While the game in general is pretty good, the scenery gorgeous and the writing top-notch, I have found that the ridiculous stat increase between level is really ruining my game.

It's not only looking dumb (start with numbers like 50-90, by the second island it's already in the several hundreds or thousands, then it jumps to tens of thousands, like, wtf ?) but it causes real problems both in mechanics, immersion and pacing.

The extreme power increase means that everything is obsolete within one or two levels. It means churning items like there is no tomorrow, pushing players to buy constantly new gear at the traders (am I an adventurer or a peddler ?). It makes gear forgettable as hell, kills any motivation to put time and effort into getting it (why bother, it'll be worth nothing in a couple of hours or so), makes crafting feels either pointless or a chore, and remove any worth or impact a special piece of gear could have ("hey, the super-duper artifact from the mythical... oh, a grey item two levels higher, let's trash that legendary junk !").

It also means that there is a strong push toward railroading, which goes against the whole rest of the design of the game, because if you dare to not follow the supposed path, then you ends up being one or two levels below the foes, which means something like 50 % stat less (so a pretty severe penalty). Conversely, if you managed to get a level or two ahead of the mob, suddendly you get overpowered.

Finally, the wild swing in difficulty means that half the people find the game exceedingly hard, the other half claim it's just too easy and you vaporize everything. When you can quadruple your damage just by gaining two levels and getting a new sword, it's bound to happen.

The worst is, this stat bloat adds NOTHING to the game. It's just completely pointless, it just adds tons of useless zero to numbers. It's 100 % downsides.
I seriously don't understand what went through the designer's head, but really, can you fix this by reducing A LOT the power gap between each level and the itemisation budget ? It would MASSIVELY improve balance, immersion and open up the world...

Yeah that really bugs me as well.. I think dos 1, a huge health pool was like 800?

I can't stand huge numbers

There is no real char progression left, attributes are pretty meaningless and AP are fixed, so they need big numbers, so people can feel 'mightier'.

'Tons of damage'

Railroading is indeed an issue in this game or in any of previous Larian's games, im afraid is here to stay though considering how many games they done the same design.

Do exp quest, then kill the quest giver NPC, rinse and repeat metagaming, or risks to fight last fight level 19 and get full wiped in 1 turn.

The equipment scaling is seriously out of control, especially in the later acts where a single level can have weapons of equivalent rarity shoot up hundreds of damage.
The randomly generated loot was always a weak point of the OS entries; especially since they don't really have an affix system or other interesting and functional generation system for items; though this was mitigated heavily by crafting overshadowing generated equipment for most of the game in OS1/EE.

The exponential equipment scaling is disappointing because it makes gear farming more prominent and monotonous (you have to re-equip yourself more frequently to compete at higher levels), severely damages the value of unique items (uniques are outshined very quickly, especially if you pick them up overlevelled) and makes crafting an unsustainable bore (crafted gear has trouble comparing to generated gear and its next to impossible to supply crafting materials frequently enough).

Overall, enemy stats and equipment/act scaling need to be seriously cut down and polished; but that's the kind of overhaul I expect to see in an overhaul project or an Enhanced Edition re-release, unfortunately.

I can never understand the point of randomised loot in a fixed number of encounters game. Pillars/Tyranny i never had this issue because gears are fixed and you find artifacts to build around it. Divinity 2 had fixed legendary gears you can seek and craft. But here, everything is randomised. So instead of farming the perfect gear, farming in this game for the right stats is to either wait an hour for merchants to refresh or save scumming...

I agree the stats are very bloated. Fortunately it looks like we can modify this very easily, so I'll definitely release a mod that tones down the scaling a whole lot.

I'm playing DOS1EE now, level 20 Fighter is at 3000. Just wanted to mention it. Carry on.

I get the impression that the stat inflation, and many other issues, is a consequence of the game being so long that Larian never really was able to test it by taking a party from start to finish. Even without game-stopping bugs, it would be hard to finish before new stuff gets added and the internal builds changed.

I hope we can fix it through mod, but I wonder how hard it will be. If the foes' stats are mindlessly calculated from a level-based spreadsheet, it'll be easy (it'll also be very underwhelming to realize that no customisation of enemies happened and they are just the usual "a level slapped onto a model" instead of full-fleshed creatures).
If not, it would mean altering by hand all the stat of all the mob and items in the game, which would be daunting.

And honestly, I'm starting to lose the desire to play with this idiotic inflation (and the slaughtered fighting system, which I find just a vastly inferior one to DOS1, which sadly only double down on the stat inflation problem), so I'm wondering if I shouldn't just wait for such a mod. How long do you think it would take you to do it ? :p

It'd be especially idiotic, considering such inflation is precisely a reason of terrible balance, instead of a way to camouflage it.

They did have the previous game though...
The more I read these forums the less I understand why so much energy was spent changing so much the system.
Why not just tweaking things here and there?

I think, that is the core problem: They changed war to much without even having a real concept. How attributes worked at the start of EA was even worse than as they work now.

God, the gap in numbers is really making the game nearly unplayable if you don't spend your time looking for gear...
It just ruins the fun. I'm close to just throw it out and bother with it only once a mod has corrected this retarded design.

And yes I'm angry.

before anyone get mad, i would just remind you is that you can have RUNES infused into gear. And you can craft it also and not costly.
physic runes give 10% armor each at the lowest and 20% at highest. And it's just tier 3.
20% x 5 = 100% armor bonus.
you can have inflated stat just as much as enemy.

