Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Constructive Criticism Thread

Yes, but the thing is that this is also not the first time Elves have shown up in the Divinity series. They didn't have horns in Divine Divinity or Dragon Commander, and they definitely didn't look like Dryads in Dragon Commander.

right

Personally I don't mind the departure from Tolkien elves.

Also the only thing I have to contribute is I would really appreciate the ability to pan the camera out just a little further. Even a small increase would go a long way as I use a rather large monitor and being so close to everything while moving can be somewhat dizzying.

Alright, I have a huge list of things to talk about. I've never had a huge interest in posting on these forums, despite the fact that I've played Divinity II, Divinity: Original Sin, Divinity Dragon Commander, etc, etc. I feel, however, that DOS II is in an early enough state that my feedback might actually matter.

So here is the long list (bear with me) - I wrote it in the back ground while I played so it is very stream-of-consciousness.

Things I'm going to gripe about and how I'd like to see it changed(nitpicks):
1. Display a chest to be either "empty" as part of its name instead of a tooltip, as the tooltip takes too long to pop up. It is just as fast to walk over and open the chest.

2. Seems to be some inaccuracy with UI and certain weapons. Weapons that say "1 AP" in the inventory on attack actually use 2 AP in combat, etc. I assume this is known, but posting it anyway.

3. Fire Totem summon thing... what does it do exactly other than act as a target dummy? I assume it is incomplete... at least I hope it is, and that it will actually attack later.

4. When a character is healed with a water spell after being on fire, sometimes their healthbar retains the purple coloration from having a DOT effect on them despite it being cleansed.

5. Interactable bodies do not highlight with the Info button [L Alt], it is really easy to miss lootable corpses because of this and thus miss key items. Especially when bodies get disintigrated or mushed by various spells.

6. The AOE UI bubble of Hail Storm does not reflect its actual radius. This causes a lot of accidental friendly fire. (It probably is not the only spell like this.)

7. Massive FPS drops when using the teleportation skill on items.

8. When playing single-player having to choose the response to something for 4 different characters is actually very annoying, especially when the prompt is forced. Having to say "yes, let's do this" 4 times is annoying. By the end of chapter 1, I always just spammed through the responses and didn't read any of them.

9. I really miss voice acting. :( Please get voice acting. I love reading, guys (Andrej Sapkowski is sitting beside me from earlier). But after your heart is pumping from intense combat, the last thing I want to do is read several pages of text and click through dialogue options for 4 characters.

10. The inventory really needs a sorting system like the first one had. Four hours in and I've got so much clutter in my inventory that it hurts my eyes.

11. The game rewards slaughtering everything far too much. It's also weird you can min-max by doing the quest for characters, then come back and kill them for additional XP with no real repercussions.

12. I hate how you kill guards and so forth and prisoners and civilians do not react to it. These people who were oppressing you are dead... and yet you just stand there?

13. There are a lot of awkward pauses in the music, and the fact that there is no dialogue makes it really noticeable. That said I really love those musical notes in combat. Combat music - awesome. Environmental music... needs more.

14. Teleportation lag gets really bad the further in the game you go and starts affecting character teleports too.

15. CTD if you leave an internet browser open in the background can occur if you enter combat. (probably needs more testing)

16. Currently I am not impressed with the character storyline, outside of the Red Prince. Look, Sybille, babe, I know you want to kill stuff, but surely there is more to you than that?

17. [big one] I dislike how character choices in DOS II are mostly hollow. The best choice is always the choice that leads to combat.
- Reason 1 - you get more XP and more items by fighting, even if that fighting comes after completing the quest that would allow you to complete it peacefully. (Oh, do you have nothing else for me? Well now you have my permission to die)
- Reason 2 - [note I wrote this before I finished chapter] diplomatic endings have a disappointing conclusion. For instance, the quest where you rescue a dragon: the dragon just flies off and promises that he'll just "know" when you need help. And yet he says he won't join you. Despite the fact that he keeps talking about "I'll never be able to repay how much I owe you." How about just joining the party, dumb fuck? (is what I want to say) Seriously, this is not a satisfying conclusion. It would have been a better conclusion if he just turned around, turned out to be evil, and attacked you with the phrase, "The Voidwoken send their regards." Then at least you could have a badass mid-game side-quest fight with awesome loot. Instead you get a disappointing promise that'll probably mean he joins in the final battle or some BS when you really don't want him [holy crap did I see the future - except it was even more disappointing, seeing as he did not actually join the battle against Alexander].

18. There are too many descriptions of actions and of characters. Isn't that what 3D models and animations are for? I also hate that I have to click through these descriptions whenever I need to buy something from a merchant. Yes, I realize he's a skeleton-wizard-dude, now let me buy his herbs.

