Larian Studios
Posted By: Luckmann Issues as according to me - 25/09/17 09:28 PM
This is a compilation of my thoughts on a range of topics, originally prompted by the thread on the RPG Codex and the request by Kevin at Larian for feedback. Since this was originally written by me on the RPG Codex, I will not primarily be monitoring this thread, but rather my original post there. However, I'd like to implore Larian to actually trudge through said thread, since it is in the nature of the 'dex to pick apart and analyze even the smallest flaws, even on the things we love, but also to relentlessly dump on the unacceptable. If you can get past the coarseness, it is a gold-mine of feedback and suggestions.

These are my thoughts regarding some of the issues discussed, why they're issues (when not obvious), and thoughts on what can be done about it. I'm just listing these based on the small list of suggested issues mentioned earlier in the thread, and while other things have been discussed, most other issues have been simple matters of taste, or things that are literally unfixable at a fundamental level (there is no way to get the money back that was spent on voice acting, anyway). These vary greatly in their size and relevance, as will commentary on them. Some are minor, and some are really major in how they affect the game.

There are also very specific issues in the game, such as how specifically Necromancy seems to have been somewhat shafted, or how incredibly fucking broken Bone Widow is, how oil surfaces penetrate anything but completely non-magical fire surfaces somehow target magic armor, or the apparent tendency towards massive over-compensation, will not be addressed. They're simply too specific and this would quickly simply devolve into a laundry-list of unconstructive bitching, like a list of unforgivable grievances straight out of the book of grudges. It's an imperfect world. The intent of this episode of "Issues as according to me" is to examine things that are actually fixable or discuss things that are systemic in nature. Not every single flaw in the game, big or small.

I do this, as stated, because I feel it necessary to do so, lest bitching remain simple bitching. I genuinely enjoy most of D:OS2, I absolutely adored D:OS1 and think it was one of the best co-op experiences I've ever had in a game, and while I doubt that D:OS2 will reach that same level simply because it seems to be based a lot less around the idea of co-op (I will forever lament the fact that there appears to be no points of contention or places in the game where there's an exchange between player characters on what to do next, and that the contentious resolution system (Rock–paper–scissors), however silly it may have been, is gone forever; it was a nice piece of shared storytelling, whereas now the focus appears to be on an individual story that you just happen to share).

There's really no way to TLDR this.
  • The AI behaving retarded at times, for no discernible reason.

This one is actually quite minor, but frustrating, because it is so consistent. By far the most common issue is that enemies often tries to run away from players with Opportunist, suffers an Attack of Opportunity, lose AP, and proceeds to commence the attack they were seemingly planning all along - often a touch-attack spell or even a melee attack. Neither of which they would've needed to move for to begin with. And this happens a lot. Sometimes, they break away from someone with Opportunist, only to run to someone else (that may also have opportunist) and attack them - then, the next turn, they break away from the character they are now engaged with, suffer an Attack of Opportunity, and runs back to the one they first ran away from. Sometimes this happens even over environmental effects.

Now, someone might argue that "the AI doesn't know that you have Opportunist, nor should they!" - and that's a fair point, and one I happen to agree with, but it is already an established fact in D:OS2 that the enemies are psychic, as evidenced by their use of everything against Glass Cannons, or how they immediately target undeads with healing spells. I personally believe that the AI should treat all opponents equally unless they have cause to do otherwise, meaning that until they know that someone is undead, they won't target you with healing spells, and until they know that you seem to have no armor at all, they should treat you as if you do, and if someone runs away from an Opportunist and immediately suffer an Attack of Opportunity, everyone involved should know that that man does Attacks of Opportunity, and stop trying to run away and get pelted again-and-again.

It's absolutely jaw-dropping. In many, many ways, the AI is actually fairly clever, and sometimes (but rarely) they do very clever things - although this is somewhat restricted by another issue that will be discussed later. While there's been a lot of discussion about these AI issues, make no mistake that the AI is a lot better than it was in D:OS1. Sometimes, the enemies even use barrels or multi-stage setups, and sometimes they even try to cleanse themselves of effects. All of this is well and good, but this also means that when the AI does something stupid, it really stands out, and it stands out every time. The AI can - provided that they are considerably outnumbering the player - move things around and set up smart tactics at the end of one turn, only to have another AI-controlled creature literally run around in circles at the beginning of the next round.

Since everything that has to do with the AI is fairly esoteric, I cannot fathom why this is, or what can be done about it, but, fundamentally, the AI should be reluctant to move away from someone with Opportunist, and they should be similarly reluctant to move on dangerous surfaces. In D:OS1, this wasn't a problem, and the AI had no trouble avoiding running around on dangerous surfaces. Therefore, I have a suspicion that this has something to do with the armor system, and I have consistently seen enemies with very little magic armor run straight into blazing infernos, only to - of course - catch fire two steps in. At the same time, the AI being able to tell exactly how much damage moving a certain distance in dangerous terrain would cause them would be equally silly - just like the psychic nature of enemies in regards to the nature of the various allied characters (undead, glass cannons, etc).

And for all that is holy, tell the AI to stop trying to run away just to get a set distance away from you before they engage you in melee or casts a touch spell. I suspect that this is due to some order that they have to get in range, with "in range" defined as the maximum distance of whatever they're trying to do, and they're ignoring the fact that they are already close enough. I'm probably wrong, because it seems too simple, but that's the impression I have of what they're doing. I've seen enemies die to this on multiple occasions, and it's.. I don't want to sound entitled, but they really shouldn't be doing that; it's simply unacceptable. And I don't mean that as some kind of childish demand from my side, I'm saying that you, Larian, must agree with me, from your own point of view, that an enemy literally killing itself in front of me instead of attacking is unacceptable.
  • The laughably bad defensive abilities.

Another issue that I have a feeling can largely be chalked up to the binary armor system, because they seem to exist on some kind of principle, but are essentially vestigial since the binary armor system rendered the original defensive abilities meaningless or non-functional. The new ones, however, in what appears to have been an inability to conceive of new defensive abilities to match the new combat format of binary armor and outcomes, aren't just conceptually lackluster, they're simply bad. Now, I won't pretend like the defensive abilities of D:OS1 were amazing, or that the system was some perfect gem, or that I ever put a ton of points into any of those, but they all had a purpose and while a min/maxer might argue that they were a waste of points, it was never a complete loss to invest in them, and again, they still interacted with the overall system in a meaningful fashion.

Defense abilities in D:OS2, however? Can they really say the same? Leadership didn't even use to be a Defense Ability, but seems to have been moved under that header in an attempt to salvage the category. What's worse, the bonuses aren't necessarily bad, a bonus to dodge and a bonus to resistances, but at the same time, the range is restricted to 5 meters. 5 meters. That's practically "melee combat only" in D:OS2, but for whatever reason, Leadership is an "ability" Conjurers start with. A min/maxer might argue that you can move those points around - and you should, absolutely, because Summoning is the only ability that has a capstone reward at 10 points (which is a bad idea for many reasons, but that's another discussion entirely) - but from a design perspective, the preset is encouraging the use of an ability set (or, as I would call it, skillset) that will practically see no use.

Perseverance is even worse, conceptually, but only because the armor system is bad, and Perseverance has the potential to take it from "bad" to "borderline psychotic". But more so than that, Perseverance is simply bad. It allows you to restore Magic Armor after recovering from Frozen or Stunned, and Physical Armor after being Knocked Down or (for some seemingly arbitrary reason) Petrified (which does Earth damage, targeting magic). The only one out of those that happen consistently is Knocked Down, and at best it gives you a small breather from being affected by the same thing(s) again, but unless you're facing tons of enemies, it is unlikely that armor will actually remain long enough to matter, and if you are facing tons of enemies, it will be stripped anyway. Perseverance appears to be an attempt at create a relevant defensive ability in the context of the binary armor system, in lieu of other potential abilities that can boost defenses, but because of how the armor system functions (i.e. there are no other defenses), there is no way to properly balance this or make it relevant enough to matter within this context.

Even in a best-case scenario, it's extremely situational, and if you invest enough for it to even matter in those scenarios (so, 10 points for 50% restoration) you've irrevocably shot yourself in the foot. It would surely be fun when it does trigger, but by the time it does, you could've done something useful.

Now Retribution. Now we're really deep into the barrel of uninspiring, lackluster and useless. This thing deserves some kind of reward for it's uselessness and just how ill-fitted it is for this kind of game. A retribution-based ability is something you'd expect to see in a run-of-the-mill ARPG, and in such a game, it might even be useful - to an extent. But to have it in D:OS2 is just.. weird. And the ability is terrible. Not just in the applicable sense, as in it likely being the single most worthless place you can waste a point, with little-to-no battlefield application, but also conceptually, in a mechanical sense.

The reasons for this is actually quite simple. It is terrible as a choice for the player because it is entirely reactive, and completely dependent on the damage the enemy does to you. With 1 point in it, you take 100 damage, and you'll reflect 5 damage. The thing is, though, even with 10 points wasted into it, you'll "only" be reflecting 50% of the damage done to you against your enemies. And when has an opponent ever done damage anywhere even comparable to his health pool relative to yours?

Keep in mind that this is also in a game completely without defensive abilities beyond these three, and if you were to put those 10 points into, say, Single-Handed, you'd instead have +50% Damage and +50% Accuracy with one-handed melee weapons. Nothing that wouldn't absolutely destroy you will even react to the fact that you reflect 50% of the damage it does to you, and it certainly would not compete with a consistent +50% damage (and Accuracy!) that a weapon ability would net you regardless of whether the enemy is attacking your or not (such as being under Crowd Control).

However, even if Retribution would be buffed to 200% in returned and you had the defenses of a god, simply standing there until the enemies kill themselves by hitting you, it would still be conceptually ruinous, because you'd be committing one of the biggest sins in design that you can commit: you'd be rewarding the player.. for doing nothing. Just stand there, soak it up, and have the enemies kill themselves. In a turn-based, ostensibly tactical, role-playing game.

There's no way to actually save this ability. It should never have existed, and it should simply be removed. It's not just bad, it's conceptually and mechanically unforgivable.

I honestly cannot understand who thought that was a good idea, or good design, or how they even thought it could be useful. It deserves it's own little special layer of hell.
(Also, a completely separate issue, let me state for the record my enduring hatred of the D:OS franchises cemented tendency to systematically and categorically conflate the terms "skills" and "abilities" in a way no other game I have ever played does - "Skills" and "Abilities" are, everywhere outside of Belgium, apparently, the other way around. This messes considerably with my ability to uphold consistent terminology.)

  • The near-meaningless attributes and the slaughter of complexity & depth.

Now, I'm not going to pretend like D:OS1 didn't have any balance issues. That would just be silly. We all know it did. It was generally easy to simply pump one Attribute, maybe two, and that was it, and due to some other issues, largely absent in D:OS2 due to other changes, stacking modifiers to AP and Initiative was king - move first, move hard, and then move again.

But look at this. And then compare it to this.

It's depressing! It's downright pathetic! It's jaw-dropping how an attribute system can become so watered down and so simplified that it almost has no meaning or point to it's existence. This is Diablo 3-levels of oversimplification and dumbing down, with the exception that we pretend like there's any meaningful choice remaining, by still allowing the player to place their points.

"You are playing an X-type character. Do you want +5% damage to X, +5% damage to Y, +Health, or +1% Critical Chance? Or do you want to pay this Attribute Tax so you can have more skills?"

While there are more major concrete issues in the game, this thing is probably the one that makes me the most depressed, because it shows such a clear decline in meaningfulness, build versatility, and system complexity. It is really on a point where I feel that you might as well remove Attributes as a concept altogether, and simply apply +5% damage to the character, a health boost, and an increase in critical chance on a per-level basis, because none of this ultimately constitutes a meaningful choice; it's entirely and painfully obvious from the creation of your character to the end of the game where you'll be placing you points, and the near-obligatory points you practically have to put into Memory doesn't change that, but is rather to be considered a form of cheap attribute point taxation in order for you to be allowed to use more skills - not that you have to have that many skills, due to other issues in the game, since action points are very limited, cooldowns short and crowd control shorter.

I really don't know what else to say about this, and there's no simple way to fix this. The attributes need to do different things in different ways, and with so many parts of the game cut into in terms of depth, with no saves or resistances (beyond pure damage), straight-jacketed action points, and completely normalized ranges across the entire field for weapons (13 meters, I believe, whether we're talking crossbow, bow or wand), it's hard to determine what the attributes should actually do.

A lot of these changes shouldn't have gone in to begin with, especially not if they affect the core character mechanics in such a way that you eventually come to the final conclusion that "Oh, wait, what are these attributes supposed to do now that we've stripped out all the subsystems?". Someone might argue that it's "balanced", but balance for the sake of balance itself has no inherent value. Balance is only needed in the sense that too obvious options are stripped out to avoid one-trick-ponies or abuse, and forcing the player to think and adapt, deriving pleasure from outwitting or outsmarting the opponent or the system, strategically or tactically, but here, it has clearly come at the cost of meaningful player agency in terms of attribute distribution and build versatility - the very things that the concept of balancing is intended to support, because if it's not that, then what point is there to it?
  • The rollercoaster-ride of Talents.

Oh man. Should I take Five-Star Diner or Duck Duck Goose? Should I take Escapist or Executioner? Should I take Ambidextrous or Far Out Man? Should I take Elemental Ranger or Guerilla?

All of these questions are rhetorical. Some Talents are extremely powerful. Others are almost completely useless. To add insult to injury, some completely beneficial, while others constitute trade-offs. Escapist is based around the concept of actually losing a battle and fleeing, Five-Star Diner doubles the bonuses of food, but the issue with food was never the bonuses it gives, but the duration which it lasts, and why on Earth would anyone waste four Action Points to go into Stealth in order to do 40% extra damage? Either you spend 6 Action Points to do 140% damage, or you spend 6 Action Points to actually attack 3 times to do 300%.

Why do Ice King and Demon come with trade-offs in the way they do? If it trades 15% for 15%, the only real benefit is the +10% to a single resistance cap, which you'll be hard pressed to reach and that matters a hell of a lot less in a game where the armor system negates magic damage for a while anyway.

Why does Leech completely consume blood on the ground, when Undead don't consume ooze/poison? Is it just to make it incompatible with the single most thematically fitting combination you could do when you play a Leech, which would be that of a Nercomancer with the Blood Sucker skill?

Why are Slingshot and Far Out Man separate talents, when they essentially do the same thing conceptually?

Why does Ambidextrous have absolutely nothing to do with actually being ambidextrous or duel-wielding, and do you actually expect people to invest a talent in the concept of leaving their one hand completely free (foregoing both the more powerful bonuses of two-handers and the dual bonuses of having a secondary weapon or a shield)?

Why are The Pawn and Executioner mutually exclusive? Are you really so deathly afraid of people saving even a single extra AP and being able to kill someone? It's not an amazingly powerful combo, even.

So many questions. The Talents are a mess, ranging from amazing to questionable to functionally worthless. And what's worse is that this was true already in D:OS1, but it has somehow gotten even worse, with many talents removed or nerfed - some of them because the subsystems sadly no longer exists to support them (Courageous, Voluble Mage, Headstrong, Lightning Rod, Sidewinder, etc.) and others seemingly arbitrarily and without reason (Packmule, Sidewinder, Swift-Footed, Thick Skin, Anaconda, etc.).

What's left is a small number of Talents that vary wildly in usefulness, and are almost all universally applicable, with very little effect on actual build or character, with a few exceptions (Opportunist is obviously for warrior-type characters, etc.).

The solution here is both complex and very simple. First of all, if some things are changed for the better, such as the current armor system, the return of flanking, etc., many of the old Talents could easy be recreated and reinstated. But also, some Talents simply need to be buffed, or have the trade-offs removed from them, to actually make them solid choices. Other talents could be merged together, such as Far Out Man and Slingshot.

There's no reason I should go through all the potential fixes and things that could be done to each individual Talent, it should be fairly evident in each case. And for fucks sake, stop having Leech such the blood from the ground so you can actually use it with Blood Sucker (which should remove the blood from the ground).
  • Binarity of outcomes, predictability, and the armor system.

I'm unsure of where to even get started on this one. D:OS2 uses a binary system with two different types of armor, each of which determines whether something does damage to Vitality or not, and whether an effect of practically any type works or not, whether it's Taunt, Burning, Charm or Frozen.

First of all, it's completely unintuitive. You launch a big rock and throw it at the enemy? It targets magic armor and is absorbed by it, and only does damage to it, not to physical armor at all. You scream at someone and call 'em a cunt, trying to use Taunt on them? It literally bounces right off the shield, targeting physical armor. You launch a fireball? Magic armor. You throw a physical barrel of oil on someone and then throw a physical molotov cocktail on the barrel, creating a burning inferno? Soaked up by magic armor, and enemies can pass over it with little difficulty, without catching fire.

But that giant boulder you launched at the enemy, which was completely soaked up by magic armor? It spread oil on the ground, imposing the slowing condition, which automagically pierces all forms of armor, both magic and physical.

But the fact that it is unintuitive and feels arbitrary (which it isn't, it's actually completely consistent) is actually completely secondary. What it does is that it leads to a completely predictable combat system on any given turn. You know, with 100% certainty, whether something will work or not. There is absolutely zero ambiguity to it. Do they have armor? Your effects will fail. Do they not have armor? Your affects will succeed.

Any feeling of suspense is removed, and any risk taken with practically any action, making your actions in any one turn likely a given, without any considerations, hail mary's, or surprising turn of events. Simply put, the armor system completely negates any element of the Delta of Randomness. This is terrible design in itself, because that delta of randomness is one of the staples, I would say fundamentals of good turn-based gameplay, and the armor system breaks this completely on a systemic, tactical level.

So how can it be resolved? Short of reworking the entirety of the game and reinstate a save- or resistance-based system, there's not a whole lot that can be done. If absolutely determined to maintain the armor system at it's core in how it works right now, several things would have to change.

First of all, the intuitive nature of the system is more important than consistency. Whether something targets physical resistance/armor or targets magical resistance/armor should be determined by the nature of the spell or skill or item used, not by the damage type or the condition it imposes. A rock should target physical resistance/armor. A fireball should target magic resistance/armor. A molotov should target physical resistance/armor. And a lot of things - such as most surfaces or Taunt, should not stoppable by armor at all. The ability to resist them should either be by a flat percentage, or modified by something else entirely, such as Wits, or mental or magical resistances.

Furthermore, rather than having a system in which armor either completely blocks something or does nothing at all to block anything, the protection garnered could be a percentage based off remaining armor. If you have 100% magic armor, you could have a 90% chance to resist most spells or magic-based effects, as well as the magic armor soaking 90% of all magic damage, meaning the spell would only do 10% of it's damage to vitality.

At a theoretical 0%, the chance to resist would inversely be a mere 10%, and the spell would do full damage to vitality (since the armor is now completely gone).