Thanks Gekko.

It probably would help if some core elements (crafting, runes, frames etc.) were explained somewhere in detail or if there was a more in-depth tutorial in-game. At the moment I'm just hoarding whatever I find because I'm too scared to waste possibly irreplaceable ingredients/upgrades on worthless stuff. Take source orbs: I have no clue how frequently they drop, I've only seen one or two so far in my game, leading me to believe they're highly prized and rare, yet I see people recommend to eat one in a pinch...

I wonder if you read past the title, because what you describe is part of the problem, not the solution.

- The complaints is about stat inflating with level. The inflation itself. Both those of the characters and those of the enemy.

- Crafting the gear would be great if items actually lasted some time, but with how quickly they become obsolete, it means putting a lot of efforts into making stronger something that will be thrown away in a blink - it might maybe last one level more due to runes, but that's it.

For Akka, the problem is as you get to mid game, weapon are mostly legendary which deal absurd damage. You can easily dominate classic after level 6 at fort joy and level 11 with decent gear after that.

Honestly, i loathe the bloated stats enemy on tactician right now, but the game is so long that they have no idea how to balance it from mid game to late.
Runes crafting is easy, and runes are reusable.
OS1 EE tactician mode did not come from nothing. We are like tester for the game at this moment than anything else.
Give the game benefit of doubt, because this game has different mechanic than the last so devs won't know for certain what needed to make a balance game.

[quote=Violet Gekko]For Akka, the problem is as you get to mid game, weapon are mostly legendary which deal absurd damage. You can easily dominate classic after level 6 at fort joy and level 11 with decent gear after that.

Give the game benefit of doubt, because this game has different mechanic than the last so devs won't know for certain what needed to make a balance game. [/quote]

So do you think there's a chance they will patch the game and correct the problem?

Just reduce the stat on level 10-16 items by like, 15% and make it so that divine gears are just legendary with slightly more stat and 1 more stat/talent options so they no longer boost your damage by nearly 20% for just upgrading a gear tier. Also make gears from NPC cheapers (like 30%) in act 2.

Doing in this way, everyone will be able to purchase gear at every level and with the reduced stat, can no longer just outright stomp everything in a few hits. Make it feels like the fights in Act 3 where the game outright force you to use Epic crossbow since there's no shop selling legendaries and divine one just to make enemies harder to kill with ranger.

Why not simply makes stat progression linear instead of logarithmic ? Simpler and actually fix the problem at the source instead of tweaking twenty different things to partially hide the effects.

A lvl 13 Shield... 100 Physical Armor and 100 Magic Armor

A lvl 15 Shield... 300 Physical Armor and Magic Armor.

Armor increased by 200%

A lvl 13 Xbow ... 50 base damage

A lvl 15 Xbow... 100 base damage.

Damage increased by 100%

The game was not tested very well for mid-end game. Through out Fort Joy gear scaled correctly, with gear becoming slightly better every level, but then in Driftwood, the level difference in gear becomes insane. Same goes for encounters for that matter.

Because fixing the stat formula will affect the entire game.

Right now, this issue is only really prevalent in Act 2.

Act 1 is fine, just lack gear and even then, legendaries aren't in the range yet and epic are limited.

Act 3 is fine and most of the gears.

Act 2 is "Have good gear = lolstomp because they didn't balanced enemies to be as strong as the early legendaries"

Another way to fix this is to just change what level legndaries and divine appears. Lock Legendaries to level 13+ (for roaming boss fights in act 2 and Nameless Isle. You barely find legendaries and divines on Nameless isle merchants!) and Divines to 18+ (Act 3 only)

Yes. So Larian should fix the entire game. Doubling damage in two levels is frankly just silly.

Larian did not make a perfect game which is absolutely flawless. They are mortals and they can make mistakes and overlook things. Mistakes should be corrected.

Now I agree that they probably can't change things on existing saves, but eventually, they should rebalance the game for later users starting a new game.

Fixing the whole game formula because Act 2 has gear inflation issues is like burning down your own room because it has ants.

And fixing the entire game is bad because the problem is less glaring in some part ? What kind of fucked up logic is that ?

Gear in the end-game(late Act 2 and Act 3) is also busted but you dont see it that much because of not gaining so many levels as in early Act 2. I do believe that Fort Joy is the most balanced part of the game, rest need a good from the developers.

Even Fort Joy is rather fucked up. It just is more lenient, but you'll see the guides about the strict order you need to follow to get enough experience to have the levels required so as not to get slaughtered in fights, and how you need to cheese the game for money and gear.

The entire game is twisted by this idiotic power growth.

Act 1 has you using the same gears as EA. Nothing wrong with any of that. People were fine playing through it over and over in EA but they're not now?

Act 3 has limitation placed on what you can get. I finished the game with an Epic xbow, not a legendary or a divine one, because the ranger shop npc refused to put the legendary and divine weapon in her shop anymore.

Plus, the strongest weapon, Anathema (2h), is from an NPC quest and is clearly a last fight weapon since it has a durability of 1.

Majority of Act 3 unique weapon are also strong enough to beat the game and you get them from just exploring the map and doing quests aka just playing the game. Some of them even reward you for being curious like teleporting a giant corpse out of the sea to check if it has any loot and tada, legendaries. I barely get to spend money in Act 3.

Act 2 is the only one with massive scaling issues and that's where all the effort to fix them should be directed. It's not hard to modify item stat best on the data people that stomp or struggle through Act 2 can provide. All it take is a few number adjustment, not a complete revamp.

