Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[cruel]

Finally got around to watching this, and wow, very interesting talk.

Skip to 40:00 for the part about the armor system. Swen admits that it was a failure.

That is really interesting. Swen admits it was a mistake, half of the Codex hated this mechanic completely, I myself never spent more than 4h in single playthrough because of this - and still, the game managed to get perfect scores, GOTY titles and praised everywhere. What exactly Larian did here (that Obsidian failed with Deadfire or Owlcat didn't do for Pathfinder), that they kept such an amazing scores / excitement, while having one of the most important systems in the game completely broken?

 

[Mud']

Finally got around to watching this, and wow, very interesting talk.

Skip to 40:00 for the part about the armor system. Swen admits that it was a failure.

That is really interesting. Swen admits it was a mistake, half of the Codex hated this mechanic completely, I myself never spent more than 4h in single playthrough because of this - and still, the game managed to get perfect scores, GOTY titles and praised everywhere. What exactly Larian did here (that Obsidian failed with Deadfire or Owlcat didn't do for Pathfinder), that they kept such an amazing scores / excitement, while having one of the most important systems in the game completely broken?

4 hours? Even with a split party, the armor system is not a issue in Fort Joy, the problem with the armor system kicks in mid Act 2 with the bloat since they have more or less the same armor for physical and magical.

 

[OldNorseSaga]

That is really interesting. Swen admits it was a mistake, half of the Codex hated this mechanic completely, I myself never spent more than 4h in single playthrough because of this - and still, the game managed to get perfect scores, GOTY titles and praised everywhere. What exactly Larian did here (that Obsidian failed with Deadfire or Owlcat didn't do for Pathfinder), that they kept such an amazing scores / excitement, while having one of the most important systems in the game completely broken?

I have no idea why people hate armor that much.
Sure it's not good, but it's not THAT bad...
But then again, I really like how game becomes legally easy with magic/physical approach.


I reached Act 3 before I decided to start the game again, but I ran with one battlemage (archer + magic), two physical & one mage and it was a blast on classic.

 

[unfairlight]

Because whittling down a second health bar isn't fun.

Roll based disables/stuns (i.e. enemy has 100 armour, disable ability deals 50 damage = 50% chance to stun) if the damage dealt from the ability did not exceed the armour value would have been much preferable. It also further promotes just dumping everything into one damage type and a very systematic gameplay style of grouping them up with relocation abilities, applying CC damage and then AOE stuns once armour is low enough.

I think armour was a bit easier to understand than DOS1's "[disable] failed" or "immune to [disable]" ad infinitum, but the gameplay cost wasn't really worth it.

 

[Roguey]

What exactly Larian did here (that Obsidian failed with Deadfire or Owlcat didn't do for Pathfinder), that they kept such an amazing scores / excitement, while having one of the most important systems in the game completely broken?

The power of co-op and people playing it on the easiest setting.

 

[Fairfax]

What exactly Larian did here (that Obsidian failed with Deadfire or Owlcat didn't do for Pathfinder), that they kept such an amazing scores / excitement, while having one of the most important systems in the game completely broken?

The power of co-op and people playing it on the easiest setting.

Additionally, the vast majority doesn't understand/care about the systems in the first place, and the mechanic doesn't get in the way of the things they liked the most: co-op, writing, humour, romances, sandboxy interactions, gimmicky exploits, etc. Also, the shitty armour system is the sort of thing that becomes more annoying the longer you play the game, and ~70% of players dropped the game in the middle of Act 2.