While I would consider this approach imperfect, it would be a way to keep using the currently existing sub-systems and itemization and so forth, while constituting a considerable improvement upon the nature of combat resolution and the tactical layer of the game, which right now - for all practical intents and purposes - simply do not exist.
  • The Round-Robin Turn Orders.

This thing right here. I've pointed it out to multiple paste-eaters, and despite the very obvious and major issues, they simply hadn't noticed. It boggles the mind. And once you see it, it cannot be unseen. Most people assume that Initiative has a meaning in the game. They assume that it works like initiative usually works. They assume that the rounds in D:OS2 are operating on an initiative-based system.

I mean, it has to, right? I mean, if Initiative doesn't matter, then the mechanical benefit of Wits would be reduced to a mere +1% critical chance, the +2 initiative benefit for being human wouldn't matter, and all those initiative modifiers on items and equipment would be irrelevant? Surely, initiative must matter in a tangible fashion?

But it doesn't. D:OS2 operates on a round-robin turn system, where the only thing initiative determines is who goes first within a given group. And it is, hands down, the absolutely worst aspect of the entire game, and the single most indefensible design decision. To understand the issue, you must understand the implications of this, and to do that, you must understand how it works.

In D:OS2, allies & enemies always alternate their turns throughout a round. No matter who has the highest initiative, the opponent of that person will go second, followed by an ally, and then an opponent. Regardless of actual initiative scores. Let me give you an example:

Let's say your party of 4 has an initiative of 10, 11, 12, and 13 respectively. You are meeting a group of 8 enemies that all have an initiative of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. So, markedly lower than even the lowest one in your party.

You will move in this fashion, bar any special circumstance (such as summons):

You (13 Initiative)
Them (8 Initiative)
You (12 Initiative)
Them (7 Initiative)
You (11 Initiative)
Them (6 Initiative)
You (10 Initiative)
Them (5 Initiative)
Them (4 Initiative)
Them (3 Initiative)
Them (2 Initiative)
Them (1 Initiative)

Now, that alone should be enough to make you raise your eyebrows and go "Wait, that's retarded!", but the issues with it goes far beyond that.

First of all, this completely invalidates Initiative as a relevant secondary attribute. That +2 Initiative humans get? Completely irrelevant. Wits? Neutered; it effectively only gets +1% critical hit chance, and the only reason you'd take it is because you maxed out either Strength or Finesse, or to find secrets, which only one character in the party needs to do - presumably the one that you want to move first in the turn order and use to initiate combat.

All those items with +Initiative? Useless. You used a Bucket for a helmet for much of the initial stages of the game? Makes perfect sense, because -Initiative literally does not matter, especially if you are the one to initiate combat anyway.

But these issues are secondary or even tertiary to the effect it has on the strategic layer of the game, the layer beyond the actions of a single individual character (so brutally savaged by the aforementioned armor system). The execution of plans and the evolution of the combat landscape during the course of a single round is essentially non-existent, and it affects both the player and the AI.

Because of the round-robin turn-orders rather than an initiative-based system, the battlefield is a constantly changing landscape, to the point where it's hard to actually determine what is going on, or make any plans.

A common concept that I would consider foundational to the very concept of turn-based as an enjoyable way to play out key resolution mechanics is the ability to think ahead and act upon the perceived development of the landscape as it is (and by landscape, I don't just mean environment, I mean it in the widest possible meaning of the word).

In D:OS2, that's simply absent. Or at least it seems to have been lost as a key source of enjoyment, because it is practically impossible to plan ahead, because a single turn later, the landscape may be completely different than from when you ended your previous turn. And then it changes during your turn, but is immediately undone the next.

Furthermore, you may not even WANT to put down water (just as an example) because the next turn, there's a guarantee that no-one in your party will be the one taking action, so you might actually be shooting yourself in the foot - but there's no way for you to know if you are.

You don't want to throw out a barrel, because there's almost a guarantee that it will blow up in your face - if there's even barrels around at that point (which is a big difference from D:OS1, where barrels sometimes would not even get used in combat, or simply not get hit by environmental or AoE effects, which is almost a guarantee in D:OS2).

And this goes both ways. The AI doesn't want to do these things either - unless there's a significant number of enemies, meaning that they do get to do several consecutive turns at the end of the round. The end result is that the idea of planning ahead or predicting the actions of your opponents are absent from the considerations in D:OS2 combat. The kind of set-ups that were so common and so integral to the enjoyment of the combat in D:OS1 is entirely absent in D:OS2, and combat in D:OS2 often devolves into "playing catch-up" and reactionary decisions on a turn-to-turn basis; and because of the armor system, the actions taken within those turns are entirely predictable and essentially binary, meaning that you know exactly what to do and what will happen at any one time within any given turn, removing any feeling of suspense or momentary hopefulness.

Before I got a chance to examine the game and notice the major issues with it, my SO was already all in planning-mode about how we should plan ourselves to be complimentary, and how if she was using fire magic, I should take something to use earth magic, so if I made some oil, she could set it on fire. But in D:OS2, that doesn't happen. What happens is that I throw oil, and the enemy either remove it or avoid it and set it on fire themselves. And this doesn't just affect the player - it affects the AI too. The AI has the capability to do these things, I see them do it, it's actually quite awesome. But if they were to (like me) throw out a barrel from somewhere in front of them, I'd drop it on their fucking faces the next turn.

The only time set-ups like this can be done reliable, to see a plan and see it take shape, to get that rush of "FUCK YEEAAAAH BURN YOU FUCKING CUNTS, YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING, NOW DID YOU?!" is when you're at the absolute end of the turn order in a little clump. And 99 times out of 100, that's just going to be the enemy in one of those fights where they come busting in from every direction at the drop of a hat as the BBEG twirls his mustache and goes "Hohoho, you didn't see this AMBUSH coming, did you?".

There are no moments of "YES!" or "Aaaah, noooo!" in D:OS2 that isn't caused entirely by your own fault, or that comes unexpected, and there is no enjoyment in the procession of consecutive turns because there is no way to fulfil even a short-term plan. And both of those things are absolutely essential to practically all turn-based systems.

But it doesn't end here. No. It gets worse. There's not only a de facto inability to plan and execute, further hampered by the randomness of the evolving landscape in any given encounter, but round-to-round, the turn order can be perceived as essentially random. "How can that be? Weren't you just saying that they're utterly predictable?!" you might ask.

Yes, yes I was, and they are - to a point. You won't be the one to do the next turn, but you might not know who will be taking that next turn. You can probably figure it out, but it's by no means intuitive or sensible. You see, the turn order I described earlier is mutable. After all, enemies can die, right?

And if you kill an enemy, you might expect them to be removed from the turn order, right? Well they are. But someone else will immediately take their place. This leads to the fun, fun, fun situation of you killing a weaker opponent towards the end of a round, and in the next round - which is coming right up - the much stronger opponent has now taken his place, meaning that he may be moving before, say, the 4th person in your party, whereas if that enemy that had just died previously would otherwise have been moving in his stead - and maybe he would've died this round instead, or maybe even on his own turn by being on fire. But because you killed an enemy last round, the turn order gets reshuffled, and the much stronger enemy gets to move instead, and he might kill your 4th party member before he even gets a chance to move.

This has created the situation where you as the player, by killing an opponent, actually ended up in a much worse position than you would otherwise have been in if you had left the enemy alive. Yes, this is an extreme example, but this is still something that happens all the time in the game, even if you obviously don't end up losing a party member every time it happens. However, the fact that you can regularly screw yourself this way is completely absurd; taking out an opponent should always be something positive, bar special, narrative circumstances - the default should never be for the player to question whether he ended up in a worse position or not, or if he should simply have ignored the enemy until next round, maybe simply skipping taking any action, despite being maxed out on action points.

But wait. There's more.

For simplicity's sake, imagine a scenario in which you are alone against two opponents, and for whatever reason, they both have higher initiative than you. It results in the following turn-order:

Enemy #1
You
Enemy #2

Soon, you'll kill an enemy. Who're you killing? It better not be Enemy #1, because then the following happens!

Enemy #1 takes his turn.
You take your turn, and you kill Enemy #1.
Enemy #2 takes his turn.
Enemy #2 takes another turn, because it is now a new round and Enemy #2 at the top of the turn order now, because Enemy #1 has died.

Again, the player has boned himself by killing the opponent, through no fault of his own. Had he instead killed Enemy #2, the result would've been different, without the enemy essentially getting a free turn.

But wait. There's more!

You summon something. The summon moves right after you. But then at the next turn, it gets shuffled into the round-robin turn order, meaning that one of your characters can be pushed back as much as three turns, suffering additional attacks that it would not otherwise have done.

Summoning an ally, presumably done to improve your situation, might end up screwing you completely, and there's really no way to tell beforehand. The system punished you for buffing. This becomes very obvious as a Summoner especially, since Totems are extremely weak, but get shuffled into the turn order too, so that "lump" of potential "overflow" opponents could end up picking them off one-by-one in a single round before they can even possibly act in that round.

But wait, there's mooooooooore!

Because all Initiative does is determine your in-group turn order, gaining initiative is potentially detrimental. Why? Because if the only benefit of Initiative is between the player's own party members, it means that if a party member actually gets "too high" initiative, it puts him above another party member, and it might be disadvantageous for him to do so - such as if someone with Fire Skills gets bumped above someone with Earth Skills, meaning that if you rely on (in the extent you can rely on it in D:OS2; this is really just for the purpose of explanation, I know full well that this doesn't really happen in D:OS2, because of the armor system and the round-robin turn orders) the latter laying out oil so that the former can set it on fire, you can't do that anymore.

Another example would be a warrior getting higher initiative than the buffer in a party where you rely on the tactic of buffing the warrior before he moves. In fact, I know that there are players that consider initiative purely a negative stat for their main character, because their main character is a summoner, and relies on others putting down environmental effects before he takes his turn.

Can similar situations arise in an initiative-based turn-order system? Yes, but it is a lot more manageable, because if two party members are close to eachother in initiative, they at least do not suffer from the fact that an enemy will forcibly be inserted between them, further exacerbating the issue, and if someone gets higher initiative, it is still a net benefit vs. the opponents themselves, on average.

So what can be done about this? It's actually quite simple. Simply flipping the switch and make the game Initiative-based would be a tremendous improvement, and I know that D:OS2 can handle it, because that is apparently how it used to be, and in fact the entire game already appears to be geared towards using an initiative-based turn-order system, as evidenced by the modifier humans get, the initiative bonus from Wits, and the many items and equipments in the game which supports the notion that initiative is intended to matter and is intended to be a positive modifier.

But while that would be a tremendous improvement, it wouldn't be perfect, because it would obviously mean going back to the issues that prompted the round-robin turn orders to begin with. The ideal solution, in my mind, would involve rebalancing encounters to avoid massive stacking of initiative as an end-all be-all viable tactic, as well as to add a per-round element of randomness that, despite constituting a random modifier, would not be so strong as to undo the benefits of getting a higher initiative.

While obviously completely untested, my suggestion would be to flip the aforementioned switch and thus go back to an initiative-based turn order, and then, round-by-round, modify every participant's initiative by +/- (essentially either add or withdraw) 1d[total initaitive/2].

What would this mean? It would mean that someone with an Initiative would have a per-round Initiative range of 5-15. Someone with 20 Initiative would have a per-round Initiative of 10-30. Notice how the average is always equal to your base initiative, meaning that if you have 13 initiative, during the course of all your rounds, you will average out at 13. Your initiative still matters just as much as it did before.

However, it also does not guarantee you to go first in any given round. But at the same time, each round in itself will play out predictably (turn-wise), and you will never be punished for taking out an opponent, you will never be punished for summoning, and you can prioritize targeting. Obviously, up to two or three rounds should be displayed to you, with the modifiers for each participant already determined, so you can actually tell who moves when - and, as opposed to as how it is now, rely on that information.

I can only hope that Larian listens. Especially on the last topic. Because currently, it's balls.
Posted By: Luckmann Re: Issues as according to me - 25/09/17 09:42 PM
I want to edit the formatting a little, but every time I do, I get a timeout. I'll see if it's fixable tomorrow, because it's late, I'm tired, and I dunno, the size of it might've broken something.
Posted By: vometia Re: Issues as according to me - 25/09/17 10:35 PM
Yeah, unfortunately there's a forum bug where very long posts will cause a timeout when edited and not update. Raze can sometimes do a work-around by temporarily disabling some stuff but at this point I'd just recommend starting a new topic and I can lock this one or delete it or something.


Edit: since it seems to have come to life you might want to try PMing Raze with an updated version of your OP and he may be able to change it. I'm afraid I don't have access to the relevant bits in order to do it myself.
Posted By: Stabbey Re: Issues as according to me - 25/09/17 10:55 PM
That is a very good post. I hope Larian reads it and thinks about it, because there's a lot of very good stuff in there.
Posted By: GreatGuardsman Re: Issues as according to me - 25/09/17 10:56 PM
This is a fantastic dissertation on a lot of the key issues currently plaguing D:OS2, and it was a great read. I really hope the developers take a solid look at what's been presented here and start acting on it; and I'm very glad you kept your topics to flaws that were obvious and clearly fixable by the developers.

It's also a heart-warming moment for me personally to see that there are still communities out there willing to criticize the things they love to see them improve; which is something all-too-lacking in this day and age. I can only pray that the devs take the time to appreciate detailed and clear feedback such as this.
Posted By: Ranik Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 01:11 AM
A very well thought out and explained post covering a lot of the same issues I worry about. Very good post Luckman, that must have been a while in making.

@Larian read this, and if you don't then the TL;DR is....

Attributes are too simplified, Initiative is utterly broken, Talents are all over the place and Defensive skills are absolutely awful.


I hope to see positive changes for some of the structural issues in DoS:II in whatever patches are coming our way. I hope these issues aren't just left for modders or DoS:II EE rolleyes
Posted By: taviow Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 03:41 AM
Solid, reasonable post. Especially concerning initiative and the armor system, in my opinion. Worth a read and I find it reasonable enough to be worthy of Larian reading it and discussing these matters internally to find out what, if any, solutions are applicable to each given case.
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 06:19 AM
Good post, but every single of those issues were criticized during Ea (except maybe the initiative) and nothing was achieved. That was when there was time and opportunity to change stuff before the game came out.

Why in the hell would they change anything now, they have better things to do. Like getting the console release ready.

So best to lock this thread up and just forget about it.



Originally Posted by vometia
Yeah, unfortunately there's a forum bug where very long posts will cause a timeout when edited and not update. Raze can sometimes do a work-around by temporarily disabling some stuff but at this point I'd just recommend starting a new topic and I can lock this one or delete it or something.


I would delete it, yes. Thats the best option.

Or lock it and then delete it. Even better.

Also ban Luckman for oppressing the innocent players of target audience and ruining their fun in playing this game as its meant to be played. By giting gud in cheese and exploits and spending majority of time farming the traders for better equipment.


Posted By: Baardvark Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 06:25 AM
I personally do not have nearly as much... enthusiasm for these issues, but I more or less agree with everything. Attributes are boring, the initiative system just doesn't work, the armor system is too binary, and the talents are indeed a bit of a crapshoot (though I do think they are on the whole still better than D:OS1). I don't find the defensive abilities nearly as terrible in concept as the OP, but they do feel rather halfbaked and simply undertuned. And yet, they are still somehow some of the more interesting abilities to choose from, if fairly bad in practice. I'd say nearly every single ability is fairly uninspired.

If I couldn't improve most of these things with mods, I'd definitely be a lot more disappointed. If there weren't so many cool skills, the gameplay would be pretty bland. Overall, most of the new systems feel like a step backward from D:OS1. I totally understand the move to simplify the AP system, and the armor system felt like the start of something awesome, but it seems like the attributes didn't survive the transition to the new AP system, and the armor system was never fleshed out out enough. The memory system broke the old abilities, and those never really recovered.

All the major design decisions make a lot of sense on paper, but in practice, things seem watered down. =/

My solutions to these grand problems:

Abilities should improve skills in their tree in interesting ways. Necromancy might increase the damage multiplier of Shackles of Pain and Decaying Touch, for example.

Attributes need more effects in general. I've advocated for attributes that are at least vaguely useful to every class, like in Pillars of Eternity.

Armor system needs nuance, either with a return of saving throws, or ways to increase armor penetration. For example, Necromancy could also increase the % of armor that Shackles of Pain or Decaying Touch could penetrate.

Initiative changes in OP sound interesting, would like to see that in action. Something like that could even be moddable if we had the old initiative system as a base.

Talents are more a set of smaller problems than some larger problem. I'll definitely be scripting new effects onto existing talents (for what it's worth, I think ambidextrous is a great concept, and it kind of makes sense. Try throwing a grenade with your non-dominant hand and see how quick and accurate you are, eh?)
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 07:40 AM
Ambidextrous means you are equally efficient in use of both hands, so there is no off hand there.
Therefore it should not demand one hand to be free to use anything "better".

If any talents has a penalty then it should give some big benefits. This one doesnt and it doesnt make any sense conceptually.


Quote
Abilities should improve skills in their tree in interesting ways. Necromancy might increase the damage multiplier of Shackles of Pain and Decaying Touch, for example.

Yup. Definitely.


Quote
Attributes need more effects in general. I've advocated for attributes that are at least vaguely useful to every class

Ditto.

Quote
Armor system needs nuance, either with a return of saving throws, or ways to increase armor penetration. For example, Necromancy could also increase the % of armor that Shackles of Pain or Decaying Touch could penetrate.

Yes, but for this to work armor system should be moded so reducing armor allows damage and effects to bleed through it. Easiest way of doing so is by %.

You already moded a lot of softer CC effects. Those should be added and would compliment this basic change.

Hard CC should be delegated to critical success, while Wits should be given a role of increasing these critical hit chances. While Con should prevent these criticals - so both become much more valuable and balance each other.

In addition to that investment into abilities (skills) should increase chances to score hard CC effects so a Pyro with 10 points can achieve hard CC more then Pyro with 3 points.

Therefore specialists would have some measure of advantage - reward for their specialization. While hybrids have versatility but are not left out of hard CC. (especially if they invest in Wits)

And builds with high Con would be less prone to hard Cc effects. Warriors would benefit from this the most - and that is as it should be, while other builds can also use it.

This would be good for the player and the enemies and combat in whole.

Quote
Initiative changes in OP sound interesting, would like to see that in action. Something like that could even be moddable if we had the old initiative system as a base.


Since it seems initiative is hard coded, maybe the right way to go about it is to give more benefits to Wits and the "initiative" so even if they cant change the turn order they add other benefits.

I suggest the above improvements.

