the game.

Gear inflation really kicks in about level 12, then almost every level is a jump in power. Up until that point progression is rather smooth and then wham ... you start seeing power jump by a LOT more.

And some levels are HUGE. Level 18 weapon is like a 40 point average damage boost over a level 17 weapon.

IMO the most elegant solution to this is to give every item in the game, for their level, a random minimum and maximum roll to defenses.

Example to showcase:

level A (30/30)
level B (60/60)
level C (90/90)

With my suggestion these item could drop as:

level A (15-45/15-45)
level B (30-90/30-90)
level C (45-135/45-135)

Each stat (phys/magic armor) now has an independent -50% to +50% rolled for each level. What does this mean? If lucky you could find a lvl4 armor that is as strong as a lvl5-6 armor or equal to a lvl7 armor. Or a lvl13 armor that is as weak as a lvl10 armor depending on rolls. Or you could find an armor that has insane phys res for its level but weak magic res for its level.

Having a 50% variance would actually be a horrible idea. Because that's an even more insane power swing and could end up with luck of the dice burning players. You can't grind out mobs for better gear as there is only so many enemies available in the game.

I kinda have a very dim view of a system like that in a game with finite loot, finite money and finite chances to get equipment. We can't keep playing until we get a decent roll on equipment, and -50 to +50 is huge.

I agree with the opening post. Stats seem to be operating on something resembling a bell curve. Quite off-putting to see the local hobo have more health than my heroic godwoken because the homeless guy is 1 level higher.

Probably going a bit off the rails here, but I wish my characters effectiveness wasn't almost completely derived from their equipment. I would prefer something more akin to D&D, where a powerful item enhanced your character, not made them. You also typically held onto the item for a longer period of time than going from point A to point B.

I also find the Diablo/World of Warcraft'esque equipment tier system a bit out of place and unnecessary in a story driven adventure.

I actually found the opposite, Act 1 was moderately difficult depending on encounter, some encounters were difficult beyond reason (the Undead Casters ignoring your magic armor to cast rain (wet) + ice spell (instant cc through magic armor and all resists)), but the majority were reasonably balanced.

Act 2 was relatively easy for me, I did all of the Reaper's Coast without having more than a handful of deaths. The abomination was rather difficult for me to kill, the one that has 50% permanent lifesteal, 8 action points a turn, and a horde of minions, it took me a couple of retries to cc him and keep him cc'd. The Witch-encounter I never really beat, she repeatedly oneshot me with aoe abilities, probably something I was missing though, not much of an issue. I was able to do fights that were 3 levels above me with relative ease, on Classic.

Act 3, Arx, on the other hand was terrible. The gear I had that was otherwise on level on the Nameless Isle was completely useless, it was all hundreds of armor points in value down. Enemies that were a level above me were unbeatable. Reaching level 21 allowed me to easily beat all of the encounters on classic while asleep. At level 19 they were all unbeatable, for my set up at least, at 20 they were relatively easy, at 21 even the level 20 encounters were very boring.

There definitely is a stat issue, and general pacing issue after Act 2. I uncovered almost no new spells after the end of Act 2, and honestly never bothered with the crafting or spell crafting...they felt underdeveloped. The extreme limit with Spell Crafting, along with significant difficulties using the crafting system (limited only to crafting chest-pieces; I never used grenades or scrolls, the system was never put in use by me), I just never found a use in it.

That ultimately led to a significant stagnation after the end of Act 2, I liked the Nameless Isle, for the most part, the Godwoken Academy at least, but the pacing was kinda poor.

The fights in the third part of the game were kinda poor. The doctor was wiping my group with his unlimited source casting, blowing away my entire team's magic shields with a single aoe spell, before having one of his minions immediately use a charm, and another cast horrific scream to cc my entire group to death.

I do feel like, while the majority of the game was great, they didn't properly test the final part of the game.

I started to notice this issue with gear near the end of the first island, as I saw some of my very rare and powerful weapons be outpaced by more common weapons that were 1 or 2 levels higher. Then at the beginning of the second island it got even more noticeable.

The problem with this is that it puts a HUGE focus on equipment. They're what dictates whether you're successful or not, because the numbers change so quickly. You also don't really get to "enjoy" some of the more unique items, because they become weak so soon after you acquire them. A slower progression would feel more natural AND make upgrading your equipment a choice rather than a requirement due to much bigger numbers.

