I'm not usually one to comment, but I've really been enjoying your work! More divinity 2 content sounds great, it's a game that has a lot to examine for sure
Thanks! Yea its a really great game. I have some other videos that are slotted to be up next but I'll certainly make at least one more video on Divinity 2. Maybe more if I have more things to talk about. Do you have any ideas for interesting topics for DOS2?
@@GamedevAdventures It may be a minor thing, but I feel like the game has one of the most interesting companion systems, and it even allows you to play as an origin character OR to make your own one. I feel that with playing as an origin character, you get to see a far better picture of who that character is and what he/she is going through while giving more replayability to the game because of that exploration, but also because you can get a more unique ending to each of their quests as opposed to when you take them as a companion (since they usually do their own thing and the player just chooses to either support him/her or not, without guiding much of their action). That's just one idea, I guess.
The only way to make this stuff work is give player tools to work around the limitations. In RPG games where you control only one character, that is a direct intrusion into how the player's character can fight enemies, potentially completely stifling the agency of the player to do what they want. That's why you don't see it being a complex element too often. The way to mitigate it is removing customization from your character. If the progress is linear and ensures you have the right tools just in time to deal with the threats when they appear, it even stifles the core tenets of developing your character's progression. It's a tough cookie. If you resort to let's say utility items like bombs or spell scrolls, that doesn't solve the core issue with invading player's agency. Now your player ALWAYS needs to have these items in sufficient capacity on them at all times, otherwise that fire-immune enemy might be an impossible obstacle. So now you've added a resource mechanic that is mandatory, which is self defeating if you want the player to be able to feel any way they want. A water mage carrying fire bombs just in case is a bit silly.
@Ali Baba You could also look at it from another perspective. Sure in the Skyrim example where you specialize in ice damage, doing x% more damage, using x% less mana etc. (which is usually a poor approach anyway in my opinion, if it doesn´t at least make it look more powerfull visually also) it is difficult to find a solution, but that is a design problem of Skyrim. As an opposing example for a better approach have a look at Gothic 1, where as a mage you specialize in magic by increasing your general magical rank and manapool. This enables you to use all kinds of runes of the learned ranks (if you find/buy them) and can cast more of all of them through the bigger mana pool. Making enemies resistant against certain types of damage actually encourages you to figure out which spell works best against which enemy and is used best in which situation. This magic system is one of the few aspects I think Gothic 1 handled far better than Gothic 2 (being able to make runes yourself is a cool idea though, paying learning points for it surely isn´t, since it encourages you to NOT try and use all spells...). They could have increased the significance, by giving immersive hints to resistances and extremer resistance weighting on the enemies, though. Another important use with this elemental damage system is the sideeffects: stun, burning, slowing, pushback, freezing, etc. allowing you to handle difficult enemies you couldn´t take on otherwise and making spells useful for every kind of build through utility. And also extremely important are the differences between the spells: Only changing the colour of a projectile to show the difference in the kind of damage it does is extremely boring. Giving certain spells different handling and effects as in Gothic 1 makes it really interesting: the firestorm doing really good area damage but needing to be charged up, the icewave freezing everybody in medium range also needing to be casted for some time (making it challenging to use without getting hit yourself and still hit every enemy), the fire rain being centered around the caster (forcing you to run towards the enemies to get the most out of it), the chain lightning, jumping over medium range from target to target, good magic damage every tick and stunning, chaining several enemies in short time (but also jumping back at you when running out of enemies in range, giving yourself the same damage, ending the chain lightning and releasing all stunned enemies at once), the wind fist charging up and throwing and hitting everybody in short range (leaving you vulnerable while charging and forcing you in close contact), the psionic spells attacking a single target stunning it while doing damage over time, but also rooting you while casting it (making it a powerful spell against single targets and a poor choice against groops of enemies)... etc. This gives every spell a very unique feeling and mastering them takes time, since you need to figure out the right distance, timing, enemy type and situation. But it feels so good when it works as planned, especially the risky ones like wind fist, ice wave and especially chain lightning are awesome when played right. The coolest Fireball spell I have ever seen still is the ignisphaero spell in DSA Drakensang (round based strategy fighting like divinity 2), needing tons of time to charge up releasing a standard fireball projectile but making a surprinigly HUGE explosion on impact, potentially killing whole groups of enemies, but also being devastating to your own party if the targeted enemy runs towards you. The fireball in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (aka the ultimate kick simulator) which´s trajectory can be changed as long as it is still mid air and hasn´t hit anything is interesting too, although I am really bad with targeting it correctly.
I think another reason why DOS2 dare to emphasize the elemental combat with a ton of "immunity" or "90%" resistant for enemies is the insanely low cost of respecing your characters and experimenting with different skills/spells. In fact the only cost for respecing is your time thinking about the build's details. This allows endless possibilities and to answer that, enemies will lean toward the extremes of the elemental/condition aspects
I feel like a more dynamic approach to how elements and status effects work would be beneficial. Give elements their own character and personalities. Use a scaling system with threshholds to determine the effectiveness of whatever skills are used. The same way characters have base stats like strength and def and how these stats counter each other and scale up or down depending on player growth, incorporate magic skills and status ailments/benefits the same way. Though this would require careful attn to stats and balance, it doesn't destroy nor hinder creativity. Stronger enemies can still have scaled up defenses or immunities if desired, but the dynamism can help really define a playstyle. The reason Skyrim failed so hard at this was because its entire environment was level scale dependent. Example: Say you have a spell like sleep. It has a fixed 75% chance of success. But it also has a scaling effect based on your skills and playstyle. The stronger you are with sleep, the deeper the sleep. Instead of one hit strikes that wake up a target, the target wakes up based on how much damage it accumulates based on the strength of the affliction. Either the target wakes up after taking 400 points of damage, or with a stronger sleep spell, stays asleep until it takes 1000 points of damage. Resistance can be a direct counter to this, where if the target can resist 1000 points of sleep, the target simply resists sleep altogether. Elemental damage: shock mage that can deal 300 extra damage per shock spell vs opponent that resists 200 points of shock damage = you only do 100 extra points of damage.
Regarding threshholds: say you have an ice mountain type of monster. It has a built in defense of 800 to fire damage and 1200 resistance to ice. Its weakness would be fire. But in order to activate the bonus damage, you must pass a certain threshhold of damage output with your flame spells baaed on your stats. Let's say you need to naturally deal 15% more damage than the targets defense to its weak element. So to earn bonus damage on the mountain monster, you need your fire elemental offense stat at 920 points damage per flame spell to activate the weakness to its element.
I like the content and the idea. But your presentation, speech and mic quality make it a bit hard to follow along. I dont wanna like be the negative guy. But better quality audio with less harsh S sounds and scratchy instances of audio would go along way. Only my first video of your ive watched. I feel like your channel has promising ideals
Yeah, I think he's being a bit slow sometimes (especially with some long pauses), and adding changing music is also a good idea to keep the viewers engaged inbetween.
