Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta V 1.0.143 Balance / Feedback on mechanics

Please bear in mind I've played through quite a few times, so I appreciate that newer players will have slightly rougher experiences.

• Stat balance still encourages mages to purely pump int (both mine finished with +14/15) or str / con (averaged +12/+11 for fighters at the end). I mean this seriously: not a single character I've played has put a point into stats other than str, int, dex, con.
  • Suggestion: it's fine for gear to have split stat requirements? However, players will max their primary stats asap.
• Skills maxing out at 5 is fine; however, players will seek to max to 5 immediately on main skills (esp. mages). This is why the old Might&Magic / Wizardry mechanic of Grandmaster trainers etc was used - to artificially slow this desire down. i.e. Can't train when the NPC is on the other side of the world.
  • Sword n board fighters will end up with 4/1/4 skills (1H/shield/armor) most likely. Mages will end up with at least two schools at 5. You get the idea - mages still have it very easy.
• Gold / Luck. Played through with an average +4 luck bonus, no barter, selling found gear + minor crafting (branches > spears only). Finished with ~18k gp, three spell schools maxed out & having bought some expensive (2.4k) items. This feels about right, given that pumping luck is costly (HA! Base:2).
  • The curve here is purely about spell tomes. Without them, your mages are pretty useless. But I'd suggest x2 on level 4, x4 on level 5 costs.
• Combat balance - the only fight that challenged me in the slightest was the lighthouse boss. In all other fights, AI didn't seem to use skills (notably - mechaboss 5000), had low AP [probably due to stats being calc'd correctly?] and otherwise weren't a threat. I finished having used approx 3-5 healing potions (yes, I have stacks of them).
  • AI should have far more skills and/or an AP bonus. By far the most threatening AI? Those who spread poison on dying, due to AoE huge effect [zombie + water = massive poison pool]
• Likewise, level challenge feels "off". In a static environment, you're always going to have an optimal way to approach the game, as XP progression is fixed. You will be level ~7/8 as you take on Evelyn, yet her + minions are level 5. This goes for internal enemies in Black Cove as well. There simply isn't enough of a difficulty spike past Black Cove entrance / Mechaboss 5000, excluding the optional statues.
• Summons - suffice to say, fire/air wreak havoc with the balance here. With +15 int, you can open with a fire elemental.
• Earth Magic - no spells before level 3, mostly crappy. No-one will use it.
• +20% HP perk is OTT for fighters, given it's a %. 500ish hp @ level 9.
• Crit based 2H builds could be abused ~ I'll have to re-do a game, but I had Mohanana (?) @ level 9 with +23% crit chance (2H sword with +17% crit, +5% crit perk) damage range >180 before crits. She had no luck skill, I could imagine this being fun, if it's a multiplier...
• Chain lightning / jumping fire spells with +14/15 int obliterate current AI. I suspect this is because resists don't seem to be implemented yet (barring for elementals). More common AI should have higher +elemental resists. (And PLEASE... UNDEAD = NO POISON! Unless it's acid...)
• Range on Winter's Breath is now paltry, but worse - targeting still seems to report on old variables. i.e. travel range is much lower than tool-tip. This is a bit broken at the moment.

I'll think of more - the TL;DR is that AI needs to use skills (as demonstrated by lighthouse boss) for any challenge.

Speed is somewhat useful though, isn't it? It boosts your starting AP (through Initiative), AP regain and movement, all of which come in handy during combat. Your main stat is probably still the superior option, but I like how Speed increases your freedom of movement. I would say Perception is the true dump stat if you're not playing a ranger.

I also don't think Earth magic is that bad. Deadly Spores is fairly useful, and Boulderdash can be devastating if there are several enemies lined up after each other. Earthquake is a bit worthless though, a mage is rarely going to be in a situation where it would be a good idea to use it, since it hurts both you and your teammates as well. My suggestion would be to make at least the caster immune to its effects.
As for Water magic, Winterbreath is a bit underwhelming right now, especially considering its high AP cost. I think it would be better as a mid-tier spell in terms of AP cost, or at least make it have bigger range. At the start of the game my water mage was almost useless since I didn't have enough AP to cost any water spell other than Ice Shard.

Another thing that seems off right now is Fear, I have rarely seen NPCs make their saving throw against it, including the undead. It's overpowered and/or needs to be more context-dependent.

I like this idea - this bears a good chance to boost mixed "classes". f.E: a swordwielding mage would want to wear a robe with higher armor rating (or even weaponskill +1) than most "normal" robes but would have a STR req. On the other side a pure firemagerobe would need a specific lvl of INT and Fire.

