Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 Armor System Discussion

[Lambach]

Weird how the same exact people who hate the armor mechanic think stacking 4 characters with the same type of damage is a Good Idea.
Really gets that noggin joggin.

It's why I hate the armor system, mongoloid, because stacking 4 of the same damage type is always by far the better choice.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Weird how the same exact people who hate the armor mechanic think stacking 4 characters with the same type of damage is a Good Idea.
Really gets that noggin joggin.

It's why I hate the armor system, mongoloid, because stacking 4 of the same damage type is always by far the better choice.

But it's not the better choice, it's the easier choice for people who don't understand the game and like to beat their head against a wall(irl).

 

[Black]

Weird how you see "this was a bad system" and immediately translate it to "this is so hard", Rustic Shekelford.

 

[NJClaw]

Because it makes half your party useless in the majority of situations, depending on who wins initiative.

Almost every fight in the game has some enemies with low magic armor and some enemies with low physical armor. I've played with 2 and 2, and I've never found myself saying "oh no, now this character can't do anything because he has the wrong damage type".

It happens to me constantly and I have 2 physical, 1 summoner and 1 magic. This is exacerbated by the fact physical characters have to move more, so managing to get past the frontline in order to get to the archers in the back becomes a trap maneuver.

I don't understand how this is possible.

I played with a Warfare/Polymorph, a Huntsman, a Summoning/Aerotheurge/Hydrosophist, and a Pyrokinetic/Geomancer, and I think I had that problem twice in 100 hours against very specific enemies. The Pyrokinetic guy can take care of the magic armor on his own, and everyone can then CC with Medusa Head, Chloroform, or Hydro/Aero stuff. If you need to target physical armor, the only pure "magic" guy can use Mosquito Swarm or something. He won't deal optimal damage, but that's the drawback for being able to deal faster with enemies with high physical armor.

 

[Lambach]

But it's not the better choice, it's the easier choice for people who don't understand the game and like to beat their head against a wall(irl).

Yeah, it is. 4 chars slinging AoE magic abilities will be a superior tactic to anything else you can possibly come up with until enemies start getting high resistances. Why the hell would it be a better choice to target someone with low physical/high magic armor with a physical character and neutralize one enemy, when I can just throw 2 AoE spells at him, burn all of his magic armor anyway and clean up 2-3 of his buddies caught in the AoE with him?

I'm like 90% sure you haven't even played the fucking game, or you would know by what an insane margin magic-damage abilities outclass physical-damage ones until resistances start coming into play.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

grog smash head against physical armor wall
armor system bad
grog angry!

 

[Lambach]

Chad "throw 2 fireballs and 2 poison clouds to insta win any fight" VS Virgin "pick my targets based on countering armor/damage type"

 

[Harthwain]

What I find annyoing personally is that many games don't simulate how injured your target is, meaning if you don't kill your target you still take full damage.

 

[Desiderius]

Game’s so easy you can beat it while missing the whole point of the combat system and feel like you’re owning people.

Same with Deadfire. Sensing a pattern.

 

[Desiderius]

It’s the old nukers v CCers.

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't understand how this is possible.

I played with a Warfare/Polymorph, a Huntsman, a Summoning/Aerotheurge/Hydrosophist, and a Pyrokinetic/Geomancer, and I think I had that problem twice in 100 hours against very specific enemies. The Pyrokinetic guy can take care of the magic armor on his own, and everyone can then CC with Medusa Head, Chloroform, or Hydro/Aero stuff. If you need to target physical armor, the only pure "magic" guy can use Mosquito Swarm or something. He won't deal optimal damage, but that's the drawback for being able to deal faster with enemies with high physical armor.

It happens very often when you pick your targets. Say you go with your physicals to kill the archer, you kill it in 2 rounds while your magical party members are focusing on other threats (mostly because they can't get to the archer). When the 3rd round comes and it's your physicals' turn, they are left with half-killed mobs with full physical armor, i.e. useless. The same thing can happen the other way around. The magicals kill their targets faster and are now up against half-dead mobs with full magic armor. It happens every other fight for me, if not almost every fight. You can't win with this system. You either wail on one mob at a time trying to tear down two different health bars, i.e. be redundant, or you pick your targets and the aforementioned scenario happens where half your party is useless. Yeah, sure, you can give all your party members both physical and magical damage, but that doesn't excuse the bewildering design and only tackles the symptom, not the cause.

It's good that the game is braindead easy even on Tactician, this would've been a massive problem had the AI been smarter and the mobs deadlier.

