Divinity Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It's the logical conclusion of modern character and combat systems, which all seem inspired by MMOs. The hamster wheel design as Vault Dweller called it. In DnD a longsword deals 1d8 damage for a lvl1 as well as a lvl20 character. In modern games a low level weapon is shit as soon as you have leveled up a few times, because of HP behemoth bosses and general HP bloat that requires weapons that deal more and more damage etc. Typical MMO shit, nowadays business as usual in most single player games as well.

 

[Mangoose]

It's the logical conclusion of modern character and combat systems, which all seem inspired by MMOs. The hamster wheel design as Vault Dweller called it. In DnD a longsword deals 1d8 damage for a lvl1 as well as a lvl20 character. In modern games a low level weapon is shit as soon as you have leveled up a few times, because of HP behemoth bosses and general HP bloat that requires weapons that deal more and more damage etc. Typical MMO shit, nowadays business as usual in most single player games as well.

Agreed, in part. I think it's more based on the ARPG (Diablo 2+) style, or at least Larian's games are influenced by that - since their previous games were basically Diablo2-likes (yes, Div2 was just over-the-shoulder Diablo 2 gameplay wise.

It actually maybe works for the D2 type of ARPG just because lootwhoredom is the point of the game, but if you're trying to make any other type of game... eh...

Also, right, a longsword does 1d8 damage always. The usefulness of finding good loot is based on the unique weapon's effects (the most simple example being able to overcome damage resistance) rather than straight doing more damage.

 

[Tigranes]

D2 had the best random loot generation in history, so it worked out very well.

It would be interesting if someone ran the numbers on HP bloat across a number of games - e.g. take 10 RPGs from BG to TW to Gothic to D:OS, and then standardise the numbers (e.g. how many hits by a standard melee character to kill a same level enemy in the first non-tutorial zone?) and do some comparisons. D:OS has some silly HP bloating on bosses near the end, which is a pity because there was the opportunity to have the boss do a lot of fucked up stuff on you.

 

[Lhynn]

D2 had the best random loot generation in history, so it worked out very well.

It would be interesting if someone ran the numbers on HP bloat across a number of games - e.g. take 10 RPGs from BG to TW to Gothic to D:OS, and then standardise the numbers (e.g. how many hits by a standard melee character to kill a same level enemy in the first non-tutorial zone?) and do some comparisons. D:OS has some silly HP bloating on bosses near the end, which is a pity because there was the opportunity to have the boss do a lot of fucked up stuff on you.

D1 random loot generation was superior.

Leveling system on D:OS is shit, increasing hp AND damage on level up is retarded design, so is increasing chance to evade and other unnecesary shit.

Level progression should try to be as flat as possible on the damage/evasion/hp fronts, mostly because you want to keep low level enemies a threat for as long as possible, and because you want to force players to get creative when dealing with stronger forces. Plus only giving bigger numbers is boring, instead of giving them static bonuses its better to give them perks, points and skills and let them decide how they want to grow.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

D2 had the best random loot generation in history, so it worked out very well.

It would be interesting if someone ran the numbers on HP bloat across a number of games - e.g. take 10 RPGs from BG to TW to Gothic to D:OS, and then standardise the numbers (e.g. how many hits by a standard melee character to kill a same level enemy in the first non-tutorial zone?) and do some comparisons. D:OS has some silly HP bloating on bosses near the end, which is a pity because there was the opportunity to have the boss do a lot of fucked up stuff on you.

D2 loot system was better, yes. But the reason was that it wasn't really all that random. The crafting system allowed you to adjust all your equipment as you saw fit. Wanted INT? Put INT charms in. Wanted crit? Put crit enchantment on the weapon of your choice. All you had to do was watch out for equipment that had the enchantments you wanted, dis-enchant, voila! You had the recipe and could adjust all your stuff exactly to your liking. In DOS it's all luck or endless reloads.

 

[Lhynn]

I dont think D:OS cant really take reloads well, its an easy game as it is, reloading just breaks the challenge sooner.

 

[Tigranes]

D2 had the best random loot generation in history, so it worked out very well.

It would be interesting if someone ran the numbers on HP bloat across a number of games - e.g. take 10 RPGs from BG to TW to Gothic to D:OS, and then standardise the numbers (e.g. how many hits by a standard melee character to kill a same level enemy in the first non-tutorial zone?) and do some comparisons. D:OS has some silly HP bloating on bosses near the end, which is a pity because there was the opportunity to have the boss do a lot of fucked up stuff on you.

D2 loot system was better, yes. But the reason was that it wasn't really all that random. The crafting system allowed you to adjust all your equipment as you saw fit. Wanted INT? Put INT charms in. Wanted crit? Put crit enchantment on the weapon of your choice. All you had to do was watch out for equipment that had the enchantments you wanted, dis-enchant, voila! You had the recipe and could adjust all your stuff exactly to your liking. In DOS it's all luck or endless reloads.

You can do that with DOS crafting too. The difference is that D2 crafting was robust enough and found loot synced well enough with crafting power progression, that crafting was never too OP, found loot was never entirely useless, etc. In DOS, you don't even get the excitement of, say, finding randomly generated Tormented Souls for your crafting, as it seems mostly to be in the merchant random table.

