Is lone wolf supposed to make the game easier?

[Alpha]

I just finished my first playthrough with a 4 member party and started the second play as a lone wolf. My 2 member party is wrecking havoc with ease right now. Even fights against 6-7 enemies, I am able to destroy them. I am nearing end of act 1

[NotSure]

Originally posted by Alpha:

I just finished my first playthrough with a 4 member party and started the second play as a lone wolf. My 2 member party is wrecking havoc with ease right now. Even fights against 6-7 enemies, I am able to destroy them. I am nearing end of act 1

Yes, Lone Wolf is mad overpowered

[Serendipitous]

Lone Wolf is in no way overpowered. In fact potential of the 4 man party is higher.

[Simpson3k]

I found most fights easy with my two lone wolf´s, a few i had to restart some times, like the automatrons in the academy so but what i really had trouble with are skill check related situations like lockpicking or convincing.. I assume those are easier in big parties if your chars can specialize some more?

[Tanist]

Originally posted by carashi:

Lone Wolf is in no way overpowered. In fact potential of the 4 man party is higher.

This.

Lone wolf can in fact in some situations lack options in play. Now I will say that on its face, it is more powerful, but only in the ignorant application of play. The more someone learns about the game, the more powerful a 4 party becomes.

[Bunny Girl Senpai]

I thought it was, but after completing the game both ways it's pretty equal to me. Especially since it is the only solo player option atm. If it was possible to scale stats to # of party members, then that would work well.

Anything in the game can be OP if you use min/max builds. And imo, that is when people think anything becomes OP.

[Serendipitous]

Basically, it's mostly due to how people play the game that they percieve LW as OP. Let's take topic starter here. On his first playthrough he created a 4 party team, that most probably had mixed damage, and since it was his first playthrough he wasn't familiar with the system and the world. Now it's his second playthrough, he is much more familiar with the system, he also much more familiar with the world, so he knows what danger lurks where and where he can get XP to get needed lvl up. And there is a high probability that his party is of single damage type.

Of course you would find LW playthrough easier in those conditions. But you would also find it very easy if you created another 4 man party with focused damage. If you don't believe, just create another party where you have two copies for each of your LW character and see for yourself.

There is also a thing where 2 man party is easier to manage from positioning standpoint. So people who are not tactically incline will have easier time to optimally position 2 chars in relation to enemies, than 4 chars.

[Tanist]

Originally posted by carashi:

There is also a thing where 2 man party is easier to manage from positioning standpoint. So people who are not tactically incline will have easier time to optimally position 2 chars in relation to enemies, than 4 chars.

Easier yes, but this often hurts the player tactically in given situations.

I was playing around with 2 LWs taking on the crocs that were a level above me. I ran into some issues, and while I eventually won by working out an specific approach, I went back and tried 4 characters in the same exact situation which resulted in a win on the first try due to the fact that having more characters allowed for more options tactically.

[Serendipitous]

Easier yes, but this often hurts the player tactically in given situations.

There is less potential tactically, but that potential is easier to reach. And since it is less complex, most people would probably make less mistakes when positioning their party.

[Qiox]

Going through the game with 1 LW character on Tactical was very easy.

Yes it is overpowered compared to non-lone wolf builds. Unfortunately there are some usual suspects who are bad at the game who try and say otherwise.

However the difference is something that accumulates as you level. Idiots will post here pointing out level 3 situations as if comparing that early means anything.

The OP nature of LW ramps up as you level and becomes ridiculous from ACT 2 onwards.

[Bearsuit]

There were definitely some battles with my solo LW that required a retry but generally due to a face falm moment on my part. Ive found it fairly equal to my 4 man party. Gonna try an Honor LW play and see how I fair.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Qiox:

Going through the game with 1 LW character on Tactical was very easy.

Yes it is overpowered compared to non-lone wolf builds. Unfortunately there are some usual suspects who are bad at the game who try and say otherwise.

However the difference is something that accumulates as you level. Idiots will post here pointing out level 3 situations as if comparing that early means anything.

The OP nature of LW ramps up as you level and becomes ridiculous from ACT 2 onwards.

I though canadians were supposed to be polite. Guess you really shouldn't assume...

But let's not go into ad hominems and run some numbers, shall we?