And it's out Dramatically toned down scaling, and certain levels no longer have huge spikes in health. Uploading to Nexus now if you don't have Steam version:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1142608415

There's simply a global multiplier for vitality scaling. Different enemies have different constitution values, but everyone is subject to the same multipliers. From the vitality numbers, armor and damage values are calculated automatically, so everything should maintain the same relative balance as vanilla, unless there's some independent numbers I've missed somewhere, but pretty sure there aren't.

I can get behind Akka's suggestion for Linear equipment progression (especially with the current stat system) as a broad-stroke change, but this system really is the kind of thing that requires a lot of fine tuning and an overhaul of enemy statistics as well. I also find Ellelizard has a point about the scaling being at its worst in Act 2 (but I think this is mostly due to the very tight scope of levels and items in Act 3; the problem is at its most severe there for me but given the least light), though I think he's coming at the issue from the wrong direction but he's got the right outcome at heart.

I think we can all agree that, in some way or another, all of the following needs to happen in regards to equipment scaling:

- The economy needs to be touched upon in regards to gear pricing, availability and crafting.
-Equipment scaling needs to be toned down significantly or the formula for doing such should be significantly altered.
-Equipment scaling needs to account more closely for level gaps and Unique items.
-Equipment scaling should be less hostile towards crafting.

You are a hero. Screw steam achievements, now I can resume playing this game and actually having fun with it. Stopped shortly after finishing act 1 because I spent more time visiting merchants than I did with any kind of meaningful gameplay. I just don't get why they thought it was a good idea to begin with.

Slightly unrelated but is it possible to change a way gear works in this game, getting rid of item levels? Right before I was so tired of itemization and awful diablo-style loot I had this idea: what if gear gave scaling bonuses instead of flat stats. For example, there wouldn't be strength based armor levels 1-20. There would be just one armor that gives 30% of vitality as physical armor and 10% as magical armor (chose %values mosly randomly). Same with weapons, damage would just automatically scale with level. I don't know if it's possible to do but that'd fix most of the things I personally hate about itemization. Would even make randomized loot much less awful.

That's great !

But could you not put it behind Steamwall ? :p
Some of us bought the game on GOG and don't have Steam !

You're a hero, Baardvark! I'll certainly use this mod in my second playthrough.

Glad ya'll like it

Nexus version here: https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/58/?



Well, you could completely eliminate vitality scaling and then loot from level 1 would be roughly comparable to loot from level 20, but that's a pretty extreme change. I may release a version like that though, since I've gotten a couple requests. Otherwise I don't think armor and weapons can automatically scale armor and damage values, at least without some serious scripting.

Really noob question but...how does the vitality scalling works exactly?

Here are the default numbers:

key "VitalityStartingAmount","18"
key "VitalityExponentialGrowth","1.28"
key "VitalityLinearGrowth","12.5"
key "FirstVitalityLeapLevel","9"
key "FirstVitalityLeapGrowth","1.25"
key "SecondVitalityLeapLevel","13"
key "SecondVitalityLeapGrowth","1.5"
key "ThirdVitalityLeapLevel","16"
key "ThirdVitalityLeapGrowth","1.25"
key "FourthVitalityLeapLevel","18"
key "FourthVitalityLeapGrowth","1.5"

As you can see, the exponential growth of 28% is a lot by itself. But then the leap growths at levels 9, 13, 16, and 18, are just extra ridiculous ( think they mean that at level 18, say, vitality is suddenly 50% greater. That's just absurd.)

I basically eliminated the leap growth, and brought down the exponential scaling to 1.10.

I just don't get it. There must be some reason why they thought such a scaling is good but I can't think of any tbh. I hope it gets significantly toned down by patches eventually.

Oh okay, I understand now. Thanks Baardvark!


@Alanta ; I don't know. But, hey, at least now we can find out just by playing a full campaign with Baardvark's mod!

Same stupid method uses all asian MMORPG. Hits for milions HP, discovering a meaninglesss corner of a map in a sidequiest gives gazilion XP. and so on. Just imagine an average kiddo smashing gamepad. That is the target group.

This asian system simply overloads human mind, so people cant find so quickly that game rules, skill, items are badly designed. I see same pattern here as a purpose.

In the first game I had about 2500HP on my tough guy. In final fight, untouchable. I asked several times here on forum, made specific hreads to cut HP, Items, skills stats to brain countable numbers. For reasons. Average people can quickly count to 20. Some people with talents comfortably do 100. Anything above is hard to get. That is true even for university educated people, that is our nature.

I believe Larians are not stupid or make such horrible mistakes. Those bloated stats are the purpose.

Start with high HP then just keep constant flow of MOAR. If you cant find the stats, skills and talents are shit, then you are satisfied right?

This stupid system together with gutted combat system, makes the game friendly to casual players, see the massive sales. However, ... RPG fans, looks at Wartile and Pillars of Ethernity 2.

Amen

That's brilliant Baardvark, thank you.

Gonna have a look and maybe tweak a bit myself, I'm still sore about stealth sucking so much xD

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.

I'm still a bit confused as to how this mod solves the problem of stat inflation causing your equipment to go out of date every single level. I found some numbers from the Nexus, and according to that person, this is what you currently see:

Level 1 sword: 4 - 5 damage
Level 1 health @ 10 vitality: 30

So you deal an average of 4.5 damage against 30 health, meaning it takes 30/4.5 = ~7 attacks to kill the enemy.

