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Originally Posted by Qiox
How can you find any challenge in a game where your plans never fail? How is it strategic when there are no decisions to be made, no possibilities to consider, no cost-benefit to be weighed when something may or may not work?

100% CC effectiveness is an abomination in a turn based strategy game. It removes the strategy completely and turns into something with which failure is no longer a possibility.

That people jump into discussions about the flaws of the armor system and comment on how more status effects should ignore armor leaves me completely bewildered. That would only make the situation worse!

Are there really so few people who actually enjoy challenging combat where you have deal with 'oh shit that didn't work' moments?


Plans fail all the time, you just have to deal with plans in more absolute ways. Blocking line of sight, impeding movement, healing, picking out priority targets properly.

Random fails don't add drama or tension. Gambling is not the pinnacle of skill. In a game like this, you're more likely to see failures than success unless you power game to make chance rates near infallible.

In this game, hiding behind a wall can be all you need to scupper plans.


gambling on some rng cc affect is not a deep strategic decision. It's just a sign of gambling addiction.
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Originally Posted by Qiox
How can you find any challenge in a game where your plans never fail? How is it strategic when there are no decisions to be made, no possibilities to consider, no cost-benefit to be weighed when something may or may not work?


Probably because not everyone is Qiox: The Best Player In The World. Unfortunately no game has yet been invented which Qiox cannot beat while sleeping.


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Originally Posted by dcgregorya
Originally Posted by Igniz13

Your mage should check for targets with low magic armour and shoot them, or focus on setting up magical threats or summons or something.

It's hard to near impossible for one magic user to do everything you'd want from magic. They don't have the ap to heal and damage, cleanse and do area control. It'd have to be a lone wolf and it'd still be a stretch.

Conversely, it's fairly easy to have the one physical damage guy, amidst 3 casters, but then expectations for him would be low.


You're missing the point. Classes like "Battle mage" are strictly inferior to "having another 2h warrior" as a by-product of the armor system. The strongest party is 4x 2h poly warrior - maybe with some rangers mixed in. Seems wrong to me.


It's a by product of the scaling and damage system. It's got nothing to do with armour.

My battlemage hits with a 2h sword, just like your warrior poly.

My battlemage can slow with oil at range. He can teleport people all over the place, if an enemy is low on magic armour he can petrify them or blind them. He can heal armour better than you can and make people immune to teleport. He has way more tools and better synergy.

I don't really care about power gaming or what builds break the game though. It's more important for people to be able to play their way (unless it's dumb rng driven nonsense)


gambling on some rng cc affect is not a deep strategic decision. It's just a sign of gambling addiction.
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Originally Posted by Qiox
How can you find any challenge in a game where your plans never fail? How is it strategic when there are no decisions to be made, no possibilities to consider, no cost-benefit to be weighed when something may or may not work?

100% CC effectiveness is an abomination in a turn based strategy game. It removes the strategy completely and turns into something with which failure is no longer a possibility.

That people jump into discussions about the flaws of the armor system and comment on how more status effects should ignore armor leaves me completely bewildered. That would only make the situation worse!

Are there really so few people who actually enjoy challenging combat where you have deal with 'oh shit that didn't work' moments?


You speak as if the act of planning is automatic and has no challenge in it. When you are at a point in a battle where you CC all enemies, every round, then yes. The challenge is gone, because at that point you've won the fight. The challenge is to reach that point.

And yes, I like my oh shit moments, also from RNG, which is what you want here I assume. But the game give those moments, just not randomly. You don't know what the enemy will do, so the "oh shit" happends when they fuck you up, and you have to suddenly rethink your strategy again. Granted, the replayability suffers for this.

As to more statuses ignore armor. Why not? Of course the status' picked to now ignore armor will probably need to be nerfed a bit, but I don't see why a mage shouldn't be able the affect the battle before all magic armor is gone. Keep hard CC as is, but things like chilled and shocked could candidates for this.

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Originally Posted by Qiox
How can you find any challenge in a game where your plans never fail? How is it strategic when there are no decisions to be made, no possibilities to consider, no cost-benefit to be weighed when something may or may not work?

100% CC effectiveness is an abomination in a turn based strategy game. It removes the strategy completely and turns into something with which failure is no longer a possibility.

