Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Why break such a great game?!

Tip to Larian and would be developer. Always release Hard and loosen reins as you go. Once people are set the majority don't want updates to make a game harder unless it is a specific difficulty setting. How many times do we have to do the same things over and over? Make it hard and they are none the wiser.

I can actually see both sides of the argument. Its hard to make everyone happy but it's possible.
PrePatch Hard just wasn't actually too hard. I think there should be another difficulty level above hard - call it hardcore or whatever.

Have that mode with hard resist caps and OP skills severely limited and leave the rest of the difficulty modes as before. 3 difficulty modes isn't encompassing for a game like this.

I recall not long before release there was talk of tons of sliders for various difficulty adjustments. Perhaps I was dream that.

as per Hotfix version 1.0.132,

- Changes to resistance cap that were supposed to be in the patch but did not make it in (zombie talent fix, can go over cap with potions and temporary effects) -

this is good. hope this only applies to player characters and companions. elemental creatures, summons and enemies, and certain unique enemies, bosses should have 100% resist as before.

for my own playing style, elemental resist isn't that big a deal, 100+ resist would make the game easier, but capping it won't break the game.

the heart of the "game too easy" issue is enemy AI and presets after mid game. at hard difficulty, in addition to HP and hit chance, enemies should have higher bodybuilding and willpower; fire skeletons should know not to attack fire elemental summons over and over again~~.

To clarify, they don't "auto-level" to your current level, but they will level up when you use them in your party. So if you're level 12, and you hire a level 1, they won't automatically become level 12 after hiring them. You'd need to hire a henchman closer to your level.

As for the mod to add resistances back, it was out quite quickly. Here's the link.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=546666

My opinion is that this was the right intent, wrong execution.

People complain it's too easy to get over 100% resistances? Don't cap the resistances like this and ruin itemization and crafting bonuses for everyone on all difficulties. Change it so that on HARD DIFFICULTY, starting resistances are -50 or -75 or whatever number would make it an achievement to get to 100+ resistances using the current itemization + crafting. It ends up being the same end result, but I as a player would not feel like my gear is now worthless.

Also, making it specific to the hardest difficulty would more easily make everyone happier. Like it the old way? Play in normal or easy. Want to play on Hard? Better collect your resist gear, it's important.

Alternatively, make Glass Cannon have -X% all resists. Then you actually would be more of a glass cannon.

I'm not real happy with needing to mod the game to make the default crafting useful now. And by that I mean that in my opinion, crafting was useful for improving weapon damage, adding resistances, and also a bunch of mildly useful to useless other stuff. Now it's sole purpose is to improve weapon damage and a bunch of mildly useful to useless other stuff.

But either way, I'll live.

Just my .02.

^Good Idea. And it is a very simple number change in 2 cells of a spreadsheet to do that and repack. Seriously.

This sounds weird. It seems there's a group that want balance and more hard and there's a group that love how it's used to be previously. So Larian upset the masses simply by listening to one group of people that love the harder game. Correct me if i'm wrong.

So instead of forcing and changing the game mechanics outright, Larian should have made an "official mod" or a separate difficulty that these group of minority that want the game to be harder. This would be the best way no? Why you have to force it to everyone?

regarding to the resistance cap,I think maybe spiderweb's games can offer some insight.for example,the chest amor offers 20% resisance, then legs 20%,but in stead of being caculated as 20%+20%,it counts as 20%+(1-20%)*20%,and so on,if your hand gear has 20%,it's 20%+(1-20%)*20%+(1-20%-(1-20%)*20%)*20%.so without potions or temporary boosts,you'll never be able to reach 100% by equipments alone.

We're all trying to beat the game, but the two groups you mentioned are wanting to beat different aspects of it. The group that loved the game as it was were the players who enjoyed the game world and were trying to beat that fictional world (which means self imposed limitations are acceptable), while the group wanting a harder game is trying to beat the game mechanics (therefore self imposed limitations aren't acceptable), and couldn't care less about the game world and the fact that this is an RPG.

Now I remember one reason I quit MMORPGs -- not because of frequent balance changes, but because of a hyperbolic playerbase's reaction to them.

My main problem, is the henchmen stop auto leveling to your level, I want that back because it allowed me to make the henchman I Wanted, it wouldn't be a bad deal if enemies re-spawned and I could grind them to the right levels, but they don't, so I can't. Mmm, now that I think about it, thank god for cheat engine, it will solve this issue for me.

