Some boss-level enemies should be flat-out immune to hard cc's - or at least most of them. Perma-knocking down a dragon? C'mon. I charmed the *entire* enemy team in the end-game fight. Err... You'd think stuff like charm grenades or mind-maggot grenades shouldn't work on someone like Lucian (he's like, what, a demigod?).
The point of source abilities is to make you feel good, having godlike powers. So I can understand why they're so strong. But yes, they're too strong. I remembered testing out Thunderstorm and other 3- 4-source-point AoE abilities (playing on Tactician), and the first thing that came to my mind was I'd probably want to *avoid* using them.
In general, there are too many tools that are just too effective. They are powerful AND work all the time. One thing that limits our ability to nerf things, is that the only "resistance" in the game is resistance to flat damage. There's no such thing as "resistance to charm" or "resistance to being knocked down", or resistance to certain category of status effects. Imagine the Will/Fortitude/Reflex save system, or oldschool AD&D saving throw system. A challenging enemy in most cases means it's very hard to affect it with hostile effects. In DOS2 system, either stuff don't work (because of armor), or they work on EVERYONE, EVERY TIME.
So what can be done? I'm sure many have pointed out and discuss all this during the past year, but now that we're expecting the arrival of the Definitive Edition, I'm speaking my mind, not really because I hope the ideas would actually be implemented, but just for the sake of discussion.
- Nerfs. Duh. Seriously though, a lot of things could use a nerf. Maybe not a direct nerf, per se, but at least reduce their effectiveness by adjusting specific encounters so that they don't work, or at least not work on everyone.
- Giving enemies access to those powerful tools that you have. Given the context of the game, you'd think enemies should be the ones more likely to spam mind-maggot grenades, rather than your party. Many enemies can use source, so I don't see why they can't have access to some source abilities other than just Curse all day. You can buy skill books from store, why can't everyone else? Honestly, I would find it refreshing to see someone throw Thunderstorm or Closed Circuit at my party, rather than the other way around all game. One thing that made games like Baldur's Gate hard but fun, is that enemies have access to pretty much all the powerful spells/abilities, like you do. So a late game fight would be a high-level ability fest, which I find a lot more exciting than just enemies being on the receiving end all the time. This will likely make your party die a whole lot more, but hey, I had a wagon-full of Resurrection scrolls by the end of the game, which I ended up never using or even sellling.
- Not hesitating to let enemies "follow their own rules". This includes natural immunities to various stuff (hard cc's come to mind). If they are monsters, that's just their nature - sounds fine to me. Even in the case of the regular source hunters, they belong to an organization specially trained to combat source users, it would make sense if they have their own special techniques to train their members to be immune or at least highly resistant to harmful effects. So if I see an elite-level source hunter with natural immunity to charm, that sounds fine to me. Or special offensive abilities players don't have access to. Why not? This element does exist in the game, yes, like the natural aura some enemies have, but this is not nearly enough. Too trivial, even. We're agreed that these are easy to go around by just teleporting the enemies to that corner over there, or better yet, by charming them, so your party can enjoy the aura. What I'm talking about is hard cc's, which is the real problem. I'd like to see more enemies with resistance/immunity to hard cc's.
Anyway, considering the amount of useful/powerful tools that players have access to, the devs could definitely push it much further in terms of "making the game harder". So I'd definitely love to see one of two higher difficulty levels.
Last edited by Try2Handing; 21/05/18 06:24 AM.