That people jump into discussions about the flaws of the armor system and comment on how more status effects should ignore armor leaves me completely bewildered. That would only make the situation worse!

Are there really so few people who actually enjoy challenging combat where you have deal with 'oh shit that didn't work' moments?


DOS1 as you played on, landing successful CC was too much a miss.
Sort of like how people complain about TB games that have a lot of swings that miss.
Now once I breakdown their armor, earned, now I can confidently land CC.
CC is also much lower lasting in DOS2, so it isn't a devastating "I win" ploy either.
But I do like that I have confidence to use CC successfully once I broke down their armor.
Sorry, but I like that.

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Originally Posted by devdev463

And if this still isn't enough to convince you then I would also like to point to the 94% steam user reviews as well to show that the majority are in fact very satisfied with this game.


I know I'm a little late to the party, and although I'm all for bashing the armor system, although I must admit devedev463 has a point there.

I was wondering : all the people complaining here and there, did you put a thumbs down on Steam or not? Not saying you should do it, I was just wondering... Because, yeah, I never saw one review about this on the Steam pages although, it seems both fair and important for potential buyers to have that type of information. If you're unhappy with the game as it is, why not say it where appropriate?

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Originally Posted by Linio
Originally Posted by devdev463

And if this still isn't enough to convince you then I would also like to point to the 94% steam user reviews as well to show that the majority are in fact very satisfied with this game.


I know I'm a little late to the party, and although I'm all for bashing the armor system, although I must admit devedev463 has a point there.

I was wondering : all the people complaining here and there, did you put a thumbs down on Steam or not? Not saying you should do it, I was just wondering... Because, yeah, I never saw one review about this on the Steam pages although, it seems both fair and important for potential buyers to have that type of information. If you're unhappy with the game as it is, why not say it where appropriate?


I have had several people I know either attempt to refund the game or leave negative reviews (though this was unsurprising, seeing as several were from a 3-4 member coop group that found themselves unable to complete the game.)

I myself have left a negative steam review with the disclaimer that the game was good, but one should wait to purchase it until major issues are fixed and serious bugfixing occurs.

In every case, however, the reviews are immediately bombarded with 'Not Helpful'; and in my experience it took less than 8 hours for my review (which I decided to write just after experiencing the joy that is Arx) was bombed to 4/17 Found This Review Helpful before I removed it and decided to write about the issues of the game elsewhere.


The Flaws of Divinity: Original Sin II: A list of observations of the game's shortcomings for the community.
Found HERE.
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Originally Posted by Linio
I was wondering : all the people complaining here and there, did you put a thumbs down on Steam or not? Not saying you should do it, I was just wondering... Because, yeah, I never saw one review about this on the Steam pages although, it seems both fair and important for potential buyers to have that type of information. If you're unhappy with the game as it is, why not say it where appropriate?


Strawman.

A game can still have flaws but generally be an overall enjoyable experience. That does not mean that the existence of any flaws, or points where improvement is needed automatically means that people are hypocrites if they are not rating the game as bad.

Last edited by Stabbey; 07/10/17 12:59 AM.
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Originally Posted by Linio
Originally Posted by devdev463

And if this still isn't enough to convince you then I would also like to point to the 94% steam user reviews as well to show that the majority are in fact very satisfied with this game.


I know I'm a little late to the party, and although I'm all for bashing the armor system, although I must admit devedev463 has a point there.

I was wondering : all the people complaining here and there, did you put a thumbs down on Steam or not? Not saying you should do it, I was just wondering... Because, yeah, I never saw one review about this on the Steam pages although, it seems both fair and important for potential buyers to have that type of information. If you're unhappy with the game as it is, why not say it where appropriate?


You are both right. The game is good, could have been great... And I would rate it positively, yet I am still disappointed with the game. But there is a problem with community right now that it does not allow for almost any critique of the game, its the same thing that happend with Witcher 3 on release - game had flaws but people clamied it was the second coming of Jesus. Now they claim that DOS2 is third coming. What is different with DOS2, *in my opinion* is that main features of the game(combat for me)is done worse then in DOS1 while W3 had story and roleplay done very well.

