Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Low-hanging fruit for improving the game design

[u]TL:DR;[/u]
By separating weapon abilities from main stats in the damage formula, would improve the intuitiveness of the game as well as giving more build choices. This all could at best only require changing a few lines of code.

[u]Preface[/u]
Reading the preliminary patch notes given out to Kickstarter backers, got me slightly disappointed to the balance changes. I was aware that no big overhauls would be done, but I did expect the balance changes outlined in Kickstarter Update #47 to be more of a teaser or a glimpse to the changes, not effectively an exhaustive list of changes.

Now, I am aware that it is too late to change anything for the 31st launch, but I am hopeful that as the content is released to the larger audiences and bugs are found, some patching will happen. For one of these patches I have a suggestion, that is a very low effort fix from Larians side, but which will improve the game for both new players and minx-maxes alike. I am sure this has been suggested before, but I wanted to highlight it once more for its simplicity and high impact.

[u]Weapon Abilities[/u]
They are not something that will have a massive effect on gameplay (such as suggested revamps of the dual armor system), but they are there to bring meaningful differences between builds. As of right now, though, the way the damage formula is set up, makes them close to obsolete, except for a few builds and even for them only late game.
And if only they were clearly obsolete abilities, the negative impact would be significantly lessened, but at their current state they SEEM like the best abilities, while only extensive testing or data mining the damage formula shows that they are Trojan horses. Of course, you want the 5% damage and 1% dodge from Dual Wielding over the mere 5% physical damage from Warfare. It is effectively counter intuitive and confusing for new players.

Lastly, I think they are homogenizing the builds very significantly, if the answer for half of all the builds (physical builds) is to go full Warfare. It would be so much more interesting if sword and boards would get to hit their CC more often than say two-handers, who would crit rarely but hard, and then again bow users, can expect a lot of crits but for smaller amounts. Right now, these differences only surface very late game if at all.

To summarize, current damage forumula:
-Weapon abilities are rarely used
-Is counter intuitive and essentially misguides new players to make significantly sub-optimal choices
-Homogenizes builds and prevents interesting differences between builds

[u]The Fix - Emphasize Weapon Skills[/u]
To be explicit, in my opinion, the ideal situation is where weapon based builds focus on a weapon ability to increase their damage and you dip in to skill school abilities to, well, get the skills. Later on as your primary damage source, the weapon skills, are capped you then might opt for Warfare to get more damage. This way you clearly have a damage abilities and abilities which grant access to skills, which both makes it more intuitive, but also actually opens up more choice.

And the solution is actually super simple. Separate the Stat+Weapon modifier pool in to two separate modifiers.

damage = base x [u](1 + Attribute % + Weapon Skill %)[/u] x (1 + Elemental %) + (1 + High Ground % + Crit Damage %)
to
damage = base x [u](1 + Attribute % ) x (1 + Weapon Skill %)[/u] x (1 + Elemental %) + (1 + High Ground % + Crit Damage %)
(Source: /u/zyocuh on Reddit, slightly simplified and reformatted for clarity)

I don’t know how the game was coded, but I would assume that the formula has not been hard-coded in to various part of the game, but would only require changing the formula at a few places only. If it actually is hard-coded in various places, I at least would like to know that it is the reason. For me that is a much smaller mistake than letting bad game design exist which could be very easily fixed.

[u]Counterbalance[/u]
Now, I am aware that this increases the power level of weapon based builds, which is mainly physical builds, which at least before DE have been more dominant already. As with the previous part, not knowing how the game is coded it’s hard to say what is the best way to compensate for the power increase. I think the ideal way to fix this would be change the base damage of weapons. This would allow you to change each weapon based on the impact that it’s respective weapon skill would have. For example for daggers, you probably do not want to drop it significantly, since the skill gives a survival stat instead of a damage stat. For ranged and 2h you probably want to do bigger adjustments. If the weapon stats are generated based on a formula, this should be a very quick fix. If their stats are more hard-coded, then I don’t think this is something Larian would want to do. The whole idea of this suggested fix is that it is a very low effort improvement – a low-hanging fruit.

If the previous compensation is technically not viable, Larian has already showed a way to adjust the power of physical builds. Adjust the P.Armor of enemies. Now I don’t think this is as sophisticated fix, since the changes would affect different weapon schools differently and it would make weapons overall relatively stronger than magic against health. Sure, dagger skills could be then compensated, but again we are hitting a point of cascade of changes, which is away from the low-hanging fruit approach.

[u]Conclusion[/u]
With a very low effort fix, Larian could make the game more intuitive for new players as well as create balanced differentiation between various builds. The aim is not to fix what you might consider some of the bigger issues in game balance, but to grab something with a good effort to results ratio!