I'd like that.

Suggestion
1)To allow to see the current status of our party members
Example when he\she is trading there will pop out icon of wallet on portait of hero(es) or a record at history log or as a mark above his/her head or mix of this three options
I wanted this when played coop with my friend and I frequntly asked him ''What are you waiting for?''

Perhaps rather than Speed giving you more APs, Speed could instead reduce AP costs generally (instead of Str/Dex/Int)? This would shift some of the load off of Str/Dex/Int as a primary stat linked to warrior/survivor/mage skills, giving SOME reason to spread point spending around.

Yes, items also require you to put most of your points into your primary stat. I don't like the stats changes too much with this build. Last time I build dex mages (int+dex), which had some synergy, because I could get off a lot of spear attacks and still heal me after battle. But now int only affects casting spells. I like if Larian can make it in some way so that that putting all points in your primary stat is just bad. Some examples of how they could do it is: -putting points in strength makes you slower. -dexterity increase hitchance -intelligence increase AP (the way it was before) -also for every extra point you put in str, the bonus becomes smaller. Mages would need dex to hit spells and strength to be able to wield their staff. Just suggestions. Please make this complex and not cookie cutter put everything in 1 stat.

Awesome idea, please implement this Larian!

I think most fighters will max 2h (ridiculous dmg) and way of warrior.

I pump luck in my main fighter as well, finding the best gear and getting crit bonus. This social skill is nice!

Yeah, the game is waaay to easy. I went to town to get my 2 henchman and went to the lvl 6 orc, while being lvl 2's and 3's. We easily put that orc down and got the orc armor (btw there actually is armor now on that orc body, nice helmet). Personally I like the game to be very difficult and challenging. Please make AI stronger. Maybe you could make an easy mode, where you're unable to find legendary gear, which is more like the difficulty now. Plus a hardcore mode, for games like us, where you can find more awesome gear, but where the combat is much more challenging.

I found a 165 dmg axe last time, that was fun with much crit :P.

My lvl 2 heroes are also pretty well equiped, +16 orc armor etc. Of course I knew the location from previous alpha, but also the vendor already has some nice replacements which you can buy early on. I feel I shouldn't be able to wear this armor before level 6 or so. I just got into the game and I'm already superstrong, I don't like this. There is two ways to deal with this:

-Put lvl requirements as well as str requirements on items.
-Put stat/lvl cap. For example if you're level 2, you may have max 7 str/int/dex etc.

Level requirements on items are a terrible mechanic - not only are they a meta-game balance response, they serve no purpose barring admitting you cannot balance your ingame mechanics. Likewise, capping stats to level is also a terrible idea - I don't feel I need to even explain that one.

My level 1 fighter had Str: 10 (9 base + perk 'big & better). My level 9 fighter has Str 11 (+gear, for 12/13, depending on load-out).

See the issue? Character creation is optimal if you pump early, then fill out your character's other stats. All players will do this (and, indeed, the presets encourage this). Capping to level just isn't on the cards ('cause, you know, Larian can actually make RPGs).

Put another way - if we take level 10 to be 50% of a character's lifetime [at which point, I have severe issues with game length, but I digress] or even 33%, then a character should be [ideally] getting to 50-66% of full potential in a stat on generation if they pump that stat excluding all others[1]. e.g. our base fighter starts with 10, ends with 14/15 @ level 20... which is our magic 33% growth.

For the record:

The armor is AC 16, Str+1, +res Earth 15% [Unique]. Req: 9 str.

As a comparison, purchasing armor @ level 9 from Esmeralda, I find:

"Fortifying Metal Armor" - AC 40, Mov -0.56 Req: str 11 (2167gp) or "Fortifying Boiled Leather Ring Armor of the Warrior" AC 28 Mov +0.42, Str+1, Initiative +1 Req: Dex 8 (1097gp).

Obviously, what's missing is a requirement for the skill 'Armor Specialist'[2]. I complained about the requirements on shields, because the scaling was way off (i.e. the metal bucklers etc should have been shield specialist: 1, not 4), but I didn't expect the removal of skill requirements on gear. In the above situation, the Orc armor should be 2, the others 3 for the fighter, 2 for the survivalist/rogue [because the skill is more costly for that class, in terms of skill spread, essentially. However, the dex requirement should be 9/10 at least, the scaling is off].


This is obvious, surely?