Say we have and end game character with maximum Str and Warfare. Let's see what LW and non-LW version can do. We have X base damage form a weapon, 70 Str and 20 warfare will give us next result - (X+3X)*2 = 8X, while 40 Str and 10 warfare will give us (X+1.5X)*1.5 = 3.75X. So, as we see LW character has more than twice damage compared to non-LW. But let's remember than end game character has stat boost. I will assume +15 to Str and +4 to warfare (pretty conservative ssumption for an end game character), then LW character will have 10.45X damage and non-LW will have 5.525X. As we can see, LW has less than twice damage compared to non-LW character and this will be even less than with better gear (for example, my end game melee guy had +27 Str and +7 warfare and i didn't even bothered with +5 stat boost from academy).

Let's calculate AP effectiveness of LW to non-LW chars. Damage to AP wise LW characters have less than 2 to 1 advantage to non-LW characters as we saw before. Since there are also non-damaging AP use in the game that doesn't care about being LW (like you don't get to teleport to twice the distance or have better stat boosts from Clear Minded, Encourage, or knocking opponent down for 2 turns instead of 1) the generous (to LW) estimate of AP effectiveness on LW to non-LW characters is 1.5 to 1 or so. There are corner cases where LW has advantages, like pumping your crit chance since there are only two sources of that aside from gear (Ranged skill and Wits), summoner since they get disproportionate increase on exactly level 10 of summoning (ncarnate champion) and they are having easier time to slightly invest into other skills just for their ability (for example, Cloak and Dagger for scoundrel requires skill of 2, so LW char has to invest only one point, while non-LW has to invest 2 points). Later is mostly offset by boosts form gear.

Now, LW chars get 6 AP each, meaning that when you consider the effectiveness of AP i provided earlier, full party of LW to non-LW chars it's 18 to 16 in favor of LW party. That would mean the LW chars are advantageous, but there is another point - non-LW with all investment being same will always have TWICE the amount of ability slots on the party. Let's compare on LW character who goes full physical, he has two abilities ready - Battering Ram and Battle Stomp, but if we take two non-LW characters who are created absolutely the same, they will have DOUBLE of that prepared, meaning that they can CC an enemy for 4 turns before cooldowns restore instead of only 2 (and CD are same for all characters LW or not). Since CC is the name of the game that is D:OS, it's a very big advantage to have. Not only that, 4 party is more flexible in a sense that they can be in 4 places at once, meaning more flexibility in aiming those abilities, though somewhat more complex too since it increases the chance that at any given moment your character is in the range of AoE attack. Also there is a thing when you have your character CCed - with LW you loose 50% of your party power, with non-LW it's only 25%. CCing 2 characters is easier than 4, especially when your armor increases only by 30% on LW, meaning that enemies will have to do less damage before they can CC your whole party (though this is not as clear cut, since there are area abilities, so that advantage depends on how good you are with tactics and positioning).

There is also the point about civil ablities that would make a party of 4 somewhat more effective than party of 2. It's harder to put something like maxed Loremaster or Lucky Charm in the party if you have only two party members and don't want ot give up on stuff like persuasion/thievery.

As you can see, overall 4 character party can be stronger than 2 LW, but somewhat harder to pull off.

[Qiox]

Thanks for proving my point. You described a completely gimpy LW wolf build because you idiotically think that the best you can come up with is the best possible.

Your assessment of 4 characters vs 2 is equally dense as you are completely incapable of seeing the advantages.

Dunning and Kruger would love to have a chat with you.

[SapphireSouls]

Just make a 4-man lone wolf party, gg.
Should note you need at least two players, you can 'leave party' without leaving the game entirely, allowing a party to split into two sub parties. Lone wolf only considers people in your party, not the match as a whole, and so two players with two characters each can total 4 lone wolves.

Have fun steamrolling.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Qiox:

Thanks for proving my point. You described a completely gimpy LW wolf build because you idiotically think that the best you can come up with is the best possible.

Your assessment of 4 characters vs 2 is equally dense as you are completely incapable of seeing the advantages.

Dunning and Kruger would love to have a chat with you.

First, i didn't post any builds, i made a comparison of the damage and other actions relative to AP for LW and non-LW given full investment in relative skills and gear (which holds same no matter what type of damage you are doing). Second, you really didn't tell me why my analysis is dense, sure, it may be that i'm comletely inept at theorycrafting and tactical games, but unless you will tell me specifically what advantages i'm not seeing, it's kinda hard for me to take your word for it. Third, do you really need to be such an a-hole?

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Sapphire:

Just make a 4-man lone wolf party, gg.
Should note you need at least two players, you can 'leave party' without leaving the game entirely, allowing a party to split into two sub parties. Lone wolf only considers people in your party, not the match as a whole, and so two players with two characters each can total 4 lone wolves.

Have fun steamrolling.

What's the point? Game is already easy enough as it is