Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Request: Can the backers get the arena mode

Can the kickstarter Backers get the arena mode shown off during the livestreams as a sort of taster of dos2?

I'll put it this way: In what way will that help Larian better develop the game?

We don't have all the races in yet, we don't have profiles for all the races voted on yet, much less the racial traits finalized. We don't have the new skill trees decided on, let alone implemented. Source Skills right now are all placeholders, not finalized. Without more of that stuff done, the arena mode isn't going to be great for balance testing.

At this point, with so much incomplete, is there really much useful feedback Larian could get from an Arena Mode test? Larian has to get something out of such a release as well to justify the work it would take to get even a small arena mode public test working.

It's not about feedback, just for fun, Stabbey.

I'd prefer none of this, thank you very much.

I recall Larian stating they won't ever have backer-specific content in DOS2, to offer same game content for everyone.

Plus, it's not just the implementation and testing, it's the cost too. Don't get me wrong: it's grand and awesome 30, 000++ pple supported DOS2 KS but we're what? A pittance compared to the millions more who'll be buying OS2 later.

Now, if we're going to have an arena mode for everyone, which is quest-integrated? I'd say "yes" to the idea. It can be fun to have arranged fights versus a variety of opponents, for money, xp or some other quest reason.

I'd say Larian has learnt their lesson not to create a feature just 'cos "it sounded like such a great idea". Yes, at the risk of repeating myself, I'm referring to the Divinity2 video where they mentioned they were gonna turn the last 1/3rd of the game into an RTS. And oh yeah, they were gonna have tutorials for the newbies. Given Larian and its lack of hand-holding, I'm really glad they never went through with it. Still, it explains why the Battle Tower was so empty.

I don't think the idea was to release an arena as some sort of backer-specific content, but rather a mise-en-bouche of what will come, that may very well be included in the final game =)

Yeah. Pretty much the original poster is basically asking for the Arena mode as a sort of teaser.

And frankly... I am not opposed to it. It is a decent idea to hold everyone over until Alpha.

I think it would even be a very good idea in order to test combat mechanics and spot overpowered ( as well as underpowered ) skills as we did with the alphas and betas of DOS1.

However, we'd need a PvE arena rather than a full PvP arena to do so - history has shown us that balancing for pvp is very, very different than balancing for PvE, and at core DOS2 is still a PvE game.

Mmmm ;-).. Just imagine we could organise Devine-Followers vs Nord-Brotherhood matches every evening if we had the arena mode ;-)

That's going to end well. And by well, I mean a bloodbath. Lol.

Lucky we would have the very person who designed the area on our side... Maybe he could hide some secrets in the arena or something THAT ONLY THE NORD FOLLOWER WOULD KNOW HAHAHAHA

I did not expect anything less from a norD.

Devine Order of Devinity shall slay all of the undevines!

Now that's rude. I'm little bit shocked now. Don't expect me to invite you to another tea party - well, at least not too soon. :-(

Not really, based on customer value those 42,713 backers are worth about a million steam sale guys. Not only because we paid on average lot more than those guys, but as well because we are valuable for marketing and feedback and easy access to cheap, interest free money for development. There is a reason why most modern franchises in the industry are build around attracting pre-orders and hype.
And I am not saying that this is a good thing, but backers, pre-orders and buyers on release are where most of the money is. And btw, DOS seems not to have sold "millions" of units so far. DOSEE and the console release might push DOS into that category, but currently I have not seen any data that would suggest DOS selling even 'just' two million copies.

With all that said, I think I am gonna be busy with the enhanced edition for quite some time, 2 more weeks and we get that edition finally.

Eh, i personally wont be asking for that right now.

but for what its worth when the Alpha/Beta is out ill mostly be dicking around in the Arena mode trying out character builds.
I dont want any spoilers and i dont want to have beta fatigue by the time the game actually comes out.

but having some fun with the combat system would be neat.

I was thinking, if there's interest would you want something like this made for the D:OS EE?

I could probably hack something together similar to how Larian did it and release it on the workshop.

I would be interested. Think others would be too.
Apart from its standalone merits - would be useful to generate feedback for DOS2 arena mode. Which would increase its awesomeness even more.