Level 30 sword: 1106 - 1169
Level 30 health @ 10 vitality: 30,680

You deal an average of 1088 damage against 30,680 health, meaning it takes 30,680 / 1088 = ~28 attacks to kill the enemy.

That same person's numbers for after you apply the mod:

Level 1 sword: 3 - 4 damage
Level 1 health @ 10 vitality: 25

This is still 25/3.5 = 7 attacks

Level 30 sword: 17 - 19
Level 30 health @ 10 vitality: 510

Again, this is still 510/18 = ~28 attacks

Doesn't this just mean the numbers are merely smaller, but the proportional upgrade between items per level is still the same?

Can not speak for the reduced scaling version of the mod but indeed I think it only reduces the bloat as mentioned (Reducing numbers)
Playing the no scaling version I can say that that is feels alot different and way smoother. Especially in regards of itemization (Uniques feel very important to hunt for i. e.) while other good items will follow you around for quite some time.
Given itemization is imho one of the worst parts of the game this helps tremendously.
On a side node though the balance shifts quite alot given that you are almost always rather good equipped yet combats feeling smooth and fast is also something some people seek.
Currently also using the double spawn mod in that play through with twice the number of foes and it goes rather easy.
Given I have an optimized Ranger Lone Wolf in the party I would most likely break any version of the game anyway.

No. The goal of this mod was to keep the ratio of damage to hp the same at each level, but make the difference in numbers between levels not as great.

Using your numbers.
Before Mod:
Lvl 1 weapon against Lvl 30 health: 6,858 attacks to kill.

After Mod:
Lvl 1 weapon against Lvl 30 health: 146 attacks to kill.

But that does improve itemization because with smaller numbers overall, a weapon can last longer, whereas in the mid-teens, apparently, two levels doubles the amount of damage a weapon does, meaning you are required to upgrade constantly or else you simply can't deal damage.

Yep, your observation is correct. That's the whole point of the mod. He's got another mod that removes vitality and damage inflation altogether.

As a life long Dungeons & Dragons player, then Dungeons & Dragons Online player from 2005 to current, the stat and combat math/gear issues mentioned in this thread are likely going to be deal killers for me to support this game.

Not sure yet... as Ive seen the great reviews ...

If, as I suspect from your self-intro as a D&D player, you have a soft spot for vibrant worlds and exploration and stories, then I would recommend not letting an ok combat system put you off. I'm having so much fun finding hidden treasures and surprising little story gems.

Yeah, the combat system is probably the weakest point in the game, but it's not terrible. You kinda get used to it, and after banging your head against the wall 20 times in frustration over initiative and AI, I promise you, the pain will get better.

im 100% sure it can all be cheesed.

Can't agree more with u.
I hate to be pushed updating my gear....stupid

Good thread, I agree the scaling is out of control. Kudos the Baardvark for being the all-star modder for this game

I think itemization must be a hard problem to solve, because I see case after case of games doing a poor job of it. I suspect too many are looking to Diablo when they should be looking to Baldur's Gate 2.

I would go a step further after fixing the scaling:
-Limit vendors to only stocking green items.
-Change lucky find to only create consumable stuff in containers. It makes no sense for epic weapons and armor to be sitting in fish barrels.

Then you would actually care when you picked up high tier loot from bosses and chests, which is how it should be! You couldn't make these changes now because you'd be horribly undergeared, but with the scaling under control it might be possible.

That would make lucky charm useless as a civil skill. Sinking the point that I get once every 3 levels or so into an ability that would give me a few extra water balloons and fire arrows? The whole reason why it's called lucky charm is because yes, it wouldn't make sense to find a sword in a haystack, that's why its lucky. Otherwise I do agree that rare items should be less common.

What kinda gets to me is that the scaling is apparently managed by just a few stats and is easily editable, as has been done in a number of mods.

So since everything seems to depend on this, it means that Larian actually tested the scaling and built everything in the game around being easily scaleable - by just tweaking these numbers, everything else scales to match.

This means that they consciously settled on this grotesque bloat that we're seeing, where a unique weapon on one level is completely trashed by another, run-of-the-mill weapon on the next, and where the numbers just get huge by the endgame, for no apparent reason.

Or did they just enjoy seeing the high numbers (which is apparently something people often appreciate as part of some imagined power-trip) without any regard for how this would affect the itemization scaling and so on?

While I can see some people not really caring about the bloat, while others react negatively to it, I have a hard time seeing any real reason as to why it would be good, or why Larian would settle on it in the interest of making the best possible game.

Is it intended to somehow force us to go hunt for gear every single level or something, or to inspire in us to adopt the attitude of disposability? I just think it's weird.I think this visualizes the point of the mod very well. I think that the base version of the mod might overdo it just a little bit (I'm currently trying the "moderate" instead, but I haven't played enough to comment), but having a much tighter range is wonderful. It doesn't feel like everything I do is completely invalidated in the next level, and actually finding something good feels.. good.

Before, it really felt like "Eh, whatever, it's not going to last long", but now when I find equipment with the bonuses I want, I may end up using that for a lot longer than I previously would've, simply because while it's generally worse in scaled stats, it still gives me things I want in addition to things I need (like armor).

The only potential "downside" to this is that since I'm not practically required to change my gear as often, build reliability is higher (which devs could consider negative, I guess, since it allows me to rely on certain bonuses from items whereas they might want me to deal with completely random bonuses out of necessity) and the gold economy is a bit more lax (since I don't have to spend so much gold anymore to keep ahead of the curve).

