Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 3 of 5 1 2 3 4 5
Joined: Aug 2015
L
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
L
Joined: Aug 2015
Agreed completely!!

Less is more in this case. I mean fuck I can't recall a combat where the environment effects wasn't the single most important factor.
Definitely looks and feels excessive. But that's a larian thing, they always go way fucking overboard until things are ridiculous, and if you're lucky, they then tone it down a bit

Joined: Aug 2014
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Aug 2014
Originally Posted by Redscope
Originally Posted by Ayvah
Defence is worthless when you're trapped in a stun-lock.


Regardless of who would win, offense or defense, the problem itself is stun-lock.

Stun-lock is something every game should strive to remove if it exists. It's not fun for anyone besides those who enjoy having a 'win button' in their games. There aren't enough people who want zero challenge while playing to produce a game that specifically lacks challenge.

As I see it, the current stun-lock problem is two-fold:

Armor vs. Effects
For one, you have an all-or-nothing effect system. Either your Phys/Magic armor is up and nothing lands, or it's down and you're locked. No in-between. Magic armor is particularly bad because of how much worse magical effects are. At least when you're fighting physical-heavy targets, most of them have to get close to you.

The only chance you can hope to have is a shield. While that does make the shield a powerful tool, it isn't necessarily a forgiving system when you have a "yes or no" question on defense.

(P.S. I'm not advocating a shield nerf...)

Damage + Effects
Another problem is your effect on the base damage type. For added damage effects, it's not game-breaking. Things like Burning, Bleeding, Poison, etc can add to the difficulty of a fight without ruining it.

However, when your effect is a stun/knockdown/fear (air damage is the worst offender), you remove the chance of continuing combat once the first effect lands. For instance, when I co-op with another physical class, we find the biggest, heaviest guy in the fight, reduce his armor to zero, and then keep him knocked down until he's dead.

That's no way to play...honestly. Sure it makes the fight so much easier for us, but it isn't fun. That's the strategy we use constantly now. Just keep them on the ground.

Solutions?
Armor. Players need more magic armor early on. Especially heavy armor. You have to remember, melee and heavy armor targets are not meant to be weak against magic because 'magic'...they're given heavy armor because 9 times out of 10 they've got to close the distance with a target that's already putting damage on them.

I understand the resistances will eventually lead to the smaller amounts becoming more effective, but early on it's just too low.

Weighted Effects. Effects are not all equal. We should at least be able to see that setting a target 'burning' once per round is a lot less powerful than setting 'stunned' or 'blinded' once per round.

Effects cannot exist equally across the board on all damage types. Control effects should be much more limited.

Damage or Effect. Not only should effects not be treated equal among themselves, they should also be a determining factor on how much damage a skill does. As a general rule, the higher the damage on a skill/spell, the lesser (if at all) the effect should be. For example, a two-round AoE stun spell shouldn't be a high-damage Chain Lighting that can be used every two rounds.

Personally, I think anything that takes more than 1 turn to recover from should be a very low-damage (if any) technique with a longer cooldown than simply +1 turn from the duration of the technique.


Great points here. I think air damage + blood/water stun explosions are BY FAR the biggest issue with the environmental effects. The "weighted effects" provides a possible solution: standing in electrified water or blood gives you a "crackling" effect that is like burning or poisoned, dealing some amount of air damage (less than burning and poisoned though) and reducing air resistance but giving a bonus to earth resistance. However, if you're already crackling and you spend an additional turn in electrified water/blood, then you are stunned. This gives a delay effect that makes one like air wand hit not absolutely fight-changing.

Couple this with certain skills making longer or shorter duration surfaces. As you suggested, an air wand hitting some water might only make the water electrified for one turn, where casting chain lightning on it might last 4 or 5 turns.

A much bigger change would be to actually make the surfaces have multiple "levels." To some extent, cursed already does this, but it could go farther with regular surfaces. Say, a fire surface can be smoldering, which deals damage when you walk on it but does not light you on fire, burning, which is as is now, and raging, which deals more damage than now. Fireball might, for example, make a raging fire right at the point of impact, regular burning with a slightly larger radius, and smoldering on the edge. Perhaps cursing amps it up to its highest level + the curse effect, so there isn't a need for Cursed Raging Fire, Cursed Burning, and Cursed Smoldering Fire. Perhaps even just smoldering and burning and cursed fire would be enough. Most things would just cause smoldering, but powerful fire spells would cause burning.

A huge overhaul, of course, but it could help.

Joined: Sep 2016
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2016
I couldn't disagree with you guys more I love the environmental effects, and the armor system as it is, and believe them to be the most unique and entertaining aspects of the game. What i'd like to see more of are surface and cloud ignoring/removing skills. Like make whirlwind clear surfaces and clouds in the area, similar to the throw dust skill the A.I has (I am assuming rouges will get access to it latter as well), and make tornado and float/surface walking spells available in act 1. Then program the A.I to use these moves along with magic armor regen spells when they start getting caught in stunning or other harmful surfaces.

