Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Issues with Beta 1.59

1. Crafting/Blacksmithing - these two sbilities have changed again. Before B1.59, character with 'Crafting' ability could smelt ore/silver, hammer out a shield, create weapons from ore/steel bars and sharpen bladed weapons on the whetstone wheel. Under the new release only a character with "Blacksmithing' ability can do some of these actions.
* My character with Blacksmithing ability +2 was able to smelt iron ore, but could not smelt silver ore.
* Could not make steel bars even though I had over 12 iron ore bars.
* Could not enhance metal shield
* Except for knives, could not sharpen any other bladed weapon using the whetstone wheel.

2. Requirement descriptions - this is minor, but needs to be fixed. My main character is Wayfarer with +2 Bow Ability and Dexterity of 8, yet the following is scripted:

* Under Armor - requirements are showing up in Red lettering instead of Grey lettering even when I meet or exceed requirements. For example, current armor requirement is Dexterity 6, I'm Dex 8, but requirement is shsowing up in Red lettering.

Weapons - similar problem. Character is equipped with bow meeting expected requirements. However, if I hover mouse over arrow(s) in inventory, I get message stating the "Bow is not Euipped" in red lettering which is not true since I'm looking at it in my weapon slot.

3. Talking Statues - seriously bugged! Lesser Earth Demon and Air Demon work fine. However, when you defeat the Lesser Water Demon the body remains whole, not a lump, thereby indicating that the Demon is still not dead (i.e. flag not set). Hence you can not continue onto final Lesser Demon confrontation and complete this quest.

4. Crafting/Books - there is still a disconnect between the "recipe" books and actually trying to craft an item/potion based on these books. For example, a recipe book implies that you can crush a ruby and apply it to an mace. Tried that one and it doesn't work. Tried using "2" sinew and a branch to make a bow: no go! Tried combining two pre-mixxed ingredients together as a recipe book proposed, nothing. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I thought that the crafting issues would have been solved by Beta 1.59.

It would be nice to have an "idiot mode" option for crafting somewhere. Shows you the combination of items required and the product.

It was sort of cool testing out how to make magic scrolls, but it certainly wasn't worth it.

I cited my concerns with crafting here:

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=495511#Post495511

The gist of it is this: The Crafting skill wasn't that appealing as a point dump before (and I love crafting; use it in every game that offers it). Now it's been made even less appealing in order to make the Repair skill more appealing.

This, I feel, was a mistake. If anything, Repair should have been rolled into Crafting to make Crafting more appealing.

Yes, I noticed the requirement restrictions problem, too.

1) It used to be that if a weapon required, say DEX 8, if your character had DEX 7 it showed up in red, but if your character had DEX 9 it showed up grey. Now it always shows up red, regardless of whether the character exceeds the requirement or not. This appears to be a regression, and makes things really confusing, especially combined with point 2 below.

2) It used to be that if you needed, say, water magic 2 to learn a spell, and you didn't have it, the requirement showed up in red. Now, if you are required to be level 2 and you are, the restrictions are grey, even if you don't have any points in the correct magic school. It therefore looks like you can used spells and skill books that your character cannot use at all, because there is no 'must have water magic skill' warning. I personally can't always remember exactly what skills my characters have, especially since it changes frequently. It would be nice to have the warning back.

Between these two problems, it often appears that you can use things that you actually cannot, and appears that you cannot use things you actually can. I hope this can be worked on for the next update.

Just a follow-up to my OP.

1. Crafting/Blacksmithing - after somo more gameplay time, I went back to the forge and was able to smelt the iron ore into iron bars and than steel bars using my +2 Blacksmithing skill. The silver ore turns out to be a Crafting item and cannot be smelted. Combine silver ore with arrow tip to get Silver Arrow tip. I then was able to make weapons on the anvil and sharpen them on the whetstone.

To enhance metal shields and armor you need Crafting skill. This is counter intutive. Why can't I use my Blacksmithing skill also?

2. Talking Statues - Although Lessor Demon body is still visable I finnaly wes able to activate Fire statue using a Flare scroll. I was trying to use a Fire arrow that failed to activate after 3 attempts. Hence, I was able to complete quest.


3. Ancient Tomb Encounter - this may have been covered in other posts, but I find this very annoying this late in the development schedule. After your encounter and defeat of King Braccus and his minions you can talk to Thelyron. He responds "Source Hunter...you must face him...you must destroy the Source King...

My dialogue response choices:
1. I have many questions about this King Braccus.
2. I'll take my leave.

These choises are identical to dialogue choices before the battle. There's no acknowledgment that you defeated the King. Perhaps the development team doesn't want to give away a plot theme, however, at this stage of the Beta this issue should have been fixed. As others have noted, this issue offering the same dialogue options after you have completed a task or quest is tiresome and after numerous posts should have been fixed my now.

4. Enemy damage strength - I like the fact that enemy combatants now have the anility to attack with elemental spells/weapons. On the other hand, their initial attack(s) are way too damaging especially enemies with bows/crossbows. Many encounters result in 1 hit Frozen or continuous Burning resulting in 1 or more party members taken completely out of the fight in the opening turn. While at the same time, your elemental damage with arrows or spells is minimal. Moreover, some elemental spells have becomes useless. Many enemies are immune to Poison. If you are lucking to connect with a Poison or Fire arrow, there is no residual affect on them whereas your party members continue to take damage from fire or poison even when your party and the enemy are the same level.

For now I think I'm done with this beta until another update or, more likely, the full release. I believe there is a great RPG here if the development teams takes to heart the numberous amounts of input from the gaming community that have invested hudreds of hours testing the Beta's.

oh no,they wont take any of the feedback into consideration... theyre going to party and burn all the money they still have of hookers and blow instead and just release the game as is.

Thats what betas are for. To annoy future players and ridicule them.