What do you think? Do you agree with me? Am I underestimating the effort required to pull this off? Do you think it would have some adverse effects I do not see? Should Larian admit if the reason they can't do this is because of hard-coding basics such as the damage formula?

One of the core reason for 'physical' being to powerful still it the fact, that they removed physical resistances. Therefore you have only check for armor if chosing a target for physical attack. I already made my own suggestions to make different kinds of weapons more distinct from each other. Though I stopped expecting any kind of real changes long time ago. Therefore I'm not really disappointed about the DE, because I already expected it to be disappointing in the for me important sections.

Regarding weapons skills, yes as far as I remember, they were underwhelming, only the shield skill got used by us frequently, and that is technically not a weapon.

Larian seemed to think people's complaints about Warfare was only that Warfare offers fractionally better damage, but that's wrong.

The biggest problem with Warfare is that it unnecessarily kills build diversity by making 6 other skills not worth investing in (excepting skill requirements) until after maxing Warfare. It is troubling that they did not realize that after all this time.

I think Warfare would be in a better balanced spot if it didn't apply to Bows/Crossbows, Daggers, and Necromancy.

[quote=Kalrakh]One of the core reason for 'physical' being to powerful still it the fact, that they removed physical resistances. Therefore you have only check for armor if chosing a target for physical attack.[/quote]

It is indeed a significant contributor, and I think the solution was to increase dodge and p.armor to compensate for the lack of straight up DR. It's an easy fix that does not require them to re-stat each mob with physical resistance for example. It saves both effort and keeps the game more true to what it was in classic. We will have to see how that works out in practise with the RNG, but theoretically, it does solve the issue.



[quote=Kalrakh]I already made my own suggestions to make different kinds of weapons more distinct from each other. Though I stopped expecting any kind of real changes long time ago.Though I stopped expecting any kind of real changes long time ago. Therefore I'm not really disappointed about the DE, because I already expected it to be disappointing in the for me important sections.[/quote]

I think it comes down to them already working on their next title, with limited development time being put in to DoS 2 anymore. I still had my hopes for slightly more balancing for DE though. Atleast it felt like EE had more balancing going on than DE does.



[quote=Stabbey]Regarding weapons skills, yes as far as I remember, they were underwhelming, only the shield skill got used by us frequently, and that is technically not a weapon. [/quote]

Just to clarify for future readers (as I can't edit), I mistyped by saying dagger skills, what I meant was scoundrel skills that require a dagger.



[quote=Stabbey]Larian seemed to think people's complaints about Warfare was only that Warfare offers fractionally better damage, but that's wrong.

The biggest problem with Warfare is that it unnecessarily kills build diversity by making 6 other skills not worth investing in (excepting skill requirements) until after maxing Warfare. It is troubling that they did not realize that after all this time.[/quote]

It is actually very interesting that they intepreted it that way. The thing is that there ALWAYS will be the best talent to take and that people WILL min-max. The thing is that if one ability is best for all of the physical builds, it leaves very little differentiation. If they made weapon skills as primary damage abilities (since thats all those skills dodo), they would make sure each spec atleast has a different "best ability", creating some differences between them. Even better, when the the best damage stat is not at the same time an ability that gives skills, you have to make (a few) more choices if you take more skills or more efficient existing skills. Its the same choice they make you do with memory/primary attribute - variety or potency.

[quote=Stabbey]I think Warfare would be in a better balanced spot if it didn't apply to Bows/Crossbows, Daggers, and Necromancy.[/quote]
Or just let it affect them, but it isnt mathematically the best stat. Both Warfare and Ranged give the SAME 5% damage increase, but Ranged gives 1% crit while Warfare gives access to new skills?


P.S. I hope that when my account gets approved, it retroactively enables the codes in my posts >_<

If Warfare didn't apply to bows/crossbows and daggers then scoundrels, huntsmen and necromancers have no way to scale.

All classes scale damage output by multiplying base weapon damage by an attribute factor, an elemental factor and a crit factor. Warfare is the "physical" element.

Warfare doesn't offer "fractionally" better damage. It is necessary for physical damage dealers to scale like elemental casters. The lack of physical resistances is a boon for physical damage dealers. I'm not aware of any sources of negative physical resistance, or at least I can't remember any. I assume dodge% is intended to be a type of physical resistance but no enemy in the game has enough dodge% for it to matter.

Casters have a slightly different damage calculation if base damage is derived from a spell as opposed to a weapon, in which case certain spell damage modifiers behave multiplicatively. Casters suffer from elemental resistances but can offset it with negative resistances.

The game is based around vitality scaling. Item and enemy base damage stats are automatically calculated based off vitality and scale with vitality growth.

