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

Similarly viable is the right term i feel. It does not mean the same.

I am talking about the gameplay of this game in this instance, which consists of combat and dialogue options with which you can solve, finish or sidestep some parts of the quests, mostly some combat encounters.

120% resistances is an option which is STILL THERE for the people who wish to have it. The only difference is that it is no so easily achievable anymore.
Which is correct for an RPG and this specific game - seeing how elemental damage and effects play such a big role in its gameplay.




You dont start the reply by making baseless, fallacious claims about your own righteousness and my facetiousness - without proving a single point of it.

Thats just an empty declaratory statement that is completely worthless.

Well, except proving that you dont have a better judgement but instead just imagination in which everything you say or think is somehow automatically right.

What you have put forward is not a constructive argument (just because you say so) but a jumble of misunderstandings and ignorance that lead to completely wrong and incorrect conclusions.



And thus we end the discussion before it even started.
Because you just proved me right when i said you are laughably ignorant.

But because you are so arrogant based on arguments from ignorance ill give you a complete makeover.



No, one outcome would be DIFFERENT then the other, which is the core of the RPG gameplay.

For the player they should be similarly viable, or doable depending on the differences in character builds but each should lead to somewhat different outcomes - in general - for an RPG to play like one.

And infact, when your choices are "similar" and there is no clear one single option that is extremely better then the others - is when the player really has the choice with meaningful consequences. Which also have to be appropriately different, although similar (generally, to an extent), for the choice to even matter.

So, yes, as you just said yourself - balanced gameplay is what creates RPG gameplay. balance in choices, balance in consequences. Which have to work together and make sense.

Mate.




It wasnt meant as a strawman as i didnt particularly claim you have said that. It was an addition to the issue. One particular angle to it all that often gets mentioned in talks about this general issue.




This doesnt have anything to do with the part you imagined was a strawman so your answer is completely ludicrous and nonsensical.

:lol:



Truth is not an ad hominem.




How the flying duck is mentioning Pillars of Eternity an ad hominem?

:lol:

wtf?


Maybe you havent followed, but the lead designer Josh Sawyer is waging a one man war on balancing the RPG, and his ideas and explanations have been met with a lot of complete, utter idiocy and cretinism, especially on the rpg.codex and its PoE thread, where different less intelligent posters are screaming how Josh wants to make everything "THE SAME" and thus ruin the differences in RPG gameplay - for months now.





Truth.



I do not assume anything since ive played through Cysael about 30 times so far.

And i am using your own words as a part of the "evidence" - since it was you claiming that being able to take somewhat different path through the Cysael content is what makes it good for you...



- if you remember?

Its only a few posts back, mate.


And just claiming : "Which, by the way, is evidence that contradicts your conclusion." (without providing any argument why that might be so)

Is just an empty declaratory statement that is laughable in the context since you are refuting your own words.

haha.




... Finishing off with more ad hominem.[/quote]
Truth.

Which youve just proved several times over.

The ones that are screaming the most about this small balance fix are precisely that kind of people. Self entitled mass market brats that dont have a single functioning synapse in their heads except those that seek and want more content! more awesome powahs! more ego massage! more, more,more!

Like some rabid ... hmm... zombies.

ohhh... that what Romero meant with all that "braiiinnzz,... braiiiinzzz!" consumer stuff.

things you learn every day, eh mate?


Right, because you say so.

At the end of your whole laughably incorrect post.


And you think that just repeating the same incoherent, nonsensical declaratory statements that only reveals how ignorant you are - will work if you repeat them more times?




Larian is doing no such thing. Infact, with this little fix they have increased the options and choices in the game since they atleast somewhat lowered or removed a single overpowered unbalanced build.




:crocodile smile:



No?

Really?

wow, your such a nice dear, you and rashar. Informing me... so nice.

:lol:


Maybe you two could hold hands while prancing around forums and telling other people how rude they are and "informing" everyone about this or that instead of replying to actual argument.

Im afraid it is you who needs help. Several years of psychotherapy by the looks of it. Also, i would suggest looking over the term "psychological projection" mate.

I see youre fond of dictionaries.
Well, even an aspergers can serve some good if understanding of terms comes together with their copy-pasting.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

I have to say it. I just have to.

Deus Ex.

Age of Decadence.

That one actually has four different diplomatic paths through the game.
Of course, diplomatic does not need to mean non agressive or non violent at all.


