My Early Access FeedbackHello y'all. After finishing a complete run of the Early Access content i now want to add to the already plentiful feedback with things i believe i did not read as i was going through a lot of posts. I also want to double down on things that i did read in other posts to make sure that they are seen as important.
1. Roll the dice!This section is all about dice. TL;DR: Don't rely on the combat log! Show us more dice being rolled!
Attack rollsWe already visibly roll them in dialogues which is fine and fun to do (D&D is all about rolling dice after all). Also the game rolls them visibly for us in passive perception / knowledge rolls. The latter has been brought up in other posts as problematic (more on that later). Attacking enemies with weapons, skills or spells though is only acompanied by a percentual chance indicator. This has irritated more players than i would have thought it could. There is lot of missing still with 70, 80, 90 percent of chance to hit. That's because you still can roll very poorly. True, there are not that many roll results that can cause an attack to miss with chances like these, but they still are there and can get rolled. My proposition to this would be: get rid of the percentual indicator completely and show a die being rolled like it is for passive perception checks but with the actual number rolled. This should give a better grip on the attack and why it hit or missed, without having to consult the very "leaving-a-lot-to-be-desired" combat log. Another idea i had, that i will talk about later in this post, could be tied into this. For now: Show the result of the roll (with modifiers), but not the target-to-hit.
Passive perceptionThis is something i saw mentioned in another post and want to double down on it. Seeing that a roll is made for something hidden to be perceived makes it obvious to the player that something is hidden. But failing the roll still prevents the player from "knowing" that there is something to be perceived. That leaves the player in a paradox situation, that he knows that he knows nothing. So these rolls should be made in the background and should only be shown on success. That brings player knowledge in line with character knowledge (atleast for the first time a passive perception in a given situation roll is succesful) and feels more natural in addition to the fact that it incentifies exploration more since not everything is just told to the player and the characters.
Active perceptionThis is me spitballing. Playing the game i came to the conclusion that you can't really try to actively find stuff like traps or hidden things in the game world. A good example would be
the crypt with the lich in his sarcophagus. In the big room before his tomb there is a statue. Coming near it starts a passive check if you can read it.
I would like things like these to be actively perceived by the player, giving them more agency with exploring the world. With the addition i made to the attack rolls. Roll a die above the character and show the result (with modifiers) in it. In addition to that i wondered why as a player i have access to every single bit of information regarding my enemies in combat. Maybe its because handbook experts within the beta testers can bring up differences to Larian, but if not i would very much like them being hidden until i use (maybe) a bonus action to deduct a certain aspect like Armor Class via perception of their apparel or test my knowledge to see if i know something about an enemy's resistences / immunities / tactics.
Difficulty classes and modifiersRight now, bonuses to skills are substracted from given roll targets, instead to be added to the roll, like it is done in actual Pen & Paper Dungeons & Dragons. It takes a bit away from a sense of character progression. Seen from this example i think i can make that a bit clearer: Talking to a very stubborn NPC that won't easily give in to your reasoning is represented by a harder ability check. Me being well versed in conversation and charming (persuading, intimidation) does not make the other person less stubborn. It makes me better at breaking the oppositions resolve easier. So it should not actually make the check easier but instead my attempt better. Rolling a natural 1 in the current system means i completely stumble my attempt even though i have the bonuses and takes away any learned and lived skill my character has (roleplay wise) with it, without any other reason than bad luck. If there was some clear external factor that could influence my character, the case would be entirely different but could and should be handled as either disadventage or a negative modifier.
2. Let's party!This section is all about party mechanics. TL;DR: Less is often more. Make inventory management easier. Current party selection is as clunky as the chain that binds them.
Group SelectionThis is a thing that already struck me odd in Divinity: Original Sin 2. The "chain" mechanic to keep members together while walking is very cumbersome. It takes some tear to deattach party members, it is limited by range, and reattaching party members without messing the portrait order can be tricky at times. In this point i am very much with the people that are already advocating a "click-to-select/drag-to-mass-select" system. It's faster, used in every other CRPG besides the Divinity series and is all over less time consuming.
FormationsThat ties into the Group Selection. Moving in a formation should be a thing in the game. These formations should enable the player to set positions in walking order and to set some distance between characters that is kept while walking. Right now it seems rather random who walks where in the party and that might lead to a big disadvantage in situations that are rightaway combats or result in combats.
Inventory interfaceThis i did not see till now so i bring it up. It pains me to have inventory and equipment screens seperated. I know i can click on every item slot in the equipment screen but having both screens in one feels more compact. For me i believe it comes from the fact that in every other game you equip items directly from the inventory by dragging the item from the inventory to the appropriate equipment slot. Right now you can equip items from the inventory but you don't see it visually change on your character and you can't select main or offhand slots. I could imagine a combined screen with arrows or portraits to switch the shown character's inventories. Using the space that gets cleared with my next suggestion.
