Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta feedback on the skills & stats system

A lot of gamers (myself included) have gotten seriously tired of the way games of late seem to hold your hand all the way through. We remember the games of old that didn't do that and yearn for those days back. That's why tough combat is so great to us. It makes us use our brains instead of simply swing-hit-swing-hit until enemy is dead. I love the strategy that turn based combat brings to the table and will take it over real time ANY day. Period.

Bottom line: Slow down. Take your time. No need to rush. Let your brain get it's exercise.

I agree. But not so hard you have absolutely to use the combo x with the magical item y else you never win. Ok to be tough (and to use your brain. Not OK to be able to play only if you have a Tank and a Wizard optimized. I want to be able to play with a rogue and a priest...

I hope I make myself clear.

I love chess too.
However, DOS smells like an epic RPG. Tough fights against boss alright, but tough fights against goons is a fun killer for me.
There is absolutely no fun in being humiliated by some "undeads" just because I blindly ran into a fight with absolutely no warnings, and I can't get out of the beating. Boring, frustrating and time consuming.
Take your level 1 fighters outside for a quick exploration of the outskirts of cyseal, you will see what I mean.
Unless I HAVE TO take along some mages, or chose mage characters. Poor replayability IMHO.

My current run through was with a cleric and a rogue. At first I was getting my butt spanked by the undead until I stepped back a moment and thought about my strategy. It can be done.

Now, I'm not saying there isn't any balancing issues to be done. And I'm definitely not saying they can't make it so it will be easier for the less hardcore crowd. I even made a suggestion long ago that they put extra ways in town to gain a couple more levels for that reason.

Now, what I -am- saying is that it's possible to survive if you take the time to think things through. Just like chess, as CromCrom so kindly pointed out.

I want to bet my hand that Larian can't make an AI that can outsmart me. I play some online games, where they put quite a lot of effort on making fair AI that is supposed to be a challenge. Even when I make a lot of mistakes, I still beat this AI with ease. It took a lot of time to create a chesscomputer, which could actually win most games against players at grandmaster level. But still, the chess game is very fixed, they spend decades of time on it, plus the chess computer couldn't win all games. This game has a lot more factors then a chess game, Larian will never ever never create an AI that can outsmart me. Thus the AI has to outlevel or outnumber me, simple as that. In which case I will most likely still beat them. I already noticed a lot of flaws, like enemies preferring to attack the closest targets. Every AI flaw will expose them to the might of the human brain.

In a lot of hard games, they gave the AI a lot more troops with a lot more levels and even cheating AI which had infinite mana and still players were able to beat through.

As for right now the warrior is really overpowered, maybe all characters are overpowered and it's just how many focus I put on warriors, I like to play as a warrior in most rpgs.

The warrior has;
-Excellent gapclosures like phoenix dive and battering ram.
-Excellent AoE dmg like dust devil and whirlwind. (which go on cd seperately)
-Excellent tanks.
-Excellent autohits.

I didn't go over all the skills, maybe the wizard has some OP spells I didn't try out. I couldn't get more warrior skillbooks, because Aureus had a bug, after I asked him to free Esmeralda.

I don't see any weakness of the warrior. The other classes are at least more squishy and as far as i've seen also deal less damage. 3 warrior, 1 healer is I think the best party combo. Especially against large groups.

Today I try the outside City with Figther, Knigth, Jahan and Madora... is much harder... but seems they have more resistences as the mages... they offen lay down on the Ice or got poisonned.... but Jahan manage to heal most of the time, no-one died. I reach the lighthouse alive! (find a ghost snorry btw never see it before! Nice! Don't know what to to with him...)

So yes mele figthing is possible... but harder. Don't know what I'll do in the final game. Maybe play it two times!
Because it is possible to get potions, the mele figths will be possible to win.. Lets see how this work against the harder enemies later. I reload sometimes to find better protection.

Well if they do take note of the calls for harder combat, hopefully they'll also include an "easy" option! The combat was quite hard enough for me to get a sense of satisfaction when I succeeded in defeating any given mob, and also quite hard enough for me to repeatedly get my arse kicked.

All I have to say is just be glad they didn't put cooldown timers on healing potions... yet.

Screw having a team, just duo it all the way through. Game is easy enough. =/

Yesterday I finished the possible game with my 3 mele Characters... Yes it is possible, but hard to Play! Not funny!
Only one healer! Only one elemental to help! (If the healer has the time to call the elemental spell.)
Figthers lay down on ice, burnd or are poisonned!
My hard used Weapons broken! But no possibility to repair my great swords.

Oh, yeah, that was a real bummer when my suddenly quite vulnerable archer discovered that her favourite bow was broken... and she had no backup. eek.

And the thing about being incinerated and poisoned is horribly familiar.

The whole system is so weird.
looks like a meaningless pilling of stuff: attributes, Abilities, talents, skills, traits, they are all checked in. Wait, they forgot "perks"...
Feels like a soulless piling of things, that want to achieve everythings, like being classless, but with class you chose at start that give you yous skills, and "Way of the" whatever class, but achieves none, because it goes nowhere, and I have no visibility of what do what.

Ok, I put a talent point in animal speech, and Tadaaaa, I suddenly can speak with animals, while 1 mn before, Meoooow, just meant, well meoooow ? Great quest/rpg opportunity lost, here.

Skills are like spells ?


Another example of unbalance/issue:
There are 5 "physical" stats (strength, constitution, dexterity, speed, perception) and only one "mental" stat (intelligence)
Even arguing that perception is a mental stat, that would still make it 4 versus 2, still unbalanced.
So by definition, and with this 1 attribute point/level system, a "physical" character is unfavorised compare to a "mental" one.
And what about good old Charisma ? Wisdom ? Agility ?

I can't really express it, but the whole thing feels wrong. Everything is here, but it is missing something. Pilling bricks, cement, wood, never made a house, although everything is here.
Mixing caviar, truffes, champagne, and other delicacies, doesn't make a great dish.
See my point ?

Of course, this is still alpha, and we may be missing some "long term" features, but it really feels wrong, and I don't know how to put it right.

Maybe larian could somehow put clear definitions of what the different things are - if only in the manual (even if people don't read it, they can be referred to it). I've heard there's likely to be a tutorial section as well. Definitions like these could make things clearer:

• Attributes define your character's basic physical characteristics. How strong or smart they are, how fast or healthy.
• Abilities are passive, the general areas your character has trained in, like weapon styles, or lockpicking, or particular areas of magic.
• Talents are specific special feats that give a unique bonus you can't get from elsewhere.
• Traits are emergent from how you actually play the game. They react to your actions in-game.
• Skills are activated powers you use in the world or the battlefield.

I've tried pointing out a few times that there's only one real "Mental" stat. Willpower was suggested as a seventh primary attribute stat last year, but Larian tried it out in-house and found no one was using it. Since they've gotten rid of mana, there's even less reason to bring it back.

Bring mana back. This cooldown stuff feels awkward anyway.

People will invest points in a feature if it is usefull. The more usefull, the more they will invest. Saying that wisdom is not usefull because people don't use it, sounds wrong. Whatever, Larian stuff.

As for the other features I still think it is mess, but I still don't know why.

It lacks coherence.