commie
The Last Marxist
Having just finished Divinity II:DKS, I was yet again faced with a game which seemingly has a varied selections of skills and spells and the like to choose from but where it all comes down in the end to picking a handful of these and spamming the whole game from start to finish with them. This is made even more problematic by the fact that the original list of things and spells is extremely paltry to begin with compared to games of days of yore.
Now of course in the past you also faced the potential of a dreaded 'insta-win' spell but the sheer number of combinations and limited leveling and skill point allocation that often took a lot of grinding to achieve made it more of a reward for your effort than the very first thing you put your points in.
Furthermore, in the past you were often forced to diversify in approach as certain enemies were always immune to certain attacks, forcing the player to work out alternatives. Shit, even the hoary old 'fire elementals get raped by ice arrows but shrug off fireballs' thing; while basic as fuck; at least makes your wizard character be forced to beat a hasty retreat if all he has is fire magic spells. In Divinity II the magic missile slaughters all and sundry, just as the explosive arrow does.
Such all purpose spells or skills like exploding arrow that kill everything are an added bane; it's not enough that they are powerful, they also stop any need for investment in anything else. Why bother picking a 'kill undead' spell or a 'rust armor' spell for those specific enemy types that normally would shrug off normal attacks when with the points you save you can just make an overpowered spell even more powerful and breeze through them?
We all rage about many of the limitations of modern games but I haven't seen too much shit flinging at the limited utility of skill trees and spell choices these days, rather the whining is about the limited amount of specializations and spells to choose from, completely missing the point. I'd rather have a 10 skills and 10 spells and have all of them useful in certain situations and less so in others than 100 different spells from which only 2 or 3 are needed.
Now of course in the past you also faced the potential of a dreaded 'insta-win' spell but the sheer number of combinations and limited leveling and skill point allocation that often took a lot of grinding to achieve made it more of a reward for your effort than the very first thing you put your points in.
Furthermore, in the past you were often forced to diversify in approach as certain enemies were always immune to certain attacks, forcing the player to work out alternatives. Shit, even the hoary old 'fire elementals get raped by ice arrows but shrug off fireballs' thing; while basic as fuck; at least makes your wizard character be forced to beat a hasty retreat if all he has is fire magic spells. In Divinity II the magic missile slaughters all and sundry, just as the explosive arrow does.
Such all purpose spells or skills like exploding arrow that kill everything are an added bane; it's not enough that they are powerful, they also stop any need for investment in anything else. Why bother picking a 'kill undead' spell or a 'rust armor' spell for those specific enemy types that normally would shrug off normal attacks when with the points you save you can just make an overpowered spell even more powerful and breeze through them?
We all rage about many of the limitations of modern games but I haven't seen too much shit flinging at the limited utility of skill trees and spell choices these days, rather the whining is about the limited amount of specializations and spells to choose from, completely missing the point. I'd rather have a 10 skills and 10 spells and have all of them useful in certain situations and less so in others than 100 different spells from which only 2 or 3 are needed.