Balance Poll for DOS 2

[muds_animal_friend]

From what little time I spent on the mainland on both Classic and Tactician difficulties it seems to me the ultimate power build is maxed out Lucky Charm. On tactician, sans cheese, fighting a level X mob requires at least equivalent level gear most of which, thanks to almost all the gear being randomly generated, requires being at least level X in the first place. The constant gear arms race makes everything feel on rails. I like the extra abilities Tactician gives the enemies, but I ultimately settled on playing Classic as the gear arms race is less pronounced, I can use character builds I find interesting to play rather than metagame, and I can fight higher level enemies for more of a challenge and win without exploiting the AI's inferior mobility. I'll give tactician another go when some modder has resolved the issues with gear.

 

[Luckmann]

This poll is shit and Roqua should feel shit.

It's very poorly balanced, and it has nothing to do with difficulty.

 

[Shadenuat]

Balance is just not part of this game's design. You very rarely feel that encounter is tuned for your party just right. You either struggle due to enemies having big numbers or element of surprise, or due to level snowballing destroy enemies before combat even began.

 

[Vibalist]

None of these options reflect how I feel about the game. It's too easy on classic, too stupid on tactician.

 

[thesheeep]

Being almost through with the game, my new opinion is that the starter island is too hard, Reaper's Coast just fine, the Nameless Isle too easy (I didn't have to reload a single time, on Tactician, wtf?) and in Arx so far some fights have been just fine, others too easy.

So... both making everything harder and making everything easier would just fuck things up.

 

[Luckmann]

starter island is too hard

 

[thesheeep]

starter island is too hard

Your argument being?

Seriously, fights in the starting island cannot be won without cheesing hard. You require all of cheesy tactics, pre-combat knowledge and good knowledge of the game's systems.
On the starter island - the area that in a game is supposed to teach you the ropes.
Instead it throws its hardest encounters at you right there so that any fight after the island seems easy in comparison, even if it probably isn't if you do just take it for itself.

Now, with all the knowledge I have now, when creating a new party, I'm pretty sure I would do much better on the starting island.
But IMO it is bad design if you, as a new player, are punished that hard for picking a hard difficulty mode.

If you want to say "new players should not play on hard"... Maybe the game is lacking another difficulty, then. One that is suited for players not knowing all the ins and outs, but still above the normal difficulty.
Because I'm pretty sure, had I picked Classic mode, I would be going on about how piss easy the game was

 

[Iznaliu]

Balance is just not part of this game's design. You very rarely feel that encounter is tuned for your party just right. You either struggle due to enemies having big numbers or element of surprise, or due to level snowballing destroy enemies before combat even began.

People don't want that kind of balance, unfortunately.

 

[Luckmann]

starter island is too hard

Your argument being?

Seriously, fights in the starting island cannot be won without cheesing hard. You require all of cheesy tactics, pre-combat knowledge and good knowledge of the game's systems.
On the starter island - the area that in a game is supposed to teach you the ropes.
Instead it throws its hardest encounters at you right there so that any fight after the island seems easy in comparison, even if it probably isn't if you do just take it for itself.

Now, with all the knowledge I have now, when creating a new party, I'm pretty sure I would do much better on the starting island.
But IMO it is bad design if you, as a new player, are punished that hard for picking a hard difficulty mode.

If you want to say "new players should not play on hard"... Maybe the game is lacking another difficulty, then. One that is suited for players not knowing all the ins and outs, but still above the normal difficulty.
Because I'm pretty sure, had I picked Classic mode, I would be going on about how piss easy the game was

During the starter island, we wiped twice, and we were running incredibly unoptimized builds (I'm a Wit-based shadowblade for christ's sake!). Fort Joy and the Marsh is a fucking cakewalk.

 

[thesheeep]

Luckmann That is so weird! What did you do? Kill everyone to harvest maximum XP?
How much did you know about the game's systems before starting?
If you found the starter island so easy, then how bored were you by what comes after?

And I'm sorry, I simply won't believe anyone claiming not to die a couple of times to the final wurm battle. It seems impossible to not be one level below the enemies - and I did every quest on the island, log was empty as can be, I just didn't kill random folk for XP, I went with a walkthrough FFS to not miss anything. Maybe I relied on the wrong source?
Then it is just so reliant on luck it's absurd, your positioning will only work if the wurm spawns close to enemies instead of close to you. And where the wurm spawns in relation to you basically determines who will win the fight.