But overall, I think those are very reasonable trade-offs. Gold is relatively plentiful in the game anyway if you want it to be (it's a thief's life for me), and "too much gold" is a very small issue when standing next to the issue of constant re-itemization and numbers bloat.

If you make gear long lastingly viable, you can't be giving it out constantly via every 10th generic container.

The current lucky charm is bordering ridiculous. Having the rarity cap on the item based on the container might make it ok. IE: Barrels provide basic equipment: whites, consumables and crafting mats. Elite chests and bosses have a chance of producing high quality gear.

Other than thievery and lucky charm, the civil abilities are generally low impact. These proposals are meant to normalize that so that charm/thief aren't 1000x better than the rest of the available choices.

I'm finally hitting a point where stat inflation is staring to hit me. I never took Lucky Charm, and so the amount of good items I got for free by finding them has failed to outpace the power curve. My gear is several levels behind where it should be, resulting in a few one-shot-kills on party members.

Maybe I can get by via crafting and selling the crafted items, or I might have to ditch my equipment with modifiers and replace it with plain stuff for the armor value, or worst case, even start Act 2 all over again so I can respec my Barter character for Lucky Charm instead.

Yeah it really takes off in Act 2. You gain a level every 3 encounters and each level increases armor and damage by 20 and sometimes up to 50% (!!!!!). Considering a 4-man party is 40 equipment slots, it's completely crazy to expect you to be able to have level-appropriate gear during this phase.

Here are some of the stats that control this:

key "FirstVitalityLeapLevel","9"
key "FirstVitalityLeapGrowth","1.25"
(There are more of these level leaps later on to)

key "FirstPriceLeapLevel","9"
key "FirstPriceLeapGrowth","1.75"
(There are more of these level leaps later on to)

key "ArmorToVitalityRatio","0.55"
key "VitalityToDamageRatio","5"
key "HealToDamageRatio","1.3"

We can see the game then keeps these pillars in balance with each other using these ratios.

So at level 9 Vitality increases +25% more than normal and then Armor goes up to using the ArmorToVitalityRatio var.

First off the cuff and perhaps what one of the mods do, is where you see these LeapGrowths, just set them all to 1.00 and there is no bounce, same progression all the way through. This assumes these vars are for player and npc.

So I started to notice I was spending more time shopping for gear than actually adventuring, and realised it was down to the poor scaling. So I installed the "No Scaling" mod, and it's exactly what I think all RPG developers should be looking at implementing.
For example, Witcher 3 could really do with an equivalent mod to make gear remain relevant throughout the game's duration and allow for more options instead of being made irrelevant when levelling up.

While it has made DOS2 a much less interrupted experience, I do worry it's broken the difficulty, as most encounters now seem relatively trivial (it could just be that I all of a sudden got REALLY good, but I'm guessing not!). However, I would assume that to make encounters remain challenging while removing scaling would require a more extensive pass over all of the potential fights in the game, and this is probably too much to ask of a one-man mod team.

But even so, as proof that scaling systems really aren't needed in RPGs, it's really reassuring.

Exactly! The whole game is like... Hey, I'd love to help you with your little side-quest-thing, but I need to go shopping now... then a couple hours later... now what was it I was going to do!^#%$@!?

Personally i don't like seeing mobs with thousands of armor and health or having to change weapon and gear every time i level up, but since you can't make everybody happy about how some things on the game should be set up, I've started to tone it down with a bunch of mods. I think i'll try next the no-scaling mod.

So I've been playing more with the No Scaling mod, and I think it's near perfect. The big important encounters are still difficult, gear remains almost permanently relevant, with it being worth keeping around even early game uniques, and I'm no longer spending more time shopping than adventuring.
It's possibly a little too easy, but I suspect that even unmodded, with the abilities I have at this stage of the game it would be just as easy.

With the reduce stat bloat mod, the author implemented a DnD version that runs on those numbers.

Just registered an account so I can comment on this. I tried the mod, with different scalings. The no scaling at all is nice, but the game did prove to be too easy. Or to be more precise, the damage overscaled the amount of armor/HP when you had good weapons (for enemies as well). I would feel that no scaling would work better if we had twice as much HP and armor (exact value up for debate). To be fair this was my experience in driftwood, not sure if it remains the same later on.

I had a similar experience. I tested that mod, using DND numbers, on a fight that was fairly difficult vanilla tactician. It was very easily defeated with the mod active.

Changing the enemy stats is relatively simple though, so you could make a custom tactician with +70% armors instead of +50%.

The issue that prevents me from playing that way is that the relative strengths of physical vs magic aren't preserved. Somehow physical attacks are better after the mod is applied, making an uneven balancing even worse.

I'm too lazy to go through and edit each skill individually so I think I'm going to wait for a bit and see how things shake out. Either until someone else does the grunt work of hand-modifying each skill, and to see what Larian releases in their patch.

Lots of interesting feedback on my mod, thanks everyone.



I just released a "fix" that slightly increases the scaling of magic damage by increasing the damage bonus from magic abilities from 5% to 7%. I don't know if these numbers are exactly right, but they should help some.

Interesting that people are finding the game easier after installing different variants of my mod. You may consider my Enemy Randomization mod to increase difficulty (though it certainly is a big change.) Are ya'll playing on Tactician?

Maybe I just have a crappy party, but I'm finding the game very satisfyingly difficult, at least at level 10. I'm using the No Scaling version (plus a whole bunch of my other mods Not to toot my own horn, but it just feels way better knowing that my characters and enemies aren't becoming more powerful in an arbitrary way, but because of more access to skills and more nuanced gear.

