Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
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aj0413 Offline OP
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So this is my first topic post and it's gonna be pretty long since it comprehensively targets a number of issues/concerns, raised and discussed, at some length, at one point or another, and some solutions; So everyone can see it all, in one place, in the OP, here.

**I'll be using spoiler tags for ease of navigation and reading**

Loot, Crafting, and Blackmithing

Problems I've seen people raise in this regard concern balancing crafted items with RNG loot and found items. People also feel underwhelmed with the lack of reward for discovery and exploration in terms of gear.

As one man put it, Baldur's Gate 2 (BG2) did a good job with this by using both unique items placed around the world and extremely rare (ie placed in limited numbers around the world and/or so rare as drops as to be considered limited) unique crafting/blacksmithing consumables.

Then, using the above, the devs would generally balance "power" around an abstract listing of how gear of various types would fall along the spectrum from most powerful to least, in terms of stats:

**Assuming maxed out Crafting and Blacksmithing & maxed level

> uniquely upgraded uniquely crafted items
> uniquely upgraded unique items
> uniquely upgraded epic/rare/legendary randomized items
> upgraded uniquely crafted items
> upgraded unique items
> upgraded epic/rare/legendary randomized items
> uniquely crafted items
> unique items
> upgraded crafted items
> epic/rare/legendary randomized items
> upgraded normal randomized items
> crafted items
> normal randomized items

**Upgraded here means crafting better items by using ingredients (like essences in DOS1) to increase an item's stats and uniquely refers to using the rare/limited consumables in the crafting/blacksmithing process; either to upgrade something or to make something. Unique refers to hand-crafted/placed items that were put in by the devs for player discovery or reward.**

The above list is courtesy of LordCrash w/ my own slight additions concerning uniquely crafted items

As you can see RNG loot would still be relevant in the scales as far as rare/epic/legendary go and the hand placed pieces would only be out classed by someone using the limited resources that is unique consumables in the creation process (which would require maxed out abilities to even use).

Also, keep in mind that there's more than just numbers in order to differentiate the various types of items:

- Damage
- Reach
- Elemental Bonuses (added fire damage)
- Inherent Buffs/debuffs (set burning)
- Ability bonuses (added warfare skill points)
- Skills the item can give (vampirism on rings)
- Durability
- Requirements (crafting level, special quest, ect..)

My reasoning for placing uniquely crafted gear as one place above is because they force players to make strategic decisions of when and how to use the limited resource used for 'uniquely' doing something and each option should feel powerful in its own way. Do they spread it around so they have a number of more powerful unique items? Do they waste it on simple powerful RNG loot cause they can't find anything else or the specific bonuses are too desirable? Do they save as much of it as they can for making a couple of the most powerful gear they can and upgrading those? The limited resource would be powerful, but it costs both patience, investment in abilities, and strategic decision making to use.

On that note: How would you suggest mixing up the other "power" considerations?
> Should only legendary items unlock skills?
> Should handcrafted loot have some other, defining and special, attribute unique to themselves?
> Should uniquely crafted gear do more than have the biggest numbers and give players greater control over what they're getting?
> How exactly should uniquely upgraded gear be upgraded (bigger numbers, special abilities, unlocking skills, ect..) ?
> Should the handling of uniquely usable consumables require maxing both crafting skills or just the one related to what your using the item for?


Durability

Lots of people have been asking for either its entire removal or some changes in how it works. People also seem to dislike the idea that upkeep would ever be forced onto them and that using an infinitely usable repair item to repair items is simple tedious and "un-fun."

In the vain of solving this, while keeping the system, I offer a few changes:

> Add a repair all button that uses up repair items in inventory
> Make hammers and tongs consumables
> Make repairing require some points in blacksmithing/crafting and the amount of durability returned per consumable dependent on ability level(s)
> Add in skills/actions that target item durability (ie Sunder from D&D)
> Allow players to deconstruct/recycle components from items for crafting/blacksmithing using repair items. The value of the items obtained dependent on crafting/blacksmithing levels
> An item reaching zero durability is only unusable for a couple turns in combat before regenerating small amount
> A "break" action to tell PCs to auto target a door, chest, etc... till the item is broken without forcing players to repeatedly click
> Reward players for gear upkeep**

**Expanding on The Reward System:

- Example 1: A well maintained sword gains a status effect like 'keen edge' which adds +2 to hit. Items with a keen edge can be poisoned and have other effects added to them. In contrast a poorly maintained sword can't have effects added but hits as per normal.

- Example 2: An armour set kept in top condition adds +10 to armour rating and +1 to intimidation rating in conversations.

- The benefits would vary by weapon or armour type and would go away once durability fell below a percentage (ie 75%).

The above reward and recycle/deconstruction systems are courtesy of BlueGuy and the rest is an amalgamation from a number of users on the forums.

Thoughts and suggestions on this?
Should items still be breakable in traditional sense?
Would durability skills be too much?
Would you prefer if the reward system was the only thing in place if durability was still left in at all?


Armor

Now, then the armor system: It has issues and is currently heavily talked about.

The problems:
> Once armor is gone, a player can CC, due to 100% chance when armor is gone, enemies to death, thus making HP moot.
> Skills that restore armor require an enemy to play defensively to use and/or take attention away from being aggressive. Aggressive strategies are the most effective in D:OS games, so the AI breaking from this just weakens their tactics.
> The above points will eventually also apply to players, hopefully, with strong AI in the future
> Powerful tactics, abilities, PC builds, grenades and consumables, and/or terrain advantages make it easy to destroy armor (ie Magical armour mostly)
> Patience and tactics make it easy to divide and conquer enemies and, effectively, avoid planned group encounters or turn group combat into 1v1, 2v4, and so on.
> The current defensive combat abilities hardly impact anything and are very underwhelming compared to other abilities. Players don't feel stronger by using them
> It's easy to gear towards a specific armor type to either hinder/overwhelm enemies, you know about ahead of time.

Now, one suggested solution was to leave the armor system, but switch out the defensive abilities with the old ones (ie Bodybuilding/Willpower/Block). This raised issues by dividing players into camps of "RNG is bad" and "RNG is okay."

Personally, I liked the old system; I thought that it'd be fine to bring it back, into this one, under the new system. For a number of reasons. However, in respect of those who hate RNG, I offer this suggestion:

Armor types of various classifications (ie scale, leather, plate, cloth, ect...) will not only have different bonuses (ex dodge chance on leather) and/or armour defense types in varying values (ie physical = 100 & magical = 30) to differentiate them, but also be divided into sub groups concerning how much of a given attack type a specific armor would absorb.

For example:
A 'light' leather set would have a given value of magical and physical armor and would also have a set ratio of how much of an attack is absorbed by the armor and how much is let through to target vitality based off an absorption attribute (ex absorb = 40% -> Armour absorbs only 40% of damage)

This would give HP purpose again, allow players to strategically decide how important CC defense is vs damage taken, and create greater differentiation among armours; making each armour class and sub classes unique enough to make player gearing of PCs different among different kinds of playthroughs and builds.

This could also indirectly make the Vitality, Magic Armour, and Physical Armour abilities more appealing depending on how they evolve with the system. They could effect the ratios, for instance, or, at minimum, increasing the bonuses they give would also make them more relevant.

Some follow up points:
> Some have also suggested that Damage Mitigation from D:OS should make a return
> By allowing some damage through armour, characters can retain their CC invulnerability for longer and prepare defensive spells easier when they notice they're armour types are breaking
> This done effectively, permanently solved 100% CC chance after armour is completely gone, but maybe players would prefer that overall
> This is by no means a perfect solution and I welcome points of criticism or ways to improve on my suggestion (ex Do you think skills/ablities should be included or changed to account for my proposed system?)
> The above suggestion is a focused evolution of the current system, while placing more power in player decision making. Therefore, keeping the strategic deterministic values players, who dislike RNG, prefer


Shields

Now the problem here is simple:
Killing enemies is better than defending against them and there's not really anything to draw players away from focused aggressive tactics. Shields give no block chance and only increase physical armour, something Fortify and other spells do already, and give pitiful block chance (ie 3% chance) late game in the EA. Shields do nothing a skill can't, for all intents and purposes, and dealing damage is drastically more effective than tanking it for strategies.

My proffered solutions are just as simple:
> Add in powerful variety of shield skills (ie Bash, Stance, Elemental Tortoise, ect...) and a talent
> Return the Block defensive ability to players
> Add a static damage mitigation to shields based off level, item type, and so on.
> Add magic armour to magical (ie rare/epic/legendary/ect..) shields
> Make one handed weapons more desirable through talents and skills so players are less inclined to feel like they're giving up too much damage when not choosing two-handed. This can happen through one handed specific CCs/Utilities/Specials/ect.... Damage is not everything

Stabbey and co. seem to already be trying to think in this direction, when it comes to improving talents and skills, for one handed and shields and everything else as well


SO! That's everything! cheer Thanks for reading! thankyou

Hopefully, I managed to give credit where it was due, but let me know if I missed someone specifically.

Of course, discussion, suggestions, and criticism is always welcome.

**If there's an important point, or something, someone wants me to add here, let me know.

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Well OK. Not a bad summary of other discussions.

Did you just want to ask something or discuss other threads here though? Surely if you had an issue with Armour, Durablility, Shields or Crafting it would be better to voice your concerns/ideas on the relevant threads.

One thread about *absolutely everything* might go off on tangents and not get anywhere don't you think?

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aj0413 Offline OP
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Just wanted everything in one place.

A lot of this, and some of the suggested solutions in particular, is buried under posts within threads and then the threads themselves are buried under other threads.

There're a bunch of threads concerning these topics but they cover the same things, eventually, and the solutions are all very similar.

I just figured that boiling everything down to easy to see and understand post with everything and the best solutions put forward over the course of the EA would help make sure people aren't simply rehashing old territory and make actual progress in their feedback and discussion.

Edit:
As for things getting too crazy; well, people could just make their own threads and refer back to this one if they want to make a thread that's less diversified.

Or they can just let me know to update the OP with incoming stuff concerning the topics, such that stuff isn't lost within the thread itself.

Or they can just read this, to get a handle of where the discussion concerning those topics are and do what they will with the info

Last edited by aj0413; 10/10/16 08:46 PM.
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Question:
Should I do this with other topics discussed? Is it appreciated or was this completely unnecessary on my end?

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I pretty sure Larian would be thankful for some shortening, probably with links to the sources at best, I guess but would be hell a lot of work laugh


An Overview would also probably prevent double or triple topics of the same ^^

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-Loot, Crafting, and Blackmithing

I strongly support such a mechanic.
My take on it, D:OS2 should have 3 types of gear progression. Unique/Named Items, RNG loot Items and Crafted Items. All 3 can be upgraded/regraded, basically to enhance them and upgrading/regrading have their own tiers. All 3 have their own additional stats like +Int, +Memory, +Str. Most importantly, all 3 types of gear should have their own forte, purpose being to make all 3 types equally attractive to the player.



Unique/Named Items - Grant special powerful skills not learn-able through spell/skill books, the strength of the skill scales with your character level and not your attributes or skill tree level.

Unique/Named Items also have limited item scaling, so a level 4 Unique/Named Sword can scale up its stats and also its innate skill to a max of level 10(it follows your character level), so that it has some relevance as you level up.

Weapon Stats are locked at 100%, meaning a level 10 Unique/Named Sword will do 200-230 damage.



RNG looted Items - Basically the normal RNG gear you get from mobs and crates etc. They can come in different quality, i.e. blue(rare), purple(epic) and their

Weapon Stats can range from 100% to 115%, meaning a level 10 Purple(Epic) Looted Sword can have minimum of 200-230(100%) damage or a maximum of 230-265(115%) damage. Depends on your luck.



Crafted Items - Crafted items are a special category because they can be "customized". What i mean by this is passives, they are like suffix. Each crafted item can only have 1 passive.

Passives come in 2 flavors:
Attribute Passives(stackable): +3 Str, +5 Int etc
Special Passives(not stackable*): +4 HP steal per hit(Life Steal), +10% movement(Fleet Foot), +20% range of Attack of Opportunity(Shield Wall) etc
*Special Passives are not stackable so equipping 2 daggers with Life Steal will still grant you only +4HP steal per hit.

Weapon Stats can range from can range from 90% to 100% meaning a level 10 Purple(Epic) Crafted Sword can have minimum of 180-207(90%) damage or a maximum of 200-230(100%) damage.

A max level Crafter/Blacksmith can only craft up to Rare(Blue) quality items however it is possible to "crit craft" and get a Purple(Epic) quality item. Chance of "crit craft" increases with Crafter/Blacksmith skill level and also via Talents(Larian should really add Civil/Crafting talents)



So as you can see they all have their own forte.
-Unique/Named Items have powerful special skills and level scaling.
-RNG looted Items have higher weapon base stats.
-Crafted Items can be customized to suit your character builds however "crit craft" mechanic ensures that that such powerful customization won't be so easy, you'll likely stick to mostly Rare(Blue) quality.

Last edited by ImariKurumi; 13/10/16 10:54 AM.
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Originally Posted by ImariKurumi
-Loot, Crafting, and Blackmithing
So as you can see they all have their own forte.
-Unique/Named Items have powerful special skills and level scaling.
-RNG looted Items have higher weapon base stats.
-Crafted Items can be customized to suit your character builds however "crit craft" mechanic ensures that that such powerful customization won't be so easy, you'll likely stick to mostly Rare(Blue) quality.


Bit late in getting back to ya, but I like this to an extent.

I'm not sure about adding RNG to crafting though. I like it in the combat mechanics but I'm very iffy about adding it anywhere else. I also think passives should always stack; it's just intuitive

Last edited by aj0413; 16/10/16 10:12 PM.

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