VoidInsanity gave these:

Originally Posted by VoidInsanity
The current system is fine conceptually, the real problem is the lack of reward/incentive from having the better initiative since the game forces the other team to go after the best guy. There needs to be another reason to have high initiative outside of going first such as cooldown reduction, maximum AP, Recovery AP or similar. Could also make it so characters with higher initiative have a bonus vs characters with lower initiative such as a higher chance to hit/crit them, a lower chance to be hit/crit by them. Alternatively replace The Pawn with another effect and make that the effect of initiative instead, giving the higher initiative characters some free movement each turn. Lowest initiative gets zero bonus and everything higher gets free movement ap based on how much % higher they are. Example - Lowest initiative is 20, highest 40 and rest 30 the 30 initiatives get 1/2 an ap of free movement, the 40 1 full ap.



Posted By: Luckmann Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 01:29 PM
Originally Posted by Baardvark
Armor system needs nuance, either with a return of saving throws, or ways to increase armor penetration. For example, Necromancy could also increase the % of armor that Shackles of Pain or Decaying Touch could penetrate.
Personally, I think my favoured solution would be to have a single form of armor - physical armor - that stops most physical effects (which would include, for example, the giant boulders of Geomancy), and replace Magic Armor completely with a resistances+saves system.

The only issue with that is that it would require a lot of work to implement at this point, I think.

But I also think that it's a great idea to have skills have more varied effects from having points put into their abilities.

Originally Posted by Baardvark
Talents are more a set of smaller problems than some larger problem. I'll definitely be scripting new effects onto existing talents (for what it's worth, I think ambidextrous is a great concept, and it kind of makes sense. Try throwing a grenade with your non-dominant hand and see how quick and accurate you are, eh?)
I think Ambidextrous is a cool idea for a talent, I just don't think it's worth taking it, since you'll lose out on any and all bonuses you would've gained from putting something useful in your off-hand. I also think that it's an extremely odd choice as a name, because Ambidextrous means that I should be better at actually dual-wielding, but it has nothing to do with that.

I'd call it Fast Pockets or Quick Draw instead, and have it apply no matter how many weapons you happen to be wielding, or how. I'd then create a separate Talent to incentivize the use of duelist-style single-weapon fighting, such as "Duelist - Doubles the bonuses and modifiers of a single-handed weapon, but only as long as your off-hand is free. Also adds a 5-10% chance to parry enemy melee attacks" or something to that effect.

Personally, I really fucking love the concept of single-weapon duelists for some reason, but they always tend to be forgotten, whereas the near-absurd dual-wielding spiel is in every game. And Ambidextrous sure as hell isn't going to get me to sacrifice a whole equipment slot just to get the cost of scrolls and grenades down - grenades and scrolls that aren't even useful most of the time because of the round robin turn orders and the armor system.

But yeah, Talents are indeed a set of smaller issues, which is why I had to stop myself from going into each one in the OP, but merely address Talents as a systemic issue. The individual talents themselves and what should be done, what can be added, what should be removed, etc., is entirely debatable.
Posted By: Marc54 Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 02:09 PM
Much of your list is nitpicks that fall under the flavor category and are not something that needs fixing. Some stuff is bad, and certainly other things can be improved, but its their game. I get it, you are searching for your the "perfect game" and this one had a glimmer of it. But it will never happen unless you make your own. Also much of what you said is simply not right or true.

For instance, the bone widow stinks for anything but a meat shield because it is instantly and easily CC'ed by practically any class. Honestly, its best use is clogging up paths like a ice wall in DOS1 No matter how you buff it, it stinks because normal buffs are not very strong and can barely absorb 1 casting before its back to being CCed again. The infernal is awesome by comparison. Not only does it get massive defense, it also gets some immunities.

Also the assertion that necro takes a back seat is 100% wrong. It is an int based spell casting that does respectable physical damage. This makes it incredibly useful to int based characters, much more so than witchcraft in DOS1. You say it does not know what it wants to be, well we can make that claim for all the classes. Its great for physical attackers due to heals and extra meat shields, and its great for casters for damage variety and also meat shield/positioning. Also, death wish is screaming for a zero constitution build! Knock vitality down to 30% and to hell with defenses. Stack on glass cannon, executioner/pawn, wits, and damage and be the ultimate opener. I can also see it working with a high armor/shield lone wolf.

I am just saying that a lot of what you bring us is actually fine for some of us. There are things that I dont like. Too few talents, and skills imho. Some fights in tactician depend too much on meta or initial luck.
Posted By: Larian_Rimevan Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 04:57 PM
I can give some clarification on the mentioned AoO issue. The AoO issue is known, and the explanation for this issue is rather simple actually: Ai does not take AoO into account at all. This is intentional (we don't want the talent to go to waste), but clearly it's giving some issues at the moment. We have plans to fix the behaviour in the future, which should get rid of the annoyances that have been mentioned (like getting killed by AoO) while ensuring the viability of the talent.

Posted By: Dopelgingembre Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 06:45 PM
Originally Posted by Luckmann
Why are Slingshot and Far Out Man separate talents, when they essentially do the same thing conceptually?

Why does Ambidextrous have absolutely nothing to do with actually being ambidextrous or duel-wielding, and do you actually expect people to invest a talent in the concept of leaving their one hand completely free (foregoing both the more powerful bonuses of two-handers and the dual bonuses of having a secondary weapon or a shield)?



Slingshot fused with Far Out Man would be great, yep.


Maybe I'm wrong, but when I tested Ambidextrous on the GM mode Bows and Crossbows allowed me to use the 1AP 'nades and scrolls.
I'm still tilted that you can't use Ambidextrous when you have JUST a shield equiped tho.


Great post btw.
Posted By: Kubiben Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 07:18 PM
Quote
For instance, the bone widow stinks for anything but a meat shield because it is instantly and easily CC'ed by practically any class. Honestly, its best use is clogging up paths like a ice wall in DOS1 No matter how you buff it, it stinks because normal buffs are not very strong and can barely absorb 1 casting before its back to being CCed again. The infernal is awesome by comparison. Not only does it get massive defense, it also gets some immunities.


NPCs have the tendency to ignore summons, if they can and most of the time they easily can. So lack of magic armor of Bone Widow doesnt matter most of the time.


I really like the post and agree with most of the thing it stated.

To add to Initative discussion I would like to add that (whether a bug or a feature) summons if summoned by enemy will cancel PCs turn. It can be seen clearly in Hannag fight (portal fight) in Act 2. For some odd reason summons instant turn. Small things like these make the game more imbalanced because if you consider that Incarnate is a 2AP spell that can deal about 2k damage at level 20 THAT CAN DO THAT AND MORE FOR THE NEXT 8 TURN it seems a little nuts.
Posted By: taviow Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 07:26 PM
Originally Posted by Marc54
I get it, you are searching for your the "perfect game" and this one had a glimmer of it. But it will never happen unless you make your own.


Obviously criticism is predicated on personal opinion but I found most of it valuable given that as far as I'm concerned the mentioned problems actively decrease my enjoyment of the game at any given time I'm playing it. It's why I have, for now, gone back to DOS1 while the main problems in DOS2 are unfixed.

To be clear, I did find DOS2 enjoyable but at the same time I think it's best to wait a few months in hopes that the recurring criticism is addressed before getting back into it.

I'd also like to add to the list of issues the insane stat bloat present in higher levels, intensely exacerbated on tactician mode.
Posted By: Stabbey Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 07:34 PM
Originally Posted by Larian_Rimevan
I can give some clarification on the mentioned AoO issue. The AoO issue is known, and the explanation for this issue is rather simple actually: Ai does not take AoO into account at all. This is intentional (we don't want the talent to go to waste), but clearly it's giving some issues at the moment. We have plans to fix the behaviour in the future, which should get rid of the annoyances that have been mentioned (like getting killed by AoO) while ensuring the viability of the talent.



If you don't want the Opportunist Talent to go to waste, why does Sneak cost 4 AP, this making the Guerrilla Talent go to waste.

But on the subject of AI fixes, is Larian aware that AI 2.0 is so smart that the entire concept of a Tank has been turned on its head? It ignores targets with high physical armor and the Provoke/Taunt Skill is blocked by Physical armor. The only viable way to build a tank now is to take Glass Cannon, Walk it Off and pump CON. The Glass Cannon becomes the target dummy.


Posted By: Kubiben Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 07:46 PM
Originally Posted by taviow
Originally Posted by Marc54
I get it, you are searching for your the "perfect game" and this one had a glimmer of it. But it will never happen unless you make your own.


Obviously criticism is predicated on personal opinion but I found most of it valuable given that as far as I'm concerned the mentioned problems actively decrease my enjoyment of the game at any given time I'm playing it. It's why I have, for now, gone back to DOS1 while the main problems in DOS2 are unfixed.

To be clear, I did find DOS2 enjoyable but at the same time I think it's best to wait a few months in hopes that the recurring criticism is addressed before getting back into it.

I'd also like to add to the list of issues the insane stat bloat present in higher levels, intensely exacerbated on tactician mode.


The thing is that the more you think about mechanics of the DOS 2 the more fucked up they seem to be. For the first few hours you are just mesmerized by the game and every aspect of it. Thats why there are so many people not seeing this or any problems with the game. Thats why it got so good reviews and thats why we will probably never get a fix. With that being said I had the same exact feeling when Ive gone through the game.
Posted By: Lacrymas Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 09:47 PM
Just chiming in to say I agree with Luckmann. I just hope Larian aren't blinded by the pathetic sycophantism and conformism of the mainstream "reviewers" who proclaim the game is divine and without flaw, and even if they mention any flaws it's some minor, easily ignored bugs. It's good that a turn-based RPG is getting attention from the mainstream 'journalists', though, it may reach more people, make the genre more popular and, therefore, more numerous.
Posted By: Benny89 Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 09:52 PM
Good Post. For me now everything is really THAT much obvious and breaking but I agree with 3 points THE MOST, and I think larian should focus on it:

1. Initiative should be Initiative based. End of story. That should be rather simple, you just need to change algorithm to calculate initiavite first and make turns based on it. That is issue no 1.

2. Talents- some should be fused, some like Demon changed and be more rewarding. Those that are already good (Execut, Hotheaded, Lone Wolf, Elemental Aff etc. doesn't need change). Guerilla for example is good talent- but make sneaking in combat 2 AP. We have to install mod for it to have fun with Guerilla, Assassinate etc.

3. AI should NOT automatically know what talents you have- that is retarded. If I have glass cannon- how they hell enemies can know that? They should know it after I am getting hit but some CC and then AI should "aaa, dam, take this boi there!!!". Same with Undead. If I have helemet AI should not know until I start to heal on posion, no Bleed etc.

I don't think those are THAT huge things to change. Definitelly doable to change them at this point in game.
Posted By: Stabbey Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 10:25 PM
Originally Posted by Benny89
Good Post. For me now everything is really THAT much obvious and breaking but I agree with 3 points THE MOST, and I think larian should focus on it:

1. Initiative should be Initiative based. End of story. That should be rather simple, you just need to change algorithm to calculate initiavite first and make turns based on it. That is issue no 1.

2. Talents- some should be fused, some like Demon changed and be more rewarding. Those that are already good (Execut, Hotheaded, Lone Wolf, Elemental Aff etc. doesn't need change). Guerilla for example is good talent- but make sneaking in combat 2 AP. We have to install mod for it to have fun with Guerilla, Assassinate etc.

3. AI should NOT automatically know what talents you have- that is retarded. If I have glass cannon- how they hell enemies can know that? They should know it after I am getting hit but some CC and then AI should "aaa, dam, take this boi there!!!". Same with Undead. If I have helemet AI should not know until I start to heal on posion, no Bleed etc.

I don't think those are THAT huge things to change. Definitelly doable to change them at this point in game.


Agreed with all of these.

1. Right now, Wits and Initiative are just useless remnants of a broken system and have no reason to exist.

2. I recommended fusing Escapist with Duck Duck Goose in the alpha, it should still be fused now, because Escapist is just pretty useless and not worthy of being its own Talent.

3. Is good too, it will preserve the existence of the smarter AI, but it won't feel like it's cheating so much.
Posted By: Kubiben Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 10:42 PM
Originally Posted by Stabbey


2. I recommended fusing Escapist with Duck Duck Goose in the alpha, it should still be fused now, because Escapist is just pretty useless and not worthy of being its own Talent.



To be honest, most talents are not worth it. They are so incredibly uninspaired that it hurts. One quite interesting but probably useless would be Ambidextrous. If it would work with only a shield equiped, character with tonnes and tonnes of scrolls could be quite viable.
Posted By: Dopelgingembre Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 10:54 PM
Actually, uh, I'm not so sure.
I'm testing a lot (like... A LOT) the throwable weapons (grenades and scrolls) and I was really happy to see that Ambidextrous reduce the cost of scrolls by 1 too.

The thing is : I have absolutly no idea how the Scrolls spell damages are calculated. I have no clue. The only thing I know is that Scroll damage is -at best- garbage compared to the real deal.

When I throw a 1AP Fireball with a scroll + ambidextrous => 80 damage (scale with character's level only)
With the exact same character, when I cast a regular 2AP fireball => 210 damages. (scale with INT, Pyro, AND level)

Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong, but DAMAGE grenades and scrolls live in their own little world and doesn't scale really well. Mostly Scrolls, because grenades still scale (badly) with pyro, warfare, etc depending of their elemental damages.

(Savage Spell and Huntsman works with grenades and scrolls tho. Yep, grenades can CRIT. And you can still use Ambidextry while using a bow/crossbow. So that's a plus.)

Same problem with the skill Explosive Trap who seems to scale only on your level. Maybe Explosive Toybox (scoundrel skill) too.

Effect/status/utilitary scrolls and 'nades are fine, obviously. And the 1AP teleportation scroll is sweet. But man the damage grenade/scrolls needs some tweaks. Or maybe there's something I'm missing. think


...Uh, but it's maybe a 'lil bit offtopic. I should start my own "What's the deal with Consumable weapons?" offtopic
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 11:15 PM
There is a mod that fixes loremaster levels on enemies so those you wouldnt expect to be proficient with it are not psychics anymore.

Also, ban Luckman for excessive oppressive nitpicking.

Posted By: Zeth Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 11:56 PM
Originally Posted by Luckmann
enemies often tries to run away from players with Opportunist..."the AI doesn't know that you have Opportunist, nor should they!"

Originally Posted by Larian_Rimevan
This is intentional (we don't want the talent to go to waste), but clearly it's giving some issues at the moment.


Having a character choose not to move away from you as not to take an Opportunity Attack isn't a waste of a talent.

To fix this issue I would be to just bake OA's back into the system. All characters with a melee weapon get OA's (or with specific ones, like backstab and daggers). Golem Studios is in the early stages of demoing a TTRPG now that gives attack preferences to monsters. Some stronger preferences will have them take an OA while others the monster will respect that threat.

Could do something similar to that so that melee character's aren't overly sticky and they get to use OA sometimes. Can even reveal these priorities to players with Loremaster so they can do things to try and trigger the OA's.

Originally Posted by Luckmann
The laughably bad defensive abilities.

I think you're missing the primary reason these defensive abilities aren't very good, and some of your criticism I don't consider valid.

The primary reason that the defensive abilities aren't good defensive abilities is that offensive abilities are the best defensive abilities. The best defense is a Hard CC. To enact hard CC you need to break armors, which you need damage to do. So maximizing your damage output to break armors to allow for Hard CC is the most effective defensive ability in this game.

As for this:
Originally Posted by Luckmann
However, even if Retribution would be buffed to 200%: you'd be rewarding the player.. for doing nothing

That's not true. To use Retribution well you need to find ways to encourage the enemy to be attack your players with Retribution. That requires some planning and positioning to use well. It is hardly nothing.

I'm not going to defend Retribution's mechanics as valuable to gameplay, I'd remove it as well, but to suggest the player has to do nothing to use it well is false. There is gameplay in using Retribution well.

I agree on the problems with circumstances you put forth on Leadership and Perseverance (as an aside Petrify was resisted by Armor in EA, seems they forgot to change this).

Originally Posted by Luckmann
Binarity of outcomes, predictability, and the armor system.

You throw a lot of criticism here and I disagree with most of it.

Originally Posted by Luckmann
Unintuitiveness of effect types and targeting armor

I'm actually not entirely sure I understand this complaint. Is it breaking immersion for you? Magic armor is visualized as a force field in Dos2 that blocks objects that are elemental from harming the player. For me this was neither immersion breaking or unintuitive. So I'm confused as to the nature of the complaint. Can you clarify?

Originally Posted by Luckmann
What it does is that it leads to a completely predictable combat system on any given turn...
Simply put, the armor system completely negates any element of the Delta of Randomness. This is terrible design in itself, because that delta of randomness is one of the staples, I would say fundamentals of good turn-based gameplay, and the armor system breaks this completely on a systemic, tactical level.

I greatly prefer being able to plan, execute my actions and my adapt my plan are to choices the AI makes in targeting, abilities I didn't know they had etc. This makes each fight feel more like a tactical puzzle I have to solve vs hoping my CC's proc.

I don't think this armor and CC system is perfect, and there are changes I'd make but it is a great improvement over DOS1.

For an EC video, which are generally pretty bad, that one was surprisingly decent. Yet...it has no relevance at all to this circumstance. It's largely talking about randomness in competitive games and barely gets into the balance implications of randomness in PvE.

Saying that randomness is a stable of game design is also patently absurd. I can't think of a single great turn based game that has high reliance on randomness besides poker and accounting for randomness is just a low aspect skill of that game. While it is a common thing to use in turn based games, to simulate variance in ability to execute, it diminishes the value of the core skill these games test, strategy. Are you prepared to argue that Chess and Go are not just bad but terrible games? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say here. If my response to this doesn't seem on point can you clarify?

Originally Posted by Luckmann
So how can it be resolved? Short of reworking the entirety of the game and reinstate a save- or resistance-based system, there's not a whole lot that can be done. If absolutely determined to maintain the armor system at it's core in how it works right now, several things would have to change.
I'm not entirely sure what you think needs to be solved, besides that you wrongly seem to think reliability in effect is bad.

Even if I agreed, there is a large variety of options in changing the armor system as it is now while keeping the heart of it. My primary concern is that dual damage type parties don't work well. An easy solve to this is having all damage target vitality and deal damage to an armor type. Status doesn't apply until the related type is broken but all attacks will deal HP damage. Suggesting you need randomness to have not terrible games is just moronic.

Originally Posted by Luckmann[/quote

The Round-Robin Turn Orders.
We kind of agree here. It a confusing choice, not because round robin was chosen but because the rest of the system wasn't then modified to account for this choice.

Having initiative as it was in early access seemed fine. Players had to choose between putting points into the better offensive stats or going earlier in the round. The problem only seemed to present itself by having all enemies that had silly scaling initiative based on level.

There seemed to have been many systemic changes late in development (like moving Petrify to magical instead of physical) and they didn't account for the systemic effect of those changes. It's a hard thing to account for especially as you are near an end of a project and so close to the project. It's also solved by hiring an experienced system designer, something they can hopefully do easily now as this game seems to be selling quite well.