I actually wouldn't mind the game harder than it is now, I just think that the two ways that are getting the hate are very bad ways to do it. I'd be happy to see smarter AI, weaker equipment, and less free gold lying about. But the resistance cap seems to be a "because reasons" and doesn't feel natural in a game where enemies regularly absorb things and where crafting allows you to throw your actual number up to 200. In City of Heroes, an MMO I played religiously for years, there were resistance caps- between 75 and 90 depending on your specific class- but getting to these caps was a chore. With the exception of the elemental defense power sets which always wound up at max to that element, you really had to finesse your build and invest to hit the caps. In this game, we just unceremoniously crash into the cap. I don't feel like I was given a "harder game" by having a cap put in. I feel like I was robbed of 120% fire resistance, 25% Water resistance, 20% air resistance, and 30% Earth resistance. These are things I purchased/obtained in character that don't work because random ceiling, not because any given aspect is now less than it was before.


And the followers thing is just... inconvenient. It denies customization but it only ups the difficulty if you want to change your followers later. The game shouldn't punish you for wanting to attempt new things.

That said, my partner probably /would/ mind a difficulty spike. While my Man At Arms was very hard to hurt before, her mage had to struggle hard to get that 120% fire resist to be immune to fire even when burning, and in larger fights she finds herself often having trouble staying alive because I just cannot draw all the aggro. Summons help, but spellcasting enemies are vicious to those who aren't Armor-Plated Men-At-Arms. We only unlocked the ability for her to stand in fire patches to heal and keep foes away recently, and it's definitely helpful and interesting.


So yeah, you can't please everyone, but increased difficulty that feels organic works much, much better than increased difficulty that's obviously just the game mechanics holding you back, and limiting player choice generally makes things less fun.

It was no secret that resistances could be raised to 100 and change from damage reduction to healing when interacting with an element. I think you're patting yourself on the back a little too hard with this idea that you broke the mold and developed a "strategy" here. Because another perspective is that you simply took advantage of a questionable mechanic - you and everyone and their brother, apparently. The world needs lemmings too, I guess.

Ohh noes! The game isn't beyond easy mode anylonger with above 100% all resist!? The game is easy enough as it is, why do you need to be invurnable?

I actually quite liked it as a mechanic, not because it's some illicit way of making things easier. That said, I don't live for hardcore combat and for me it's a minor (and sometimes exasperating) part of gameplay. I've seen numerous comments that it should be more difficult: by all means, make hard mode harder if necessary, but I'd rather easy and normal were left alone.

Part of the problem seems to be that the game is trying to cater for two disparate groups, the very competitive MMO crowd and the more introspective immersion types, and there seems to be limited commonality between the two. I don't think that chucking insults either way is really a productive way to address the problem, though.

I think it is great that they capped the elemental resistances. The game was way too easy before.

I think there's no need to black n' white people into mmo-ers and singleplayers. I myself is of the BG, torment tradition, and won't spend a second of my life in mmo, but I'm not opposed to the elemental resist hard cap.

for all the "balance" discussions here, I consider meaningless those treating D:OS as a pvp game, but those quite constructive when toggling the difficulty issue: combats turn too easy from mid game. yet, whether and how this issue to be fixed really depends upon Larian.

someone mentioned that when Larian provides a great mod tool, they have the right to stick to the core game as they intend to be. I somewhat agree with this, and especially from my wonderful gaming history with BG2. Veteran gamers don't ask Bioware to rebalance the game, they just make the game harder through mods. with or without mods, uber powergamers love all sorts of self-inflicted challenge, "no reload on insane tactics mod" being one of the most popular.

so, I think all those pvp minded gamers should make their own mods; all those think the game just silly easy should do the same. there's already a source difficulty mod out, have these gamers tried already??

then, Larian should really go back to the root of their design, making sure that future fixes really
fit into what they envision D:OS to be.
so, does hard cap elemental resist really make sense? or just a shortcut to fix balance issue?

I always think that the idea is to make elemental creatures to be healed by elemental attacks, but it's implemented incorrectly. but IF it's always part of the core rule that 100+ resist = elemental healing, Larian needs to think more before they change their own core rules.

I seriously, seriously doubt that the next will be an MMO. See how well that worked out for another single player RPG franchise - The Elder Scrolls (ie. not very well).

I think the caps are reasonable and somewhat plausible - the hotfix makes it possible to gain immunity and even healing from elemental damage temporarily through potions and spells, which is a good thing, imo.
I'd say there's still room for some tuning, e.g. by increasing the duration of potions and spells outside of combat a bit (probably just increase duration of a "turn" in realtime mode). Providing different caps depending on difficulty doesn't sound too bad, either (e.g. 120% on easy, 85% on normal, 70% on hard).