19. Not enough flirtation or actual roleplaying is possible. This is the main reason I hate the dialogue. As the Red Prince, I talk to another lizard lady who is talking to me about how awesome I am... then it just gets dropped and goes nowhere. Why can't I flirt with her?! Look, I'm not asking for you to actual animate or show a sex scene or something but I really want my character to actually be able to have sex with another character or, at least, interact with them on a level that does not have to do with killing, gaining items, or questing.

20. Apparently the Red Prince has a wife? That feels like something that would have come up earlier... especially if she is the reason he is in his current exiled position. (As someone who was cheated on, I probably annoyed all my friends talking about how slutty my ex-fiance months after it happened.) Being betrayed by his wife should be, I think, the first thing you learn about him, even before he mentions being a prince. I cannot see how that is not on the forefront of his mind, and would explain his talk of suicide when he is not the MC + it would make players less likely to kill him if they sympathize with him.

21. In order to get unique dialogue for each character, you have to have that character selected, then go talk to whatever NPC would give unique dialogue. Unique dialogue interractions should be automatic so you don't have to search for them and potentially never find them. How could I know that the random dwarf in the town's square has unique dialogue for Lohse? Unless I check him, and every other NPC, one by one, with all the party members, I'd never know there is a cool bit of dialogue hidden in there. Why not have NPCs with unique dialogue address the party PCs directly, you know, as if they recognize them or something?

22. I've heard you are creating more unique storyline characters... please don't unless you flesh out the ones you already have. I'd rather have four, complete, rounded characters than four one-dimensional characters. What does Sybille want? To kill lizards? Why? Revenge. What else do you know about her? Well... she really hates lizards... and loves killing. Did we mention she loves killing and hates lizards? When I first met her I thought her and the Red Prince's interactions were going to be awesome... now I hate her. She's like an Arya Stark without the family connection of being a Stark to make her more sympathetic.

23. Blessing the flaming pigs out of order bugs the game out, giving you no experience and not marking it as a quest complete. The pigs walk off screen and just disappear without any effect.


Things I already REALLY love but want expanded:

1. Whoever wrote Lohse's response dialogue did a really good job. It disappoints me that I can't, as the Red Prince, flirt with Sebille like I can with Lohse, or simply make sarcastic comments to chide her bloodthirstiness.

2. Sebille is described as extremely beautiful, when playing as the Red Prince, yet there is nothing - beyond that initial description and the first interaction - that would suggest he is attracted to her. I suspect that the initial description is a generic one, however, I find it interesting that the Red Prince could be attracted to her in particular. As, otherwise, I find myself questioning how and why the hell the two of them are sticking together. If the Red Prince is attracted to this elf who wants to kill lizards and treats her like a lady, flirts with her, whatever, it would make a lot more sense than the snooty attitude he currently displays. Right now I feel that the two would just kill each other (I mean, our characters already kill for much less than this). I think grabbing onto the idea of attraction is probably the best - make the narration of a scene unique to the character you are playing. Therefore Sybille is only described as particularly beautiful ("like a diamond") to the Red Prince, whereas to everyone else she is simply a skinny elf with a scar.

3. Good job with the dog speech. So far I find the pet pal conversations more compelling than the normal character dialogue. In the Braccus maze, I went out of my way to talk to the rat in there just because of how hilarious the animal interactions are.

4. Holy crap at the ability to marry the fire bug queen to the Red Prince. Hilarious. 10/6.5 Want to laugh that hard more often. Too bad it doesn't actually go anywhere and, once again, its better to just kill her anyway for the XP.

5. Currently the game is carried by how good the combat is. Currently there is too much reading, too little fighting. That makes me sound like an Ork, but it's true.

6. That lizard tail swagger is awesome. I love how the lizards move around the environment, how their tails animate when walking, fighting, etc. The lizards and the dragon are most visually appealing thing I've seen in your game yet. Someone spent a lot of time with that, and it shows.


Whew, congrats to anyone who read all that. I grant you a telepathic cookie for the accomplishment.

I want to butt in again and say I disagree with myself when I said in stream-of-consciousness. "Currently there is too much reading, too little fighting."

I said that because I do not like having to click through 4 characters worth of dialogue whenever I talk to someone. I personally think there needs to be more RP in this RPG, but SP needs to be more focused to 1 character, instead of four. My brain overloads when trying to RP 4 different people at once, especially when I have to choose their dialogue for each other.

Yeah, AI for the followers in the party would be nice :P At least for the pre-gen characters. It only makes sense that you making one character in character creation means you should only have to role play the one

I'm sure this will happen at some point, but as is, the spell descriptions need to be standardized for clarity. For example, and this is beyond the typos ("of" was "pf" in one case), Ignition starts "Set Warm on all characters around you and deal blah blah damage." I did a test and none of my allies were set to warm or took damage.

One little thing. Characters that did not start a conversation should be allowed to, with either permission (or otherwise) interject in a conversation to either use a Persuasion check or a background tag to advance the conversation, or allow a character with Pet Pal to take over a conversation accidentally started by a character without it.