Initiative systems are hard to make not bland. Many games over the years have tried interesting things, none have really stuck and become persistent to the genre. The closest is FF's Active Time Battle but really only square uses that. FF Tactics, Radiant Historia and various others have tried to make changes and mechanics around it, however it really does require an whole system to be based around the initiative mechanic to do anything complex well.

Now to address your specific points.
Originally Posted by Luckmann
The only time set-ups like this can be done reliable, to see a plan and see it take shape, to get that rush of "feelings" is when you're at the absolute end of the turn order in a little clump.

First I question the value of your rush of feelings. That's a longer discussion and I'll ignore it for now.

Why aren't you checking the initiative order if the enemies, to see where they are going and who isn't moving between your team so you can combo them? Just because you have to be a little careful with the order of your combo and which enemy you pick doesn't mean the opportunities aren't there. Be more selective in who you are choosing to combo, and account for which enemies go between allies you need to combo in future rounds, the game gives lots of tools for dealing with those units (teleport, slow from oil, clouds if they are ranged, etc).

Originally Posted by Luckmann
Yes, yes I was, and they are - to a point...
And if you kill an enemy, you might expect them to be removed from the turn order, right? Well they are. But someone else will immediately take their place.

Right...this is again requires you to have better planning to know when to knock people out vs down. That you don't like that the game tests that element of planning multiple turns isn't bad game design, its just a part of this game that you don't like.

Both the round robin and straight initiative value systems have drawbacks. Neither are much greater than the other. The criticism should stop at how their initiative system isn't transparent, has elements that suggest it behaves different than it does and the rest of the system has issues with how the initiative system behaves (the value of Wit as you pointed out or gear changing your preferred character turn order because it has +init, etc).


I appreciate that you took time to post something long and that you care about. There is some valid criticism you provide and I think I was fair in pointing out where, but there are also places where you miss the mark by quite a bit.
Posted By: Alexstrasza Re: Issues as according to me - 26/09/17 11:58 PM
Originally Posted by Luckmann
This is a compilation of my thoughts on a range of topics, originally prompted by the thread on the RPG Codex and the request by Kevin at Larian for feedback.


I read this entire thread out loud to my wife and we both loved it.

Great thread! <3
Posted By: UnderworldHades Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 12:21 AM
I agree with a lot of things on this post, especially the talents.

The talents have been such a huge disappointment. Things that made skills and other playstyles unique or just added an extra bonus. Also I never understood why Pawn and Executioner can't go together, it's stupid. Like so what if there is extra AP. Enemies on classic get 6-8 Fking Ap meanwhile, we're stuck with 4 AP unless you do glass cannon or lone wolf.

On one hand I wanna play the game again, i don't want too considering how unbalanced this game is. In terms of combat, skills and the way things are coded. And in order to fix all this will require enhanced edition, because I doubt they can patch fix all of this. And even then it could take year(s).
Posted By: Stabbey Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 12:39 AM
Originally Posted by Zeth

Why aren't you checking the initiative order if the enemies, to see where they are going and who isn't moving between your team so you can combo them?


Largely, because of the armor system. Although this does depend on your team composition. I'm running a 2/2 mixed team, so I simply cannot always drop a combo on the next guy to go. Admittedly that would be easier if I was running a 4/0 Team.

But because of the armor system, it's better to get armor down quickly on as many targets as possible instead of chipping away at both magical and physical on the same target and leaving several others at full strength.


Originally Posted by UnderworldHades
I agree with a lot of things on this post, especially the talents.

The talents have been such a huge disappointment. Things that made skills and other playstyles unique or just added an extra bonus.


They really have. Larian largely ignored the Talent system despite feedback about how lackluster it is, stretching back all the way to D:OS 1.

Quote
Also I never understood why Pawn and Executioner can't go together, it's stupid. Like so what if there is extra AP.


I think this is largely because Executioner used to give 2 AP per kill instead of 2 AP per turn. (As an interesting side note, it still counts as the previous turn if you kill an enemy with an AoO from "Opportunist" before your next turn comes around, so you can start with 6 AP, kill another enemy and Executioner can go off on THAT turn to give you another 2).

Posted By: Alanta Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 01:42 AM
I agree that turn order is currently awful and encourages some strange tactical decisions. Like leaving enemies alive with 20 hp so that I can oneshot them next turn and have 2 of my people go in a row. Or not using totems because they steal places in the turn order from my heroes.


Originally Posted by Larian_Rimevan
I can give some clarification on the mentioned AoO issue. The AoO issue is known, and the explanation for this issue is rather simple actually: Ai does not take AoO into account at all. This is intentional (we don't want the talent to go to waste), but clearly it's giving some issues at the moment. We have plans to fix the behaviour in the future, which should get rid of the annoyances that have been mentioned (like getting killed by AoO) while ensuring the viability of the talent.



Wait, but it would still be useful if AI took AoO into account. I primarily took the talent to somewhat control AI movement. Like, you teleport enemy archer or rogue to your opportunist and they won't go to high ground/to hit your other heroes because enemies want to avoid AoO. For me that'd be a far more interesting use of the talent than simple "enemies get hit each turn because too stupid to take AoO into account".

And somehow you don't prevent enemies from taking glass cannon or undead into account so why is opportunist treated differently?

EDIT: I think there's a simple way to somewhat fix issues with the turn order while still preventing your whole team from going first turn 1 and murdering everything. Have the turn order established turn 1 be permanent. Summons always go right after the summoner. When an enemy is kill, another won't jump to his place in the initiative queue, instead 2 of your characters go one after another. Wits would still be useless though.
Alternatively, have the new turn order only apply to turn 1 of combat. All the other turns should determine the turn order based solely on initiative.
Posted By: gGeo Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 02:34 AM
Signed.
The Luckmann initial post covers perfectly most of my issues. Althou use of examine toon is allowed for players, to know in the first round of combat enemy vulnerabilities, so same skill use AI. That is OK. Same rules for player and AI.

Anyway was a bit suspicious since they announced "streamlined" AP of combat system, but it was worst and worst and worst.
Finally all this dumb down issues escalated to monstrous sells. Which is good for Larians.
On the other side, people like Luckmann, Baardvark, Hiver, Stabbey and other RPG fans are no longer part of the target group.

Sad, but true. Orginal Sin series becomes mainstream swamp. Find something else.... .
Posted By: taviow Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 03:13 AM
I'm not sure most of the elements we're talking about here are linked to the huge number of sales and incredible critical reception. For instance I'm not sure a casual player/reviewer would even notice how the initiative system works.

I will grant that the armor system probably did help with that though, but that's just one issue out of several raised here.

My point being, I think that most of them, save for the armor system which they may not want to change, can indeed be fixed without the game losing its appeal to the casual audience it garnered.

I do find myself surprised that reviewers seem to have got through the game without having issues with, for instance, stat bloat, since the game does have problems that should impact both casual and hardcore audiences more or less in the same way. It's fairly puzzling that this hasn't happened.
Posted By: TVasconcellos Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 03:44 AM
Good to see a passionate gamer just wanting to help improving a great game.
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 04:44 AM
Originally Posted by taviow
I'm not sure most of the elements we're talking about here are linked to the huge number of sales and incredible critical reception. For instance I'm not sure a casual player/reviewer would even notice how the initiative system works.

The fact they dont notice it is what makes it good.
No need to think about it, see.

Because thinking has become an enemy, especially of fun. Thinking is too heavy see... its not fun.
And you can notice the same psychosis across the mass market and entertainment industry as well as popular culture in general.

And since this system does not require anyone to think about things above some superficial level, they can just play and have fun and experience the story and cool explosiunz and "tactics". While being under illusion they are "old school rpg" players or something.


Originally Posted by taviow

My point being, I think that most of them, save for the armor system which they may not want to change, can indeed be fixed without the game losing its appeal to the casual audience it garnered.

No, because in that case that same audience would have to think about these mechanics and you would reintroduce the greatest enemy of all - the dreaded ..."randomness"

Which does not exist as such but due to these morons consistent bitching and crying about it, the devs decided to "remove it" as much as possible.

And it worked.

Originally Posted by taviow

I do find myself surprised that reviewers seem to have got through the game without having issues with, for instance, stat bloat, since the game does have problems that should impact both casual and hardcore audiences more or less in the same way. It's fairly puzzling that this hasn't happened.


They are playing at "classic" at most so never had to see any of it. And besides they are already trained to "think" more HP to whack away is "harder" and "tactical".

I cant say i blame the devs too much about it considering the business necessities and knowing how in the past they were close to bankrupcy and took huge risks and abrely managed to stay afloat. Knowing how many great game studios are not around anymore. Knowing about three new studios Larian opened and all that.

But neither that or the momentary popularity or 10 gamespot reviews while other reviews now all copy-paste how "divine" or "heavenly" the game is make these mechanics any better or gameplay any different.

Posted By: Grandam Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 05:59 AM
Great post. I really hope the enhanced edition version of the game (if it ever comes; I hope it does!) makes combat and stats more robust. Act 1 was a 10/10 for me, but each act after that solidly drops the rating a bunch because you start to get into these same fight situations with your AP and setup that you always start a fight the same way, and damage scaling is so insane that in act 3 now mobs just die before they get a turn to do anything, which makes support skills kind of bad.

OP covered everything so there's no point repeating stuff, but I do hope they fixed a bunch of the shitty "exploits" with fleeing and reentering combat and stuff too, or being able to nuke something far out of range from high ground if you are high up enough without going into combat with the pack.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game and think it's one of the best RPGs to be released in a long time, so I really just want to see this become even better!
Posted By: Darkwind Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 07:26 AM
Great write-up but a bit overly negative too. I get it, its incredibly frustrating to see something -very- close to greatness be marred and flawed, but excessive bitching is just that, and doesn't really serve anyone IMHO.

Don't get me wrong, your arguments were salient 9 out of 10 on content, but maybe 7/10 on delivery since it was a bit acerbic. Stylistically though, its right up my alley 10/10.

The only contradictory element is that you call for the delta of randomness which I 100% agree with but then complain that initiative as implemented now makes each turn completely unpredictable. Bit of an opposing statement, but I take your meaning which is the randomness should come in other more logical ways not from flawed mechanics.
Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 07:34 AM
This feedback comes across as so angsty and angry. Playing the game on tactician and thoroughly enjoying it, I struggle to relate to the levels of angst in the post. You must really hate the game? If it makes you feel depressed then maybe it's not for you? I don't know. Anyway, here is some quick feedback on those points:

AI retards
Agreed. The AI bugs need fixing.

Bad defence
I think you're underestimating the role of spells in defence. There are plenty of good defensive abilities in the game.

Still though, the actual attributes are bad. Fine.

Meaningless attributes
"Near meaningless" and "slaughter of complexity and depth". It's so untrue and unnecessary.

Your point only holds up on a relative level. You can't argue that because they affect less than the first one that they are bad. Criticize it rather in isolation.

Anyway, I disagree. The attributes achieve exactly what they need to so why add extra fluff? Especially considering that points in "class attributes" give you stats as well i.e. Warfare gives damage, scoundrel gives crit and movement, etc.

Calling memory "tax" is arbitrary. Instead of "tax", the correct word is "trade-off".

If you think that memory is unnecessary and that you don't have enough AP to even cast all the abilities you've memorized, well then I've got news for you. You're missing out on a lot of builds in the game.

Rollercoaster talents
I can barely relate here. I think talents are fine. Maybe a few tweaks here and there, but each talent I choose greatly benefits me.

Binary outcomes of armor
Quick little point: Technically in both games the outcome is binary. Either CC works or it doesn't. What you mean to say is that the outcome is now certain.

I disagree here. It adds another layer of depth to the game. The first one was an immediate CC fest and it was too easy and simple as a result.

They could add some passive defense to CC itself, sure. I'm not sure how it will impact combat, but I don't feel like it is necessary. Just because there is no RNG based uncertainty doesn't mean there is no uncertainty. As in chess there is no uncertainty in the outcomes of taking pieces, but you still don't know what moves your opponent will make. We must consider whether we want uncertainty for its own sake or whether it will add something to the system.

As to what reduces what kind of armour, I think "elemental" damage reducing magic and "physical" reducing physical is perfectly fine. It serves the purpose it seeks to achieve. To apply your own views as to how it should work is arbitrary.

I agree about taunt though. Taunt seriously needs to work always regardless of armour.

Initiative.
Yeah, initiative is weird. I think the armour system solves the problem they were trying to fix with this new initiative system.

Posted By: Jimmious Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 08:14 AM
Great write-up by Luckmann, even though it's a bit more "dramatic" than necessary at some points.
I really hope Larian is reading this!
Even better, I would love some official response acknowledging the existence of these issues and that there is a conscious effort in addressing them smile
Posted By: Benbass Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 08:51 AM
I would like to respond to the criticism of Retribution.
Note that I'm only at the beginning (middle?) of Act 2 and also use a mod so the Taunt bypass armor to make my life easier but it's still fine without it. I have around 50% reflect damage at the time.

I think Retribution is balanced. My tank phoenix dive into the enemy, taunt a few of them (let him engage alone if you don't use cheats taunt), and maybe buff my armor. At the end of the turn, my tank has done as much damage as my secondary DPS while tanking the damage. Even destroying enough physical armor for my other characters to CC the enemies.
My tank would not have done as much damage with his one hand or the shield bash. The fact that I can taunt enemies to mitigate damage and do a little damage on top for free is a great tool in my fights. I don't regret putting point into this attribute.
Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 09:11 AM
Originally Posted by Benbass
I would like to respond to the criticism of Retribution.
Note that I'm only at the beginning (middle?) of Act 2 and also use a mod so the Taunt bypass armor to make my life easier but it's still fine without it. I have around 50% reflect damage at the time.

I think Retribution is balanced. My tank phoenix dive into the enemy, taunt a few of them (let him engage alone if you don't use cheats taunt), and maybe buff my armor. At the end of the turn, my tank has done as much damage as my secondary DPS while tanking the damage. Even destroying enough physical armor for my other characters to CC the enemies.
My tank would not have done as much damage with his one hand or the shield bash. The fact that I can taunt enemies to mitigate damage and do a little damage on top for free is a great tool in my fights. I don't regret putting point into this attribute.


That's pretty cool. I had in mind to do this with my tank as well, but quickly realised how flawed it was in the base game. Without taunt working on armoured characters, there's no real point to go with a tank build because they're going to target your weak characters at the start anyway, as they should. Then your tank character is just standing there wishing he/she has more damage.

"Soft CC" should be able to go through armours by default (like oil slowing). This should apply to the Shackles of Pain skill as well IMO.

As a result I scrapped the sword and shield idea and just went with dual wield. If Larian change this, I'd love to try it again in a later play through and after seeing your post I'll add retribution as well.
Posted By: Kawall Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 09:25 AM
I don't agree on retribution. You should invest it on your tank to make it work. I have 12 retribution and shield deflect on my lone wolf tank. He never dies. Ranged enemies basically kill themselves.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 09:51 AM
The armor system is largely the result of a questionable design of the first game. In a turn based strategic game with very few units, the majority of CCs should be soft to keep the game fun and balanced, but in Divinity: Original Sin, hard CCs are just as common as the soft ones. Of course the designer can constrain them with RNG, but having tons of binary complete disables with RNG would greatly increase the randomness of the game, and many players do not like that.

Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 11:42 AM
Thanks, roughly what I think about the game as well.
Bought it a long time ago based on how much I liked OS:EE, but the final systems are pretty much all downgrades and balance is entirely off.

I particularly dislike the stat change with JRPG style inflation.
Reminds me of Diablo 3, same silly model that was a plague since the very start(disclaimer: I think D3 was fun despite the stat system). Separate physical/magical armor with the current CC interactions, wonky initiative and the other small annoyances quickly add up.

EE was a nice gesture so didn't refund this one on seeing what was released.
Since then I'm over the 2 hour limit so here's to hoping in a few months it's something I also enjoy playing.
Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 11:51 AM
Originally Posted by Draba
I particularly dislike the stat change with JRPG style inflation.
Reminds me of Diablo 3, same silly model that was a plague since the very start(disclaimer: I think D3 was fun despite the stat system).


The inflation increases the value of bartering, luck and thievery.

You haven't actually mentioned what exactly you don't like about the inflation though. Just that it reminds you of D3.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 12:38 PM
Originally Posted by Draba

EE was a nice gesture so didn't refund this one on seeing what was released.
Since then I'm over the 2 hour limit so here's to hoping in a few months it's something I also enjoy playing.

But DOS: EE did not improve mechanics much, most flaws in the vanilla version are still there, and certain things like combat stealth and bartering became completely useless. Hope this time it will be different.
Posted By: Luckmann Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 01:20 PM
Originally Posted by Aryah
The inflation increases the value of bartering, luck and thievery.
Wait, are you confusing his use of "inflation" in relation to the stats with monetary inflation? He is no doubt referring to the way numbers just increase without any actual value, whether we're talking about health, damage, resistances or anything else.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 01:55 PM
Originally Posted by Aryah
The inflation increases the value of bartering, luck and thievery.

You haven't actually mentioned what exactly you don't like about the inflation though. Just that it reminds you of D3.


Yep, inflation in the "why on earth does a lvl 18 weapon does ~90% more damage than a lvl 17 one" sense, nothing to do with prices.
Didn't go into specifics as the first post in this thread is pretty detailed.

It reminds me to D3 because:
- Both stat systems are VERY simplistic: pump mainstat for a straight multiplier on damage, maybe get some extra HP(and a constant tax for memory slots in OS2)
- Both systems end up with way too many zeroes at the end of damage/HP, for no good reason

This kind of system is a staple of grindy MMORPGs(for gating content) and primitive browser games(for low-effort content generation), feels out of place in a game like this.
Really subjective but for me it's usually an indicator of poor balance and certainly doesn't feel elegant.

Originally Posted by qwerty3w
But DOS: EE did not improve mechanics much, most flaws in the vanilla version are still there, and certain things like combat stealth and bartering became completely useless. Hope this time it will be different.


It felt a lot better than the original one and was free despite probably needing a lot of time to make. Was still kinda unbalanced but in the end its faults were much less annoying than how fun the combat was.
Definitely a big plus in my book.
Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 02:32 PM
Originally Posted by Luckmann
Wait, are you confusing his use of "inflation" in relation to the stats with monetary inflation? He is no doubt referring to the way numbers just increase without any actual value, whether we're talking about health, damage, resistances or anything else.


Nope, I'm referring to the inflation of stats. They increase the value of the "money skills".

Originally Posted by Draba
Yep, inflation in the "why on earth does a lvl 18 weapon does ~90% more damage than a lvl 17 one" sense, nothing to do with prices.


It has a lot to do with prices wink

Originally Posted by Draba
It reminds me to D3 because:
- Both stat systems are VERY simplistic: pump mainstat for a straight multiplier on damage, maybe get some extra HP(and a constant tax for memory slots in OS2)


What's actually wrong with simple though? As I mentioned previously, your class levels give you stats as well. That in combination with attributes is plenty.

Originally Posted by Draba
- Both systems end up with way too many zeroes at the end of damage/HP, for no good reason


What is actually wrong with a few zeroes except if you have something against zeroes?

Originally Posted by Draba
This kind of system is a staple of grindy MMORPGs(for gating content) and primitive browser games(for low-effort content generation), feels out of place in a game like this.
Really subjective but for me it's usually an indicator of poor balance and certainly doesn't feel elegant.


They are absolutely gating content with the inflation. This is an incredibly novel thing in tactical RPG gameplay. In most RPGs I'm used to having ridiculous amounts of money where it is no object. This happened in DOSEE. Here in DOS2 you have to carefully plan how you're going to be spending your resources.

Except in DOS2 (and DOS generally) they have per encounter ethic with regard to combat encounter content generation. Each encounter is unique with unique terrain. That's how it was in tabletop RPGs and is something which wonderfully sets DOS apart. This is a far cry from a grindy game like Pillars of Eternity (which I also enjoyed ultimately). To say they have low effort content generation, IMO is an incredibly unfair assessment.
Posted By: lamp Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 05:06 PM
In my experience retribution has been amazing. Currently I am playing two dwarf chars with max con and lone wolf with retribution up to 22-24 lvl and its a lot of fun to me with comeback kid and morning person. Especially when a melee comes in and does whirlwind and then takes 110% of damage dealt TWICE. Archers kill themselves, mages kinda do a funny run back and forth thing because their casts hurt them so much more. So far its the only build that makes me laugh in combat.

DOS:EE though, I laughed a lot with pretty much any build because for some reason the combat was just a lot more fun.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 05:28 PM
Low numbers are visually cleaner, for example:
361 hp 46 damage
Compare to:
3645943 hp and 464356 damage

And high item obsoletion rate make getting good new items feel much less rewarding, a better system to many players here would be the best items can be found throughout the game, but a player won't have enough of them to fill every item slots until the very late game.

I don't see how inflation is needed to make resource mangement interesting. It is not necessary for a survival game, Rogue-like or old-school dungeon crawling RPG, why it is needed for D:OS2?
Posted By: Kubiben Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 05:41 PM
Originally Posted by lamp


DOS:EE though, I laughed a lot with pretty much any build because for some reason the combat was just a lot more fun.


In DOS:EE combos worked. And there was plenty of option to do very weird and fun shit in combat. I dont feel that option in DOS2. Even if Retri build is okish its boring as fuck.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 06:03 PM
Originally Posted by Aryah
It has a lot to do with prices wink


Oh, you mean rebuying gear every few levels acts as a moneysink. I'd prefer other mechanics, camping shops isn't fun.
Repair costs, consumables being more practical, anything else really.

Originally Posted by Aryah
What's actually wrong with simple though? As I mentioned previously, your class levels give you stats as well.


There are less meaningful choices, removes a lot of depth.
In most systems there are inevitably better and worse choices, but "pump mainstat every level" is something I'd expect from a browser game.

Originally Posted by Aryah
What is actually wrong with a few zeroes except if you have something against zeroes?


- Finding an interesting unique doesn't feel as rewarding. Got a silly axe that makes humans generate a pool of water below themselves on hit? You will replace it in an hour anyway.
- I really, really dislike the artifical progression and difficulty it generates. A lvl 20 character is practically a different species than one at 15.
Not because it has access to powerful abilities and dirty tricks, simply because it has 5 times your stats.
- Not the cause of, but exacerbates the problem of camping vendors being the best way to get gear. Drops 1-2 levels below you are practically guaranteed to be useless.
- Smaller numbers are just more comfortable to work with(before anyone asks, yes I'm kinda familiar with the 4 basic mathematical operations smile ).

I said inflation is mostly used for gating and procedural generation and don't see the purpose here, not that it's a low effort copout(although I do think one of the reasons was to reduce time spent balancing).
The only purpose I can think of is making sure that munchkins and roleplayers are both roughly in the same league at a given level, so both can go for roughly the same areas.
Dunno why would that be important with explorer/classic/tactician modes being an option though.

Don't see why you feel gating is something new or innovative here, if you really don't want people to wander into areas 3+ levels higher just lock those.
The end result is practically the same, you just can't use "total freedom of movement(you'll get creamed ofc)" as a marketing bullet point.

Overall I'm probably part of a minority in that I practically only liked OS:EE for the combat and that being interesting/somewhat challenging is my main priority.
Seems like plenty of people love the game as-is so I'll just wait for some updates/mods, or just skip the next game if this one doesn't end up as something I enjoy.
Posted By: Kubiben Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 06:39 PM
Originally Posted by Draba

Overall I'm probably part of a minority in that I practically only liked OS:EE for the combat and that being interesting/somewhat challenging is my main priority.
Seems like plenty of people love the game as-is so I'll just wait for some updates/mods, or just skip the next game if this one doesn't end up as something I enjoy.


Im with you 100%. I expected DOS2 to have great combat and character progression/variety. I liked the more adult tone of the game and story is better but still if combat is bad then the game has very little value to ME. I enjoyed one playthough but I could get myself to do second one. And in DOS1 on my second playthough I only began understanding the game and mechanics.
Posted By: lamp Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 07:29 PM
This is a bit more general but I feel like people reading this thread could give me some insight. Why do games change with sequels? Why did they completely overhaul combat when their first game did it so well? Why change? I really loved the first game it was the best I played in years and I thought the combat was a ton of fun. Why didnt they just add in their new skills/classes, new map and update graphics? Why would you take something that was so good and totally change it?
Posted By: Zherot Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 08:24 PM
Originally Posted by Luckmann
This is a compilation of my thoughts on a range of topics, originally prompted by the thread on the RPG Codex and the request by Kevin at Larian for feedback. Since this was originally written by me on the RPG Codex, I will not primarily be monitoring this thread, but rather my original post there. However, I'd like to implore Larian to actually trudge through said thread, since it is in the nature of the 'dex to pick apart and analyze even the smallest flaws, even on the things we love, but also to relentlessly dump on the unacceptable. If you can get past the coarseness, it is a gold-mine of feedback and suggestions.

These are my thoughts regarding some of the issues discussed, why they're issues (when not obvious), and thoughts on what can be done about it. I'm just listing these based on the small list of suggested issues mentioned earlier in the thread, and while other things have been discussed, most other issues have been simple matters of taste, or things that are literally unfixable at a fundamental level (there is no way to get the money back that was spent on voice acting, anyway). These vary greatly in their size and relevance, as will commentary on them. Some are minor, and some are really major in how they affect the game.

There are also very specific issues in the game, such as how specifically Necromancy seems to have been somewhat shafted, or how incredibly fucking broken Bone Widow is, how oil surfaces penetrate anything but completely non-magical fire surfaces somehow target magic armor, or the apparent tendency towards massive over-compensation, will not be addressed. They're simply too specific and this would quickly simply devolve into a laundry-list of unconstructive bitching, like a list of unforgivable grievances straight out of the book of grudges. It's an imperfect world. The intent of this episode of "Issues as according to me" is to examine things that are actually fixable or discuss things that are systemic in nature. Not every single flaw in the game, big or small.

I do this, as stated, because I feel it necessary to do so, lest bitching remain simple bitching. I genuinely enjoy most of D:OS2, I absolutely adored D:OS1 and think it was one of the best co-op experiences I've ever had in a game, and while I doubt that D:OS2 will reach that same level simply because it seems to be based a lot less around the idea of co-op (I will forever lament the fact that there appears to be no points of contention or places in the game where there's an exchange between player characters on what to do next, and that the contentious resolution system (Rock–paper–scissors), however silly it may have been, is gone forever; it was a nice piece of shared storytelling, whereas now the focus appears to be on an individual story that you just happen to share).

There's really no way to TLDR this.
  • The AI behaving retarded at times, for no discernible reason.

This one is actually quite minor, but frustrating, because it is so consistent. By far the most common issue is that enemies often tries to run away from players with Opportunist, suffers an Attack of Opportunity, lose AP, and proceeds to commence the attack they were seemingly planning all along - often a touch-attack spell or even a melee attack. Neither of which they would've needed to move for to begin with. And this happens a lot. Sometimes, they break away from someone with Opportunist, only to run to someone else (that may also have opportunist) and attack them - then, the next turn, they break away from the character they are now engaged with, suffer an Attack of Opportunity, and runs back to the one they first ran away from. Sometimes this happens even over environmental effects.

Now, someone might argue that "the AI doesn't know that you have Opportunist, nor should they!" - and that's a fair point, and one I happen to agree with, but it is already an established fact in D:OS2 that the enemies are psychic, as evidenced by their use of everything against Glass Cannons, or how they immediately target undeads with healing spells. I personally believe that the AI should treat all opponents equally unless they have cause to do otherwise, meaning that until they know that someone is undead, they won't target you with healing spells, and until they know that you seem to have no armor at all, they should treat you as if you do, and if someone runs away from an Opportunist and immediately suffer an Attack of Opportunity, everyone involved should know that that man does Attacks of Opportunity, and stop trying to run away and get pelted again-and-again.

It's absolutely jaw-dropping. In many, many ways, the AI is actually fairly clever, and sometimes (but rarely) they do very clever things - although this is somewhat restricted by another issue that will be discussed later. While there's been a lot of discussion about these AI issues, make no mistake that the AI is a lot better than it was in D:OS1. Sometimes, the enemies even use barrels or multi-stage setups, and sometimes they even try to cleanse themselves of effects. All of this is well and good, but this also means that when the AI does something stupid, it really stands out, and it stands out every time. The AI can - provided that they are considerably outnumbering the player - move things around and set up smart tactics at the end of one turn, only to have another AI-controlled creature literally run around in circles at the beginning of the next round.

Since everything that has to do with the AI is fairly esoteric, I cannot fathom why this is, or what can be done about it, but, fundamentally, the AI should be reluctant to move away from someone with Opportunist, and they should be similarly reluctant to move on dangerous surfaces. In D:OS1, this wasn't a problem, and the AI had no trouble avoiding running around on dangerous surfaces. Therefore, I have a suspicion that this has something to do with the armor system, and I have consistently seen enemies with very little magic armor run straight into blazing infernos, only to - of course - catch fire two steps in. At the same time, the AI being able to tell exactly how much damage moving a certain distance in dangerous terrain would cause them would be equally silly - just like the psychic nature of enemies in regards to the nature of the various allied characters (undead, glass cannons, etc).

And for all that is holy, tell the AI to stop trying to run away just to get a set distance away from you before they engage you in melee or casts a touch spell. I suspect that this is due to some order that they have to get in range, with "in range" defined as the maximum distance of whatever they're trying to do, and they're ignoring the fact that they are already close enough. I'm probably wrong, because it seems too simple, but that's the impression I have of what they're doing. I've seen enemies die to this on multiple occasions, and it's.. I don't want to sound entitled, but they really shouldn't be doing that; it's simply unacceptable. And I don't mean that as some kind of childish demand from my side, I'm saying that you, Larian, must agree with me, from your own point of view, that an enemy literally killing itself in front of me instead of attacking is unacceptable.
  • The laughably bad defensive abilities.

Another issue that I have a feeling can largely be chalked up to the binary armor system, because they seem to exist on some kind of principle, but are essentially vestigial since the binary armor system rendered the original defensive abilities meaningless or non-functional. The new ones, however, in what appears to have been an inability to conceive of new defensive abilities to match the new combat format of binary armor and outcomes, aren't just conceptually lackluster, they're simply bad. Now, I won't pretend like the defensive abilities of D:OS1 were amazing, or that the system was some perfect gem, or that I ever put a ton of points into any of those, but they all had a purpose and while a min/maxer might argue that they were a waste of points, it was never a complete loss to invest in them, and again, they still interacted with the overall system in a meaningful fashion.

Defense abilities in D:OS2, however? Can they really say the same? Leadership didn't even use to be a Defense Ability, but seems to have been moved under that header in an attempt to salvage the category. What's worse, the bonuses aren't necessarily bad, a bonus to dodge and a bonus to resistances, but at the same time, the range is restricted to 5 meters. 5 meters. That's practically "melee combat only" in D:OS2, but for whatever reason, Leadership is an "ability" Conjurers start with. A min/maxer might argue that you can move those points around - and you should, absolutely, because Summoning is the only ability that has a capstone reward at 10 points (which is a bad idea for many reasons, but that's another discussion entirely) - but from a design perspective, the preset is encouraging the use of an ability set (or, as I would call it, skillset) that will practically see no use.

Perseverance is even worse, conceptually, but only because the armor system is bad, and Perseverance has the potential to take it from "bad" to "borderline psychotic". But more so than that, Perseverance is simply bad. It allows you to restore Magic Armor after recovering from Frozen or Stunned, and Physical Armor after being Knocked Down or (for some seemingly arbitrary reason) Petrified (which does Earth damage, targeting magic). The only one out of those that happen consistently is Knocked Down, and at best it gives you a small breather from being affected by the same thing(s) again, but unless you're facing tons of enemies, it is unlikely that armor will actually remain long enough to matter, and if you are facing tons of enemies, it will be stripped anyway. Perseverance appears to be an attempt at create a relevant defensive ability in the context of the binary armor system, in lieu of other potential abilities that can boost defenses, but because of how the armor system functions (i.e. there are no other defenses), there is no way to properly balance this or make it relevant enough to matter within this context.

Even in a best-case scenario, it's extremely situational, and if you invest enough for it to even matter in those scenarios (so, 10 points for 50% restoration) you've irrevocably shot yourself in the foot. It would surely be fun when it does trigger, but by the time it does, you could've done something useful.

Now Retribution. Now we're really deep into the barrel of uninspiring, lackluster and useless. This thing deserves some kind of reward for it's uselessness and just how ill-fitted it is for this kind of game. A retribution-based ability is something you'd expect to see in a run-of-the-mill ARPG, and in such a game, it might even be useful - to an extent. But to have it in D:OS2 is just.. weird. And the ability is terrible. Not just in the applicable sense, as in it likely being the single most worthless place you can waste a point, with little-to-no battlefield application, but also conceptually, in a mechanical sense.

The reasons for this is actually quite simple. It is terrible as a choice for the player because it is entirely reactive, and completely dependent on the damage the enemy does to you. With 1 point in it, you take 100 damage, and you'll reflect 5 damage. The thing is, though, even with 10 points wasted into it, you'll "only" be reflecting 50% of the damage done to you against your enemies. And when has an opponent ever done damage anywhere even comparable to his health pool relative to yours?

Keep in mind that this is also in a game completely without defensive abilities beyond these three, and if you were to put those 10 points into, say, Single-Handed, you'd instead have +50% Damage and +50% Accuracy with one-handed melee weapons. Nothing that wouldn't absolutely destroy you will even react to the fact that you reflect 50% of the damage it does to you, and it certainly would not compete with a consistent +50% damage (and Accuracy!) that a weapon ability would net you regardless of whether the enemy is attacking your or not (such as being under Crowd Control).

However, even if Retribution would be buffed to 200% in returned and you had the defenses of a god, simply standing there until the enemies kill themselves by hitting you, it would still be conceptually ruinous, because you'd be committing one of the biggest sins in design that you can commit: you'd be rewarding the player.. for doing nothing. Just stand there, soak it up, and have the enemies kill themselves. In a turn-based, ostensibly tactical, role-playing game.

There's no way to actually save this ability. It should never have existed, and it should simply be removed. It's not just bad, it's conceptually and mechanically unforgivable.

I honestly cannot understand who thought that was a good idea, or good design, or how they even thought it could be useful. It deserves it's own little special layer of hell.
(Also, a completely separate issue, let me state for the record my enduring hatred of the D:OS franchises cemented tendency to systematically and categorically conflate the terms "skills" and "abilities" in a way no other game I have ever played does - "Skills" and "Abilities" are, everywhere outside of Belgium, apparently, the other way around. This messes considerably with my ability to uphold consistent terminology.)

  • The near-meaningless attributes and the slaughter of complexity & depth.

Now, I'm not going to pretend like D:OS1 didn't have any balance issues. That would just be silly. We all know it did. It was generally easy to simply pump one Attribute, maybe two, and that was it, and due to some other issues, largely absent in D:OS2 due to other changes, stacking modifiers to AP and Initiative was king - move first, move hard, and then move again.

But look at this. And then compare it to this.

It's depressing! It's downright pathetic! It's jaw-dropping how an attribute system can become so watered down and so simplified that it almost has no meaning or point to it's existence. This is Diablo 3-levels of oversimplification and dumbing down, with the exception that we pretend like there's any meaningful choice remaining, by still allowing the player to place their points.

"You are playing an X-type character. Do you want +5% damage to X, +5% damage to Y, +Health, or +1% Critical Chance? Or do you want to pay this Attribute Tax so you can have more skills?"

While there are more major concrete issues in the game, this thing is probably the one that makes me the most depressed, because it shows such a clear decline in meaningfulness, build versatility, and system complexity. It is really on a point where I feel that you might as well remove Attributes as a concept altogether, and simply apply +5% damage to the character, a health boost, and an increase in critical chance on a per-level basis, because none of this ultimately constitutes a meaningful choice; it's entirely and painfully obvious from the creation of your character to the end of the game where you'll be placing you points, and the near-obligatory points you practically have to put into Memory doesn't change that, but is rather to be considered a form of cheap attribute point taxation in order for you to be allowed to use more skills - not that you have to have that many skills, due to other issues in the game, since action points are very limited, cooldowns short and crowd control shorter.

I really don't know what else to say about this, and there's no simple way to fix this. The attributes need to do different things in different ways, and with so many parts of the game cut into in terms of depth, with no saves or resistances (beyond pure damage), straight-jacketed action points, and completely normalized ranges across the entire field for weapons (13 meters, I believe, whether we're talking crossbow, bow or wand), it's hard to determine what the attributes should actually do.

A lot of these changes shouldn't have gone in to begin with, especially not if they affect the core character mechanics in such a way that you eventually come to the final conclusion that "Oh, wait, what are these attributes supposed to do now that we've stripped out all the subsystems?". Someone might argue that it's "balanced", but balance for the sake of balance itself has no inherent value. Balance is only needed in the sense that too obvious options are stripped out to avoid one-trick-ponies or abuse, and forcing the player to think and adapt, deriving pleasure from outwitting or outsmarting the opponent or the system, strategically or tactically, but here, it has clearly come at the cost of meaningful player agency in terms of attribute distribution and build versatility - the very things that the concept of balancing is intended to support, because if it's not that, then what point is there to it?
  • The rollercoaster-ride of Talents.

Oh man. Should I take Five-Star Diner or Duck Duck Goose? Should I take Escapist or Executioner? Should I take Ambidextrous or Far Out Man? Should I take Elemental Ranger or Guerilla?

All of these questions are rhetorical. Some Talents are extremely powerful. Others are almost completely useless. To add insult to injury, some completely beneficial, while others constitute trade-offs. Escapist is based around the concept of actually losing a battle and fleeing, Five-Star Diner doubles the bonuses of food, but the issue with food was never the bonuses it gives, but the duration which it lasts, and why on Earth would anyone waste four Action Points to go into Stealth in order to do 40% extra damage? Either you spend 6 Action Points to do 140% damage, or you spend 6 Action Points to actually attack 3 times to do 300%.