Yeah, pretty much, I had to replace my 'Divine' quality gear a level after getting it, because the difference in stats was some 300 armor for both types? Like what?

you guys shoudl probabyl take the meaning of level in a more literal sense.

When a person is not on your level - that generally means he can't reach you no matter how hard he tries.

This is generally true for DOS series. one level always meant a huge jump in power usually you would struggle with any enemy one level higher than yourself and i'm glad it is that way even until the end - otherwise I would probably be tempted to ruin my fun by just bruteforcing every encounter.

I was actually sad that kemm is only lvl 20 as I am now lvl 21 only half way through arx and haven't even confronted him

Well I think in general it is fine, otherwise you would have a hard time replacing gear and gear needs to flow, otherwise where's the fun there?

If it was linear then lvl 18 item could very well be as good as level 21 one and IMO that's just not good there as it makes things stale.

That one legendary rings pretty much serve as a good example.

2 huntsman 1 warfare on a ring, I think it was level 12 or 14.

Even level 20 divine ring can't create an option as good as that. When I replaced the ring, it was simply because I finally needed more magic armor in a level 20 boss fight.

Is this a problem on Tactician? I'm playing on Classic and I don't feel forced to use the every-level-new-items way so much. I also don't use Thievery much, five levels so far without a steal.

It is funny from time to time to look what the vendors have. What makes me sad is that high level armor partly looks stupid, much worse than low level, but ok. I usually change weapons all 2 to 3 levels and armor if something intriguing is available.

yes, on tactician you need your gear to be up-to-date On classic, you can do just fine with drops and standard level scaling (up to some degree)

That's called "immersion" and "verisimilitude" and "not mindlessly running the hamster wheel". Your post just make me want to bang my head against a wall.

This is the most insightful post I've seen on the balance issues with this game.

Your mod made the game totally enjoyable rather than a stupid, frustrating grind. I can't thank you enough!

I was from the very start a strong proponent of having the growth values be much lower, so that players could engage enemies a level or two apart in a comfortable manner.

Hell, were I able to get the Divinity Engine 2 to run without crashing, I'd probably be working to overhaul the game by now.

[quote=Naqel]Hell, were I able to get the Divinity Engine 2 to run without crashing, I'd probably be working to overhaul the game by now.[/quote]

There is a mod that partially disables vitality scaling and fully disables level scaling.
And I must say I fell in love with the no-scaling option.

You may have some new balance problems here and there still yet ultimalty the game play feels SO MUCH BETTER. There is no constant hassle to update your gear because that one level difference costs you hundreds of damage and given that every item basically is level 1 means that all the uniques you find STAY RELEVANT. So you actually WANT to explore the world because you know that these items will stick around for quite some time. Combat is way faster and a bit more dangerous so you can argue that it gets easier given how damage stacking works and that it is less about attrition but more about spiking which in turn is great for skills that allow to alpha and general skills overall for their CD is not so much an "issue" anymore.

While the balance shifts I must say it feels WAY more entertaining and somewhat comparable to traditional RPGs where your only net gain is from actually increasing your attributes and all weapon types stay the same. In DnD a greatsword stays a greatsword no matter if you found it at level 1 or 20. It still has the same base damage.

I concur. Thinking back to D&D, the magical equipment isn't so wild, in general. Maybe 1-2 magical abilities and a better chance to hit, or faster attacks. If you are a level 8 fighter and have a +2 sword, that certainly helps, but a level 10 fighter with a normal sword might still stomp you. Less about gear, more about abilities and level. That being said, I just found some linen trousers with 200 physical armor in game... am I supposed to believe that these linen trousers are 4-5 times more protective than full plate steel armor I found at the beginning of the game? That the magisters I fought at the beginning would literally die from 1 strike now, but the magisters I fight now are 20 times stronger and more powerful?

In D&D, NPCs didn't scale with you. It made far more sense. Also, I might keep that same gear 2-4 levels or more, depending. Here, I literally check the vendors every hour or so, because I don't want to be underpowered. I have sold so much gear, it isn't even funny. That might be partially unavoidable in an RPG... but it should be minimized. Spend more time stealing and selling gear than anything else, probably. Quality over quantity. Almost feels like Diablo, in that respect.

i think it's my biggest issue with the game. it's just so exploitative, and makes the world feel artificial and lacking any substance or persistence.