Armor system- Party diversity = you work twice as hard?

[omb]

I really don't like this. I want to be able to have mage, dmg dealers etc but with how the system is I can't have diversity. It's either just focus on physical and magic damage or you work twice as hard because you have to deal with two shields

Who thought this type of restrictive customization for your party was a good idea?

[Machin Ator]

Not true at all. Some enemies have no phsyical or magical armor and most are higher in one than another, meaning you can focus some of your party on certain mobs and others on others. It adds a layer of tactics; having your party go all physical or all magical will make some fights easier and some harder. Its not restrictive, a balanced party remains the way to go.

[Dralek]

I think what they were attempting to go for was to solve the overpowered mages from the first D:OS. You'd get into a fight, and since you'd have stacked a ton of initiative on the mage, they'd go first and CC everyone. Then it'd just boil down to keeping them CC'd and killing them one by one.

However as what Ator said above, you still have benefits to a diverse party. After all, if the enemy is immune to most elements but not physical, then just use the mages to buff the physical guys and have them wail on those element-immune people.

[Locklave]

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Not true at all. Some enemies have no phsyical or magical armor and most are higher in one than another...

Exceptions hardy set the standard. So it is infact true, making your statement incorrect.

The system encourages stacking all physical or all magical. If you don't in most cases you are needing to kill 2 times as much armor instead of 1 time and straight into hp.

Originally posted by Dralek:

After all, if the enemy is immune to most elements but not physical, then just use the mages to buff the physical guys and have them wail on those element-immune people.

Seems a flimsy reasoning to justify splitting damage types. Infact it seems to lean towards physical being what everyone should stack. Since no one is immune to it and physical can CC.

[Machin Ator]

Originally posted by Locklave:

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Not true at all. Some enemies have no phsyical or magical armor and most are higher in one than another...

Exceptions hardy set the standard. So it is infact true, making your statement incorrect.

The system encourages stacking all physical or all magical. If you don't in most cases you are needing to kill 2 times as much armor instead of 1 time and straight into hp.

Its not the exception, its the rule outside Fort Joy. Every fight will have some with higher magic or higher physical. Some with only one of the two types. Stacking damage types will actually not make the game easier, as it will make some fights much harder.

Go ahead and have a different opinion, sure, but what I am saying isnt false. A balanced party is a good bet while some fights will be ludicrously more difficult with a one damage type party.

[Tanist]

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Not true at all. Some enemies have no phsyical or magical armor and most are higher in one than another, meaning you can focus some of your party on certain mobs and others on others. It adds a layer of tactics; having your party go all physical or all magical will make some fights easier and some harder. Its not restrictive, a balanced party remains the way to go.

As some have already stated, certain exceptions are not the rule. The fact is, the bulk of the fights are split in their shields, with minor adjustments between which leads to focused party development being more efficient than splitting them up.

Now certainly, you can say "but that is min/maxing!", yes... it is... which is what we do in gaming, especially in tactical games where the point is to maximize your potential.

[Tanist]

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Originally posted by Locklave:

Exceptions hardy set the standard. So it is infact true, making your statement incorrect.

The system encourages stacking all physical or all magical. If you don't in most cases you are needing to kill 2 times as much armor instead of 1 time and straight into hp.

Its not the exception, its the rule outside Fort Joy. Every fight will have some with higher magic or higher physical. Some with only one of the two types. Stacking damage types will actually not make the game easier, as it will make some fights much harder.

Go ahead and have a different opinion, sure, but what I am saying isnt false. A balanced party is a good bet while some fights will be ludicrously more difficult with a one damage type party.

"some", again... the exception.

Fact is, the hardest fights in this game aren't hard at all due to the system and mechanics. Anyone who is maximizing a party focus will steam roll any given encounter like that anyway. /shrug

[Locklave]

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Its not the exception, its the rule outside Fort Joy. Every fight will have some with higher magic or higher physical. Some with only one of the two types.

Sorry but you don't understand. If you stacked all physical the fights with physical armor only would be normal fights at no loss and the fights with no physical armor would be stomps. And if they had both types then you'd have the advantage.

All the meta for the game seems to support 100% physical groups.

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Stacking damage types will actually not make the game easier, as it will make some fights much harder.

