Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Does Alpha/Beta play ruin the finished game?

I'd very much like to know if playing the Alpha and/or Beta version will ruin the experience of the finished game for you when it is eventually released.

Will you enjoy it all the same - even if you know the story and all the plot twists?

For myself I can say that I think it will detract from the finished playthrough, but I'll know that I have helped make it better for others.

I probably won't involve myself in the alpha and beta for that reason. Maybe if we have a beta editor or DM mode.

Honestly, I think that it might ruin the game for yourself. I played the Alpha/Beta extensively, and was pretty much completely burned out on the Cyseal region when the game first came out.

Not the complete game will be released for alpha/beta testing but rather just a first chapter/ a first starting area.

As to whether it ruins the experience - it depends on your individual playing style. When I played D:OS alpha, I mostly only played around with the systems (combat, stealing etc) and skipped all the dialogue, so that I could fully enjoy the game when it was released. However, I think a few people got bored of the first starting town after the alpha.

You wouldn't have to play through the entire beta every update, either. If nothing significant was added or changed that you are interested in, and you didn't have any ideas for other builds you wanted to try, you could give that update a pass.

Yeah, that happened to me too.

Especially with D:OS 2 being build on top of the D:OS EE, there should not need to be as many iterations trying out different variations of the skill system, etc.

There could also be changes to how the updates are handled to specifically address this (add a button at the start to teleport to area B, with an appropriate experience boost and equipment upgrade, etc).

With the arena, etc, there could be areas set up exclusively to test combat and skill changes, etc, with no chance of spoilers for the main game. If GM mode is included, that would be even more that could be done, compared to the D:OS alpha/beta going through the beginning of the game repeatedly.

It didn't burn me out at all but I was tactful. Played the first Alpha twice and the beta releases a few times. But I did stop completely for several months before the final build. I think that's the key.

Yeah same. I think we didn't play the final build or something like that, and may have skipped one or two of the previous builds.

At any rate the experience was slightly different from the release but similar enough that it didn't ruin act 1/the game for us - we merely "perfect ran" Cyseal to reach the new content and resume our discovery of D:OS. It was kind of a win-win. And since we skipped the last beta build we still had a few things to explore like the entire Church region ( I think the farthest we went in the betas was the Twin Joined By Fire ).

It's a trade off, focusing on a specific area may lead to burn out. On the flip side Cyseal seems to be the best/most polished area in the game. Wish I knew a middle ground.

I have not been an alpha/beta tester in any game so far (but I reported tons of bugs in PoE when it was released, so you could call me a gamma tester )

So in D:OS1 you used the first map for testing, but in PoE they used something from the middle of the game.
How do you decide which area is used for testing?
My first guess would be the town we saw in the Demo. The map is mostly finished, it is already known and you already had some test players. So now test players can look at game balance and people try out all kinds of crazy things they would not do if you watch over their shoulders while playing.

Way I understood it though, the map from the demos is meant to be a prototype rather than an actual part of the game. So it's probably not going to be like that in the game anyway.
To be honest though I expect it to be fragmented over the game ( they won't scrap that waterfall.. They can't! )

I really enjoyed playing through the alphas and betas and seeing how they gradually changed stuff: D:OS ended up being having the most play-throughs of any game I've owned in recent years. Of course some of that may be down to the appeal of the game itself, but I think trying out the various releases just added to the overall experience.

I think that arena will do a lot for balancing.
Hope you release it soon enough and implement feedback.

How could they possibly release the arena soon?

• There hasn't even been a VOTE on the two new skillsets to be added.
• The two new skill sets have not been fleshed out.
• The two new skill sets have not been added.
• The two new skill sets have not gone through even rudimentary internal balance testing.
• The source skills are all stubs, not the final versions.
• The racial bonuses have not even been half-sketched out for two of the five races.
• The racial bonuses have not been designed.
• The racial bonuses have not been added.
• The racial bonuses have not gone through even rudimentary internal balance testing.
• The stuff D:OS 2 carries over from the D:OS EE has not been tested by the public to spot any balance issues from that.

The Kickstarter has not even been over for a month. Until a hell of lot more things have been checked off, there's absolutely no way that the arena mode is close to being useful for balance testing. That's probably like six months off at least.

While I generally agree, one could argue that "soon" isn't the same as "soon enough"... =)

I played the alpha/beta twice and it didn't ruin the charm. I wouldn't play more though because it probably would spoil the fun for me. Kudos to the more dedicated testers.

I always sign up for closed beta, so that would be a "no" for me. Not the same since it's for MMORPGs but I figured, I tend to restart a couple of times before settling in.

Hmm, I got excited while playing parts of the Alpha and the Beta. And I liked the real game more, when they finally had finished it and how it developed for the better.

So yeah, playing Alpha/Beta can be a rewarding experience.

As someone who played D:OS cyseal like.. tooooo many times I can assure you.. yes.. yes it does damage the replayability and the first play experience massively. To the point where it can actually hurt your enjoyment of the game in a fundamental way, as you start to see the lines between 4th wall and immersion appear with ever growing contrast, especially when you see "live" how the devs write dialog, fix spelling mistakes etc...

I have a golden rule nowadays, and it's basically only a thing since D:OS, that is never ever do alpha/beta testing if I actually wanted to play the game when I backed for it or when the game is a RPG.

The best way to do balancing would still be a sort of Arena where all "group" combinations, spells and positions can be tested, and this would probably be fine. But even then the "first play" experience can imo suffer.