Its a completely another pair of shoes that most mass market RPGs devolved into something barely more then action games, with some superficial RPG features sprinkled over just for show, in most cases.

Please, be so kind to leave my name out of your posts if it is mentioned by others. When I address you, you can give me all the hell you want. However when it is mentioned by a 3rd party it is not of my own doing. So please try and understand that.

With kind regards,

Rashar.

Was i claiming it was of your own doing? How about you complain to the third person or a party that mentioned you instead?



..

Anway, on balance in RPGs.

Its a pretty worn out subject, especially for me, so i wont write much but i would like to point out the correct view of the matter.

For example; in Age of Decadence, or in Original Sin, we have different character builds. They all work differently, more or less, although in OS you can mix and match more then in AoD.

Yet - because they are balanced - they are all viable, even if they are causing more or less different results.

In AoD the results are much more different then in OS - because the gameplay is designed differently. (the game is much less focused on combat gameplay and provides entire different paths through the game based on your C&C)

Yet, all of the builds in both games are viable and with all of them you can finish and "win" the game, even though they are mechanically different and produce different results.

Skills are different, weapons are different, functioning in the gameplay is different.

Therefore - Balance does not mean "making everything the same" - when we are talking about RPGs.

Which should be first grade curriculum in the RPG school. Old school and new school.

I direct my complaint towards you, because you mentioned me in a negative way. There was no reason for you to bring me back up in your posts, yet you have chosen to do so, hence why I kindly ask you to refrain from doing that.

So I complain directly to the source of my/the problem.

With kind regards,

Rashar.

There was a reason and it was that someone else mentioned you while talking to me, so complain to them. If i replied to that and mentioned you in a negative way i had a reason for doing so. Request refused.

No further claims of warranty will be accepted. Get back on topic.

It has been said that the game is a mess. Unfortunately I have to agree.
I had great expectations for this game, but what a gigantic disappointment it has turned out for me.

I very much doubt I will be buying anything else from LS.

Well this exploded over the weekend unexpectedly. Short of some common trolling and crap flinging I am surprised by all the well reasoned argument going on here. I honestly expected a page of being called a noob and suxor with maybe a response or two hehe.

This discussion about min/max'ers and "true" rpg'ers who want the immersion is ridiculous. First, they are not mutually exclusive and second, summarizing the difficulty / mechanics issue by this debate makes we wonder if you understand what you are talking about, and are not just whining for the sake of it.

To me, immersion includes difficulty. If i can roflstomp my way through a game where i'm supposed to fight those mega-super-evil world threatening badasses, and save the world by mashing a fucking joystick, i don't feel immersed. But to you this may be different, i get it. Just don't assume i'm some XBOC live teenager or wow official forum crybaby because i ask for more difficulty.

The game gets too easy from once you leave Cyseal, period. It has nothing to do with resistances or broken mechanics like leech and zombie.

I did my first playthrough on hard, without any prior research, no wiki or forum support. Took the 2 classes that looked the most fun, a bit about complementarity: warrior+mage. Started with my precious and anaconda and other ish... i didn't bother to change the attribute/ability points either as i planned on just testing the combo... well you get the point. Took Madora and Jahan at level 7 iirc. Had done the north / west beach and orcs + start of black cove before. Hardest part of the game tbh.

S&B warrior + pyro/geo mage as main, madora full 2h + jahan hydro/aero for support. I didn't know what i was doing so i ended up wasting points trying to build a paladin, putting aero with no int on madora, and all kind of mistakes a beginner makes. I never _tried_ to min/max. I wasn't looking up cookie cutter specs, ideal rgoup compositions and others. I just had my good sense and admittedly a good dose of RPG experience and built my characters how i felt would be the most optimal for their respective class/build.

I didn't use crafting except for weapon sharpening and skull enchant simply because i generally cba with it in every game. Did go for rubies very late game on one char to get past lava next to boreas. I didn't use lone wolf or leech or zombie or w/e. Built some BD and WP, weapon talents for melee, elem skills for mages and some utility like char and bartering + leadership. I only used glass cannon on my pyro/geo lategame just because i wanted to test it out and i didn't know what to do with my talent point. I ended up with a mage with less than 300HP at level 16-17 before figuring he would probably need some constitution. And still, i found it OP, but that's debatable I guess.