 

[SniperHF]

Additionally, the vast majority doesn't understand/care about the systems in the first place, and the mechanic doesn't get in the way of the things they liked the most: co-op, writing, humour, romances, sandboxy interactions, gimmicky exploits, etc. Also, the shitty armour system is the sort of thing that becomes more annoying the longer you play the game

I went back and re-read some of the stuff I said about the alpha back when it was released and I think this was a huge problem in identifying the potential annoyances with the armor system. It just doesn't come up that much in act 1 as a glaring flaw. Particularly in the alpha too when the disparity of physical armor vs magic armor on most enemies was greater than it ended up in the final version. It also looked like in the Alpha and at least the earlier version of the beta that Larian had toned down the gear conveyor belt and it was much less common to find new items you'd actually swap for. But it mostly turned out it just wasn't implemented yet.

 

[Murk]

Honestly the armor thing is bad but it's not game breaking for me. I was able to enjoy it just fine. Though it does give me much stronger hope for the next game since Swen, in his usual candor, admits it was a bad idea.

If I were to do 4 person parties it would probably be a bigger issue since It'd force me to make them all similar in order to be effective, but since I would do solo runs it wasn't an issue since I'd either pick physical damage type sills or just elemental damage type skills and stick to it.

 

[Circuit the Short]

Men, is tactician okay for a first blind playthrough? I struggled hard and cheesed my way through the first game on tactician, and all that talk obout armour/hp bloat makes me wonder if I should just go casual in 2.

 

[RK47]

Do you like reloading or retreating when the mini-boss with 9999 initiative unleash their can of cheese at turn 1?

 

[Circuit the Short]

Do you like reloading or retreating when the mini-boss with 9999 initiative unleash their can of cheese at turn 1?

Kinda. Well, gotta try both then, it's a shame game doesn't allow difficulty switch midgame.

 

[Ismaul]

What's the point of playing a tactical combat game in non-tactician mode?

Unless you can't be arsed to learn how damage is calculated and how to build an effective character.

 

[Roguey]

Men, is tactician okay for a first blind playthrough? I struggled hard and cheesed my way through the first game on tactician, and all that talk obout armour/hp bloat makes me wonder if I should just go casual in 2.

They dumbed it down https://divinityoriginalsin.wiki.fextralife.com/Difficulty+Modes https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Difficulty+Modes

 

[LESS T_T]

Speaking of excited people, this is #2 on Steam's global top sellers right now, with only 40% discount.

It was hanging around page 1 or 2 of the list without discount so...

 

[cruel]

Has anybody played the game with this mod?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1726510744

Looks like total overhaul, and first thing mentioned is TOTAL armor system removal. Quick description looks promising, like somebody actually had some idea about what was broken.

 

[RK47]

Today

Years ago

 

[AwesomeButton]

Do you plan to publish an LP?

 

[OldNorseSaga]

Today

Years ago

That's eternal edition. DOS2 basic is still 49$.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Playing DOS2. Anyone else has issues with quests just not closing? I just finished Deathfog Rising, but it's acting like there's more to do, although there's no prompt in the journal and the issue is totally resolved

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I've gotten to the blood room and the beams are fucking invisible. Did anyone else get this bug?

 

[SniperHF]

Playing DOS2. Anyone else has issues with quests just not closing? I just finished Deathfog Rising, but it's acting like there's more to do, although there's no prompt in the journal and the issue is totally resolved

There were all sorts of these issues in the original release of 2 (and 1 for that matter)
I haven't played the DE but I'd have figured they would have fixed those but maybe not.

 

[LESS T_T]

Swen's GDC talk is now on YouTube:

 

[Xeon]

Man, that's pretty good talk, was a lot of fun listening to Sven.

 

[Dodo1610]

Really enjoyed the GDC talk. The part about the armour system is really interesting because it sounds like that they knew that the system was bad even at release
Sven 40:13:

we were very stubborn we didn't want to change it because we say well they don't understand it's so accessible everybody understands it blah and yeah lots and lots and lots of discussions there were an incredible amount of iterations inside of the company trying to save the armour system but essentially it remained a broken thing and it's something we shipped with and maybe we shouldn't have shipped with this system

 

[Duckard]

Good talk by Swen. I'd be interested in knowing more details about how the AI was implemented.