Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions A suggestion for Divine Divinity 2.

I couldn't find a Divine Divinity 2 forum, so I'll post it here. It has to do with the character creation and development system in Divinity games. First of all, I would like to mention that I am a fan of the series and the following is in no way intended to say bad things about the games. All I am trying to do is to make some suggestions on how to improve these very good RPGs. There are a lot of things I liked about the original DD game, but there was one thing I thought could be improved, and after playing the Beyond Divinity demo, I think the same suggestions still apply. Basically, the character creation system in both DD and BD is very bland. While the second game introduces more variety and freedom in choosing skills, it still has a pretty simplistic system and lacks the depth and customization options of some other great RPGs' systems. The greatest character creation system in my mind was the one used in Fallout and Fallout 2. Whats the difference between the two games' systems? In Divinity systems, all development is done through an increase in statistics. You can increase ur attributes, or ur chance to hit, or damage, even choose to specialize in a certain weapon, and so on. But the thing is, after playing for a long time, your character is still very similar to what he/she was at the beginning, with the differences limited to numbers. Now this is common to most RPGS, but what set Fallout apart and a few others, was that development wasnt limited only to stat increase but also to lots of other interesting things. In the beginning, as well as selecting ur attributes and skill levels(like in Divinity) you could also select a few traits which bestowed interesting advantage and disadvantages on ur character. some of these advantages/disadvantages were also numerical in nature, but even then at least they had names which were added to ur character sheet(customizing it more), but many had other non-numerical effects (e.g. they made a character better with one handed weapons but worse with 2 handers, or made people fall in love with him/her, etc) Aside from these traits, every few levels a character would also gain perks, similar in nature to traits, and u could select out of a pool of many, many, of them. Other customizations can be seen from other games. While I will never suggest that Diablo II is a great game (its a repetetive brain cell killing hack and slash fest), its development system is better than Divinity's because it offers skills for melee characters. Skills are better than simple stat improvements because they have an animation, and are cooler, add more variety to a game. Whereas in Divinity there is only whirlwind and berserk for a warrior, in Diablo there are several choices. Why not make more than several, make a lot? Finally, games are for gamers, and each gamer wants to create his/her own type of character. No one can predict all the variations people will want but I think there are a lot of examples in life and games of cool characters, such as samurai and ninjas, berserkers and knights, paladins and monks, and so on. It would be great if an RPG would offer not only stats but also specific skills/traits/perks/abilities... to people in order for them to create any one of those and more. I guess what I am trying to say is that in Divinity now you can create a character with high agility, give him high to hit and damage with slashing weapons and pretend that he is a samurai for example, but thats somewhat of a stretch. On the other hand, imagine if you develop a character who has a master of katana characteristic, some kind of oriental sounding bushido mastery trait, and a "kensai" skill which if activated allows your character to parry the next enemy blow and then slice the enemy for significant damage but requires lots of mana. These is just a hypothetical example but you get the idea of how much cooler such characters would be to develop and to play. Of course this would imply making the combat system more complex to implement the skills and work to overhaul the skill system but I dont think its so difficult as to make it impractical, and I really believe it would draw a lot more gamers to Divinity games and bring in more sales. Obviously its too late to do this for Beyond Divinity, but I hope the developers read this and at least think about doing something like this for Divine Divinity 2. My only reason for suggesting this is that I am a big fan of RPGs, and I would love to see a deep game such as Divinity with these elements.

welocme.



PUNCUT+ATION! I can NOT read this at all, sorry.

yeah, try using paragraphs, line breaks, ...

other than that: welcome

Welcome and you are right: The perks in the SPECIAL system and, the feats in D&D 3.X, added spice to the sheer number crunshing affair character sheets and levelling-up otherwise is. Not to mention it allowed further customisation.

The introduction of something equivalent in DD2 would be nice.

Here you go , thought I'd do it myself so I could read it at the same time <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />.
Good idea's btw.


///
I couldn't find a Divine Divinity 2 forum, so I'll post it here. It has to do with the character creation and development system in Divinity games. First of all, I would like to mention that I am a fan of the series and the following is in no way intended to say bad things about the games. All I am trying to do is to make some suggestions on how to improve these very good RPGs.