We always played with mixed setup, some had high speed, others did not have high speed because they had different built. Don't know why you should get facerolled just because you are not high initiative on all.

@Baardvark

I saw your fix so I went ahead and started a new game with the DND scaling. I'm doing classic difficulty with double monsters as well. It's been pretty tough so far, I'm liking it

Thanks for the 'fix', I really appreciate it.

I guess the only reason why Larian make a bloated a system is that they want to create money sink so resources would become more limited.

Perhaps, but after Fort Joy I always seemed to have enough money... even without stealing... to keep my gear up-to-level. I just HATED spending all of my time on vendor and inventory screens instead of enjoying the adventure.

While others enjoy looking through loot and wares. That said the stat inflation is a puzzler overall to me.

It can be enjoyable if finding something is meaningful. But, when you can only use an item for a couple hours it seems more like a meaningless chore.

I have to agree I dislike the stat inflation and how quickly gear becomes obsolete. Spending hours and hours messing with vendors and changing gear out is not very fun and makes the game slow and tedious.

I agree with the OP. The scaling should be tone down. Some parts of the game was super easy because my party had 1 or 2 levels ahead than the enemies, while other battles was very difficult because my level was lower than the enemies or my gear was underlevel. The last battle is the biggest example of this, after I switch a level 18 bow for a level 20 xbow on my archer, the fight was easier (I mean I still had to retry a couple of times until I could refine my strategy and was challenging, but easier than before).
I only play on Classical Mode, so wasn't that game breaking for me, but I imagine that on Tactician it's a big deal.
I also agree that refreshing a vendor to get the best gear is a little tedious.

I reached level 14 and the lumber mill and spent a little while carefully getting all my people into position. Once reach, I attacked. Red Prince, my Knight with the highest physical armor, got all his armor and half his health stripped on one turn from a single enemy.

I guess in fairness the last time I went on a major shopping spree I was level 11, but I've picked up some stuff since then.

Time to go shopping to replace all my gear. Or more accurately, time to go shopping, then leave the game running for an hour to see if merchants have stuff worth buying to fill up the rest of my slots. Repeat as needed.

I think I also need to boost my Knight's INT to 14 and my Mages's STR to 14 so I can wear the opposite type of chest armor, because mages get ridiculously little PA just using INT-requiring gear.

I find this topic interesting and am thinking I will try Baardvark's mod (thanks for creating it, sir!), probably using the DnD version. I'm wondering though, if this won't make Constitution a more important attribute?

If I correctly understand Baardvark's comments (https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/58/?), the DnD version reduces the increase in vitality to 4+4% on level up, and since armor and damage values are based on this, they get reduced, as well. But I also understand that a point of constitution gives builds a 7% increase to health. So, am I right in believing this makes a point in constitution far more valuable than it was before?

Yep on Tactician! I noticed (especially on the very low scaling or none at all) if you have a good weapon on you it is very easy to destroy enemies armor in one go, usually no one I am focusing manages to survive enough to be hit by my full party (usually dead when my second character ends their turn). Maybe it is the combination of having the perfect weapon and optimal stats distribution, but I feel that in the no scaling version, either HP or (or both perhaps) armor need to be buffed. Personally, I would feel that increasing base HP by 50%, and doubling how much armor everything (player and NPCs) has will fix the how fast things die. To be very clear, I am not necessarily saying that the game is objectively easier because NPCs can burst as hard as you, but the player has a huge advantage in knowing what to do considering the situation. So if HP and/or armor are buffed, this element can be remedied.

@Baardvark:

I tested two variants of your mod, both on tactitian: Moderate Scaling and DnD scaling. I finished Reaper´s Coast with the later.

Before going into the feedback proper, I have to thank you for your mod, it made the game much more enyoable.

Unfurtunatly I lost all my old saves a couple of days ago, so I cannot provide them (or at least load them up to give you accurate numbers). I used Penetrating Debuffs as well, so I cannot give you a clean feedback.
That beeing said, DnD scaling works perfectly fine but I have to agree that things (including the player) die pretty fast. This is especially true for physical damage or encounters where the AI has a "fixed" first turn.
A good example for this was the fight with the eternal at the end of midnight oil: If I remember correctly I did the fight at Level 16 and she basically one-shoted (or at least stunned) most of my party on her first turn. I had to split up my party, only one activating the device.

TL;DR: I second the suggestion buffing armor values on the low scaling variants.

Edit: It was pointed out that the aforementioned encounter isn´t fixed, but due to high initiative it is likely the AI goes first.

The eternal's turn isn't exactly "fixed", she just has 46 initiative on tactician if I remember correctly, I was able to act before her on my lone wolf mage, for none lone wolf chars it might also be possible with a lot of initiative gear and clear mind spell, and then maybe you can do a blessed smoke cover to invis your entire team.

There are enemies with up to 56 initiative on reaper's coast but almost all of them follow the rules, the only exception I found is the wolf abomination who ignores initiative and always gets a free turn, which is probably a bug.

The wolf is a bug. My 20+ wit ranger go first before him.

But anyway. I reached end game and it feel super super boring. I don't even bother to buy new gears.

Stat bloat does kill this game enjoyment. Most of crap or scrolls you pick up a long the way? You'll never use it. It sound stupid but when skill book is fully available from the start, it kill the need to save scroll for hard battle.

Thanks for pointing out, edited my post.