I ended up with WAY to powerful characters without even trying. I didn't min max or whatever. I just played the game the way it was offered to me, without any backup. Simply by taking advantage of the terrain with my geo/pyro build, encercling (is that a word?) ennemies, using teleport/feathers to feed madora, healing with jahan and tanking with my main, i had no problems. This is just basic understanding of the game, nothing that exceptional that they should make a hardcore mode just for me.

The game never posed a problem, at least in combat. I was challenging at times before leaving cyseal. Aftewards, not so much... chars could die, even alot during certain fights, but never did i get the feeling it was an uphill battle. And the very last portion of the game (HE, TotD and final fights) was an utter JOKE to anyone who has a functional brain (haven't tested it out since the patch, getting there on my 2nd pt).

For a game in hard mode, this is dissapointing. Whether you think an RPG should be about difficulty or immersion is irrelevant, a game SHOULD pose a challenge when you put it on hard. This does not affect your experience as you can play in normal. And honestly, it should have immersion PLUS difficulty for those who wish. But difficulty will always be subjective - the only constant is everyone gets gratification out of "beating" a game. But only if they had a challenge in the first place, or at least i hope so?

If i can "break" the game by following its rules and not trying anything cheesy, it means the game is broken, not my way of playing. Are we supposed to gimp ourselves to make the game more enjoyable? Should i dig up 100 pages of forum posts to find out what i can and cannot do before i even start a game?

That takes away my immersion


About the resistances / leech / zombie complaints: we're not talking about a "get the golden chocobo to get knights of the round table with hidden character vincent and mimic materia" cheesing the game. We're talking about "hey what does that do?" "okay my character cannot die anymore, this is op". So really it's the same issue, you can just run into them by testing and end up with OP chars. That's shitty balancing, that's it. Balancing is not only a PVP concept for MMO's, i get your point about the forums etc, but even for solo games it should be about posing a reasonable challenge to your audience - this is a game after all - and allowing us to de/increase the challenge based on personal preference allows us to not impact eachother's experience.

And frankly, if you need those tactics to beat the game in normal mode, i don't know what's wrong with you.

My opinion is that the main problem in combat is the AI. It is so fucking predictable and stupid it poses no challenge whatsoever.
- In a bad spot? Summon a few creatures and mobs forget about you for 1 or 2 rounds.
- Got 3 on 4 chars below 20% HP? No problem, they'll attack the one tank that has 100% anyway because he's closer.
- There's poison all below/around you? I could light it.. but no wait i think this a good moment to buff my party.
- Or simply run back & forth a few times without doin anything and end up with no action points (am i the only one that noticed this?)

It's a fact that the way the game is built, it's hard to let you have the epic feeling of becoming powerful over levels and adding cool skills and keeping the game challenging, because yes - meteor will instakill most of the mobs caught in the AOE and get you a free win - but what struck me is that the ennemies don't seem to have the same "arsenal" at their disposal when facing you.

Imagine casters attacking your 2 ranged characters at start of the fight with boulder bash + fireball? Imagine rogues porting behind you and stunning you? Mages going for rain then stunning your whole party during the same turn with a bolt? Rangers that actually mute your healer when your melee are low health, etc?

TL;DR
- immersion and difficulty are not mutually exclusive
- beating a game in the hardest difficulty mode without any effort is not acceptable.
- this game is (was?) too simple and no amount of nerfing to abilities will change that. It's the AI that needs improving.
- I type a lot.

WDYT?

There was no time for a proper harder mod.

Ai is actually fine and very diverse (although it could be even better but there was no time) - but what it cannot do is deal with several big unbalances, like overabundance of equipment and items and potions and other such things.

I'd agree with this conclusion about the AI. The AI will noticeably not take elementals into account, I had one fight in particular where my fire elemental summon was getting free heals off the AI attacking with two fire skeletons. I never saw it intentionally use an elemental combo, either, though playing on normal it probably wouldn't be expected to go too all out.

DON'T NURF ANYTHING, JUST BUFF!
Give the AI the most powerful talents and skills like:

- 6 leadership and 28 AP
- crafted weapons with 5 CR/BS with all the goodies( speed, strength, dex etc.)
- at least 24 in main stat
- prepatched weather of storms, leech, bully, zombie, Walk it Off and all that good talents
- duelists with 5 sneaking, backstabbing and guerrilla
- fighters with nullify resistances and flurry
- rangers with unlimited special arrows
- mages with Soulsap, Death Punch, Oath Of Desecration and so on...
- ignore summons, double see range and whatever you can suggest

Call it insane difficulty and we are ready to go for another play-trough.