Inventory managementIt isn't a big secret that the current inventory management system is basically not existent. The sorting button is in an inconvenient place to begin with. And it sorts all inventories. Even in multiplayer. And thus ruins any personal sorting another player was trying to bring into their inventory. In multiplayer other players shoudn't be able to see other inventories. Getting rid of them clears up the space for a combined equipment and inventory screen.
DialoguesThis one is a no-brainer that already has been confirmed to be reworked. Party wide dialogue with options for all players to participate. Partywide visible ability checks, and an option to vote a designated speaker for a given ability check. I would make it a votum, since i feel racial reluctance could make the otherwise clear choice of "best ability modifier" a bit harder. Drow for example often are met with distrust and even if the Drow character has the best modifier, race could bring that below another players modifier and make them the better choice. These changes would also solve the "problem" that different characters get all the dialogue options that already have been chosen by another player before, since everyone saw the dialogue and the NPCs don't have to repeat themselves so often.
3. Let's fight!This section is about combat mechanics and abilities. TL;DR: Shove is the main way to easily get rid of opponents and it really shouldn't be, also tone down surfaces and barrel strats.
ShoveIt is great that there are very many different ways to approach combat and get out of sticky situations. But it gets problematic if some options are more viable than others on the same or lower level of intended power. Shove is the best example in the game, since it can outright kill an enemy as a bonus action. If i remember correctly actions like shove would be a contested roll in Pen & Paper Dungeons & Dragons, meaning that your roll of a d20 with the added strength (athlectics?) modifier against the same roll of the victim (maybe only if you are seen when shoving). If the victim wins, nothing happens and if the attacker wins, he shoves the target by an amount defined by the difference of the roll results (i'm not quite sure if weight played a roll in that but it very much should). Right now Shove just shoots enemies like projectiles which is comical and immersion breaking. It also devalues strength as an attribute, since it doesn't seem to play to much into the applied "force". So, if it doesn't already work that way, make shove require a contested roll (with dice above the heads!) and make distance shoved rely on the results of that roll and weight of attacker and victim.
Barrels and CratesAs creative stacking barrels and crates might seem as immersion breaking it is to have more than one of those in your inventory. Actually, even having one barrel or crate in your inventory seems non-sensical since our inventories are backpacks (?) which wouldn't even fit one of those. I still think it should be possible to move them around even over longer distances. So i could imagine an animation for actually carrying barrels or crates occupying both hand slots for the time being. Picking up / dropping / throwing such an item infight should be a bonus action.
Dropping items infight / Picking up items infight / Sending items infightAll of the listed actions should become bonus actions to balance out weird barrel strategies or strategies with other possible explosive items. Especially sending items infight should be managed by throwing (maybe a Dexterity check to either catch or throw to not make things to complicated). This in general wouldn't really distract setup of explosive barrels, just makes it important to carry them to the place you need them.
Jump/DisengageThere are several things broken with this one. Jump uses less movement than actual walking for distance traveled, making it a nobrainer for walking if you don't plan on using another bonus action. Thus suddenly everyone is jumping around the battlefield which doesn't seem immersive at all. It doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity which has its own number of problems. First of all, it is a bonus action. Enemies with jumping abilities can't really be bound by melees that first have to close the distance just to be disengaged on and then still be attacked from a newly reached safe distance. Then, to disengage, your character first often turns away in an animation, showing your enemy your exposed back, than they make a kangaru jump that isn't very dodgy to get out of range if that was your wish. And from what i read so far it also takes away a lot from rogue gameplay, who normally has that as a class feature / ability to show their grace in combat (the disengaging part). The often suggested path of action could be separating jumping from disengaging and only give the jump ability to everyone. Jump then should either become an action or provoke attacks of opportunity.
SurfacesI personally did not have to much problems with surfaces since i actually avoided using barrels and throwables like oil bottles and such. But i totally see the point in the "upset" that can be followed here in the forums and on reddit. Restricting surfaces to higher level spells seems like a good way to really make those spells stand out and keep battlefields from spiraling out of control, especially with the missing magic armor / armor mechanics from Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2.
Health Point displays of enemiesI'm not sure why we have access to that information at all. Probably for testing purposes, i guess, so i propose to atleast change that for the full release to another system that has been used very effectivly by the Pillars of Eternity games. In these games you have (depending on diffictulty setting) states like "Unharmed", "Hurt", "Bloodied" and on easier diffictulties a bar alternitive without numbers. With numbers, it is very trivial to discern if an opponent dies in the fire surface they are standing in or not. But that is not an information that players usually have when fighting enemies in Dungeons & Dragons. My idea would be to just adopt the system since it is - again - in line with player and character knowledge.
That is my feedback for now. I am eager to see how the collective feedback of the community is taken into account. Until then, with best regards
fubai