You mean in fights where half your balanced party gets screwed anyways by the armor type? Those fights would be twice as easy for that armor type because you stacked a full party with it.

There is no downside.

If you got 4 people and 100 points of armor and they are all that type then the burden per person is 25. If you balance the team the burden is 50 per person of that type. Seem suddenly his armor type is worth 2 times as much because of your team setup.

So stacking single damage type means the armor type that best counters them is less effective.

So who cares about those some fights, as that armor will be worth less. The game mechanics are poorly thought out.

[Banestaff]

Enemy Archers/Mages/Rogues will have a low Physical armor and high Magic armor. Enemy warriors will have a high Physical armor and low Magic armor, almost always. But I do have to kind of agree with OP here, because it seems like stacking your party for entirely one way or the other is superior in most respects later in the game, especially once you get your powerful late-game source abilities that can melt even high armor enemies (at least in Explorer and Normal dificulties).

[wds_ncs]

Originally posted by Locklave:

You mean in fights where half your balanced party gets screwed anyways by the armor type? Those fights would be twice as easy for that armor type because you stacked a full party with it.

There is no downside.

If you got 4 people and 100 points of armor and they are all that type then the burden per person is 25. If you balance the team the burden is 50 per person of that type. Seem suddenly his armor type is worth 2 times as much because of your team setup.

So stacking single damage type means the armor type that best counters them is less effective.

So who cares about those some fights, as that armor will be worth less. The game mechanics are poorly thought out.

All four one type will get you fastest time to kill in most cases, but the system hardly gimps mixed groups as much as you claim. By pooling the armour, you're ignoring that two well built characters dealing a single type can easily drop 1- 2 equal levelled non-boss enemies on Tactician per round. You're not forced to burn through both sets of armour, as you claim, except under exceptional circumstances.

Also, you're wrong, 4 magic is better than 4 phys in terms of pure damage per action point starting in Driftwood.

[deadsanta]

Stacking physical gets you 4 early cc's on each of your characters (2 warfare knockdowns, 2 poly cc's- chicken and tentacle lash) all of which are ranged (chicken is short, but not melee distance). You don't have to fiddle with getting the right surface under an anemy to apply cc, and you don't need to worry about hovering enemies, just strip armor and go. Given that there are late game abilities that remove all physical armor once your own armor is higher than anemies', it's really unbalanced in favor of physical.

[Izunyami]

Originally posted by Tanist:

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Its not the exception, its the rule outside Fort Joy. Every fight will have some with higher magic or higher physical. Some with only one of the two types. Stacking damage types will actually not make the game easier, as it will make some fights much harder.

Go ahead and have a different opinion, sure, but what I am saying isnt false. A balanced party is a good bet while some fights will be ludicrously more difficult with a one damage type party.

"some", again... the exception.

Fact is, the hardest fights in this game aren't hard at all due to the system and mechanics. Anyone who is maximizing a party focus will steam roll any given encounter like that anyway. /shrug

Wow.. Mr ''The game is perfect'' is starting to criticize the armor system.

OH MY GOD. TANIST THE RICK IS AGREEING WITH ME.

[Morgian]

The numbers are somewhat deceiving, though. In Arx most enemies have pretty balanced shields, like 3500 physical and 3100 magical. No matter what you have specialized in, you can strip them in one shot, making that a non-issue.
The few exceptions are the bosses like the doctor, who has besides his 30+ k hp also 14k physical armor and 11+k magic shields and needs 2-3 hits to get through. I two-rounded him with Thunderstorm in my last run, which makes me think that this spell is a little OP.

Btw, there are mobs in the game with resistance to physical damage. I noticed that during the fight in the hall of echoes, when you go to your deity for the third time and the voidwokens attack you. One of them is 99% immune to physical damage, which was a real pain with my fighter. I did not check every mob, but I had the impression that some don't take what I expect to dish out. So the voidwoken was maybe not the only one.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Machine Ator:

Its not the exception, its the rule outside Fort Joy. Every fight will have some with higher magic or higher physical. Some with only one of the two types. Stacking damage types will actually not make the game easier, as it will make some fights much harder.

Very rare issues in that case easily solved by grenades & scrolls.