Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Starter dungeon goes on forever. More content, ple

DOS is looking pretty good. One concern: I've spent what seems like hours wandering the starter/tutorial dungeon, mostly finding broken pottery that I have to pound away on manually--attacking it with a weapon breaks the weapon, and there's rarely any reward. Yes, I got burned even after putting out the fire with the water barrels, so learning to wait until the smoke stopped was useful. But I've not yet encountered any enemies. It mostly seems like miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.

UPDATE 6/9/14: As others have suggested, the problem was that I was stopping every three steps to bash broken pottery. I DID on RARE occasions find loot, so that's why (but there was almost never any loot). To make it worse, I used bare hands because it wore down weapons. Takes a LONG time to bash pottery with bare hands! In an earlier beta, using a bow or spell did nothing, but now they work. Once I stopped that futile exercise, the tutorial dungeon went smoothly.

QUESTIONS: does using destructive spells destroy the contents of containers? Why does it seem that using a bow and arrow to bash things wears down the bow? That shouldn't happen unless the bow wears ANY time it's fired.

Well it's a tutorial dungeon so I'm not surprised it lacks in loot, as for breaking your weapon....well, I haven't played the beta(mainly because I don't do Steam) but I'd suggest trying magic attacks or just with the bare hands(yeah not a smart idea irl) to see if you can save your weapon that way. Smoke does seem like something that would hurt the lungs so I doubt that's a bug. As for enemies, I think they'll be added in for launch at least I seem to remember them saying they would but I could be wrong.

I ignored the broken pottery; didn't know you could get any loot destroying it, but there is enough other loot that it doesn't seem worth the effort.

There are enemies to be found in the tutorial.

Hint: Don't attack broken pottery. It's empty and a waste of time. If you don't do that, then the pacing of the tutorial dungeon should improve greatly.

If you're approaching the scenery with a Diablo mentality where you have to break everything for loot, this game isn't like that.

The tutorial dungeon really isn't that long. I guess it depends on team set up~ but I made a healer with a staff. So I used her staff ranged attack to break doors (no durability loss) or as suggested above. Use bare hands ^_^

Yeah, that needs to change. The fact that spells can bypass durability loss and make the lockpicking skill pointless is not good at all. Yes, the same can be done with weapons, but there is a cost (and frankly the cost should be higher - damaged weapons should sell for less money to the vendor, in my opinion).

hmmmm I see more lockpicking as an option, it makes sense to give the player the choice between opening the door with lockpick or just break it, with the difference that if someone sees you bashing the door he will become hostile to you, but if you lockpick it, the people assume you have the key and then you are allowed to enter the place same with trunks (except if of course they are the owners...)

Lockpicking is an option and the items hidden behind locks are the rewards for investing in that option.

Busting open a container or door with a weapon is fine, because the weapon takes durability damage which can be costly to repair. I personally would also like to see damaged weapons sell to vendors for less because it prevents using throw-away weapons (and selling them right before they break) as a means of bypassing the durability downside.

The big problem is magic. There is no "mana" in this game, we are free to cast a spell an infinite number of times and wear down any lock with it. That magic can be used to break open locked doors/containers is not the issue - the issue is that it can do it without the same penalty that physical weapons suffer. There is zero reason (beyond a lack of patience on the player's part) to invest in the lockpicking skill if you have access to a spell that either directly or indirectly creates damage. With enough time you can eventually cast your way through any locked obstacle.

That has to change or lockpicking becomes a joke. Why invest points into the skill when you can just pick up a spell instead (bonus: a spell is also good for things beyond bashing locks). Spellcasting should put wear on the player's staff, or something. That includes damage done by a summons.

Another way around the problem is to have damage done to the contents when the container via magic. The assumption is that the violence of the fireball/etc. damaged one or more items, damaging or destroying them. I've played several other games that handled it that way. Then you have the choice of lock-picking (if you've got the skill), bashing with a weapon (and the weapon takes damage), or using a combat spell (and the items you're trying to get might be damaged or destroyed).

Yeah, that suggestion has popped up before, but the problem is that while it makes sense on chests, it doesn't make sense for locked doors that lead to profitable areas. It's hard to justify damaging the contents of a room for a locked door that was blasted with spells down the hall, around the corner and beyond another door at the base of a set of stairs.

I'm honestly ready for locked doors/containers to be immune to magic damage.

Initially I assumed that I would have to have one PC or follower NPC be a rogue with lock-picking skills, just for the locks and such (like in DA:O), but apparently that's not the case.

I like having three ways to open locks though. The older TES games let the fighters bash locks, mages use 'Open' spells and rogue pick locks. (Now in Skyrim everyone is a master lock-picker. Have to say I liked the old way better.)

I am not playing the beta, but I am wondering just how much damage a metal weapon takes when lock bashing. I recall in TES-II it was quite a bit and I had to carry around some cheap maces and such just for bashing locks. But seriously a well made war hammer shouldn't have a problem breaking a lock.