There are a lot of things I liked about the original DD game, but there was one thing I thought could be improved, and after playing the Beyond Divinity demo, I think the same suggestions still apply. Basically, the character creation system in both DD and BD is very bland. While the second game introduces more variety and freedom in choosing skills, it still has a pretty simplistic system and lacks the depth and customization options of some other great RPGs' systems. The greatest character creation system in my mind was the one used in Fallout and Fallout 2. Whats the difference between the two games' systems? In Divinity systems, all development is done through an increase in statistics. You can increase ur attributes, or ur chance to hit, or damage, even choose to specialize in a certain weapon, and so on. But the thing is, after playing for a long time, your character is still very similar to what he/she was at the beginning, with the differences limited to numbers.

Now this is common to most RPGS, but what set Fallout apart and a few others, was that development wasnt limited only to stat increase but also to lots of other interesting things. In the beginning, as well as selecting ur attributes and skill levels(like in Divinity) you could also select a few traits which bestowed interesting advantage and disadvantages on ur character. some of these advantages/disadvantages were also numerical in nature, but even then at least they had names which were added to ur character sheet(customizing it more), but many had other non-numerical effects (e.g. they made a character better with one handed weapons but worse with 2 handers, or made people fall in love with him/her, etc) Aside from these traits, every few levels a character would also gain perks, similar in nature to traits, and u could select out of a pool of many, many, of them. Other customizations can be seen from other games.

While I will never suggest that Diablo II is a great game (its a repetetive brain cell killing hack and slash fest), its development system is better than Divinity's because it offers skills for melee characters. Skills are better than simple stat improvements because they have an animation, and are cooler, add more variety to a game. Whereas in Divinity there is only whirlwind and berserk for a warrior, in Diablo there are several choices. Why not make more than several, make a lot?

Finally, games are for gamers, and each gamer wants to create his/her own type of character. No one can predict all the variations people will want but I think there are a lot of examples in life and games of cool characters, such as samurai and ninjas, berserkers and knights, paladins and monks, and so on. It would be great if an RPG would offer not only stats but also specific skills/traits/perks/abilities... to people in order for them to create any one of those and more. I guess what I am trying to say is that in Divinity now you can create a character with high agility, give him high to hit and damage with slashing weapons and pretend that he is a samurai for example, but thats somewhat of a stretch.

On the other hand, imagine if you develop a character who has a master of katana characteristic, some kind of oriental sounding bushido mastery trait, and a "kensai" skill which if activated allows your character to parry the next enemy blow and then slice the enemy for significant damage but requires lots of mana. These is just a hypothetical example but you get the idea of how much cooler such characters would be to develop and to play. Of course this would imply making the combat system more complex to implement the skills and work to overhaul the skill system but I dont think its so difficult as to make it impractical, and I really believe it would draw a lot more gamers to Divinity games and bring in more sales. Obviously its too late to do this for Beyond Divinity, but I hope the developers read this and at least think about doing something like this for Divine Divinity 2.

My only reason for suggesting this is that I am a big fan of RPGs, and I would love to see a deep game such as Divinity with these elements.
////

I read it offline, and basically agree to mot of it, more or less.

I don't know. Many restriction for classes only exist because otherwise they can't be balanced. Mages can't wear armor, because they just would be to powerful in D&D. They can wear armor in Beyond Divinity though, which is classless.
I fail to see why restricting characters to what there class is allowed to use is better, although some warrior skills that that are a bit more inventive than what there is now, would be a nice addition.

Welcome Minotaurus! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

A lot of nice points there! I agree that more traits or personal history would be a good thing. I haven't played Fallout, but I remember hearing that your actions during the game branded you (Chivalrous, Molester, etc.) This could be a good addition instead of just reputation (which certainly isn't a bad thing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ).

MOLSESTER!


Its Michael Jackson, HELP!

I find it funny that Lews could not spell punctuation.....

That's all I'm saying whilst silently laughing to myself. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ROFL.gif" alt="" />

i would like to see perks (perhaps every 5 character levels) liek in fallout it would add that little extra bit of coolness to bd or dd2

oh shut up you old thingy <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cry.gif" alt="" />


at least I use paragraphs and sentances and such.

hmm??? I just can't spell crap.

I loved the whole irony of it Lews, nothing more.
You can spell crap though. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

crap crap crap shut up you old geneisus <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />

Like A LOT right lews? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />