Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Feedback and improvements

First off - great job! Divinity is my favorite game in a long time (and I'm not finished yet - just finished Immaculate Initiation).
However, there are certainly some improvements possible that would make the next two games even better.



Minor annoyances :



-I should be able to combine / craft using right click -> use on -> click other item.

-Bartering window should have tabs along the side to swap to other party members in your control. Should use best bartering/fame combo among characters under your control

-Dragging pyramids (and other large items) to inventory is annoying. Perhaps add a right click menu or make holding ctrl or alt pick them up?

-In combat, I would sometimes like to be able to select an enemy to see stats / debuffs. You can mouse over, but this dissapears when your mouse moves (so it is impossible to see debuff details)

-Followers seem over sensitive to taking damage. I can understand that if I fireball some enemies and hit them, they could become angry and leave your party after combat. This is bad enough, but it is far worse when I create fire, and enemy spreads it (eg with poison explosion), this hits a follower, and they still seem to get mad at me.

-The initial cyseal quest - it is far more nonlinear than most others in the game, and not always in a good way. Possibly add more map markers to buildings or people of interest in the beginning so you are not randomly wandering cyseal.



Comat AI - even on hard mode using source difficulty mod with no glass cannon, the game is usually pretty easy. Most of the time, this is due to AI more than exploits or low enemy stats. Major problems :



-Enemy often does actions that are BENEFICIAL to me - eg using purifying fire to remove a debuff from me.

-The AI will often use spells (eg aoe, cause explosion) that do far more damage to its allies than my party.

-AI often 'misses' spells or arrows by trying to fire through terrain. Even worse, it will often repeat this multiple times in a row.

-AI will often use a damage type or debuff that I am immune to - this one should NEVER happen.

-AI swaps its targets mid turn. AI doesn't need to focus fire one target exclusively, but one enemy shouldn't use its 3 attacks to hit 3 different chars.

-AI reacts poorly to charm - AI should attempt to CC or ignore charmed characters if feasible, rather than focus firing them with the entire enemy team. Exception if the charmed target is near death.

-AI treats blind as a stun - it is a minor inconvenience if casted on me, but the most effective CC I have found yet if used on enemy. I would actually suggest changing what blind does here - add a chance to miss, possibly make spells innacurate (as in Shadowrun), or some other debuff so AI can cope.

-The AI is too fearful of walking through harmful environmental terrain. AI should balance expected damage / expected chance to receive CC vs the time loss of doing nothing or taking the long way around.

-AI targetting seems off. Several time an enemy will ignore my 1 hit from dead mage in order to zerg my CCd tank.

-Overall CC feels too effective. Source difficulty gives all enemies an extra 2 body/will, but it is still trivial to CC entire enemy team. Possibly reduce CC chance, and to either
---Make combos more effective (lightning may only have a small chance to stun, but if in a pool of water will hit multiple enemies over multiple turns)
---Possibly increase CC chance when used in a combo (eg 25% to stun if using lightning, but 50% if in water), again, encourages smart CCs instead of spamming blind.

-Encounters with single, strong enemies are too easy due to CC. Specifically, blind an enemy (nearly always succeeds), they do nothing, repeat until dead.



Larger issues / wishes :



-Make CC chances depend on more than just will/body. If an enemy has 90% lightning resistance, it seems odd that it is just as easy to stun as -50% resistance. I can understand why this isn't in for some reason (eg enemies that heal from fire shouldn't be immune to burn), but maybe on a case by case basis?

-Itemization is pretty poor. A few easy fixes could lead to a large improvement:
---Never give a weapon a skill for another weapon
---Rework non-combat skills (see below), decreasing 'dead weight' chance

-Crafting and Non-Combat skills : Having to swap to a new set of equipment to craft or barter is tedious, and the extra affixes make most equipment less useful (specced toward combat and barter, where I would prefer a focus on one). Possibly fixes:
---Rework non-combat to give a combat advantage. Loremaster could increase crit chance, Blacksmithing could give strength or con at level 3/5, Barter could increase XP reward and loot chance.
---Add in a quick swap between multiple sets of equipment. Easiest, and would make dealing with swapping out much easier.
---Remove and rework non-combat skills. Perhaps skill points could be split into non-combat skill points and combat skill points, and you can gain non-combat skill points through quests and character traits (eg compassionate), but not from items
---Add new item types that give only non-combat bonuses. Remove non-combat from pool for combat items

-Classes - I understand that you want to avoid pigeonholing class choices, but making them totally classless seems a bit too much the other way. A few possiblities
---Unique passive per class. For example, an 'elementalist' class might have a passive that gives +1 to each elemental school, but sets maximum level to 4. Enchanter might have buff/debuff duration +1, but less damage. Summoner could have 2 summons, but lose AP or power per summon.
---Unique active battle mechanic per class (similar to torchlight 2). Eg, elementalist might get a reduced cost spell after casting 1 spell from each school. Summoner could gain a boost every time summon gets a kill. Berserker could regain some AP after a kill.
---A few (1-5) unique spells and passives per class, automatically unlocked as you level. For example, fire class might replace the standard staff with a fire element only one at level 1, gain fire spark (straight line flare) at level 8, fire rain at level 15, fire damage bonus passive at 20.

-Weapon Skill : These are a bit boring, and the tenebrium / standard weapon skill tradeoff I hear about seems dumb.
---Give different weapon types a unique active/passive. Axes could gain a 90 degree swing (lesser dust devil). Clubs could get a passive chance to knock down. Swords could gain parry.
---Allow weapon skills to give actives/passive on some levels. Similar to above, but gain active passives on certain weapon levels. Eg swords gain parry on weapon leve 3, and an extra parry at level 5.

-Terrain Interaction / More battle choices.
---A few more pre-existing terrain features, or new ones generated by spells. Areas of cover/wind where ranged weapons are less effective. Areas where spells are amplified/weakened. Areas that provide passive healing or bonuses/negative boost, etc. Eg instead of drinking a str potion, maybe there is a way to make a +str pool on the ground.
---More spells that involve movement, especially moving enemies. A spear hook that draws enemies in, a shield bash that knocks them back, spells that draw/push enemies from a point, etc.
---More persistent spells abilities. The only ones we have are rain, and ones that create areas (sort of). A lightning ball spell could do damage to all units in an area each turn for several turns. A magic circle could CC or damage enemies that try to leave it. A spell could do powerful damage to an area after a turn delay.
---More enemy elements that change how battles are approached. These are among the most fun battles in the game, but very rare. More elements like the fire totem that revives enemies, or the spider eggs that can hatch into new enemies.