Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General New Stat : Memory : Thoughts?

You mean mages will have to spend less points on stats? That may be so, but devs can also do something with other non-mage stats so that mages will want to put points into them. Maybe make staves use strength and wands - finesse? Or for example, with more strength you become more hardy and take less damage (shrug it off) and with finesse you're more likely to dodge the attack altogether.

Again, this is a moot point when we know so little.

I had two questions, if you're kind enough to answer them:

1- What is the new role of the abilities, if they don't serve anymore as gates in the skill learning process? Honestly I liked the way they worked in the EE edtion.

2- Are you 100% sure that in a game like DOS - where immunities and resistances play a huge role, and where cooldowns last for several turns - it's wise to limit the number of skills available at any given moment?

I mean: I understand it adds strategic depth, but it could also become a chore tactically speaking. You meet this mob which is immune to everything you have in your current skillset, and you are either forced to flee or to die. You don't wanna spend points in Memory, and as a result you don't get enough skills to finish a boss fight without being forced to use the standard attack any x turns (I know these are extreme scenarios, but nonetheless...).

Bonus question: have you considered the option to allow players to switch skillsets while in combat at the cost of a certain number of inactive turns? In my opinion it would help to make things less binary (you're either are prepared or not prepared for an encounter), while adding an interesting trade-off to the game (is it worth to lose 1 or 2 turns in order to change skillset?).

This new system looks interesting.
If I like it more or less than the old system I can only tell after playing it.

my questions:
It looks like the skill categories (water magic, fire magic, rouge, warrior, . . . whatever they call it) still exist, because the stat screen showed for example : finesse improves thief skills.
- Can you spend points into skill sets (like you did in D:OS1) or do they only exist to tell what skill is influenced by what stat?
- If you can spend points there, what do they do? Looks like they do not increase skill slots, thats what memory is for. Maybe the limit what skills you can learn (You need 2 points in fire magic to learn the fireball spell) or they simply improve those spells (1 point in fire magic increases your fire damage by 10% and your fire resistance by 5%)

In that sense, it's a lot better than the situation in D:OS, where you have to delete the skill FOREVER (until you find/buy another skill book).

C'est la vie.

I'm just kind of curious about what counts as a "memorised skill", really. Is it the pure base skills, or is it the "crafted" skills? (Personally, I like the idea of memorising the base skills and crafting spells on the fly.) I look forward to learning more.

So basically you're saying that everyone can learn everything without investing a single point into the relevant ability? Will that not greatly diminish the value of abilities? I mean, in D:OS ability level influenced the cost of each skill, so I could see how ability would still be useful. But in D:OS 2, with its reduced action points, I don't see how this would work. Guess ability level could still affect the cooldowns, although I'd rather wish you guys got rid of those entirely.

Uh, oh ... too bad. My first immediate reaction to memory was like "yay! finally, no more searching through 5 hot bars to find that one skill" and now you tell me our characters will likely have even more skills with a bit invested into memory!?

I really fail to see the benefit of memory over the old system right now. But well, if more information is coming, makes no sense to overly fret. Just curious how the rest of the system is adapted to cater for these changes.

Technically true, but in D:OS it's extremely easy to have a versatile characters with lots of available skills at any given moment. You just need to spend 2, 3 points in at least a couple of abilities. Also, never felt the lost of an unlearned skill. Making a skill book in the original game is a cakewalk (scroll+blank skill book), and buying skill books from vendors in the second half of the game is no issue.




Agreed.

That's an interesting idea to make this system less static and determining (assumed it is), so you have a chance to adapt to specific situations and enemy properties in combat. There could be a talent added ('second-chance education' or 'quick study') that allows to reduce the time of remembering/reappropriation of skills. So you could have four base types of characters: characters with bad memory but highly effective skills; characters with high amount but less effective skills; 'balanced' characters; and characters that are mediocre but flexible (or flexible and effective but very bad in memory). The talent should come with certain penalties, maybe to memory itself (the drawback of quick memorising), to balance that right. I see those characters take out a book, browse pages and study while arrows, fireballs and grenades explode all around them.

