Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback An Effective Armor System for Everyone

After reading many a complaint on the armor system I believe that there is a very simple solution to this system which:

- Keeps armor as a useful quantity.
- Keeps armor regeneration a useful quantity.
- Prevents Cheesy CC.
- Makes you think before you cast an effect.
- Makes "probability of effect" a predictable number that is not entirely random.

First of all, credit is due where it is due, the major idea lies in this mod, but I do not think it is enough:

https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/168/?

Here it is:

- Chance to Save a Status Effect = Base + (current armor)/(parameter x total armor) + save modifiers - Chance to Inflict Status Effect

- Chance to Inflict Status Effect = Base + Inflict modifiers

The key factor here is (current armor)/(parameter x total armor). And the major trick is to keep this quantity larger than the others

- Base = Can depend on your level, or could be adjustable for certain monsters/characters
- Save Modifiers = These could come from attributes, other spells, items,
- Parameter = something around 0.7 - 1.3

Inflict modifiers = These could come from attributes, other spells, items. Some spells might have a higher chance to inflict a status.

This system makes it so that:

- The major factor of saving against a status effect comes from the armor. Thus keeps armor and its regeneration a useful quantity as intended with this new design.

- The effects do not get applied 100% of the time when you are out of armor, there is still some chance to save and not get stunlocked to eternity.

- Prevents first couple turns of cheesy methods since everyone has high armor at the beginning of combat.

- Makes terrain planning a thing, since someone regenerating a little bit of armor does not entirely mess up the terrain effect combo you have been planning last couple of turns

Other neat tricks could also be implemented that would make combat more balanced:

- Full stun effects that make your character skip a turn, e.g., knockdown, stunned, petrified, etc. Could cost you AP for the next turn, rather than complete disability, which could be adjusted with attributes, items talents etc. Say a really high constitution character loses half their AP next turn when knocked-down, whereas a very low constitution character skips the turn entiely, everything else in between.

- Spells that deal a massive damage to armor with some drawback could also be implemented, which does not apply an effect or damage vitality at all. Necromancy/Air vs Magic, Warfare/Earth vs. Physical comes to mind.

- Spells with additional modifiers to apply an effect could be implemented. Silly example but think of fire spells, say we have a piercing fireball, and a gigantic fireball. The piercing fireball has %15 more chance to apply burning, but gigantic fireball has %20 more damage.

- Unforuntely the AP system is not very flexible in this game, it would add more options.

As you can see, this system solves a lot of issues, and would actually make combat more strategic. As i have seen in another post, I do not quite understand the RNG complaint. As someone pointed out this is not hearthstone where a random card gets into play, in RPGs you have a well defined chance predetermined by skills, abilities, lvl and attributes that you can plan for.

If you are really hardcore, which I am not, you can memorize and plan keeping these modifiers in mind. But with this system you do not need to!!! It is in front of your eyes! Since the armor ratio dominates you will easily determine how likely it is for you to succeed applying an effect, or wait a turn to save that precious spell for later.

I would greatly appreciate your comments. But I believe if such a system is implemented in the current game combat will be much more enjoyable.

Thanks for reading.

You are the very first person to ever suggest this idea.

...Not the saving throws again. I mean, literally the entire ****ing point of armor is to to remove almost all of the uncertainty from inflicting status effects.

So I cannot personally agree with any solution which adds dice-rolling back in.

As I attempted to explain, this is not "exactly" dice rolling. Neither are Saving Throws and Armor Class and Difficulty Class etc. in classic D&D.

This is just like when you make a basic attack, when it says you will deal 40-55dmg. Is there some randomness here, yes!, is there some RNG in determining your MISS chance or CRIT chance, yes!

I do not understand when it effects come into play, suddenly the RNG effect becomes a HUGE deal that master strategists get so bothered by it.

If you think carefully, this system provides you with tools of a solid assessment of the battleground. If someone has 20/200 armor your effect is pretty much guaranteed to go through.

This system brings more planning and flexibility for your battle tactics, I do not understand how this is not obvious.

For example, you can actually plan to lower that massive magic armor dudes armor and attempt to place them in a trap. Rather than realizing that it will take forever to take down his magic armor and any spells used on this guy will be futile anyhow and stick to the most obvious tactic at EVERY.... SINGLE.... COMBAT...

This will allow some flexibility in party creation and tactics, rather than sticking with the obvious choice of the overpowered physical damage only party where you do not give a damn about terrain affects and backstab/crit everyone to death since nothing will happen to you as long as you have your magic armor.

My assumption is that shying away from random effects (although they are well defined probabilities, not RANDOM) comes from the Honor Mode, am I correct?

But even so, you should realize that there is no absolute determinism here anyhow, you do not know if that particular enemy will tactical retreat backstab your mage, or cast a healing spell on a party member.

This is my opinion, but when you have something like 40% armor one should think if it is a better idea to hit that guy sitting in front of you with a readied knockdown ability, or hit/move away and choose a different approach, or play it entirely safe and replenish armor. Being entirely certain of nothing will happen to you, or nothing will happen to your enemy takes away from planning and strategizing your battles.

I like the second part of the idea better than the first one. I believe it has been suggested in older threads.

I really like the idea of using Constitution to reduce next turn's AP instead of skipping the turn. I think some CCs should also have an effect on cooldowns instead of just AP.

I think the reason why people go crazy over the RNG when it comes to CC is because of turns getting skipped. If I do 40 dmg instead of 55, or if I crit or don't crit, that's OK, at least my turn isn't getting skipped. I think that's where most of the frustration comes from.

That being said, I still think DOS2 system is better than DOS:EE. In the latter it's just way too easy to dump CC AOE and stunluck the whole enemy team in turn 1.

Simply make armor an independent system and it's would be OK

Add a new defense skill called bodybuildng. Each point invested provide a point of stamina (aka. anti-CC armor). A "soft CC" like shocked, crippled destroy 1 stamina while a "hard-cc" like knock down destroys two. Burning, poison and bleeding ignores it since they are dots.

And that's why the armor system fails so completely.

I think the armor system needs some tweaking, particularly the lack of synergy between physical and magical attackers, but I do not have any problem at all with the concept of "has armor, CC can't land". (Whether non-disabling status effects can work through armor is a debate worth having, but I don't have a problem with armor blocking hard CC.)

This comes down to personal preference, so we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

They could have went the Guild Wars 2 Route and just make 1 ressilience bar.....maybe then they would have had the inspiration to add Physical Damage to the resistance list.