Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Expectations

What didn't you like about them? I thought it was the best RTwP system I'd seen since the IE games, even though it was certainly rough around the edges (the movment limits on a zoomed out camera were certainly annnoying).

Character customization also could have use some serious improvements. I also wasn't a big fan of brinding the "holy trinity" from MMO games into it (tank, healer, dps...) with related skills.


Indeed, most that consider NWN "good" are having memories of what was possible with the toolset. The campaign itself was crap.

After ME1 the story seemed to go all over the place, later I learned that the guy who wrote the story for ME1 left BioWare after ME1, this explains a lot (the "main" story for ME2 was rather weak but I enjoyed the combat mechanics; ME3 was just weak all over compared to ME1 & 2, story and mechanics respectively).

Anyway, I've written a lot about what was wrong with ME2 back in the day on BioWare's forums and they managed to do worse on pretty much every count in ME3 (weaker combat, shallower characters, ignoring choices you made in previous games, ignoring events from previous games, removing even more character customization,...)



DA:O had a lot of potential but they made the same mistake as with NWN1 (though at least the storyline was better and you did have a party) in that you have a bunch of locations you are forced to visit and have pretty much no sidequests at all. I think BG2 nailed it in this repsect as your main quest is only a small part of the game and you are free to explore the huge amounts of big sidequests there are without descending to Elder Scrolls level of generic quests/characters (name 3 characters in Skyrim you care about even in the slightest, I could give you a whole lot more than that from BG2)



Fallout: New Vegas was way better than Fallout 3 story-wise (and way better than Oblivion/Skyrim, but that's not hard), but suffers from having to use Bethesda's tech, with all the usual bugs (and then some, Obsidian and Bethesda are both known for their uncanny ability to create buggy games).
If you played all of Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim then F:NV just feels too similar. Personally I got burned out on it (I'm very far in and have completed most DLC, but still have to finish up the main campaign...and I started playing it on release, insofar possible with all the bugs it had then).

Dungeon Siege 3 (at least I think it was 3) is just a generic hack and slash, didn't (and still doesn't) interest me at all.

I didn't like the lack of front line ability in D:AO. That is a warrior had no real means or method to protect a caster or archiver from an attacking warrior. There was no method to establish a line or area of control.
-
I do not remember this being an issue in older games like ice wind-dale and BG 2; but maybe it was and I just didn't notice ?
-
I really liked the presentation in D:AO (story telling/cut scene - which is not quite the same as the story itself).
-
Also many of the dungeon/maps I felt were really simplistic/poor. I never felt like it was an epic adventure of exploration.
-
So to sum it up I dislike D:AO combat mechanics and maps.

Aggro mechanics in IE games were rather simple, iirc enemies tended to just aggro in this order:
- whoever they saw first
- whoever did the most damage
for me that basically meant Korgan was usually tanking and tanks were basically melee damage dealers since there were no specific aggro skills (though in the case of Liches and the like it was preferable to have a Wizard tank, something that's pretty much out of the question in DA:O). This, as you mention, worked surprisingly well.

The usual tactic as far as I recall was to send in the clowns, err, fighters, have them whack the enemy while the casters are busy doing useful non-combat stuff (buffing, stripping hostile defense, blowing up fodder with AoE nukes), this allowed the melee to build up an aggro buffer so when the casters focues on the enemy they had a good lead.

This all sounds pretty primitive and convoluted in writing I'll admit, but it came pretty natural and worked (imho) very well.

In DAO the way hostiles pick their first target is already different. Theoretically (iirc) they go by how threatening characters are, meaning that rogues and casters often get the short end of the stick. There also seems to be a preference for attacking the player character, regardless of where he is relative to the other party members (assuming he's in their line of sight).