It will take some time before people release flaws of the system. Besides I'm guessing a lot of players are either new to the genre or dont dive into combat mechanics too deep so they dont mind - which is fine ofcourse, not everyone need to be mastermind of tactics in video games. With that being said I thought I would get a 10/10 but I got 7/10 and after 1 playthrough and getting to know the game mechanics pretty well I dont want to play on Tactician mode and in the game overall despite liking the story. And I'm a bit angry with myself becaue I decided to buy DOS2 instead of Warhammer 2 Total War because I thought I will put more hours into it. Oh well...

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Quote
A game can still have flaws but generally be an overall enjoyable experience. That does not mean that the existence of any flaws, or points where improvement is needed automatically means that people are hypocrites if they are not rating the game as bad.


Exactly.

Even though I dislike the armor changes (and the initiative changes, and the AP changes) that doesn't mean I think it's awful. I'm still enjoying the game.

The difference is, unlike D:OS1, which I played multiple times, I'm likely to only play through D:OS2 once. (unless someone makes a mod to make combat closer to D:OS1 combat)

Last edited by nateious; 07/10/17 01:38 AM.
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Originally Posted by Horrorscope
Now once I breakdown their armor, earned, now I can confidently land CC.
CC is also much lower lasting in DOS2, so it isn't a devastating "I win" ploy either.
But I do like that I have confidence to use CC successfully once I broke down their armor.
Sorry, but I like that.


You typically cannot confidently land "CC" that isn't physical based after breaking armor aside from the multihitting Hydro spells. Casters have the most forms of CC, yet they are inferior in almost every way. Not only do they take longer to actually break through magic armor, they typically have to perform two more actions to get any real CC.

Slow and Cripple are great (for Rangers...), but they aren't hard CC and they don't prevent enemies from taking actions, especially ranged. Teleport is nice too, but it's primarily a stalling tactic. Stalling because you're taking too long to kill, because you're not running a full physical group. Otherwise, it's useful for removing a single Warrior that decided to Phoenix Dive into the middle of your group once everyone and their dog ends up with that skill.

They broke elemental damage with the resist system and they broke elemental CC with it almost always requiring three actions to actually land, while simultaneously not lasting long enough.

Meanwhile, melee can Battle Stomp and Chicken for days; which also happen to be the best CC in the game. Other than of course simply outright killing them instead with your Ranger pack.

Last edited by Sanctuary; 07/10/17 06:31 PM.
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I would have prefered if they had implemented Diminishing returns on CC instead of the armor system. Where CC types like snares and slows only last 1/2 or 1/4 of the duration on the second attempt. Currently its only "bring down the armor, then cc infinitely."
Different types of cc could have been put onto the same DR table so you cant chaincc enemies forever. But have to choose the best moment instead. For example an enemy hexed into a chicken could be resistant to certain cc spells for x number of rounds after the hex wears off.
I would really like to see this as a mod, but as i've read its not possible to change the armor system?

I am still on my first playthrough (on tactician) and phys. damage dealers like rangers just outshine mages for this exact reason, because they can wear down the armor so fast. Mages and all other archetypes shouldnt be held back by this armor system. I would like to see classes that work well with damage over time and more cc. As said, if there exist diminishing returns its not possible to trivialize enemies by crowd controlling the whole fight.

Last edited by Shardex; 07/10/17 01:19 PM.
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I'm not going to speak for other people. Just myself. The armor system in this game is and always will be an exceptionally poor idea. There was no good reason why armor was changed at all. The RNG from the first game was not nearly as bad as this problem now. The game is no less cheesier yet way more prohibitive in terms of what builds you make on Tactician. This is a showstopper as far as I'm concerned. Considering I logged almost 800 hours in the first game and 90 hours in this one since launch I think says a lot. I simply do not enjoy this game and the numbers prove it.

It sucks. I really wanted to like this one and I think I would have if this armor idea was binned before release. The game has a lot of value behind it and some incredibly beautiful work. Lots of people worked hard on this game and it's a damn shame that one bad idea is destroying the perception of that hard work.

Hopefully they revisit this idea, bin it proper and give us something that improves on willpower from the first game.

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Originally Posted by Stabbey

Strawman.

A game can still have flaws but generally be an overall enjoyable experience. That does not mean that the existence of any flaws, or points where improvement is needed automatically means that people are hypocrites if they are not rating the game as bad.


There's thousands of good reviews, I mean, Steam is a "thumbs up/thumbs down" situation. One review in itself will not really change the rating of the game, although, it would voice issues the game may have into a certain light.

Like GreatGuardsman said, you could put the issues in a "bad review" and still pinpoint that the game is overall good.

Anyway, my 2 cents on this, I don't really think those topics serve much use, and although I'm not one for review bombing, if a few of us did put remarks on this on Steam maybe that would have more effect...

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Why is physical damage shredding armour and supposedly being the best an issue of the armour system and not an issue of the physical damage scaling?

Warfare offering improved physical damage along with skills that boost weapon damage lead to physical damage dealers getting easy 100% damage boosts and a better option than investing in hunstman/scoundrel. The weapon skills also confer bonuses to damage that don't transfer to spells, so it's further skewed in physical favour.

None of that is a problem with the armour system. None of that means magic is weak. It just means physical gets too many cumulative bonuses that are kinda dumb.


gambling on some rng cc affect is not a deep strategic decision. It's just a sign of gambling addiction.
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This topic is not about physical being to strong, it is about the fact that magical and physical character don't synergize in this game. Which means pure setups are stronger than mixed setups.

That magic is weaker than physics is just another issue.

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Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by Qiox
How can you find any challenge in a game where your plans never fail? How is it strategic when there are no decisions to be made, no possibilities to consider, no cost-benefit to be weighed when something may or may not work?


Probably because not everyone is Qiox: The Best Player In The World. Unfortunately no game has yet been invented which Qiox cannot beat while sleeping.



Take that personal attack and shove it.


There's a very simple fact behind how this armor system works.

Option 1: Use a direct damage attack costing 2 AP
Option 2: Use a CC with no direct damage component costing 2 AP


Case 1: CC has 40% chance of success
Case 2: CC has 0% or 100% chance of success depending on armor or no armor


Which case involves an actual decision? Which case involves strategy?

In Case 1 the two options have an actual cost vs benefit that must be considered. Can you afford to have the CC fail?

In Case 2, there is no longer any decision making needed. If your CC chance is 0% you never use CC. If your CC chance is 100% you always use CC.

How on earth is that a 'more strategic' system? How on earth is that anything other than a complete lack of decision making required.

They have dumbed down the combat with this idiotic system. And I get it. Lots of people like to never fail. But that kind of result does not belong on a game's highest difficulty setting.

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*gasp* What personal attack? Slanderous! Where is the part which insulted you? That was clearly a compliment!

But that aside, that argument is flawed because it is too much of an oversimplification of an actual combat scenario. A real combat scenario has multiple possible enemies and multiple possible skills, and many other factors.

Should I wait to use Battle Stomp when there is a target with no PA, or do I use it to clear an annoying surface? Or should I use Phoenix Dive to get across the surface, making it unavailable for several more turns. Should I spend my last 2 AP on an attack or skill, or should I save them for Enrage next turn so I get an extra 2 AP of full crits to attack?

This especially comes into play if the character acting is a mage and not a melee fighter, because a mage's only real options to reach the point where they can land status effects are to spend their skills. Should they spend their AoE attacks on a single enemy with the weakest MA, or on multiple enemies grouped together with higher MA? What's the best way to position themselves for attacking enemies? What's the best way to position themselves for assisting allies? All those things are factors.

So in my opinion, pretending that they do not exist, and that the ONLY WAY a game can have strategy is by handing CC chance over to a die roll is disingenuous.

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Originally Posted by Sanctuary

You typically cannot confidently land "CC" that isn't physical based after breaking armor aside from the multihitting Hydro spells. Casters have the most forms of CC, yet they are inferior in almost every way. Not only do they take longer to actually break through magic armor, they typically have to perform two more actions to get any real CC.


Petrify. Terrify. Web (Doesn't really count). Sleep. Root.

You typically can confidently land CC.

Starting in late Act 1 and Act 2 casters gain parity or pull ahead only to drop off contextually at the end. Though at that point nothing really matter since people are doing 9k+ phys or magical, and you have access to unlimited Source abilties.

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Teleport is nice too, but it's primarily a stalling tactic.


No.

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Originally Posted by Qiox

How on earth is that a 'more strategic' system? How on earth is that anything other than a complete lack of decision making required.

They have dumbed down the combat with this idiotic system. And I get it. Lots of people like to never fail. But that kind of result does not belong on a game's highest difficulty setting.


That's a pretty ignorant analysis of the entire situation.



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