[1]This is a rough rule-of-thumb. Actually crunching the numbers requires an excel spread sheet, the formula for gear mechanics etc. With the RNG Larian is using, they'll have a master sheet that generates values against a level progression.

[2]Another way to do this is what Larian seems to be going for with the -mov penalties; however, without some serious tool-tip explanation of how much -mov = -AP etc, and how much 'Armor Specialist' off-sets this, it's an irritating mechanic atm. Rogue armors should not give +mov bonuses, unless they have that specific pre/suffix either. [Trust me: it will break shit @ higher levels of dex/speed builds if the higher the level armor, the higher the +mov bonus]. A simpler mechanic would be to have tiers of weight (none, light, medium, heavy, titanic) that gave -AP penalties, with each level of Armor Specialist off-setting a tier. Simplistic, but it works; you can also do this through number-crunching, but making it transparent to the player means you'll translate it into crappy lore text anyhow. SHOW LORE/GUFF NOT NUMBERS! [rule-of-thumb 101]

With the bigger-and-better talent you can start off with 11 str, which is absolutely ridicilous.

Maybe it's an option to start off with 7 str max, this will at least focus you to evenly distribute your starting points. Maybe also remove the bigger-and-better talent.

Btw I also got a 29-47 Ceremonial 2H on that lvl 2 char, which is the same as Madora's 2H, but still, the early monsters will be no match for me like this. zzzz

I've just finished a playthrough. I'll give my own thoughts on that. My characters were a Sword + Shield Warrior and a Fire + Earth Wizard.

• Stat balance still encourages mages to purely pump int (both mine finished with +14/15) or str / con (averaged +12/+11 for fighters at the end). I mean this seriously: not a single character I've played has put a point into stats other than str, int, dex, con.
  • Suggestion: it's fine for gear to have split stat requirements? However, players will max their primary stats asap.

- I'm going to disagree that the Stat balance still only encourages mages to focus on Int. I ignored Jahan's Speed, and it really showed in how little AP he got back per turn. Con is also going to be useful to increase your maximum AP capacity. My next two characters will be a Crossbow Ranger and a Rogue, and they will focus more on Perception, Speed and Dexterity. From the last patch, Speed was already pretty useful, and now that it gives more recovery AP, I expect my Rogue to be a lot better. I can't say how good Perception will be, but I'll try it out.

- I agree that the low number of 5, and the lack of restrictions towards speeding to 5 does make it very tempting to max your primary stats out quickly.

- I didn't pump Luck, other than what I got from choosing "Romantic" once or twice in Dual Dialogue. I did put 1-2 points into Barter though, to increase money from selling things.

I ended up with 15,415 gold, but I didn't have any Abilities at level 5, so I didn't bother buying any skill books above level 4. EDIT: After buying 3 Level 4 Earth spellbooks, I had a lot less gold (10,821). If I got some level 5 ones, I could probably only afford one or two. So it seems that Luck is quite substantial.

- I agree that the Lighthouse Fight was the hardest in the alpha. It's the only one where any of my characters died. It's not that I was being terribly cautious either, I rarely had to use health potions. It wasn't unheard of, but I didn't have to drink them very often either.

- I agree that the poison from dying undead was the biggest danger in some of the fights.

- Earth magic definitely needs a level 2 spell, and more particularly, some EARTH spells. Not POISON, EARTH. Undead are either healed or don't care about poison. Boulderdash is probably the best of the Earth line. it's simple but effective and it has a narrow enough radius to slip between your teammates to hit the targets.




I agree that you should have to find a use for more than one attribute, but a cautionary note:

There's going to be a level cap of 20. That means that you only get 15 attribute points to play with (not counting gear) on top of the base 5 in all stats.

I don't think that requring you to pump everything (Int for spells, Dex to hit with spells, Str to carry a staff, Con for HP, speed for movement...) is necessarily a great idea, because that could just lead to a jumbled up mix of stats all about the same level. Just something to think about.


80% of much magical gear (not weapons) has +Armour on it, it's ridiculous, and I don't think that's helping the combat balance when it's so easy for everyone to get giant bonuses to armour. It doesn't help that the Armour Specialist requirement is gone.

the bug or issues with char designer screen when you start the game still has not been fixed.

issue that happens in multiplayer, when I make a new game then invite someone to play the screen or them to be able to customize there char way they want it for person ho is going to play with me is not there for them and if I joined them I cant customize my char its really annoying and we have let to play a single game due to it.

you use to be able to get around this by the other person join your game during the loading screen when you first started the game but now that no longer works, they just end up being kicked back to main menu.