Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
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Joined: Sep 2016
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apprentice
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Claim: There is no high difficulty setting in Divinity. Tactician and honor mode are very easy once you get to know the game.

Basis for claim: There are thousands of games that enjoy high difficulty modes that range from a great challenge to nearly impossible. This is achieved in many different ways depending on the genre, complexity of game, what players are able to control. Difficulty is high even for players that know the game well.

Objective: Find a way to either turn Tactician or Honor mode into a high difficulty mode without hurting the enjoyment of new players/story players/casual players.

How do we achieve this?: Identify a set of changes that could be introduced either by Larian in a patch or through a comprehensive mod that was built with community feedback.

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I realize there are many posts already on this subject on the forums but I feel that they often go off-topic and end up not going anywhere productive. I'm attempting to perhaps organize some feedback into a constructive set of changes that could work toward the objective.

If you would like to participate in this discussion it would helpful for us to gather the following information.

1. What spells/abilities seem to compromise difficulty in a significant way. Please provide an example of how this spell/ability is used. (optional: suggest a change that will mitigate the circumstance)

2. What types of macro level decisions compromise difficulty. Again please provide a detailed example. (optional: suggest a change that will mitigate the circumstance)

The above 2 categories cover spells/racial abilities/bonuses/combat strategies/buy, sell strategies, specific fight dynamics, combinations, compositions and basically any other thing you can think of.

After accumulating this information we can have an organized discussion of possible options toward the end of producing a comprehensive list of potential changes that could be introduced through a patch or a mod.

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Please keep in mind this is for fun.
Please keep in mind Larian has ZERO obligation to even look at what we come up with let alone adopt any of it.
Please keep in mind not all players enjoy high difficulty and may look at this entire process as unproductive.
Please keep in mind we all come equipped with a wide variety of opinions and conclusions that may clash - please above all else be respectful and courteous.

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SPECIAL AND MOST IMPORTANT REQUEST. Please keep any contribution short and concise. If you'd like to give detailed feedback on different things - consider breaking it up into multiple posts (within reason).

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apprentice
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I'll start us off with the BANNED LIST my group uses.

Fane (time warp)
Lone Wolf
Living on the Edge (spell and scroll)
Netherswap (spell and scroll)
Teleport (spell and scroll except for non combat purposes we use the gloves)
Blood Storm (spell)
Skin Graft (spell and DEFINITELY scroll which is still zero AP cost)
Pre-Combat buffing (except for bedroll)
4th character slot (3 max in any campaign)

Recently removed from ban list

Spider Legs
Grasp of the Starved

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Example of feedback

Teleport ends up controlling the pace of nearly all difficult combats. A high wits/initiative character with teleport ability + teleport scrolls can drop all enemies in a pile (and possibly even CC them with spider legs) allowing for AOE based characters to efficiently eliminate all threats typically on the first turn.

The games most efficient strategy becomes consolidating enemies - applying aoe damage. Every fight including the most difficult result in easy massacres that require just mechanical reproduction of this strat.

Teleport is too easily obtained and costs very little to cast for such a versatile spell. It can be used to split the fights, trap enemies, remove enemies from combat, save allies, remove allies from combat. Proper use of teleport especially on multiple players seems like 90% of the game strategy.

Possible Suggestions: Increase cost of teleport in AP (spell and scroll) - possibly move teleport to level 3 or 4 in aero. Make teleport scrolls harder to craft. Provide teleport resistance to strong enemies. Increase cooldown of teleport. Decrease range of teleport (cast or port). Remove damage component of teleport (fall and collision).

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Joined: Oct 2017
old hand
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While there's nothing wrong with talking about difficulty, there are so many problems with the DE that *do* need fixing right now, difficulty should be very, very far down the list of things to be touched upon.


"We make our choices and take what comes and the rest is void."
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stranger
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I know it's not a spell nor an abilitie, but let's get serious did you tryed the cooking pots?

You can create with thoses god gifted items some unkillables "walls".
As you would put a crate to block the path of a magister (just an exemple) the magister will just destroy the crate (this can take long with some of the 20k hp crate you can find early game). But cooking pots... have no hp si they will just "i am coming for you" you until you die... or until they die. They can dash you teleport them byby for 5 turn.
You can even puts cooking pots in the bottoms of stairs wich wont allow anyone to climb, creating a save place for evreone.