As for the aggro mechanics, they seem completely different and more based on "threat", which is only partially related to damage output. The net result is that your "tanks", like in MMOs, have specific skills to maintain enemy attention and is weak in the damage dealing department compared to the "nukers" (wizards, rogues, fighters).
This makes especially big fights (lots of enemies) when having few skills a pain as properly maintaining enemy aggro becomes a real pain as it is no longer a case of just sending in your designated punchball first because as soon as your mage start throwing fireballs every other enemy (not necessarily ones that have been hit), starts to perceive said mage as a serious threat, with predictable consequences (since mages in DA:O have a lot less means to keep themselves from harm than in the IE games)

Anyway, that's how I remember things to be. It's probably not entirely correct, but yeah, I basically agree that controlling the battlefield in DA:O was a lot more hit & miss (and more often than not: miss), than in the IE games.

I hope Project: Eternity does get this right. Thankfully I don't foresee this to be such a big issue in D:OS as it will be turn based. (there's really no need to try to prove me wrong Larian ;))

You know, this discussion of how other games appealed and worked or not feels tangential to what we expect of Larian's upcoming RPG.

I mean, Larian has its own styles and ways of doing things that make their games stand out as their own. Personally, I find it rather irrational to ask of them to change their game's style to something that doesn't belong to them, and that is one of the feelings that creeps off from this conversation in a topic about things expected from D:OS.


And for the record, I too would like to see some new awesome D&D styled games. But that's not something I would ask of Larian, since I came here and stuck around because I liked the Divnity series for what it is, with all its flaws and quirks. I'm here and will stay around to watch Larian evolve their own style. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I pledged (a rather large sum for what place I live in) during the Kickstarter campaign.

Partially, while we obviously got carried away a little (well, at least I got carried away :P) there's an important balance to strike between the main story and freedom. I'm very excited to see how D:OS is going to fare and you could say that I have high expectations about them getting it *right* (imho both DA:O and Skyrim got it wrong in a different direction)

I think this is a very important part because you shouldn't feel constrained by the main story if you want to explore but neither should the main story feel irrelevant (as it did in Skyrim)



Umm, no. I definitely don't want every company to make the same games. If I want generic drivel I'll go shop with EA or the likes. I just got rather carried away while discussing, likes/dislikes and how people judge mechanics in other games.




Real Time with Pause doesn't have to be D&D though, Project: Eternity definitely isn't, though it does try to revive the fun we had with the Infinity Engine games.



We are, of course, agreed. Larian games have their distinct style which is a big part of their charm, however I don't think that this makes pointing out perceived do's and don'ts from other games irrelevant (or less fun discussing ;)), but I expect them to handle things in their own way, as always. But I would, for example, be saddened if I had a "Skyrim" in D:OS where I go "Oh yeah, there was this main quest thingy too, what was it about again? Something with dragons." (I exaggerate a bit, of course, but you get the idea)

Anyway, my apologies for the semi-offtopic banter, let's go back to anxiously awaiting an alpha announcement!

I'm really pumped for this to come out. From an expectation level I'm hoping Larian delivers what they always deliver, a fun game that doesn't take itself too seriously.

I'm happy they followed my suggestion to give everyone alpha (well it wasn't exaclty my suggestion - i mean i did suggest it months and months ago but i'm sure the reason they are doing it is because of the effectiveness it had on dragon commander (though i wish they would re-think the RTS aspect of the game which I did not particularly like; but perhaps other liked). And yea I really hope my expectations are exceeded but I will be honest either way when alpha/beta starts.

I expect this game to fill the void the neverwinter night's series left (I think NWN 2 killed it). This is the only game I'm aware of which the developers have the guts to stick to old school(or what they want to make) and not go purely with what the market wants.

If this becomes a hit it could send a message that some old niches are alive and well.

I'm not sure this is the case; nwn-2 was really targeted for persistent world multi-player (i leave out the m because while it supported a fair number of players it was hardly massive). This game is really co-op oriented. Btw there is another thread on respawn - nwn deefinitely had respawns
-
I do think this game has great potential on the single player side of things (so maybe we will see - as you suggested) great single player scenario - but I worry that the low level might be a barrier -not sure how that will play out. I kind of prefer a lot of micro-steps (50 levels) as oppose to a few macro steps (10 levels)

There seems to be a conjunction between expectations & hope...

...at least for me. I can form educated expectations about the game and what may come of it, yet there is so much personal hope associated with this game that it gets kind of hard to tell where my expectations end and my hopes begin

this ;-)