It took me until level 9 or so to figure out I could move my characters around while one is in dialog (I think I read it somewhere). That helped - and the game doesn't tell you about that. Or it didn't tell me, instead bothering me with "no shit, sherlock" messages about how to use items...
I suspect it was in the first game, too, but I never knew and never did it and never needed to - on Tactician as well!
It's just not something that games do usually, so I wasn't looking for it

You have to take into consideration probably 80% of people will start the game without knowing anything. Maybe some memories of the first game, as it was in my case.
And for those people the fucking starting region should still be in the medium difficulty range, even on hard.

Then again, there are people who are really challenged by Classic mode, so I guess we're talking about a pretty narrow region of difficulty here...

 

[Sjukob]

And I'm sorry, I simply won't believe anyone claiming not to die a couple of times to the final wurm battle

If you managed to beat voidwoken/skeleton ambush at marshes , you sure as heck will be able to beat Alexander . I say those 2 are the hardest battles in the whole game . As for myself I've never died fighting Alexander although I did while fighting voidwoken , it's easy to abuse ai while fighting the worm , almost impossible in voidwoken fight , I was also lucky to have 2 characters with chicken claw , one of the few cc abilities he is not immune to , didn't even position my characters or anything , just went straight into the battle . It was classic difficulty though , on my second playthrough I did take advantage of everything I could

Spoiler

including lone wolf trait

, so I say you are just getting rusty .

Edit:

How much did you know about the game's systems before starting?
If you found the starter island so easy, then how bored were you by what comes after?

Didn't know anything really , I only learned about multiplicative/additive modifiers in arx , I think the pinnacle of my knowledge on the first playthrough was putting points in necromancy for life leech and immortality skill and various other schools for mobility and utility .
Wasn't really bored until arx , because I found story quite interesting ( lol ,
I would laughed at my previous self now ) and I liked getting huge numbers especially with arrow storm .

 

[John Keel]

Wtf is this fucking poll.

Where is the 'This game balance is trash' ?

There is no difficulty whatsoever, nothing matters except warfare.

The most important factor in this game has nothing to do with characterbuild nor strategy, it is all about understanding the underlying mechanisms/"ruleset"

 

[DraQ]

What kind of cretin makes results of a poll that may be helpful for someone just starting the game only visible after voting?
Just asking.

 

[YES!]

Wtf is this fucking poll.

Where is the 'This game balance is trash' ?

There is no difficulty whatsoever, nothing matters except warfare.

The most important factor in this game has nothing to do with characterbuild nor strategy, it is all about understanding the underlying mechanisms/"ruleset"

What kind of cretin makes results of a poll that may be helpful for someone just starting the game only visible after voting?
Just asking.

I have some jokes right up both of your allies. They are perfect for the intelligence level of both of you guys.

I just flew in from Cleveland and boy are my arms tired!

Take my wife - please!

 

[Luckmann]

What kind of cretin makes results of a poll that may be helpful for someone just starting the game only visible after voting?

Roqua.

 

[YES!]

What kind of cretin makes results of a poll that may be helpful for someone just starting the game only visible after voting?

Roqua.

Or, someone sane who made a poll asking specific information from people who have played it. This poll isn't to help kids be dumb. It is to help me understand the monkeys. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this poll is finding out I angered little kids who can't think for themselves.

 

[DraQ]

It is to help me understand the monkeys.

I wouldn't keep my hopes up - monkeys are not known for introspection.

 

[YES!]

It is to help me understand the monkeys.

I wouldn't keep my hopes up - monkeys are not known for introspection.

Neither is your mother and she kept me up for a good bit.

 

[Incendax]

I cannot imagine playing on anything less than Tactician. There is some definite HP bloat, but it doesn’t even matter. Even in my multiplayer games, we goof around and intentionally blow each other up and still win fights we should have lost because we were being butt monkeys to each other.

Which is to say, not balanced... but fun.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

My (limited) experience with both 1 and 2 is that on classic you steamroll literally everything with just about any build while on tactician you need to save scum every fight and have some sort of meta party from the very beginning.

Soooo problem is, in a game where the focus is combat and build variety (bc writing is unbearable), being too easy makes the game pointless and being too hard makes the game not fun because 90% of builds/skills aren't viable and you spend more time reading wikis than playing the actual game

 

[111111111]

I love dos2 but I will not pretend it is some kind of hard game.

Dos1 was much much more difficult and challenging for me.
I was able to beat dos2 reletavily unhindered after learning how armor works.

In dos1 I never beat the giant spiders in the canyon that oneshot you.