Because i speak about items and not spell i will mention another game breaker item for the undead. In fact it's more a bug but what a bug! One a the grotesque jar in the meister basement (in act2) will damage you on use (or diseased i dont remember). If you are undead it will heal you. Ok infinite potion will you tell me. No no no no no, the grotesque jar cost... 0AP so evry time you character play you can put him full life, that's quite... unfair.

For solutions, bringing the ia not to skip turn would be grat and instead moving crates/cooking pots away (or putting it in their pokets like a player would do?).

For the second one, because it's i think more a bug, maybe correct it ^^

On a more global level, i thing that making the IA of the ennemies better rather that just adding more armor and Rm and hp is a really better way for providing hight difficulty.
One simple improvment sould be the focus. Most of the time the ennemies will split the focus and end damaging 2 or 3 of your characters.

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stranger
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Another point i would like to mention is the really unbalanced types of damages in the game.
Playing magical DPS is like playing the game on a harder difficulty. Because unlike pysical damages monster will have magical resistances (rip dos 1). Ok you will tell me that i am wrong and the djiin on act 2 on the beach got 50% physical damages reduction, fine but it's only 1 lonly monster.

You can play a single phisical DPS in any team it will be ok but if you take a Magical Dps alone it will sucks.
Ok mabe a 4 man magical dps team will end up beeing ok.

I am wrinting this because before creating harder settings/difficulties it would be wise to make the game a bit more balanced.
For real i was in tactitian mode and my scondrel Sebille (yeah she is such a sexy scondrel) just one turned Baracuss Rex. Same with Lucian. Rip skin graft scrolls.
->Change the recipie of skin graft scroll tho, you can start buying animal scales even in act 1 please!
-> introdution (again?) resistances for physical damages? why only the mages should cry on Baracuss 50% and more res on all elements (not speaking of his fire res lul)?


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stranger
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I really love this game too and i want the Insane mod to come too. smile
Let's speak about games and mechanics that are "broken". In my last run with freind, we tryed to understand the more we could the "lucky find".
If you are interested i can explain more later, let's get to the game breaking point. Just saying you can "cheat lucky find" (you lucky find then reload a bit before and go lucky find in another map). Let's say we are at the begenning of act 2 (you are level 8-10 depending on how you cleanned the act 1) you can go lucky find on Bloodmoon Island lvl 15 items, and yes thats broken as hell (cause you have no penalities for too hight hear lvl except for weapons).

I am not saying thats a bad thing, just pointing games mechanics thats kinda breack the game.

To solve this problem, i dont see other than making you lucky find item of your level ... but it will makes it still very powerfull (more than the actual non abused lucky find).

Joined: Sep 2016
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apprentice
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Mathieu thank you for the input! I didn't know that about lucky charm and I'll definitely try that out in some run. You bring up some interesting aspects that would definitely go under the "cheese" category.

1. Pots and other obstructions during combat. The AI is dumb and if you do this you are kinda just cheating yourself. It is definitely designed on purpose so that people can have the freedom to trap enemies and I actually encourage people to have fun with this - so IMO I wouldn't want to stop people from experimenting with that.

2. Low Magic DPS - I think Fire and Air need some love. Hydro and Geo are very very strong on 90% of enemies. I could definitely see a pass on those two schools.

3. Grotesque Jar - I haven't used this myself and that seems like an oversight if true. 0 AP heal shouldn't be a thing obviously.

4. Skin Graft Scroll - Seriously why hasn't this been fixed. Skin Graft is a great spell but I can't use it in any build because of how cheap it is. When the scroll itself is actually FREE it just adds insult to injury. Skin graft should be at LEAST 2ap and 1 source. The scroll should be 2ap.

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The goal with my post was to identify game breaking things that lower the difficulty artificially. Part of the reason we want a high difficulty mode is because a lot of the tools they give us are just so over the top that it ends up ruining the fun. Rather than trying to just make monsters harder/tougher/faster - we could reign in the OP stuff, and have a much more balanced and challenging experience.

EXAMPLE - That spider legs nerf was fantastic. I still use the spell - it is still great, but it doesn't feel like super cheese anymore. You really have to think about your timing and have other CC options available when the web is on CD. If we did that kind of pass on all the super strong spells we'd have a much improved gaming experience. Anyways whoever was responsible for the spider leg change gets a big high five from all of my gaming group - thank you!


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