Joined: Jan 2017
W
stranger
Offline
stranger
W
Joined: Jan 2017
I just wanted to chime in and say that I also feel that the environmental effects could be toned down, or be more predictable/intuitive, I've just been avoiding magic because I can't even wand someone because sometimes it'll explode, others it won't.

I also feel that the Physical/Magic Armour system is amazing! In DOS:1, I basically just would run out of the gate, crowd-control as many as possible, and clean up (Earthquake style). But I love the fact that if you're going to CC in this game, you have to earn it! No RNG involved. None of that minuscule chance to miss throwing off your plans. You guys definitely get big kudos for this system in my books. That, and the way that the armor is distributed on the gear and spells for 'healing' it. It also gives me the freedom to do things like walk across environmental effects, or throw out some friendly fire if it's against the armour that they don't have to worry about as much. With this system, I really feel like you're earning your chance to crowd control someone. Now I look at other systems, where it's like you see someone walking out of the gates, totally fresh and ready for the battle, hit them with a piddly ass shock, and brrrrrrzttt, they're stunned, even though they're a BAMF. That doesn't seem right anymore, you'd only be able to stun them after you've chipped away at their magical protection until they're essentially done. To me, getting to Vitality is almost like the 'Finish Him!' in Mortal Kombat.

Joined: May 2015
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
Joined: May 2015
I think the problem is that you gain access to devastating arena-changing spells, effects and attacks too early. It's literally the first act of the game and you already have all this incredible big Area effects. It would be perfectly fine for lategame but early on, you should focus on small skirmishes with melee, range and tactical weaker skills.

Last edited by Lyrhe; 08/01/17 04:35 PM.
Joined: Jan 2009
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
Originally Posted by Lyrhe
I think the problem is that you gain access to devastating arena-changing spells, effects and attacks too early. It's literally the first act of the game and you already have all this incredible big Area effects. It would be perfectly fine for lategame but early on, you should focus on small skirmishes with melee, range and tactical weaker skills.


That might be a good idea, yeah.

Joined: Jan 2017
H
stranger
Offline
stranger
H
Joined: Jan 2017
I think what also bothers me is that regular creatures like crocodiles are shooting out massive oil slicks and turtles are casting massive area of effect spells. These types of effects would be fine coming from mage type enemies, but it just feels weird that mundane wildlife is casting more area of effect spells than my party can.

Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Germany
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Germany
At least the turtes are voidwoken creatures not animals. About the crocodiles: I wondered from start how crocodiles can work a teleport glove and even though can do what nobody else can do: Teleporting yourself!

Joined: Jan 2017
D
stranger
Offline
stranger
D
Joined: Jan 2017
Playing around spell casters in co-op and dealing with all the environmental effects absolutely RUINS the experience for me. I have to play around them... ALWAYS. Never the other way around. I feel like a stupid side kick.


Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Germany
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2016
Location: Germany
Not sure, what you mean with playing around them. If a mage uses his spells without thinking, it's hardly the fault of the game mechanics but of the mage. Playing mage is not only about attacking, it is also good to support your team mates.

Joined: Nov 2015
Location: New Zealand
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
Joined: Nov 2015
Location: New Zealand
Firstly, a number of the environmental effects are bugged and a little excessive. I would expect this to be fixed or toned-down in coming patches. But yes, part of playing a mage involves not blowing up the rest of your team, which will hopefully get easier when some of the aforementioned bugs get sorted out.

I had an instance when playing the only mage in a fight against Migo, where anything I did resulted in the death of party members. So I swapped out my poison wands for a club and shield and stuck to support spells. Later on in that same game, I was able to put down some massive AOE spells because my party had some decent magic armour and they were happy to soak up the fire/poison/electricity while the enemies with low magic armour walked themselves to death or were locked down to be finished off.

Communication with your team is going to be vital in this game.

Joined: Aug 2014
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Aug 2014
Could be a nice "spell-shaping" talent where allies within your AOE magic attacks take reduced damage or surfaces don't appear on them. Probably a significant downside would be necessary (reduced damage, slightly smaller AOE area, etc). Just something I thought of that might help with people who feel like mages just blow up their team, or with some weird mage and three melee tanks build. People who spread out their team won't need such a talent though.

Joined: Jan 2017
R
stranger
Offline
stranger
R
Joined: Jan 2017
Originally Posted by Damashi
I couldn't disagree with you guys more I love the environmental effects, and the armor system as it is, and believe them to be the most unique and entertaining aspects of the game. What i'd like to see more of are surface and cloud ignoring/removing skills. Like make whirlwind clear surfaces and clouds in the area, similar to the throw dust skill the A.I has (I am assuming rouges will get access to it latter as well), and make tornado and float/surface walking spells available in act 1. Then program the A.I to use these moves along with magic armor regen spells when they start getting caught in stunning or other harmful surfaces.


