Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Suggestions for game improvements / harder difficu

First I'll start with a bug report:

If you are in multiplayer and listen to another player in dialogue during a 'ready check' between a load screen (typically acts), and you don't stop listening ot them before the load screen begins, you are forever stuck listening and can't cancel it - forcing you to reload a save.

AI improvements

1. Pathing is.. bad. AI will sometimes take a few steps before attacking a target they're right next to in melee, essentially just wasting AP for no reason at all. This is especially problematic when combined with...

2. Opportunity attacks. AI triggers opportunity attacks constantly and usually for no reason, sometimes even killing themselves as a result. They also will run around pointless with ruptured tendons on.

3. Attacking barrels. It's neat that they think to do it... but they often do it very pointlessly. If you wanted to abuse AI you could just drop water barrels next to yourself in each fight and they would waste AP breaking water barrels for no effect at all.

4. Avoiding hazardous terrain. If you throw oil down in a choke, the AI will often opt to just stand behind it going "Argh!" while you slowly murder them. AI really needs better decision making. They'll sometimes run through fire, but very rarely will they run through ice or oil.

5. Chameleon cloak. Enemies just end their turn without moving as soon as every enemy is invisible. To combat this maybe have them seek better positons on high ground, maybe give them more buffs like clear minded and haste, and definitely have them 'delay' their turn before ending it. I'd not suggest enemies using AoE to break stealth since it seems unfair for AI to do that since, well.. they know where you are. However, I think 'rain' is an exception since it's such a large AoE that I believe AI should use it to break stealth.

Ability balance

I won't be too long winded about this. Most abilities feel relatively balanced until you get to source abilities when the game becomes completely trivial. Necromancer may be the most remarked on for giant AoE auto win fights, but Aero thunderstorm is also autowin among some other source abilities. You then source vamp the corpses afterward and it really costs you nothing. When players can have 3 source (reliably) at the start of every fight they engage in, I really don't think source abilities should be as powerful as they are... or enemies in the later half of act 2 and all of act 3 should be balanced accordingly to account for the fact that every single fight they'll have to deal with giant AoE source abilities.

Item balance

Glowing idol of rebirth. Get rid of this item, please! Or make it so that it can't be recharged. Or make it so that when you come back to life it's only with 20% HP. Or make it so that crafting an ashen idol w/ a res scroll costs more than 1 AP. I know some people will say 'just don't use it if you think it's broken'... but I, and many others, like to use to tools available to us to their fullest potential to overcome great challenges. If players are asked to created their own challenges by intentinally gimping themselves and not using all of their tools, the satisfaction of overcoming those challenges is lost.

Harder Difficulty

I know some people think classic is hard, and some people think tactician is easy. I think tactician is well balanced until source is unlocked. I've played enough and learned the game well enough to trivialize it and breeze through no problem, without much AI abuse (but still a little, to be fair), but it's a well tuned mode. The second half of act 2 and act 3 all feel like a breeze when you can use 3 source points every fight, though. Anyway, I'd love to see a new ability mode that really challenges even the best of players who breeze through tactician.

The first think I would do is remove the 'flee combat' button. To run from combat, I believe you should actually have to space yourself far enough until combat drops. It's really not very far at all you have to get to achieve this, so it would be a welcome change. The 'flee combat' button lets you flee way too easily from any fight, that's not even to mention 'escapist'.

The second think I would do is give more enemies physical resist. Some have it, but very few do. All physical parties (aside from the very few evasion aura enemies which are easy to play around with things like teleport, glitter dust, spider legs, worm tremor and a few other abilities that remove dodge) there isn't any drawback at all to stacking physical. Meanwhile most enemies in the game have siginificant magic resist and many have immunities or will heal from certain elements. I'd like to see more tanky enemies have actualy physical resistances to encourage a more versatile party and as a result a more strategic approach to dealing with enemy compositions.

I also believe more enemies should have resiliance. It becomes common on boss type enemies later in the game, but I think on a 'death wish' difficulty level, most enemies should have it.... maybe even all. CC chaining enemies to death is just too easy. Act 3 gives enemies a ton of health... but it doesn't matter when they can't ever act.

These are just a few ideas I've had. Thanks for taking the time to read them. If you have anything to add in the way of making the game harder or what you would like to see in a new difficulty mode, please share!

P.S. I'd like to add that I adore divinity OS (both 1 and 2). Great job to everyone at larian, keep up the good work!