EDIT: Let them focus the weakest of your characters, one by one.


PS: And people, please, calm down! This is one of the best RPG in the last 10 years we can count on one hand fingers, don't force LS to make unwanted decisions. Indeed the elemental resistance nurf decreases the replayability of the game but if you feel screwed you can always choose easy difficulty. I'm on my 2nd play-trough since p.1.0.132.0 (last 7 are on hard difficulty only with reload only on full wiped party) and I can assure you it's more difficult only in the first few levels.

Xiery

No one is forcing Larian to do anything, they are listening to the loud minority, making changes based on their whinging and fucking the game up for everyone else.... THEIR CHOICE.

This whole development has been a fiasco, it's just been one bullshit move after another.

Larian have gained reputation with the casual gamers who know nothing about games in general, but they've lost the loyalty from a lot of their long time customers, but that doesn't matter 'cos they're making moolah.

Another respected dev house in the toilet.

This is bound to happen in a game where half of abilities are damage and CC and high INT decreases cooldowns until you can spam any spell.

I don't know why Larian implements nerfs that don't even make the game harder. But it's even more puzzling that people are complaining about them. Does anyone here seriously find the game challenging?

My first (and probably last) playthrough was on Hard. I didn't pick any OP talents like Leech or GC. I didn't care about resistances at all. I even made some (minor) mistakes in character development early and still I couldn't find a single hard fight after hitting level 6.

First few fights may be demanding but once you get Teleport -> Boulder Bash -> Fireball -> Dust Devil routine going nothing can even touch you.

Exactly my point, prodigy. And it feels good to hear someone put it in the same words.

Here's some interesting read about game balance in an single player, classic rpg, just to add up to my previous post: http://kotaku.com/how-to-balance-an-rpg-1625516832

And here's a snippet that illustrates exactly what i meant, but it's way better put than i ever could: . It's written by some guy from pillars of eternity, and follows a buzzstory apparently, but i don't know the details of it.

Ideally, each type of character build has its own strengths and weaknesses throughout the game's content, but ultimately ALL character builds should feel viable in different ways. No player wants to spend 40 hours working toward a dead-end build. Similarly, few players want to accidentally discover that their fundamental character concept is an unspoken "easy mode" through the game.

That last sentence doesn't describe exactly what happened to me (i supposedly did not end with an OP build like leech/cbk or 100%+ resistances) but that's how i felt - i ended up with way too powerful chars without trying to explicitly, but because the game was too easy, not because i made OP chars. And this shouldn't happen, at least not in hard mode, because this is the REASON we put it in hard mode in the first place - to have it hard. Sounds logic, no?

To the trolls : do you realize your normal mode today is really an easy mode of 10+ years ago? I'm wondering if the vocals on the forums aren't just pissed to realize they are having a hard time in a mode other people consider easy, calling us the special snowflakes while they want everything lowered to their own, low levels... this game is not hard, even WITHOUT the OP abilities.

Try to play a fucking mainstream game from 10 or 20 years ago (like super mario bros 2) now and realize the insane difficulty of it compared to AA titles now (or even compared to D:OS).

And this WAS an all public, mainstream game, that we used to play and finish as 6 year old kids.

What's wrong with you people?

Edit: i just realized Hiver was speaking about the same PoE discussion in his post above. PSo sorry for the redundancy but this illustrates the balance / difficulty issue well.

Yes. And i was also talking about a Hard mode of the game and explained why it isnt really hard.

I actually addressed that some time ago in this thread... or tried to.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=40240&Number=496196#Post496196

It ended up quite "funny", so i just gave up, considering i have said what i wanted and inanity of where it went.


That "some guy" from PoE is the lead designer Josh Sawyer. Lead designer of the "Fallout" New Vegas spinoff too, for example. He was also the lead on the cancelled Van Buren project in Black isle.

He is a... a bit known in some circles, shall we say.

I'd advice to return to that habit If this isn't just spur-of-the-moment-frustrated rant, I find it weird a change of a resistance cap litterally breaks the game for you. You must play this game so much differently than I do.

I have to agree. I've never played a game where I was burned more, splashed with more poison, frozen more, paralyzed more, etc. than this game. It's a major part of the combat mechanic. Making yourself immune to it all ... would be like playing another game altogether. Really pointless. So you take some damage from fire ... DEAL WITH IT like you are supposed to! Coming here crying about it is just pathetic.