Very nice work on this game, having a lot of fun.

Here's my short list of remarks that I didn't already see in other posts as far as i read them:
- While you begin a dialogue with an NPC you know you will have to fight, other players can still freely position themselves where they want, drop barrels at their feet and nothing will trigger a fight before ending dialogue or dmg them. Should consider freezing all players movements/restrain to some AP when a potential unfriendly discussion begins.
http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/480480barrelrofl2.png

- Game zooming automatically after a dialogue that results in a fight is annoying.

- Characters that run to their previous death location right after being resurrected drove me crazy a few times.

- Some enemies without any lunge that could justify it perform AOO when you move toward them.

- Sneaking again after backstabbing should be made harder than 100% chance. At least a chance that the target turn around to try to see you on his next turn.

- Glasscanon seems a bit overpowered to me, should reduce armor or maxhp aswell.

- Slightly lower cooldowns/higher AP costs would make fights more strategic/dynamic. Feeling to have too much AP compared to available spells but maybe with higher levels/memory this feeling would disappear.

- Some water spells projectiles thrown at a burning enemy doesn't remove the burning condition.

- Not sure if the weapons dmg type still matters? I would like it does.

Quest descriptions need to be expanded. Some are very very short and unhelpful. Like the amulet thingie, I was supposed to give it to the elves in a camp. Found camp, chatted with the people there and may actually have missed the one option to turn the amulet in because I most likely wanted to talk about something else first and then the option to give the amulet never presented it self again.

I think it would be hard to implement that while retaining multiplayer independence. I'd say that is what multiple playthroughs are for in singleplayer.

I agree. For a game that wants to offer more narrative depth the journal is pretty basic and uninspired. It's actually not a great help at all.

I keep seeing small improvements to the game as I continue to play the alpha. One problem that everyone keeps talking about is the dialog. I'm sure we'll see more improvements as the game develops.

When I play I usually talk as my main character just because I don't want to have to go through every conversation four times. Some of the things that I dislike are when playing single player having to go through four dialogs just to have everyone agree or disagree on the same thing. This works for coop because each character is played by someone different but is annoying in single player. A solution could be to have it so only someone controlled by a player can talk. Get rid of the all 4 party members chiming in just to say they agree or disagree. For story element a party member can get an exclamation above their head saying they want to say something but the player should not control what they are saying. I don't know how this would fit into multiplayer though.

Another thing I would like to see some kind of memory with the dialog if I piss off a merchant as my main they might not want to talk to any of my party members regardless of race. I don't like that each character has to go through the same set of dialog over and over. If there was some sort of group dialog where each member can maybe say what they need to say. When the conversation is over it's over never repeated and you're stuck with the outcome. In multiplayer this might be possible by having everyone that is near the npc talking they can all see the same dialog at the same time. Each player has a chance to say something giving all the dialog options. This could make for interesting role playing and if there is a party member that is somewhere else not with the group they aren't part of that dialog. Then whatever they are doing is uninterrupted and if they need to go talk to the npc to get the information then make that conversation possible.

Finally, get rid of merchant dialog or change it so I don't have to talk to them just to buy something. Some conversation is okay but when walk up and try to trade and then have to sit there for 3 minutes talking to them just so I can walk away it gets annoying.

Those are just some thoughts I hope something changes so it gets better but I can't wait for more updates on the game. I know they'll be coming but I want to see more premade characters so we're not stuck with only a few option for companions and I can't wait to see the undead race.

I very much agree and I already made a distinctive thread to discuss this very topic. Feel free to join the conversation.


You can trade with NPC directly by just clicking on the small red trade button in the upper left corner of the dialogue window. You don't have to go through their whole dialogue for that.

Weapons always list their individual attack cost.

If you dual wield, or use a shield, those costs are added up, making it 2 AP.
It's a holdover from the previous game, where initially there was no dual wield, and one-handed weapons would instead strike twice if no shield was used.

It is very much intentional, and it should stay that way.

I know I definitely got confused why my dagger attack cost 2ap (I had a shield)

When I found the shield, I didn't see a reason not to equip it since I already had a point in 1 handed.

I don't have the game in front of me, but does it state on the shield tooltip that it increases the ap cost by 1?

No, it doesn't. But it should. This is really something Larian should fix ASAP.

Shields should not add an AP to attacking.

Definitely this

I disagree. Fighting with weapon and shield is more complex and requires more stamina than just fighting with a one-handed weapon. It's another choice situation. You can fight without a shield and trade in defensive abilities for offensive capabilities (namely armor and stat bonuses for more attacks per turn) or vice versa.

I honestly think that carrying a shield should indeed raise the AP costs for attacks to two. If that wasn't the case the shield-carrier character build would be preferred to both the two-handed character build and the dual-wielder character build (only looking at melees here).