If the current system is meant as it seems - choosing your skills before every combat - I imagine it could lead to the following behaviours:
- much save reloading due to inadequate skills (as already mentioned) - to make this less necessary it could also be an option to offer ways to gather information about enemies (before you met them), where it's consistent with story, gameworld and role (by reading, dialogs or abilities like loremaster), so you have the option to actually prepare before you've played the whole game.
- using the same skillset the most time to not interrupt the flow before every fight; if enemies are easily beatable without changing skills it would take away the strategic aspect of skill selection, but if it's necessary to change skills before most of your fights this could become a bit tedious over time.

This is just meant as some thoughts on what we currently know (and that's just a very small part of the system that we'd have to know in total to be able to really analyze and judge it).

Keep in mind that we are still in Pre-Alpha, and all the usual caveats apply.

1. Skill abilities now improve corresponding skills, but there's a twist to it that I can't talk about yet.

2. We are testing a few tweaks to the rules of skill activation that make it unnecessary to reload after every ambush (including some inspired by backer comments).

Sounds like it has potential. I'm certainly not against the idea and will enjoy seeing how it works itself out over the long haul.

I can see this as being the key to making Memory as pitched work. Just bolted on and imagined in the old system Memory sounds pretty horrible but that's not how it's going to be obviously.

My concern is that in D:OS utility almost always outweighs outright more damage. And given that the surfaces are being expanded with curse/bless I can see utility being even more valuable in D:OS 2 I have a hard time seeing a scenario where the character with less memory will be more desirable in terms of combat effectiveness. Even if those attributes are spent elsewhere wisely.

I'm not sure Memory is a good idea. It's not the idea of limiting your skill slots that I object to - it's having to spend previous attribute points to increase your skill slots.

Especially at the current trade rate of 3 attribute points = 1 skill slot.

It really depends on how may attribute points you get on level-up. In D:OS 1, you got 0.5 attribute points on level-up. I'm pretty sure that you have to be getting a lot more than that in D:OS 2. They certainly can't give you only 0.5 or 1 attribute point a level and expect players to actually use the Memory attribute.

Do you have any desire do to a constructive comment?

No, I do not.

What, am I only supposed to go "wow this is all great and I love everything and do not have any concerns or criticisms or questions?"

How can I possibly make a constructive comment without context (i.e. the amount of attribute points one gets per level)? I could make a list of other ways to limit the available skills available to the player without a Memory attribute, but I get the feeling that you wouldn't consider that constructive either.

Well I have the feeling you just happen to be be rude to others. No one is saying that one should not criticise. But what you are saying is "this is wrong". It would be more appropriate to say "this is wrong WHY". As of now, your Why is based on your assumptions.

I'm not a moderator. But you shouldn't 'pay back' disagreement to some of your posts with unrelated, not to say, misplaced criticism. There's nothing unconstructive about his post. He says he was 'not sure Memory is a good idea' and gives reasons for that. That's highly constructive, since he doesn't just state opinion.

Reason is that I haven't found reasons built on certainty. And I don't really care about disagreement, that's what I am here for.

I wonder where you take that certainty from to reason from his post as you did.

Let's discuss Divinity, please...

Then you needn't highlight it.

Anyway, developers have said to avoid too much speculation. And since they read the forums, I have the feeling they will understand the concern.

I can't say I dislike memory because I never really liked the idea that you could learn AND use everything. But that's just me and my D&D past.

Yes, therefore it's important to discuss based on assumptions and be aware of just assuming where isn't or can't be certainty. So I understand your general concern. But Abbey said: 'It really depends on how may attribute points you get on level-up. In D:OS 1, you got 0.5 attribute points on level-up. I'm pretty sure that you have to be getting a lot more than that in D:OS 2. They certainly can't give you only 0.5 or 1 attribute point a level and expect players to actually use the Memory attribute.'
So, that's a valid point. Assumed there aren't significantly more attribute points in D:OS 2 investments in memory wouldn't really be attractive. If there are more points in D:OS 2 it's fine (in this aspect). We don't know. But it's worth mentioning I think. The developers will pick out what may be useful for them and worth to think about.


Yeah, D:OS EE limited learning. Now the use is limited. The first way seems more 'plausible' to me, but that's not necessarily a point; it's more important if it works as part of a gameplay mechanic throughout the whole game and doesn't produce unintended effects (and if the effects are as intended and if they really should be intended). I'm curious how they will work that out; at the moment there are some open questions; probably there will be more information over the next weeks that might clarify things and dispel some concerns.