 

[HiddenX]

A good compromise between no leveling of enemies and full autoleveling is this:

1) all enemies have a certain base level
2) if you approach with your party they scale "into the direction" of the level your party: current enemy level= (base enemy level + current party level) / 2

Effect:
Weaker enemies are still weaker, but get stronger; stronger enemies are still stronger, but get weaker.
Overall difficulty is more fun & balanced, and you still have the feeling to get better.
Free non-linear exploring can be better implemented.
Combat is challenging for the whole game (exactly: until your party level is higher than the highest enemy base level)
The leveling is not so "visible" for the player.



Example: your level 12 party meets a base level 18 enemy
Result: your level 12 party meets a (12+18)/2 = 15 level enemy

Example: your level 12 party meets a base level 8 enemy
Result: your level 12 party meets a (12+8)/2 = 10 level enemy

 

[Lhynn]

Level scaling is always shit, it makes leveling pointless, why would you want to make one of the strongest reasons to play an RPG pointless? Fucking design your system better, instead of resorting to lazy level scaling.

 

[Ulminati]

Half the fun of gaining levels is being able to go back to that place where everything raped you and kick their sorry asses around. Level scaling denies you that fun.

 

[Nihiliste]

Level scaling is the enemy of all that is pure and holy. Keep that garbage out of my games.

 

[HiddenX]

Level scaling is always shit, it makes leveling pointless, why would you want to make one of the strongest reasons to play an RPG pointless? Fucking design your system better, instead of resorting to lazy level scaling.

Full level scaling is always shit.
A moderate scaling is necessary if you want to implement free exploring in all directions. Wizardry 8 for example used level scaling, too. In a similar way like described in post #6066.

Half the fun of gaining levels is being able to go back to that place where everything raped you and kick their sorry asses around. Level scaling denies you that fun.

I see no fun in beating everything without a bit of challenge.
If the level difference is really big - you'll still beat them easily.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

D:OS will be a fun linear dungeon crawling, when someone will mod some shops into the game:
with all skill books
with good equips for levels 5/10/15/20 or something.

Level up, get new equips/skills, click trough shitty dialogs MMO style, run around the map killing stuff. Win.

 

[Roguey]

I'm disappointed with Larian for not releasing the patch today.

At least they didn't rush it out. I'm expecting polished feature completeness now. Next week.

 

[kris]

I want openness done right, or not done at all. It's clear D:OS makers had a clear path in mind for you to take through the first two areas and you'd be punished with a lopsided difficulty curve if you wandered around, like I did.

I love open environments and freedom of exploration, so in D:OS I ran around the Cyseal area running into things far above my level - dying, reloading, finding the right approach etc. was hard, but rewarding. I don't mind the 'find 100 ways to screw with the dumb AI' game when it's fresh and the odds are against you. However, soon I realized I missed Black Cove and went to explore there at level 10 - bam, everything there is level 7 and it's 3-4 hours of my life wasted on trash combat. Same with the winter zone that I didn't find until I was almost done with Silverglen; the Frost King died in one round. Another 6+ hours of trash combat. Why didn't they at least bother to put one optional, harder enemy in the easy areas to spice things up (e.g. BG2 had Liches hidden around)? I hate to say it, but RTwP handles trash combat much better.

Its not much of a point since Ds isn't really a open area RPG as in what you have in mind. Mostly because the world and areas are really small. It is designed in that way as had it been the real world I would have had two fights on the way to my car from my apartment. The only way to make the world feel more open to what thing to tackle first would have been to make the difference between levels really small, so it doesn't matter to much whether you meet lv3 or lv6 enemies. But still, there isn't much to explore regardless, instead you got areas cranked full of content and enemies literarly around every corner.

 

[Lhynn]

Full level scaling is always shit. Yes
A moderate scaling is necessary No if you want to implement free exploring in all directions. Wizardry 8 for example used level scaling And it was shit in W8 too, too. In a similar way like described in post #6066.

I see no fun in beating everything without a bit of challenge. I see no meaning on everything being challenging, only that it means your team will always be weak, because the world says so.
If the level difference is really big - you'll still beat them easily. Rather beat them faster, and get over with it to go do some more interesting content, i do not want them empowered because i happen to have fought some archdemon last week

Level scaling is always shit. If the enemies are at a huge disadvantaje have them surrender and make the player decide if he wants to bother fighting them or just let them flee, demand some sort of payment, have them do something for you, etc. Make the player play his own characters, thats where the RP of RPG comes in action.
Get creative man, dont come up with those shitty oneliners that dont really solve the underlying problem. "Its not fun" then make it fucking fun!

 

[HiddenX]

I have played games with good implemented level scaling (like Wizardry 8) and I have played games with chapter level scaling (like Gothic 2 - this game does the trick with introducing chapters, after each the enemies level up) and I have enjoyed games with no level scaling (like D:OS).

The biggest auto-leveling desaster was Oblivion.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

Level-scaling isn't always shit. The limited amount of level-scaling in BG2 worked very well.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

BG2 is a cliched over-hyped piece of RTwP shit.

 

[Ivan]

Never played the BG series. Am I better off with MotB or Kotor 2?

 

[Volourn]

MOTB > KOTOR2

No contest.

 

[RK47]

u shd finish nwn2 first to understand why MOTB seemed the better obsidian cock to suck

 

[Volourn]

Not needed because NWN2 OC is still better than KOTOR2.

 

[set]

NWN2 OC might be better than KOTOR2, but you'd have to drop some names Volorun.

I'd say KOTOR2's combat is more fun than MOTB though... I just found NWN2 way too slow paced and while neither game is particularly challenging, I didn't mind slogging through KOTOR2 like I did NWN2.

 

[Jaesun]

Joined: Oct 21, 2013