DOS2's armor is definitely unique, but its not without flaws.

You'd like to see more AoE cloud removing skills because there are too many clouds. You're saying the same thing we are but in a different way. You'd rather have skills remove and/or nullify the obnoxious amount of AoE effect fields that exist instead of simply toning them down.

Not a bad suggestion either.

Joined: Sep 2016
L
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
L
Joined: Sep 2016
Originally Posted by Damashi
<snip> make tornado and float/surface walking spells available in act 1.
I agree.

You can pick up levitate if you are an elf (you can't buy it, only find it *) and the Warrior skill battle Stomp clears things but I'd love Tornado.

I'd also like Rain>Storm>Maelstom>Tornado if you put more points in. At the moment there is no point putting more than one point in anything. 5% extra is trivial when you deal so little.

Huntsman in particular is crippled. Why anyone would (as an archer) put more than one point in it rather than ranged is beyond me.

Perhaps later in the game but at the moment you may as well put everything in WIT or lucky charm for all the difference it makes as you pick up +5, +7 or more items later (level 7 or 8) anyway.

*
You can get levitate by eating the head of one of the already dead magisters just north of the skeleton trader when you leave the fort.

Last edited by lx07; 21/01/17 05:16 PM. Reason: When...
Joined: Jan 2017
G
stranger
Offline
stranger
G
Joined: Jan 2017
I agree. My melee fighters are suffering a great pain. Sometimes it's enough to make a shot from some electric bow - and everythig ot the battlefield turns into an electric mess. The mages are really dangerous for their own team.

Joined: Sep 2015
O
stranger
Offline
stranger
O
Joined: Sep 2015
IMO environmental effects are way overboard. The more I play the less strategical it all feels. Not sure if it's some bug but sometimes the effects last indefinitely: take for instance electrified water. More than this, I believe that most of the basic surfaces shouldn't last indefinitely: fire (it gets extinguished after it consumes the fuel), water (evaporates), blood (dries, evaporates). Maybe only oil and poison surfaces should be regarded as lasting indefinitely. In any case, I really hope that they do something about this issue as to me it looks like a huge mess when playing.

Joined: Feb 2015
G
addict
Offline
addict
G
Joined: Feb 2015
Originally Posted by Lyrhe
I think the problem is that you gain access to devastating arena-changing spells, effects and attacks too early. It's literally the first act of the game and you already have all this incredible big Area effects. It would be perfectly fine for lategame but early on, you should focus on small skirmishes with melee, range and tactical weaker skills.
So you say that current gameplay is f*cked up, so they should go back to DOS1 style for few levels, then screw it for those who endure more than 3 hours. That makes sense. First game was good until the Bracuss Rex, later on it was crap. So yea lets go the same scenario.

Joined: Sep 2016
Location: Scotland
T
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
T
Joined: Sep 2016
Location: Scotland
Originally Posted by HyprJ
I think what also bothers me is that regular creatures like crocodiles are shooting out massive oil slicks and turtles are casting massive area of effect spells. These types of effects would be fine coming from mage type enemies, but it just feels weird that mundane wildlife is casting more area of effect spells than my party can.


That's nothing, zombies casting spells when they are meant to be mindless makes no sense to me.

Joined: Mar 2017
S
member
Offline
member
S
Joined: Mar 2017
Originally Posted by Tiaan
Originally Posted by HyprJ
I think what also bothers me is that regular creatures like crocodiles are shooting out massive oil slicks and turtles are casting massive area of effect spells. These types of effects would be fine coming from mage type enemies, but it just feels weird that mundane wildlife is casting more area of effect spells than my party can.


That's nothing, zombies casting spells when they are meant to be mindless makes no sense to me.


And almost all animations in the game feel like magic. Just consider Lizard's dragonbreath or any warrior's skill preparation with all this shining powder around hands.

As for environmental effects, I would most like them to have more predictable areas. If I cast Fossil Strike, please show me who is going to take damage, who is going to be slowed, what will be the precise area of oil, whether it will extend a burning area via connection with another burning area, creatures or a candle and if the Fossil Strike destroys a water barrel, please show me the area where water will be spilled. And if my warrior approaches an enemy standing in an electrified water, I would like to see if he will step into the water and I want to get a notification if he will; and when he strikes the enemy, I should know if there is a risk to be shocked by electrified blood within a specific range. And as I hover the cursor over a potentially inflamed area, I want to know the details without a delay.

It will also be helpful to have a hotkey which forbids my character to enter into dangerous environment but makes him approach it as close as possible.

Joined: Jul 2017
C
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
C
Joined: Jul 2017
Your point makes no sense, with enough Wit on mages it is entirely possible to wipe out anything currently in the game within first round and all of your team member starting first. Offense is absolutely better than defense.

Page 3 of 5 1 2 3 4 5

Moderated by  gbnf, Kurnster, Monodon, Stephen_Larian 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5