Every class has one core tenet: increase attribute, elemental and crit factor in roughly equal proportions to maximise damage output at any given level. Because you get far more attribute points per level up than combat ability points, this means a combat ability conferring 5% elemental bonus will always be more valuable than an ability like dual wielding which provides a 5% attribute bonus.

5% elemental bonus is always more valuable than 5% crit bonus until your crit chance is sufficiently high that you can treat it as being unconditional. Scoundrels are very powerful early on because daggers auto crit from behind, thereby allowing scoundrels to ignore crit chance. They fall off later in the game because base dagger damage is low compared to two handers and bows.

Right now, you either scale with monster hp or you don't. If you want build diversity, then you can't have damage calculation like this or itemisation that scales off vitality growth. The easiest fix I think involves doing a pass on enemy dodge% or physical resistances/negative physical resistances.

If you redo damage calculation from scratch, then you have to redo large parts of the game. Itemisation would have to be completely reworked because a large proportion of your stats come from gear. All fights would have to be manually tuned based on expected player stats at every given level. This is quite the undertaking and I don't expect it to happen.

If you spin off weapon skill as an independent damage multiplier then you will observe something similar to Diablo 3 when Blizzard introduced items like Focus/Restraint. You will briefly break the damage scaling curve before they increase vitality growth to compensate and you end up in roughly the same position as before except all the numbers are bigger and you throw away all your gear more frequently.

Sort of - it is a chance to miss rather than a percentage blocked.

If you play on tactician there are a few NPC with evasive aura (the guard by where Siva is being hanged is the first example I can think of) that don't get it on easier difficulties. This gives them 90% dodging and so pretty harsh if you are all physical and not expecting it.

Perhaps the DE will add more as evasive aura (or immunity to physical of which there aren't many at all) as it would be a better solution than simply bumping armor. They said there was some rebalancing in this respect but I've not finished downloading yet.

they could've made "fire\air\earth\water\poison\physical" skills that would've given 5%dmg per point.(removing it from warfare\hydro\etc) and moved "additional benefits" from weapons to skill schools.(also removing weapon skills in a process)


ps: when I read "all physical builds must level warfare" it's the same as "all fire builds must level pyro"....and I see no problem with that.

They would scale off of Scoundrel and Single Handed or Dual-Wielding, Huntsman and Ranged Weapons, and Necromancy (it would need a damage scaling property added to it).

Your argument is compelling, but it's basically saying "they can't do that in DOS 2, it would require a huge redesign".

I don't think you're wrong, but I'm not expecting changes to DOS 2. There should be plenty of time to change how scaling works for DOS 3.

It just feels really wrong when the best way to boost your bow's damage is to ignore both the Ranged combat ability and the Huntsman ability, in favour of a melee combat ability. It also feels really wrong to pump the exact same ability whether you're a single-handed or two handed fighter, Necromancer caster, a bow or crossbow user, or a backstabbing rogue.

well... most of phys abilities scale from more then one source. even hunter and scoundrel increase your damage.
you just need to imagine a proper explanation to get rid of the confusion.
like Hunter courses labeled "high ground will make you win, here is how: *showing StarWars ep.3*
or Scoundrel: "check all the pictures with a "back" amond them"
or warfare guide for necromancers: "armor looks like this, avoid it at all costs when casting"


most of the confusion (as I see it) comes from the fact that there is only 1-3 fire\water\etc. sources (wand, grenade and spell), while simultaneously there are 7-8 physical weapons (bow, spear, dagger, 1h, 2h, staff, spell, grenade)

You are reading it wrong:
"all physical builds must level warfare" is not the same as "all fire builds must level pyro"

Pyro is one school of 4 magical schools (water, earth, fire, air), Warfare is one of 4 physical schools (warfare, huntsman, scoundrel, necro).

So for the corect equation, you have to read your second sentence as: "all mages must level pyro"

I don't think I read it wrong. warfare is a physical mod. same as pyro and others. hunter\scoundrel\necro - are not. they give different benefits (some are more useful to certain builds, others not)
so my sentence is more accurate.

and I have no idea why you try to mix skill lines and bonuses from leveling attributes. switch in your mind bonuses from warfare and necro around and your phrase will turn to "all builds must level magic school of their respective damage". if there is no problem with it - there is no problem with leveling warfare for all phys builds

Warfare is not a physical mod, Warfare is the warrior skill tree, the same as pyro is the pyromancer skill tree and scoundrel is the rogue skill tree.

Hunter, Scoundrel and Necro are all physical classes as well.

The fact that the warrior skill tree gives a better bonus to an archer would be the same as if pyro skill tree would increase damage for all mage schools instead of only to pyro.

and yet warfare along with skill tree increase physical damage. much like pyro along with skill tree increase fire damage.
that's why they are similar in their design. and skills are irrelevant in this case.