 

[NJClaw]

When the 3rd round comes and it's your physicals' turn, they are left with half-killed mobs with full physical armor, i.e. useless.

Does your game lack Chloroform, Gag Order, Terrifying Cruelty, and Medusa Head for some reason?

The magicals kill their targets faster and are now up against half-dead mobs with full magic armor.

Put one point into Polymorph and use Chicken Claw, put one point into Warfare and use Battering Ram or Battle Stomp, put two points into Geomancer and use Earthquake or Corrosive Spray, or, you know, use any skill in the Summoning school.

If the enemy's armor is depleted, you don't need to be a full specialist in a school to control him with a status.

 

[Lacrymas]

Like I said, that's at best a band-aid, doesn't excuse the poor design, and only tackles the symptom. I do have some of these skills, but that's besides the point.

 

[NJClaw]

Like I said, that's at best a band-aid, doesn't excuse the poor design, and only tackles the symptom. I do have some of these skills, but that's besides the point.

You are saying that that's beside the point, but it seems the entire point to me.

"Characters based on the wrong damage type are useless when only certain enemies remain"

"They aren't useless, you have skills to make them effective"

"That's not the point"

Since characters are never not useful, what's your point?

 

[Lacrymas]

Like I said, that's at best a band-aid, doesn't excuse the poor design, and only tackles the symptom. I do have some of these skills, but that's besides the point.

You are saying that that's beside the point, but it seems the entire point to me.

"Characters based on the wrong damage type are useless when only certain enemies remain"

"They aren't useless, you have skills to make them effective"

"That's not the point"

Since characters are never not useful, what's your point?

First of all because you might not have one of these skills on a character and rely only on your main damage source; second of all because a single skill is rarely enough to finish off a mob, putting it on cooldown and there's a chance your other characters won't be able to kill the mob even in the next round, so you are left with at best a severely gimped character yet another turn; third of all because it forces you to build all your characters very similarly, with similar strengths and weaknesses (incl. putting extra points in memory to even have space for these extra skills). At best it forces your "off-damage" characters to fight at like 10% efficiency, at worst it makes them useless. I don't see how you can defend such a system?

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

On paper, it was total shit, in practice it was just "meh.. ok" but not this game crippling catastrophe. Mostly due to the underrated encounter design. Some encounters had pretty fun tactics as a result, some less so.

I guess my hot take is if you're more of a tacticool gamer then it had it's appeal at moments, but if you are a lawnmower rpgian then it was some uninvited friction to man-hit-with-sword

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

First of all because you might not have one of these skills on a character and rely only on your main damage source; second of all because a single skill is rarely enough to finish off a mob, putting it on cooldown and there's a chance your other characters won't be able to kill the mob even in the next round, so you are left with at best a severely gimped character yet another turn; third of all because it forces you to build all your characters very similarly, with similar strengths and weaknesses (incl. putting extra points in memory to even have space for these extra skills). At best it forces your "off-damage" characters to fight at like 10% efficiency, at worst it makes them useless. I don't see how you can defend such a system?

On paper it definitely works out this way, but in practice the encounter design and back up options in my character builds gave me plenty to do with my split party 95% of the time. And sitting on your hands for a turn is not like something that is totally foreign to other D&D based games (I guess you can perform the equivalent of tactical masturbation with a light crossbow..)

 

[Lacrymas]

It happens to me all the time, though. I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise, so it's definitely not just a theoretical problem.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Lacrymas being a Soyerite balancetard, who would've thought?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

At worst you use a CC(opposite of your main damage type) to prevent the enemy from acting on their next turn, or use buffs/heals/armor renews. Basically every build can get some CC or utility easily.

 

[Lacrymas]

Or you focus on only one damage type and circumvent this overly convoluted and artificially-made problem. Which is the optimal path to take either way. You either build your characters very similarly to each other in order to have both magical and physical damage available at all times (by spreading points around), or build your characters very similarly to each other in order to focus on one damage type with all of them.

 

[Ontopoly]

Or you focus on only one damage type and circumvent this overly convoluted and artificially-made problem. Which is the optimal path to take either way.

Or avoid all problems at once, not play a larian game, and be happier and better off for it.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Rusty, has your tea gone cold and are you wondering why you got out of bed at all? Did the morning rain cloud up your window and you can't see at all? But then you realize, even if you could it would all be gray but then you look and you see Swen's picture on your wall... and does it remind you that it's not so bad? Not so bad?

 

[Thonius]

What WAS the armor system in DOS like? For those of us who haven't played it.

HP bloat.

 

[jackofshadows]

Not sure what is worse: this or TB vs RTwP wars.