Why do Ice King and Demon come with trade-offs in the way they do? If it trades 15% for 15%, the only real benefit is the +10% to a single resistance cap, which you'll be hard pressed to reach and that matters a hell of a lot less in a game where the armor system negates magic damage for a while anyway.

Why does Leech completely consume blood on the ground, when Undead don't consume ooze/poison? Is it just to make it incompatible with the single most thematically fitting combination you could do when you play a Leech, which would be that of a Nercomancer with the Blood Sucker skill?

Why are Slingshot and Far Out Man separate talents, when they essentially do the same thing conceptually?

Why does Ambidextrous have absolutely nothing to do with actually being ambidextrous or duel-wielding, and do you actually expect people to invest a talent in the concept of leaving their one hand completely free (foregoing both the more powerful bonuses of two-handers and the dual bonuses of having a secondary weapon or a shield)?

Why are The Pawn and Executioner mutually exclusive? Are you really so deathly afraid of people saving even a single extra AP and being able to kill someone? It's not an amazingly powerful combo, even.

So many questions. The Talents are a mess, ranging from amazing to questionable to functionally worthless. And what's worse is that this was true already in D:OS1, but it has somehow gotten even worse, with many talents removed or nerfed - some of them because the subsystems sadly no longer exists to support them (Courageous, Voluble Mage, Headstrong, Lightning Rod, Sidewinder, etc.) and others seemingly arbitrarily and without reason (Packmule, Sidewinder, Swift-Footed, Thick Skin, Anaconda, etc.).

What's left is a small number of Talents that vary wildly in usefulness, and are almost all universally applicable, with very little effect on actual build or character, with a few exceptions (Opportunist is obviously for warrior-type characters, etc.).

The solution here is both complex and very simple. First of all, if some things are changed for the better, such as the current armor system, the return of flanking, etc., many of the old Talents could easy be recreated and reinstated. But also, some Talents simply need to be buffed, or have the trade-offs removed from them, to actually make them solid choices. Other talents could be merged together, such as Far Out Man and Slingshot.

There's no reason I should go through all the potential fixes and things that could be done to each individual Talent, it should be fairly evident in each case. And for fucks sake, stop having Leech such the blood from the ground so you can actually use it with Blood Sucker (which should remove the blood from the ground).
  • Binarity of outcomes, predictability, and the armor system.

I'm unsure of where to even get started on this one. D:OS2 uses a binary system with two different types of armor, each of which determines whether something does damage to Vitality or not, and whether an effect of practically any type works or not, whether it's Taunt, Burning, Charm or Frozen.

First of all, it's completely unintuitive. You launch a big rock and throw it at the enemy? It targets magic armor and is absorbed by it, and only does damage to it, not to physical armor at all. You scream at someone and call 'em a cunt, trying to use Taunt on them? It literally bounces right off the shield, targeting physical armor. You launch a fireball? Magic armor. You throw a physical barrel of oil on someone and then throw a physical molotov cocktail on the barrel, creating a burning inferno? Soaked up by magic armor, and enemies can pass over it with little difficulty, without catching fire.

But that giant boulder you launched at the enemy, which was completely soaked up by magic armor? It spread oil on the ground, imposing the slowing condition, which automagically pierces all forms of armor, both magic and physical.

But the fact that it is unintuitive and feels arbitrary (which it isn't, it's actually completely consistent) is actually completely secondary. What it does is that it leads to a completely predictable combat system on any given turn. You know, with 100% certainty, whether something will work or not. There is absolutely zero ambiguity to it. Do they have armor? Your effects will fail. Do they not have armor? Your affects will succeed.

Any feeling of suspense is removed, and any risk taken with practically any action, making your actions in any one turn likely a given, without any considerations, hail mary's, or surprising turn of events. Simply put, the armor system completely negates any element of the Delta of Randomness. This is terrible design in itself, because that delta of randomness is one of the staples, I would say fundamentals of good turn-based gameplay, and the armor system breaks this completely on a systemic, tactical level.

So how can it be resolved? Short of reworking the entirety of the game and reinstate a save- or resistance-based system, there's not a whole lot that can be done. If absolutely determined to maintain the armor system at it's core in how it works right now, several things would have to change.

First of all, the intuitive nature of the system is more important than consistency. Whether something targets physical resistance/armor or targets magical resistance/armor should be determined by the nature of the spell or skill or item used, not by the damage type or the condition it imposes. A rock should target physical resistance/armor. A fireball should target magic resistance/armor. A molotov should target physical resistance/armor. And a lot of things - such as most surfaces or Taunt, should not stoppable by armor at all. The ability to resist them should either be by a flat percentage, or modified by something else entirely, such as Wits, or mental or magical resistances.

Furthermore, rather than having a system in which armor either completely blocks something or does nothing at all to block anything, the protection garnered could be a percentage based off remaining armor. If you have 100% magic armor, you could have a 90% chance to resist most spells or magic-based effects, as well as the magic armor soaking 90% of all magic damage, meaning the spell would only do 10% of it's damage to vitality.

At a theoretical 0%, the chance to resist would inversely be a mere 10%, and the spell would do full damage to vitality (since the armor is now completely gone).

While I would consider this approach imperfect, it would be a way to keep using the currently existing sub-systems and itemization and so forth, while constituting a considerable improvement upon the nature of combat resolution and the tactical layer of the game, which right now - for all practical intents and purposes - simply do not exist.
  • The Round-Robin Turn Orders.

This thing right here. I've pointed it out to multiple paste-eaters, and despite the very obvious and major issues, they simply hadn't noticed. It boggles the mind. And once you see it, it cannot be unseen. Most people assume that Initiative has a meaning in the game. They assume that it works like initiative usually works. They assume that the rounds in D:OS2 are operating on an initiative-based system.

I mean, it has to, right? I mean, if Initiative doesn't matter, then the mechanical benefit of Wits would be reduced to a mere +1% critical chance, the +2 initiative benefit for being human wouldn't matter, and all those initiative modifiers on items and equipment would be irrelevant? Surely, initiative must matter in a tangible fashion?

But it doesn't. D:OS2 operates on a round-robin turn system, where the only thing initiative determines is who goes first within a given group. And it is, hands down, the absolutely worst aspect of the entire game, and the single most indefensible design decision. To understand the issue, you must understand the implications of this, and to do that, you must understand how it works.

In D:OS2, allies & enemies always alternate their turns throughout a round. No matter who has the highest initiative, the opponent of that person will go second, followed by an ally, and then an opponent. Regardless of actual initiative scores. Let me give you an example:

Let's say your party of 4 has an initiative of 10, 11, 12, and 13 respectively. You are meeting a group of 8 enemies that all have an initiative of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. So, markedly lower than even the lowest one in your party.

You will move in this fashion, bar any special circumstance (such as summons):

You (13 Initiative)
Them (8 Initiative)
You (12 Initiative)
Them (7 Initiative)
You (11 Initiative)
Them (6 Initiative)
You (10 Initiative)
Them (5 Initiative)
Them (4 Initiative)
Them (3 Initiative)
Them (2 Initiative)
Them (1 Initiative)

Now, that alone should be enough to make you raise your eyebrows and go "Wait, that's retarded!", but the issues with it goes far beyond that.

First of all, this completely invalidates Initiative as a relevant secondary attribute. That +2 Initiative humans get? Completely irrelevant. Wits? Neutered; it effectively only gets +1% critical hit chance, and the only reason you'd take it is because you maxed out either Strength or Finesse, or to find secrets, which only one character in the party needs to do - presumably the one that you want to move first in the turn order and use to initiate combat.

All those items with +Initiative? Useless. You used a Bucket for a helmet for much of the initial stages of the game? Makes perfect sense, because -Initiative literally does not matter, especially if you are the one to initiate combat anyway.

But these issues are secondary or even tertiary to the effect it has on the strategic layer of the game, the layer beyond the actions of a single individual character (so brutally savaged by the aforementioned armor system). The execution of plans and the evolution of the combat landscape during the course of a single round is essentially non-existent, and it affects both the player and the AI.

Because of the round-robin turn-orders rather than an initiative-based system, the battlefield is a constantly changing landscape, to the point where it's hard to actually determine what is going on, or make any plans.

A common concept that I would consider foundational to the very concept of turn-based as an enjoyable way to play out key resolution mechanics is the ability to think ahead and act upon the perceived development of the landscape as it is (and by landscape, I don't just mean environment, I mean it in the widest possible meaning of the word).

In D:OS2, that's simply absent. Or at least it seems to have been lost as a key source of enjoyment, because it is practically impossible to plan ahead, because a single turn later, the landscape may be completely different than from when you ended your previous turn. And then it changes during your turn, but is immediately undone the next.

Furthermore, you may not even WANT to put down water (just as an example) because the next turn, there's a guarantee that no-one in your party will be the one taking action, so you might actually be shooting yourself in the foot - but there's no way for you to know if you are.

You don't want to throw out a barrel, because there's almost a guarantee that it will blow up in your face - if there's even barrels around at that point (which is a big difference from D:OS1, where barrels sometimes would not even get used in combat, or simply not get hit by environmental or AoE effects, which is almost a guarantee in D:OS2).

And this goes both ways. The AI doesn't want to do these things either - unless there's a significant number of enemies, meaning that they do get to do several consecutive turns at the end of the round. The end result is that the idea of planning ahead or predicting the actions of your opponents are absent from the considerations in D:OS2 combat. The kind of set-ups that were so common and so integral to the enjoyment of the combat in D:OS1 is entirely absent in D:OS2, and combat in D:OS2 often devolves into "playing catch-up" and reactionary decisions on a turn-to-turn basis; and because of the armor system, the actions taken within those turns are entirely predictable and essentially binary, meaning that you know exactly what to do and what will happen at any one time within any given turn, removing any feeling of suspense or momentary hopefulness.

Before I got a chance to examine the game and notice the major issues with it, my SO was already all in planning-mode about how we should plan ourselves to be complimentary, and how if she was using fire magic, I should take something to use earth magic, so if I made some oil, she could set it on fire. But in D:OS2, that doesn't happen. What happens is that I throw oil, and the enemy either remove it or avoid it and set it on fire themselves. And this doesn't just affect the player - it affects the AI too. The AI has the capability to do these things, I see them do it, it's actually quite awesome. But if they were to (like me) throw out a barrel from somewhere in front of them, I'd drop it on their fucking faces the next turn.

The only time set-ups like this can be done reliable, to see a plan and see it take shape, to get that rush of "FUCK YEEAAAAH BURN YOU FUCKING CUNTS, YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING, NOW DID YOU?!" is when you're at the absolute end of the turn order in a little clump. And 99 times out of 100, that's just going to be the enemy in one of those fights where they come busting in from every direction at the drop of a hat as the BBEG twirls his mustache and goes "Hohoho, you didn't see this AMBUSH coming, did you?".

There are no moments of "YES!" or "Aaaah, noooo!" in D:OS2 that isn't caused entirely by your own fault, or that comes unexpected, and there is no enjoyment in the procession of consecutive turns because there is no way to fulfil even a short-term plan. And both of those things are absolutely essential to practically all turn-based systems.

But it doesn't end here. No. It gets worse. There's not only a de facto inability to plan and execute, further hampered by the randomness of the evolving landscape in any given encounter, but round-to-round, the turn order can be perceived as essentially random. "How can that be? Weren't you just saying that they're utterly predictable?!" you might ask.

Yes, yes I was, and they are - to a point. You won't be the one to do the next turn, but you might not know who will be taking that next turn. You can probably figure it out, but it's by no means intuitive or sensible. You see, the turn order I described earlier is mutable. After all, enemies can die, right?

And if you kill an enemy, you might expect them to be removed from the turn order, right? Well they are. But someone else will immediately take their place. This leads to the fun, fun, fun situation of you killing a weaker opponent towards the end of a round, and in the next round - which is coming right up - the much stronger opponent has now taken his place, meaning that he may be moving before, say, the 4th person in your party, whereas if that enemy that had just died previously would otherwise have been moving in his stead - and maybe he would've died this round instead, or maybe even on his own turn by being on fire. But because you killed an enemy last round, the turn order gets reshuffled, and the much stronger enemy gets to move instead, and he might kill your 4th party member before he even gets a chance to move.

This has created the situation where you as the player, by killing an opponent, actually ended up in a much worse position than you would otherwise have been in if you had left the enemy alive. Yes, this is an extreme example, but this is still something that happens all the time in the game, even if you obviously don't end up losing a party member every time it happens. However, the fact that you can regularly screw yourself this way is completely absurd; taking out an opponent should always be something positive, bar special, narrative circumstances - the default should never be for the player to question whether he ended up in a worse position or not, or if he should simply have ignored the enemy until next round, maybe simply skipping taking any action, despite being maxed out on action points.

But wait. There's more.

For simplicity's sake, imagine a scenario in which you are alone against two opponents, and for whatever reason, they both have higher initiative than you. It results in the following turn-order:

Enemy #1
You
Enemy #2

Soon, you'll kill an enemy. Who're you killing? It better not be Enemy #1, because then the following happens!

Enemy #1 takes his turn.
You take your turn, and you kill Enemy #1.
Enemy #2 takes his turn.
Enemy #2 takes another turn, because it is now a new round and Enemy #2 at the top of the turn order now, because Enemy #1 has died.

Again, the player has boned himself by killing the opponent, through no fault of his own. Had he instead killed Enemy #2, the result would've been different, without the enemy essentially getting a free turn.

But wait. There's more!

You summon something. The summon moves right after you. But then at the next turn, it gets shuffled into the round-robin turn order, meaning that one of your characters can be pushed back as much as three turns, suffering additional attacks that it would not otherwise have done.

Summoning an ally, presumably done to improve your situation, might end up screwing you completely, and there's really no way to tell beforehand. The system punished you for buffing. This becomes very obvious as a Summoner especially, since Totems are extremely weak, but get shuffled into the turn order too, so that "lump" of potential "overflow" opponents could end up picking them off one-by-one in a single round before they can even possibly act in that round.

But wait, there's mooooooooore!

Because all Initiative does is determine your in-group turn order, gaining initiative is potentially detrimental. Why? Because if the only benefit of Initiative is between the player's own party members, it means that if a party member actually gets "too high" initiative, it puts him above another party member, and it might be disadvantageous for him to do so - such as if someone with Fire Skills gets bumped above someone with Earth Skills, meaning that if you rely on (in the extent you can rely on it in D:OS2; this is really just for the purpose of explanation, I know full well that this doesn't really happen in D:OS2, because of the armor system and the round-robin turn orders) the latter laying out oil so that the former can set it on fire, you can't do that anymore.

Another example would be a warrior getting higher initiative than the buffer in a party where you rely on the tactic of buffing the warrior before he moves. In fact, I know that there are players that consider initiative purely a negative stat for their main character, because their main character is a summoner, and relies on others putting down environmental effects before he takes his turn.

Can similar situations arise in an initiative-based turn-order system? Yes, but it is a lot more manageable, because if two party members are close to eachother in initiative, they at least do not suffer from the fact that an enemy will forcibly be inserted between them, further exacerbating the issue, and if someone gets higher initiative, it is still a net benefit vs. the opponents themselves, on average.

So what can be done about this? It's actually quite simple. Simply flipping the switch and make the game Initiative-based would be a tremendous improvement, and I know that D:OS2 can handle it, because that is apparently how it used to be, and in fact the entire game already appears to be geared towards using an initiative-based turn-order system, as evidenced by the modifier humans get, the initiative bonus from Wits, and the many items and equipments in the game which supports the notion that initiative is intended to matter and is intended to be a positive modifier.

But while that would be a tremendous improvement, it wouldn't be perfect, because it would obviously mean going back to the issues that prompted the round-robin turn orders to begin with. The ideal solution, in my mind, would involve rebalancing encounters to avoid massive stacking of initiative as an end-all be-all viable tactic, as well as to add a per-round element of randomness that, despite constituting a random modifier, would not be so strong as to undo the benefits of getting a higher initiative.

While obviously completely untested, my suggestion would be to flip the aforementioned switch and thus go back to an initiative-based turn order, and then, round-by-round, modify every participant's initiative by +/- (essentially either add or withdraw) 1d[total initaitive/2].

What would this mean? It would mean that someone with an Initiative would have a per-round Initiative range of 5-15. Someone with 20 Initiative would have a per-round Initiative of 10-30. Notice how the average is always equal to your base initiative, meaning that if you have 13 initiative, during the course of all your rounds, you will average out at 13. Your initiative still matters just as much as it did before.

However, it also does not guarantee you to go first in any given round. But at the same time, each round in itself will play out predictably (turn-wise), and you will never be punished for taking out an opponent, you will never be punished for summoning, and you can prioritize targeting. Obviously, up to two or three rounds should be displayed to you, with the modifiers for each participant already determined, so you can actually tell who moves when - and, as opposed to as how it is now, rely on that information.

I can only hope that Larian listens. Especially on the last topic. Because currently, it's balls.


Agree 100% and this is FACTUALLY the truth about this game whoever denies this is a fanboy PERIOD.

And you forgot to mention how broken is lucky charm and thievery (the broken shit that this fanboys are using and then saying the game is fine, pathetic maggots seriously).

I am not afraid of saying this I ENJOYED THE COMBAT IN THE FIRST GAME WAY MORE THAN THIS GAME 100% SURE ABOUT THIS.

I finished fort joy and seriously 98% of the time i had to cheese the AI or reload multiple times to get a fight to "play right" so i was able to beat the enemies (I am playing tactician and I am not exploiting thievey or lucky charm to hearde the best loot or massive amounts of gold), most systesm in this game are compeltely retarded and i really really despise SOURCE, such a terrible mechanic.

DOS1 was WAY BETTER than this game in terms of Gameplay.
Posted By: Violet Gekko Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 08:36 PM
All in all, I believe the issue like at the oversimplification of AP bar.

Who ever think of restricted AP bar with "6" max should shoot themselves in their feet, then playing naked in the middle of winter with naked characters.

That will teach them not to fix what isn't broken.
Posted By: Qiox Re: Issues as according to me - 27/09/17 10:46 PM
I hate the amour system. Almost all my posts on this forum, right from the start of early access were to complain about it.

And to ask 1 question of Larian: "What problem did you see in DOS1 that you thought this would fix?"

Sure would love to see them try and explain this design decision.

The deterministic nature of the combat is horrible. If the problem was the overly successful turn 1 cc of DOS1 then you lower the success rates, or you cap the success rate.

You don't turn it into 0% or 100%!

I am finding it really difficult to finish a play through to the end of this game. It is so stupidly easy it is just tedious and boring.

1st tried with a solo summoner thinking that would be hard. Ended up being shockingly easy and gave up on it at level 10.

Then tried with a balanced group of 4 hybrids with a mix of phys and magic attack skills. Again got bored at level 11 because there was no challenge at all.

Now, I'm going with what I did in DOS1, party of 4, using only Warefare, Scoundrel and Hunter skills. No magic, no healing done with anything other than food -- took Five-Star-Dinner at character creation.

I hope it gets hard, eventually. Steamrolled everything so far, but only level 6 right now.

There's a nice game here but surprisingly it's the combat system that is the game's biggest flaw. Never expected Larian to get that part of the game so wrong.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 12:27 AM
Originally Posted by Qiox
The deterministic nature of the combat is horrible. If the problem was the overly successful turn 1 cc of DOS1 then you lower the success rates, or you cap the success rate.

You don't turn it into 0% or 100%!


I don't think being deterministic is inherently wrong.
If you simply reduce chances too much CC could become too swingy: when it works you have auto won, hosed otherwise.

Would've preferred something like:
- slightly reduced chances
- increased CD on low level skills
- enemies have a chance to recover each turn
- HP values are increased so you can't ultramurder bosses in 1 turn

Or just go with deterministic and increase HPs + make armor reduce duration(severity where it makes sense).
Maybe make support abilities that remove CC common.

There must be a solution that puts CC usefulness between the extremes of the 2 games.
Posted By: Kalrakh Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 03:00 AM
I'm not totally sure, because much time passed since I played the first game, but I think enemies always had a chance to recover each turn, because Body Building/Willpower got tested every turn. If not, I would not mind to have it changed that way.


If hard CC is the issue, than it is because the Delta of Randomness ist to large, which means the difference between success and failure is to big: Success being hard CC'ed target and failure kind of wasted attack and possible own death.

Possible solutions would be:
- remove hard CC at all and keep only soft CC
- make hard CC a low chance effect of a skill and soft CC a always chance of a skill
- make hard CC only single target and high tier, high tear meaning 8 skill points and above into a skill tree and not 3, 3 is ridiculous low. In the first game you needed 10 points to learn one Tier 3 skill, 15 points to learn more than one. (But you got skill points later on much faster tough.)


For Physical Armor I once suggested during EA:
Return damage types and give them specifical traits, like piercing weapons always doing part of their damage as vitality damage, blunt weapons dealing extra damage to armor and slashing weapons always having a chance to cause bleeding. (Just as quick suggestion, not well thought out.)

With the current armor system, weapon benefits like "10% chance to cause shocked" are pretty useless, because the chance is anyway 0% while armor is on. Also magical soft CC on physical weapons is total bullshit anway, because the magic armor will hardly get penetrated for a chance of applying effect. In the first the problem was, that the chance were to low against high level mobs, making them useless and now they are even lower, making them even more useless as it seems.



Regarding chess:
Sure, that is strategy too, but in the end it is pretty boring. There are hardly ever real surprises, because the core game play means thinking several turns ahead and evaluating the most likely outcome of the next turns. Memorising all the typical high special moves/openings helps even more, but you won't have to need to think of a Plan B because the Plan A action failed, so hardly any need to improvise and hardly any suspense. Chess master can predict outcomes several turns in advance?
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 04:47 AM
Retribution should be changed so it only affects enemies close by. And it should not penetrate armors as it does. It should be a magical ability that is defended against ...
But of course since armors work as they do, this is practically impossible to do.

This fundamental armor change is the core issue that affects all other mechanics and distorts them to fit, some bad implementations aside.

The overall goal and reason for these changes is removing what ignorant dimwits call "RNG" or "randomness", thats why you have armors that work like binary force fields and Hard CC. As well changed Initiative which has been simplified into no initiative at all. Larian simply chose to pay more attention to audience that is bothered by this fundamental misunderstanding of what "randomness" really means, instead of improving the mechanics.

But that is the audience who come to TB rpgs from mass market action/rpg hybrids and they simply dont understand how TB systems really work and keep expecting and demanding same fucking Real Time mechanics and style of gameplay over and over and over. It has been the same for the last several decades of RPG development.

Larian decided to please that audience, and thats why we have these horrible dumbed down mechanics in otherwise pretty good game.

Ive stopped playing until some better mods come out so i cant comment on the narrative and writing except that in the first area which i find very well done.


Ill just repeat my solution to this again, in hopes some moder sees it and makes a mod:

Armors should work as percentage based damage reduction and magic defense.
There should be more soft Cc effects which can penetrate the armors - also percentage based.
Obviously - because we dont want binary yes or no outcomes. These Soft Cc effects should improve chance to succeed, their damage and duration through investments in their respective skills and basic attributes.
So Strenght, Finess and Inteligence would be valuable for each type of damage.

Hard CC can be kept but it should be only critical strike success dependent.
Wits should increase chance to achieve these critical strikes, Con should give defense against these criticals.
That would make both attributes very valuable for all builds and it would fit perfectly with any build.

These changes are simplest possible changes and they would change the combat from the hard CC slug fest, into combat where basic skills and abilities, including elemental magic and effects, play a much bigger role in course of every combat scenario, while Hard CC are the cream on top, rare and therefore much more satisfying epic achievements.

Players would be able to make builds that achieve more of them and that effort would then feel very rewarding, while other builds could still sometimes achieve them but wouldn't be useless at all.
This would also make elemental damage feel much more valuable again. Instead of minor annoyance as it is now.

Overall it would change combat from - apply one of two damage types until you can cast hard CC - crapfest, into a much more nuanced and options rich environment. Both for the players and the enemies.

I cannot see any negative effect of this change on the gameplay at all, while benefits are numerous and multidimensional. Best of all it would all be naturally and easily understandable even to complete newbies.

Larian will never do this, so its up to modders.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 05:13 AM
Originally Posted by Kalrakh

Regarding chess:
Sure, that is strategy too, but in the end it is pretty boring. There are hardly ever real surprises, because the core game play means thinking several turns ahead and evaluating the most likely outcome of the next turns. Memorising all the typical high special moves/openings helps even more, but you won't have to need to think of a Plan B because the Plan A action failed, so hardly any need to improvise and hardly any suspense. Chess master can predict outcomes several turns in advance?

Even a deterministic game with complete information will often go beyond a player's prediction if the game tree is complex enough, since it's impossible to memorize and calculate all details and the player has to rely on some rough generalizations. If a plan is bad, the player probably won't find it immediately, but he could find it after several turns and need to improvise. So I don't think this delta of randomness thing is necessary for a fun strategy game.
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 05:32 AM
Except this is not a fucking strategy game.

Not to mention that "ingenious plan" of making or imagining a game where quality of gameplay is dependent on players bad memory is - 1. completely inapplicable here, 2. completely idiotic.

Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 06:51 AM
Don't want to have endless quotes but basically qwerty3w and Draba yeah I hear you on resource management stuff. I can see now how people wouldn't like that aspect.

I guess maybe what they want is that feeling where a player should feel rewarded for not taking something others didn't, you know? Imagine you're playing with buddies and you got an insane weapon in a barrel for someone else. Pretty cool when you give it to them.

That puddle of water weapon was a good one though. Admittedly the game does lack that feeling. Like when you get Carsomyr from Firkraag in Baldur's Gate 2, you know this thing is badass and it's always going to be badass. If you didn't cheese Firkraag it felt incredibly rewarding as well.

Originally Posted by Draba
There are less meaningful choices, removes a lot of depth.
In most systems there are inevitably better and worse choices, but "pump mainstat every level" is something I'd expect from a browser game.


Do you have an example of an RPG where this is better? Outside of DOS I mean.

Originally Posted by Zherot
Agree 100% and this is FACTUALLY the truth about this game whoever denies this is a fanboy PERIOD.

And you forgot to mention how broken is lucky charm and thievery (the broken shit that this fanboys are using and then saying the game is fine, pathetic maggots seriously).


You quote the whole OP and then you come up with this gem. Good grief...

Originally Posted by qwerty3w
Even a deterministic game with complete information will often go beyond a player's prediction if the game tree is complex enough, since it's impossible to memorize and calculate all details and the player has to rely on some rough generalizations. If a plan is bad, the player probably won't find it immediately, but he could find it after several turns and need to improvise. So I don't think this delta of randomness thing is necessary for a fun strategy game.


Well put. Chess doesn't have as many variables as DOS2.

In any case to even reach that level in chess you have to sit there constantly similar games and moves or you have to study and practice the hell out of it.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 06:58 AM
Originally Posted by Hiver
Except this is not a fucking strategy game.

Not to mention that "ingenious plan" of making or imagining a game where quality of gameplay is dependent on players bad memory is - 1. completely inapplicable here, 2. completely idiotic.


Gameplay quality of any game is depend on the limits of memory and calculation. For a game with randomness, if you memorized the optimal strategies in all conditions, all there left is mere gambling.

D:OS 2's combat part is a strategy game, and it has far more elements than chess. It can certainly be done in a way that would give a good player surprises without randomness, especially if the enemies AI use some machine learning or fuzzy logic.

Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 07:33 AM
Originally Posted by Hiver
Except this is not a fucking strategy game.

Not to mention that "ingenious plan" of making or imagining a game where quality of gameplay is dependent on players bad memory is - 1. completely inapplicable here, 2. completely idiotic.


Just semantics. It's not a strategy game like SC2, but it makes large use of strategy in the gameplay.

Is there a game where you don't need to have good memory of what's what in order to do well at the game?
Posted By: Hiver Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 08:22 AM
Here i am criticizing mass market dimwits for their influence on this genre over years... and immediately two extreme examples jump in not only to confirm everything i said but to push it into even greater absurdity and unbelievable retardation.


Quote
Gameplay quality of any game is depend on the limits of memory and calculation.

This is one of the most idiotic proclamations about gaming i have ever seen. And ive been around.

Its hard to even imagine an answer to this, since nothing reasonable or logical can ever even come close to penetrating such a humongous amount of retardation and stupidity.

Maybe someone should bash your skull in with a hammer or otherwise critically damage your brain and then you will enjoy every game as best one ever. There will be no end to most amazing games for you.

memento gaming... ffs...


Quote
For a game with randomness, if you memorized the optimal strategies in all conditions, all there left is mere gambling.

First of all there is no randomness in RPG games. There are probabilities and chances, not randomness. The fact you are apparently too stupid to understand the difference doesnt change this.

And there is also no "memorization of optimal strategies in all conditions either" - thats only done in games for retards you usually enjoy. Because such games are so superficial and dumbed down that usually you quickly figure out one optimal approach to all of the gameplay and then repeat the same thing over and over like a good pavlovian doggie.

Such games are BAD games. And such RPGs are utter crap.
and thats what you want to play, apparently...

In an RPG a player learns to use limited options of his chosen character build slowly, first by using only one or two skills in easiest encounters and quests during early levels, then slowly increases the number of skills while progressing and leveling up through slowly increasing complexity of gameplay - thus you gradually learn to use a limited amount of capabilities or skills of your character build.

You can learn an optimal TACTICS for your specific build, but even then in good RPGs you have to adjust to different encounters and quests, but you are never EVER required to "learn all optimal strategies for all possible conditions".

The enjoyment in gameplay comes from learning and figuring out different combinations and options, NOT from being a brain damaged imbecile who cannot remember how to play.


Quote
D:OS 2's combat part is a strategy game, and it has far more elements than chess.

Who said anything about chess?
And no, RPGs have elements of strategic gameplay but their core is tactical and character driven gameplay.

Quote
It can certainly be done in a way that would give a good player surprises without randomness, especially if the enemies AI use some machine learning or fuzzy logic.

What the fuck are you talking about? What machine learning, what fuzzy logic? Is that something that exists?
And how would that remove "randomness" - which doesnt exist as such in RPG games?

The sentences that keep falling out of your head are not logically connected to each other.


Quote
Just semantics.

Yes, different genres and gameplay mechanics are "just semantics".

Quote
Is there a game where you don't need to have good memory of what's what in order to do well at the game?

There is no game where quality of gameplay is dependent on being too retarded and stupid to remember basic mechanics or options you have, except maybe in your world.

Thats an entirely different matter then the fact you naturally have to remember and understand basic mechanics and options, but i guess you cannot comprehend that.
Posted By: vometia Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 08:34 AM
A reminder to everyone to play nice, please.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 09:12 AM
Originally Posted by Kalrakh
I'm not totally sure, because much time passed since I played the first game, but I think enemies always had a chance to recover each turn, because Body Building/Willpower got tested every turn. If not, I would not mind to have it changed that way.


No, it definitely didn't work that way.
IIRC knockdown from slipping was the one exception, that could be what you remember.

Originally Posted by Kalrakh
If hard CC is the issue, than it is because the Delta of Randomness ist to large
...
- make hard CC a low chance effect of a skill and soft CC a always chance of a skill
- make hard CC only single target and high tier, high tear meaning 8 skill points and above into a skill tree and not 3, 3 is ridiculous low. In the first game you needed 10 points to learn one Tier 3 skill, 15 points to learn more than one. (But you got skill points later on much faster tough.)
...


Sorry, I mostly agree with you but that delta of randomness thingie gets on my nerves smile
Seen it repeated a lot nowadays, it's perfectly fine to use plain english for the specific cases instead of an arbitrary catchphrase that's too abstract to be useful.

For example, the problem with OS:EE:
- 1 aero 1 hydro gives 4(!) low CD hard disables, it's only getting worse from there
- you can cast a lot of them in 1 turn so failing isn't too big a problem
- damage output is so high that anything disabled is dead by the time it wears off(that includes end bosses)

In OS2 damage is still so high that a hard disable getting through means the target is dead.
Both your quoted suggestions could work, but only if overall durability of enemies goes up(or the silly damage output of a munchkin party is toned down).


My preferred solution would be some kind of resistance system(possibly tied to armor percentage if you want to be close to the current one), where hard disables always work but duration can be reduced a lot.
They could last for <1 turn, by removing some AP from the target and bumping its initiative down(for the next turn if it already finished its move).
The reduction can be either deterministic or chance-based.

An example that doesn't stray too far(asspull numbers ofc):
- target has totally intact 50 armor, hard CC only has 20% base effectivenes so a 2 turn disable only takes away ~2 action points(from 8) and reduces initiative to 60%
- after doing 30 damage target has 20 armor, effectiveness goes from 20 to 68% so a 2 turn disable works for 1 turn and takes away ~1 action point/reduces initiative to 64% in the second


Originally Posted by Aryah
Do you have an example of an RPG where this is better? Outside of DOS I mean.


For me an example of a good stat system would be Fallout's SPECIAL and the perks/skills/traits that tie into it(1-2 and tactics, NOT the Bethesda ones).
Even that does have some hard and fast rules but it's very involved and interesting.


I don't think chess is a good parallel, it's full information while OS games aren't(could randomize parts of an encounter/parts of abilities to make sure it doesn't get stale).
While you can anticipate some moves it's also unrealistic to know what'll happen in a 4 vs many situation 3+ turns in advance. Doubly so if damage rolls/crits are still random.
Don't have a problem with RNG and my favorite games usually utilize it a lot but IMO it's silly to flat-out reject deterministic mechanics.


Hiver try to reason, don't think many people are interested how you'd like to bash their skulls in with hammers.
You could start by explaining how there is no randomness in RPGs smile
Posted By: xenustehg Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 09:19 AM
I agree at every word in OP but the truth is devs are not interested in making a good game, especially if it requires a total reconstruction of existing system.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 09:49 AM
Originally Posted by Hiver

Quote
It can certainly be done in a way that would give a good player surprises without randomness, especially if the enemies AI use some machine learning or fuzzy logic.

What the fuck are you talking about? What machine learning, what fuzzy logic? Is that something that exists?
And how would that remove "randomness" - which doesnt exist as such in RPG games?
The sentences that keep falling out of your head are not logically connected to each other.

Well, any talk is gibberish if you don't understand it. Randomness in English includes concepts like uncertainty, probability and chance, especially when the context is about game mechanics. Strategy Game and Tactical Game are often used interchangeably, Frozen Synapse call itself a turn based strategy game, for example. Tactical RPG like X-COM and Fire Emblem are often considered strategy games too.

With more gameplay elements it's easier to design combat in a way to make it hard to predict in advance without randomness, but then the predictability of AI behaviours would become a more evident problem. Better make sure the player can't beat the same enemies twice using exactly the same strategy.
Posted By: ProlificSky Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 09:52 AM
I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with most of the OP's points. The arguments made are very well written and I hope Larian takes some of them to heart, especially the initiative system...wow I had no idea how bad it was until now.

I'd like to mention another problem though and that is inventory management. For OCD people like myself, it can eat up a ridiculous amount of time and detract from my overall enjoyment of the game. Filters were a great addition, but it's still such a pain to move items between bags and characters ONE BY ONE in a game where you can easily accumulate a TON of items. There are already posts up made by others giving suggestions, so I'll leave it to them.

Oh, and tying into inventory management, crafting somehow feels even worse in this game compared to the first. Skill book crafting is the only neat idea to come out of it, in theory, but in execution those skill books may as well be added to the vendors. It serves no purpose other than to bar people from getting some neat skills that they can look up the combination of online and to prevent more casual players from ever knowing it exists.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 10:20 AM
Originally Posted by Hiver
And there is also no "memorization of optimal strategies in all conditions either" - thats only done in games for retards you usually enjoy. Because such games are so superficial and dumbed down that usually you quickly figure out one optimal approach to all of the gameplay and then repeat the same thing over and over like a good pavlovian doggie.


His point was exactly that: in a good deterministic game with decent depth you simply can't see very far ahead as there is too much information to process.
No matter how exceptionally smart you think you are, human brainpower will be the limit.
Calm down and actually read what you are replying to, it's just basic english.
Posted By: Aryah Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 10:31 AM
Originally Posted by Hiver
Here i am criticizing mass market dimwits for their influence on this genre over years... and immediately two extreme examples jump in not only to confirm everything i said but to push it into even greater absurdity and unbelievable retardation.


Every time I see you post it's like you have a giant dump inside you which you can't get out. Difficult to take anything you say seriously as a result.

Originally Posted by Draba
My preferred solution would be some kind of resistance system(possibly tied to armor percentage), where hard disables always work but duration can be reduced a lot.
They could last for <1 turn, by removing some AP from the target and bumping its initiative down(for the next turn if it already finished its move).
The reduction can be either deterministic or chance-based.


I like this one.

Originally Posted by Draba
For me an example of a good stat system would be Fallout's SPECIAL and the perks/skills/traits that tie into it(1-2 and tactics, NOT the Bethesda ones).
Even that does have some hard and fast rules but it's very involved and interesting.


Fallout is a nice example I guess. Although in Fallout 1 + 2, if I remember correctly (it's been a while), you only have combat interaction through weapons, there are much less surfaces and there is no higher/lower ground.

DOS2 could get pretty nuts if you start to add in more factors. I think the complexity would increase exponentially with each layer you add. Adding more depth to primary attributes could make the game insanely amazing, or it could just break it. At any rate, I'd be curious to know what the actual logic was that Larian used.
Posted By: Bokajon Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 10:47 AM
Originally Posted by Hiver

This is one of the most idiotic proclamations about gaming i have ever seen. And ive been around.

Its hard to even imagine an answer to this, since nothing reasonable or logical can ever even come close to penetrating such a humongous amount of retardation and stupidity.

Maybe someone should bash your skull in with a hammer or otherwise critically damage your brain and then you will enjoy every game as best one ever. There will be no end to most amazing games for you.

I am surprised that you haven't been banned from this forum yet.
Posted By: Luckmann Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 12:43 PM
Originally Posted by Bokajon
I am surprised that you haven't been banned from this forum yet.
I'm surprised you can still breathe without a respirator, but you don't see me writing posts about that.
Posted By: vometia Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 01:01 PM
Guys, for the last time, quit sniping and stick to the topic.
Posted By: Darkwind Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 01:20 PM
vometia be all like...

[Linked Image]



As it should be, too much noise, not enough signal. Welcome to the interwebz! Although this forum is definitely not as toxic as most of what is out there.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 01:39 PM
High amount of RNG is mostly a tradition of American tabletop game industry that had been carried to early video game industry. Tabletop games from other places may use less RNG, there is a more deterministic class of tabletop games called Eurogame, for instance. Just because many old-school hardcore RPGs (that have been influenced by American tabletop games such as D&D) use a lot of RNG, doesn't mean there is anything inherently hardcore about it.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 02:11 PM
I didn't follow development so a bit out of the loop: is there any word from Larian about whether or not a larger balance pass will happen?
If the official stance is "everything is working as intended" throwing the alternatives out there is kinda a waste anyway.
Posted By: Darkwind Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 02:12 PM
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
High amount of RNG is mostly a tradition of American tabletop game industry that had been carried to early video game industry. Tabletop games from other places may use less RNG, there is a more deterministic class of tabletop games called Eurogame, for instance. Just because many old-school hardcore RPGs (that have been influenced by American tabletop games such as D&D) use a lot of RNG, doesn't mean there is anything inherently hardcore about it.


I think the disconnect is when you base the ENTIRE game around "American tabletop game" as you phrased it, then throw out these Japanese RPG style static (and huge) damage numbers and stats, it is very jarring. Pick a design philosophy and stick to it! If we are going to be arbitrary why not 100 in each stat to match the inflated vitality, armour, etc?

I know this wasn't your exact point and you were more about the RNG but they are related in that they seemed to cherry pick multiple design strategies and smush them all together, but not necessarily in the most coherent way. I think a couple of patches will resolve the issue, IMHO. It is not as "we r DOMED!1!!" as many are making it out to be.
Posted By: Bokajon Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 02:45 PM
Originally Posted by Luckmann
I'm surprised you can still breathe without a respirator, but you don't see me writing posts about that.

You actually just did write a post about that. Way to go cheer

As for the original topic I think you are way too dramatic and negative and treat minor issues as huge problems, but they really aren't. Also, most of the stuff you mention can be modded.

The AI does dumb things at times, welcome to video games, but more often than not the AI surprises me with challenging moves. "Retarded" is certainly not the right word for it.
Attributes: I don't see your problem. They give small boosts that add up over time. Nothing wrong with that.
Memory is one of my favorites. It can change the playstyle completely. It's not tax, it's a great choice to have.
Initiative: I agree. The way it works is stupid.
Talents: The talents are cool. Sure some are stronger for minmaxing, but not every player minmaxes. There are loads of people who play this game to roleplay. They want to play the grenade throwing dwarf, no matter if there are better minmax-choices. Check out any pen & paper game and you will see the same thing there.
Binary outcomes: I think the system works well. It makes combat more strategic and you can plan much better how to go about it. Definitely better than the RNG system from DOS1.

Overall I believe that you create a lot of fuss and big words about minor things. I'm having such a blast with this game - coop and solo - and I find it weird to see such a long article filled with negativity and drama.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 02:45 PM
Originally Posted by Darkwind
I know this wasn't your exact point and you were more about the RNG but they are related in that they seemed to cherry pick multiple design strategies and smush them all together, but not necessarily in the most coherent way. I think a couple of patches will resolve the issue, IMHO. It is not as "we r DOMED!1!!" as many are making it out to be.


I do not think using RNG and stat inflation are parts of different design strategies or are inherently incompatible. That said, I agree the stats are kinda silly and hate JPRGs with a burning passion smile

The question is, does the dev team even perceive the current state as something to fix? I'm not sure the people who want even basic combat balancing are a significant portion of the playerbase, going by the steam reviews people are playing the game as a roamer and do not care.

Originally Posted by Bokajon
Attributes: I don't see your problem. They give small boosts that add up over time. Nothing wrong with that.
...
Talents: The talents are cool. Sure some are stronger for minmaxing, but not every player minmaxes. There are loads of people who play this game to roleplay. They want to play the grenade throwing dwarf, no matter if there are better minmax-choices. Check out any pen & paper game and you will see the same thing there.


As I mentioned earlier nowadays I play RPGs for the combat.
From my perspective removing attributes and giving a fixed % damage increase + some memory slots would be practically the same as the current system, there is no depth to it.
It's not even "min-maxing" in the munchkin sense, after spending 30 minutes to go through game mechanics it's obvious what's THE way to use stats(sameish for talents, there are maybe 1-2 picks that could be something else).
Simply put, current combat isn't interesting or challenging for me(a step down from OS:EE, that was imbalanced but still fun).
Posted By: Zherot Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 02:54 PM
Originally Posted by Draba
Originally Posted by Darkwind
I know this wasn't your exact point and you were more about the RNG but they are related in that they seemed to cherry pick multiple design strategies and smush them all together, but not necessarily in the most coherent way. I think a couple of patches will resolve the issue, IMHO. It is not as "we r DOMED!1!!" as many are making it out to be.


I do not think using RNG and stat inflation are parts of different design strategies or are inherently incompatible. That said, I agree the stats are kinda silly and hate JPRGs with a burning passion smile

The question is, does the dev team even perceive the current state as something to fix? I'm not sure the people who want even basic combat balancing are a significant portion of the playerbase, going by the steam reviews people are playing the game as a roamer and do not care.


That is the problem:

FANBOYS

People that just outright lie to themselves and everyone else (devs included) about how marvelous their game is and how it is perfect in every aspect.

They just end up destroying franchises.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 03:06 PM
Originally Posted by Darkwind
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
High amount of RNG is mostly a tradition of American tabletop game industry that had been carried to early video game industry. Tabletop games from other places may use less RNG, there is a more deterministic class of tabletop games called Eurogame, for instance. Just because many old-school hardcore RPGs (that have been influenced by American tabletop games such as D&D) use a lot of RNG, doesn't mean there is anything inherently hardcore about it.


I think the disconnect is when you base the ENTIRE game around "American tabletop game" as you phrased it, then throw out these Japanese RPG style static (and huge) damage numbers and stats, it is very jarring. Pick a design philosophy and stick to it! If we are going to be arbitrary why not 100 in each stat to match the inflated vitality, armour, etc?

I know this wasn't your exact point and you were more about the RNG but they are related in that they seemed to cherry pick multiple design strategies and smush them all together, but not necessarily in the most coherent way. I think a couple of patches will resolve the issue, IMHO. It is not as "we r DOMED!1!!" as many are making it out to be.

I don't like the inflation too. Divinity was partly a Diablo-like series, number inflation in Original Sin games is probably a legacy of that, just like procedural item generation and the need to search every containers.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 03:12 PM
Originally Posted by Zherot
That is the problem:

FANBOYS

People that just outright lie to themselves and everyone else (devs included) about how marvelous their game is and how it is perfect in every aspect.

They just end up destroying franchises.


There isn't some grand conspiracy in the background, the majority genuinely enjoys the game.
It isn't a useless pile of shit, though pretty shallow if the story isn't enough for you.
Just the way it is: kids and the common folk took over RPGs from the neckbeards smile
Posted By: Zherot Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 03:31 PM
Originally Posted by Draba
Originally Posted by Zherot
That is the problem:

FANBOYS

People that just outright lie to themselves and everyone else (devs included) about how marvelous their game is and how it is perfect in every aspect.

They just end up destroying franchises.


There isn't some grand conspiracy in the background, the majority genuinely enjoys the game.
It isn't a useless pile of shit, though pretty shallow if the story isn't enough for you.
Just the way it is: kids and the common folk took over RPGs from the neckbeards smile


Typical hyperbolization that fanboys do to discredit any kind of criticism.

It is not gonna work with me.
Posted By: Bokajon Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 03:35 PM
Originally Posted by Zherot
Originally Posted by Draba
Originally Posted by Darkwind
I know this wasn't your exact point and you were more about the RNG but they are related in that they seemed to cherry pick multiple design strategies and smush them all together, but not necessarily in the most coherent way. I think a couple of patches will resolve the issue, IMHO. It is not as "we r DOMED!1!!" as many are making it out to be.


I do not think using RNG and stat inflation are parts of different design strategies or are inherently incompatible. That said, I agree the stats are kinda silly and hate JPRGs with a burning passion smile

The question is, does the dev team even perceive the current state as something to fix? I'm not sure the people who want even basic combat balancing are a significant portion of the playerbase, going by the steam reviews people are playing the game as a roamer and do not care.


That is the problem:

FANBOYS

People that just outright lie to themselves and everyone else (devs included) about how marvelous their game is and how it is perfect in every aspect.

They just end up destroying franchises.

Thing is that people who you call fanboys might just be people who are extremely happy with the game. You can't seem to accept that. They enjoy the game, they roleplay their character, they have fun! Just watch any Lets Play to see how much fun they have.
To me this is the best RPG I have been playing in at least the last 5 years. In the case of DOS2 you would even have to call every professional game reviewer a fanboy.

People that write in this forum make up maybe 0.0005% of all DOS2 players (I'm guessing here). That is not a big representation of players. Most of the DOS2 players are actually playing the game. They are having a blast while we are here discussing what's right or wrong with the game.

Of course a lot of people that you find here on this forum are the negative ones because otherwise they would be playing the game instead of writing. The majority of players though really really enjoys the game. If this is all a fanboys conspiracy then same can be said on this forum about the naysayers and people who seek negativity in everything they do. I am feeling sorry for those.
Posted By: Draba Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 03:52 PM
Originally Posted by Zherot
Originally Posted by Draba
There isn't some grand conspiracy in the background, the majority genuinely enjoys the game.
It isn't a useless pile of shit, though pretty shallow if the story isn't enough for you.
Just the way it is: kids and the common folk took over RPGs from the neckbeards smile


Typical hyperbolization that fanboys do to discredit any kind of criticism.

It is not gonna work with me.


Seriously, how slow are you? smile
I'm at the front when it comes to criticizing this game, I'm disappointed and would like it to be completely overhauled.

That said, I'm also capable of understanding that other people have different priorities and
plenty of them do not like the optimization/numbers game as much as I do.
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 04:18 PM
The Divinity games have always been not very mechanically polished but great for having tons of nonrepetitive contents to explore. Since Divine Divinity it has basically been Larian's game development style. The players should have expected that for D:OS 2 too.
Posted By: HUcast Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 05:48 PM
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
The Divinity games have always been not very mechanically polished but great for having tons of nonrepetitive contents to explore. Since Divine Divinity it has basically been Larian's game development style. The players should have expected that for D:OS 2 too.


I really don't know what you mean by this. Div OS1 had some of the best mechanical polish of any crpg I've ever played. I can't even find a game that holds a candle to it. So it make perfect sense why people are disappointed that Div OS2 was watered down significantly.

That being said I think that irregardless of what you think is or should be changed, you have to agree that some effects need to penetrate armor. Even something simple like making an enemy bleed fire surfaces needs to have armor removed to be applied, and by that point hard CC is miles better. I really want these softer skills to have a place, and they need to get through armors to do that.
Posted By: Kubiben Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 07:49 PM
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
The Divinity games have always been not very mechanically polished but great for having tons of nonrepetitive contents to explore. Since Divine Divinity it has basically been Larian's game development style. The players should have expected that for D:OS 2 too.


Even if thats true I expect the developer to try and learn from his mistakes and try to be better. If he doesnt that I will not buy his games on release(most large developers). Or ever(eg Ubisoft).
Posted By: qwerty3w Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 08:27 PM
Originally Posted by HUcast

I really don't know what you mean by this. Div OS1 had some of the best mechanical polish of any crpg I've ever played. I can't even find a game that holds a candle to it. So it make perfect sense why people are disappointed that Div OS2 was watered down significantly.

Some complaints I heard:
Stealing and crafting should have been more interesting, self-made items are too powerful.
Sneaking is almost always worse than invisibility skills.
Bartering and lucky charm have very little effects, and it's tedious to switch to your looter for looting or move items and money to your barterer.
Persuading has a rock paper scissor mini-game, annoying if the player really wants a certain outcome, and it doesn't scale well, 11 points for each win is no different than 6.
Item repairing is really tedious.
Traits pressure the player to make certain role-playing choices for character builds.
In the vanilla version, breaking a chest would lead to content loss, why they removed that in EE?
Strength/dexterity/intelligence are bland and discourage hybrid builds, though not completely invalidate them. Perception is too weak.
Talents are quite unbalanced, Hyperopia actually lead to less accuracy in long range.
Too much hard CC skills, grenades, arrows. Smoke is too effective against long range enemies.
Lack of synergies between earth-fire and water-air. It would be great if steam cloud is more useful, for example.





Posted By: HUcast Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 08:46 PM
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
Originally Posted by HUcast

I really don't know what you mean by this. Div OS1 had some of the best mechanical polish of any crpg I've ever played. I can't even find a game that holds a candle to it. So it make perfect sense why people are disappointed that Div OS2 was watered down significantly.

Some complaints I heard:
Stealing and Crafting should have been more interesting, self-made items are too powerful.
Sneaking is almost always worse than invisibility skills.
Bartering and lucky charm have very little effects, and it's tedious to switch to your looter for looting or move items and money to your barterer.
Persuading has a rock paper scissor mini-game, annoying if the player really want a certain outcome, and it doesn't scale well, 11 points for each win is no different than 6.
Item repairing is really tedious.
Traits pressure the player to make certain role-playing choices for character builds.
In the vanilla version, breaking a chest would lead to content loss, why they removed that in EE?
Strength/dexterity/intelligence are bland and discourage hybrid builds, though not completely invalidate them. Perception is too weak.
Talents are quite unbalanced, Hyperopia acutally lead to less accuracy in long range.
Too much hard CC spells, grenades, arrows. Smoke is too effective against long range enemies.
Lack of synergies between earth-fire and water-air. It would be great if steam cloud was more useful, for example.





You are completely right in the case of balance, divinity 1 OS was not so, even in the enhanced edition. However, it is a single player game, Balance can be secondary to making different things feel interesting and varied. Its ok that my cool bard multiclass character is slightly less effective than what is the most "combat effective". Not only would I not know what's the best until I tried both or looked it up on a wiki (which you shouldn't do anyway), I have plenty of fun with both.

When I say mechanical polish in divinity, I don't mean every option is just as good as any other to a T. I mean the systems in place are well made, reward creative play, and are satisfying to use. I don't think any CRPG is 100% balanced, nor do I think they should be.
Posted By: Zherot Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 09:05 PM
Originally Posted by HUcast
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
Originally Posted by HUcast

I really don't know what you mean by this. Div OS1 had some of the best mechanical polish of any crpg I've ever played. I can't even find a game that holds a candle to it. So it make perfect sense why people are disappointed that Div OS2 was watered down significantly.

Some complaints I heard:
Stealing and Crafting should have been more interesting, self-made items are too powerful.
Sneaking is almost always worse than invisibility skills.
Bartering and lucky charm have very little effects, and it's tedious to switch to your looter for looting or move items and money to your barterer.
Persuading has a rock paper scissor mini-game, annoying if the player really want a certain outcome, and it doesn't scale well, 11 points for each win is no different than 6.
Item repairing is really tedious.
Traits pressure the player to make certain role-playing choices for character builds.
In the vanilla version, breaking a chest would lead to content loss, why they removed that in EE?
Strength/dexterity/intelligence are bland and discourage hybrid builds, though not completely invalidate them. Perception is too weak.
Talents are quite unbalanced, Hyperopia acutally lead to less accuracy in long range.
Too much hard CC spells, grenades, arrows. Smoke is too effective against long range enemies.
Lack of synergies between earth-fire and water-air. It would be great if steam cloud was more useful, for example.





You are completely right in the case of balance, divinity 1 OS was not so, even in the enhanced edition. However, it is a single player game, Balance can be secondary to making different things feel interesting and varied. Its ok that my cool bard multiclass character is slightly less effective than what is the most "combat effective". Not only would I not know what's the best until I tried both or looked it up on a wiki (which you shouldn't do anyway), I have plenty of fun with both.

When I say mechanical polish in divinity, I don't mean every option is just as good as any other to a T. I mean the systems in place are well made, reward creative play, and are satisfying to use. I don't think any CRPG is 100% balanced, nor do I think they should be.


He forgot to say that DOS1 had fun combat.

In here it is just a chore.

Best part of the game ruined.
Posted By: Qiox Re: Issues as according to me - 28/09/17 11:06 PM
Originally Posted by qwerty3w
High amount of RNG is mostly a tradition of American tabletop game industry that had been carried to early video game industry. Tabletop games from other places may use less RNG, there is a more deterministic class of tabletop games called Eurogame, for instance. Just because many old-school hardcore RPGs (that have been influenced by American tabletop games such as D&D) use a lot of RNG, doesn't mean there is anything inherently hardcore about it.


I guess you didn't notice while playing that games with RNG can be challenging because things often don't go as planned. While games without RNG are boring as hell because things always go exactly as you plan.

Now, since having a variety of people will cover a broad spectrum of the quality of their planning abilities, it is no surprise that many people completely miss this point.
Posted By: Zherot Re: Issues as according to me - 29/09/17 03:59 PM
Not letting this thread die, it explains really well most of the problems within the game.
Posted By: Horrorscope Re: Issues as according to me - 29/09/17 04:19 PM
Originally Posted by Zherot
Best part of the game ruined.


We all have our own opinions. Steam users 94% say the like.
Posted By: Zherot Re: Issues as according to me - 29/09/17 06:11 PM
Originally Posted by Horrorscope
Originally Posted by Zherot
Best part of the game ruined.


We all have our own opinions. Steam users 94% say the like.


Well thing is what this post says is 100% fact.

People can like shit all they want but that doesn't mean is not shit and most people are retarded that is the sad truth, that is why the more a game is known the more idiot fanboys it gets and the more retards come to play it, since they are the mayority and the devs obviously make games to earn money they end up ruining their own games to please this high amount of retards (fanboys) with terrible fucking taste.
Posted By: vometia Re: Issues as according to me - 29/09/17 07:01 PM
I think that's enough drama for one topic.
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