Point still stands. The fight is manageable if you prepar for it via postioning or blocking LoS, buffing etc. I usually try to avoid things like this as I consider them cheesy. I am strange in that regard

DnD scaling therefore could use a slight increase in armor values for PCs and NPCs.

I tweaked Baarvark's mod (loose version, editing Data.txt) to have 100 starting vit and +2% scaling per level (no flat scaling). End result is very nice since it avoids the granularity issue (due to how damage scaling is rounded up, it makes runes imbalanced, creating weapons with 6-7 physical damage and 4 modifiers with 2-3 damage, as an example), and the scaling is slow and steady, you don't have to replace gear every level just to keep up with damage/armor scaling, instead every 4-5 levels you start feeling the need to upgrade. I also changed magic damage ability scaling to 6% and warfare to 4%. It really hit the sweet spot for me balance wise.

Came here to share my experience too with the DnD version.

Fighting enemies that are my level fell the same as the vanilla version, I normally shutdown targets physical armor with one shot in tactician, mosquito swarm is an example, and some minor damage to the HP, trying this with the same enemy, but, using the mod, its like the same overall, but, they damage fells "fair" while they just shut me down in one turn, for example the bone golems from a Bloodmoon island fight, they have trouble with DnD version, they did have to give some 1 or 2 shots more to kill me, this gives me window to use some tricks to run or evade attacks, mostly because enemies don't have an optimized build, like us, you can examine them to see this, this gives me window to use some unusual builds and hybrids, this increase my difficult and give me something different and fun to use, not just 10 in all but 70 in int. This mod truly shiny while I fight thing that are level high or low, in vanilla, fighting low level enemies fells boring, a level 16 solo without lone wolf can easy win fights against enemies level 15 and low, in DnD they can still react and give me some trouble, so I have to put some nices strats in use, this fells fun, fighting high level enemies is fun too, they dont give me that stupid unfair damage, a level 20 is so superior to a level 19 or 18 in vanilla, in DnD this is more about strat.

Sorry if i did burn yours eyes with my google translate english XD

Gear progression is completely broken, it feels like Borderlands or early D3.

Talk to Brevik and some of the Path of Exile devs to gain from their knowledge of gear progression in *rpgs.

why do you think it's broken?

NOTE: I did post this on a previous thread. Unfortunately a childish fight broke out and I doubt anyone from Larian will tolerate reading it. My reason for my re-posting is to ensure someone at Larian gets my feedback in how disappointed I am with the stat inflation and leveling up feels more like 10 level ups happening. Please disregard if you've already read my comments as this is NOT intended to be S.P.A.M. Thank you.

The leveling in this game is too restrictive and really cripples the ability of doing things out of a specific order. It is also why I decided to STOP supporting Larian in further kickstarters...as they've strayed too far from what I used to like about them.

In Sword of Lies, leveling up wasn't as huge of a deal. I was able to really do things out of order in a big time way after the first act and before the last act. Every time I play that game, I can do a different path to being a guard for Janus.

Doing what I can do in Sword of Lies (or Divine Divinity) is next to impossible in this game as the enemies are too over powered. I'd have to see major changes in the game fixes for me to want to come back and start from act one... again.

In DOS:1, I bitched heavily on this. Larian did very little to repair this issue.
In DOS:2, Larian totally disregarded everything and gave me a big middle finger to my suggestions.

I haven't gotten very far in DOS:2 as it just pissed me off so much. I got to a boss in a cave that when released from a coffin she summoned these ice wolves that just destroyed my party. After hours of trying to kill the boss, I did. I went to the NPC that gave me the quest, he started a fight and I killed him without coming near to death. It was an NPC in a mansion in a cemetery. Fought him down in the basement.

The balance of bosses was too problematic for me to want to tolerate any further.

And about the leveling thing, advancing one level shouldn't feel like advancing 10. That compounds an already unbalanced boss system.

701 views on the thread you’ve dismissed with such insipid and uninspired pomposity – if one is going to up one’s own rectum about matters, at least do so with some wit.

Everyone in Larian’s reading the thread you’ve mentioned. Because it’s great craic, unlike the generic anal belches I’ve had to read above from yourself.

They love a few auld bants, and that’s all the melodramatically labelled ‘fight’ was about (haven’t been out much, have we?). I have a right to the big words, by the way – they already made my request for durability removal a ‘thing’ (I was the one that started that). What have you influenced, exactly? Besides my utmost contempt, you garbling snob.

If you’re going to vomit condemnations of ‘childishness’, then at least have some self-awareness about you, because you come off as a breathless ten year old with a stick up his ass. More KnobJockey than LightningLockey, you're out your depth on this one, little man.

You can do things out of order. But if you run into enemies that are tougher than you, you get your behind kicked.

Very much like in school. If you are a third grade student, it is next to sucide to try and beat up the school bully from 8th grade.
And once you are 8th grade it's a doddle to beat up the little kids.

By your writings, I suspect you like a different type of games. Why do you not play them instead?

@ LightningLockey: the item progression is one of the several factors for game difficulty. It puts you under pressure to search and look. You are very pleased about new stuff but you also cannot build a love for your shiny legendary found once. Ok. You can do it this way or that as game designer, you can like one way and dislike the other, but in my opinion the game is designed around the constant task to equip. If you don't like it you can use a mod. That's the great advantage of moddable games, most people can be satisfied to a certain degree.

