Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Damage extremely low?

Well, let me start off by saying the game is very fun. Been playing co-op for a while (10 hours or so) but there are a few kinks as expected of alpha stage. Something has really been bothering me though which is the damage between mage and every other class... It seems EXTREMELY difficult to progress without a mage if you're going to play a little renegade (kill everyone who opposes you which we've done but very hard when I'm doing 1-3 damage when my girlfriend does 36).

I've picked up a bow and the stats were 5-17 but I'm hitting 1-3 while (I'm guessing) more lightly armored targets take full damage. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

As for bugs, we've only found the game to be long in load times, random crashes, our save corrupted once, and a few spelling errors but I'm sure it'll be fixed over time. There was one really weird bug but it crashed and my computer was unholy slow and I had no choice but to restart it.

Yep, Forktong confirmed that this is probably some kind of bug. I've noticed it too.

I noticed it with my coop partner playing a ranger and using a bow. Consistently 1 hp damage on lvl 3 undead...we agreed it makes shooting a bow feel like a waste of action points.

I've considered making -all- of my characters mages simply for this reason. But then suddenly, Madora is dropping 50s on wolves. If only she were that useful on skellys.

I also noticed this. I am playing (well was playing) a Ranger while my coop friend was a warrior. His damage was middle of the road like 8-20 on the first set of zombies. He could do 20-40 on the zombie hogs. While I had a decent bow 8-21 I think. I was hitting the zombies for 3-6. It was no fun so I started learning spells with all my gold. Much better. So I think until they can do something about that Im stuck playing mage!

Yeah, the enemies at the lighthouse don't have the amazing resistances that the other Undead have. My rogue had saved up a full 14 AP, and snuck up behind a couple and dropped about 8 attacks totalling 100 damage - in one turn. With a dagger.

I find my archer does well if I take time to line up shots with a few of the special arrows, not too expensive if you're adept at stealing.

Has anyone checked whether the damage is based on weapon type vs monster group?

e.g. Slashing is better against fleshy enemies, Crushing is better against bony enemies (skeletons)? With piercing being lowest, but negating most armour.

I thought I heard them suggest something like this early on?

I might be confused though.

I have noticed better damage on a warrior using a mace versus skeletons, as well as certain types of magic against elemental type enemies. Ice against some strangely named tiny fire elemental things and a little bomb enemy that I tried ice on first, did almost nothing, then a low level flare spell made it explode outright.

There is supposed to be certain weapons that are better against certain enemies. Piercing is not good against skeletons as there's nothing to pierce. Crushing is best against skeletons and certain skills are better against certain enemies. There was even talk that zombies could be set on fire and would lose flesh then would be skeletons. Don't know if they are keeping that idea in. It was something discussed during the Kickstarter.

If that was discussed about zombies it has not been implemented.

I've found this issue too. Not with bows, but single weapon.

Madora use a two-handed sword 28-54 and does 35-50 damage per hit.
I use a single weapon, sword 24-36 and do 8-10 damage per hit. (I even find a knife 22-32 with which i've done 3-4 damage per hit).

But monsters aren't bugged at all, even with single weapon style. They hit me hard 15-30 damage per hit even with a good armour resistance : 31.

What are the stat differences between your character and Madora? Also I've got terrible armour and things hit me really really hard, 15-30 would be nice.

It would be ace if Larian posted a formula for working out "To Hit" and also "Defence" values (i.e. resisting the hits from enemies).
Because at the moment, I'm just stacking on plusses without understanding how the actual calculation is done.

If Larian gave us a formula, we could at least in the process validate that the damage is being applied in a reasonable way. ... incidentally - this gives me an idea:

Larian - can you please enable a console text dump thingy that shows the calcs?

Cheeeaaarrrss..

@JFSeiki i've got the same strength. But it looks like that strength only permit to hit not to inflict damage. Madora had "3" in two handed style and i've got only "2" in single hand style at this time.

I've found a new two handed sword 54-100 damage, she had "4" in two handed style and done 130-160 damage per hit (against bandit, it was so huge...).

So i've decided to create new characters :
- Girl : Fire-ice mage (always useful)
- Boy : Two-handed and big armour specialist.

In a fight madora did very low damage to skeleton with her sword.

The way I understood it was stats do not increase damage, instead increasing HP, APs, initiative, ability points and chances to hit. Damage upgrade seemed to come from abilities and perks (and obviously gear).

Also, keep in mind (as the archeologist suggests once saved) that all weapon types are not equally efficient against different enemies (which is a classic in traditional RPGs). If you want to max out damage on skeletons, then crushing damage is the way to go, piercing and slashing won't do much good.

Another thing, Lore Master might help you gather more info on enemies and help you understand what they do, what their defenses are, and so on, and compare those informations with your characters'. Might help you make some more sense of what's going on in battle.

Overall, it seems pretty clear to me that damage dealing is still a work in progress. There are unconsistancies of course, skill balance issues obviously, but the main issue is that the overall damage is not balanced at all. You hit very high numbers or very low numbers, there's no real in-between, which suggest that a lot of tweaking is yet to be done. Not to mention some skills that are completely borked in a way or another (i.e.: Winterbreath vs. Flurry).

My co-op partner also suggested that the segment we get to play through in alpha is not the very begining of the game, so it's possible that on release we might have an additional segment to go through before getting there, implying that our characters will not be level 1, have a greater variety of skills and different gear. Right now we play level 1 characters in what seems to be a level 5 zone. So that logically affects numbers in battle, and explains how powerful Madora and Jahan appear to be compared to the main protagonists in the alpha.

[EDIT]: I had this idea a while back and never got around to suggesting it, now seems like a proper time. I'd like to suggest the addition of a Combat Log in the game (something that others also have suggested). Something in the lines of the original Fallout games if Larian does not want to flood us with numbers and calculation, or, something in the lines of the original Neverwinter games, with a clear breakdown of the math behind every action. In any case, a Combat Log would be great and would considerably help decyphering and understanding combat mecanics and/or cause and effect on undertaken actions.