@ smokey: I can only speak for myself but I would be very glad if you could put your grim insults and boasting, seemingly signs of a personal war with someone, into a personal message, as your post contains nothing ad rem.

Please use the report button for stuff like this: unfortunately the moderators don't always see everything. Any action at this point would be rather belated but some people shouldn't need to be reminded to play nice.

You are correct, but I usually would not report people (never actually did) but apply to their insight.

A noble endeavour, but that approach doesn't always work, especially when there's a history of similar occurrences, so we'd like to stay informed. Anyway, point made, so back to the scheduled programme...

Hiya. Pro tip on preaching about provocation – don’t command someone not to ‘provoke’ if all you’ve got is provocative lingo yourself. Your melodramatic salvos don’t help your case. Vitriolic exchanges on these forums are no more unusual, and certainly no more ‘personal’, than the explosions present on all online formats, from youtube to the average comments section on any news site.

You act like you’ve never read any disagreement online. Stop snowflaking out on me – it's whinging, whiny, withering, wimpy. The flippant crassness and holier-than-thou pomposity of LightingLockey was simply met with an equivalent dash of poison – I’m just more articulate about it than he is.

If either of you had any wits about ‘keeping the peace’, you wouldn’t actively pursue its opposite by referencing topics/people who were involved in disagreements in which you had no involvement yourselves. In doing so, at the very least you’re going to reignite flames that had already died out – why would either of you think that it’s a smart idea to preach and lecture, especially when the ‘debate’ had nothing to do with either of you?

A disagreement happened and then died out. Let the fucking thing stay dead by staying quiet. You were not involved. That’s a bit of wisdom you should both take with you in all walks of life – do not poke your nose in matters that were no concern of yours, and you won’t find yourselves with shit up your nostrils as a result.

Lastly, I could not give a damn about being barred, reported or otherwise prevented from commenting on these forums – in fact, do us a favour, anyone with admin powers, and please go ahead and cancel my account. It would save me from having to read and reply to this crap in future.

The ‘boast’ you perceived is a wildly subjective label born of your own imagination and insecurities. Why even mention something like that, unless again your intention is to provoke? One of my ideas was taken on board by Larian. So what? If you think they’re the only company to okay one of my ideas, you’d be mistaken – and I get paid a lot more money by the others who like what I have to say. So I couldn't care less whether it's acknowledged or not.

Just leave it be. There's nothing to gain from antagonising anyone on these forums. I never – NOT ONCE – antagonised anyone on these forums – it was always some gobshite antagonising me, resulting in a return shot. Don't be that idiot. And I won't make you feel like one as a result.

Then please don't bring it back to life.

I'll decide on whether to act on your request later, but in the meantime, that's enough, whether on this thread or elsewhere. Either play nice or go and play somewhere else.

I didn’t bring it back to life – the user named geala brought it back to life: have you completely missed the point of the above, or did it go over your head?

It didn’t, obviously. You’re just being selective about the facts, because you’ve decided your support is for the provocateur, for whatever reasons.

I have no interest in these inane cyber fist fights – but it’s clear they’re part and parcel of today’s ‘fight logic with acid’ mentality when it comes to online forums of any kind.

I have only ever proposed ‘ideas’ for improving the game on these forums – I have literally done nothing else, if you examine the history of my exchanges here. Ideas are born to be dismantled – no one is ‘right’, no one is ‘wrong’. But I expect intelligent debate to be neutral, impersonal and objective. Makes sense, yeah?

I can appreciate a well-structured counterargument. But instead, when someone disagrees with you online, and they don’t have the wits to form an intelligent counterargument, they resort to vitriol – to slander, basically.

Thing about me is that I don’t back down from a fight. If someone’s too stupid to counter my arguments with grey matter, they’ll resort to insults and fists – the lowest levels of competitive interaction. I’m used to that, and I’ll meet stupid with stupid, if that’s how it has to be. I never lose. Fist fights – I always win. Stupid ass name-calling fights? I always win.

I don’t endorse this behaviour. I’d love for the world to be full of highly intelligent people, none of whom agree on anything whatsoever. To agree is too be the same – in other words, to be dull. I love listening to a clever counterargument. All of my best friends are great at telling me I’m wrong without being provocative in their lingo.

Your forums currently don’t encourage healthy counterarguments. Ban me if you like – I couldn’t give a fuck either way.

My only interest is keeping some semblance of civility here. I don't care who started it: I'm telling you and everybody else involved to stop the bickering. As it is, we very rarely ban people from these forums; we will if necessary, but I would rather everyone just conducted themselves in a civil manner. If you want fighting and posturing, please do it somewhere else. This isn't up for debate so kindly stop quibbling about it.

I’m telling you if you read anything I’ve ever written, I’ve no interest in ‘bickering’!!! Stop god damned labelling me incorrectly.

I’m deadly serious.

‘Leave it’.

It means precisely that – just let it go.

Ignore, and we all win. Call me something I’m not, and you lose.

I could say many negative things about you, but I don't. You're the only one slinging shit.

Stop doing that!

Let. It. Go.

Move on from the crap. I am not trying to gain the 'upper hand'. Think about it.

Ignore.

Don't provoke.

Enjoy your life.

But if you patronise me, I will respond in kind... All right? Just ignore it. This is not worth the energy we're expending here. Walk away. I'm walking away, all right? Never said I'm right, never said you're wrong.

Let's all just walk the fuck away. Seriously.

I'm closing this topic as I'm not sure it's salvageable at this point. Please feel free to start a new one but let's move on from this sort of unpleasantness.