Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Educating Players! [Larian needs some help!]

Fair enough.
Why is that? it all depends on what you can do with those points. It is really a design matter.


100% agree with you. Character growth, renown growth, world interaction growth, there are many many fields in which the character can grow. But this is another subject.

I really understand that. However, let me give you another example of some weird stuff.
"IRL", the better you get, the harder it should be to get better, until the moment when you can't get anymore strength, skills, whatever.
This was well done in the previous build, because there was the same amount of points every levels, and the higher you got in the talents, the more points you needed. So you were slowing done as you leveled, which made sense.

Now, the more you grow (gain levels), and the better you become, the more points you have to increase your talent. So it is pointless to make the talents cost more, if you have more points to invest in them. This system is "roughly", for the purpose of the "demonstration" the same as giving one point every level, and having all talent ranks cost one point. So this way, we are removing the increased value of getting better in a talent.

Again, this is design flaw IMHO.

However, I a very curious to be proven wrong, there can be other explanations around that I don't see for this feature, and that would make sense.

I see. It appears I didn't get the whole message then. So what you're saying is

higher level -> you get more points & skills cost more points -> what's the point?!

Correct? Still the system kinda works, because a high level doesn't mean all equipped skills are equal in level, so some of them cost more, some less, the system allows for investing in multiple lower skills. That's the whole reason I think. So the value of points are indeed changing, by some linear or logarithmic formula, they're high in value for lower skills and low for higher skills. Has anyone ever made a comparision of a skill tree system and the one described above? I'd like to read one.

It's been a while since I played the alpha (twice so far). What strikes me is the way skills are at both 'discrete levels' and 'continuous' ones. Am I right to assume that strenght, constitution, agility, ... are continuous and 'fire magic', 'reason', 'luck', ... are discrete (the ones you were talking about)? It's funny. It's strange. It's fine by me.
I'm not making any comments though ... no time and lots of other players posting on this forum. Am I still babbling? Let me finish my work.

I don't think so. When you become more experienced in some areas you also become better at picking up new stuff, since you can relate it to something you already know (and the more you know the easier this becomes).

Thus with the system right now, you get more experienced and thus are rewarded with more points due to this experience (you can relate to more things). But since improvement also becomes harder the better you already are the individual talents also becomes more expensive (but new talents becomes easier to pick up).

Seems very logical to me.

I believe this change is to combat the problem of players maxing out their main skill before reaching level 10, and then not having much of a direction afterwards where to take their character.

I think that scaling the AB points you gain so it's low at the start, and the amount them you gain increases as you go up is better than starting high and the points decreasing, because the amount of points you need to increase an ability goes up with each rank. Having the points you gain increase as the amount of points required increases helps players keep up and should give them a sense of gaining power.

I think it's working too, because when I reached level 6 and saw that I had at least 2 points now (plus other ones I spared), I did feel like I was gaining more power, instead of just reaching another level.




Its not quite the same thing. With the old 3 AB/level system, you could get 57 AB points. In this new system, you can gain either 39 or 44 AB points (I'm not sure which it is), so even though your AB points now increase as your level increases, you still have a lot fewer to play with than you did before, meaning they count more.

This needs to be repeated because Larian does apparently not get it. The start of the game sucks as a intro or demo, it is not just confusing to new players, and it has LOTS of talking and relatively boring in-town exploration, but there is literally no proper introduction to the story, to the quest, to gameplay mechanics or anything.

Imo all this tutorial popup nonsense could be saved with a proper contextual introduction. Ie. Start the game (optionally) when our Source Hunter is trained a few years before the game happens, in a restricted area that covers crafting, combat, skill use, repairing, and some funny easter-eggs via dialog and exploration. Bonus points, if both characters trained together, because you could make coop related and assorted tutorials in that too.

Also, this training needs to cover all the 4 classes and their unique abilities. How level ups work etc.

It can be done in different ways, and doesn't need to be static... Skyrim starts with a tutorial, Oblivions first dungeon IS the tutorial..... this needs to be OPTIONAL as well ;P

Your post *Cromcrom* sums up my opinion so yeah.

The start of the game is missing ;p

Exactly.


No matter how hard I try, I really really think it is more "weird" than "fine". Maybe I am a to old fashioned and straight RPG player.


I think it is totally true. However, the problem in this demonstration is how "LockPicking" relates to "Fire Magic" or "Charm". I am a very imaginative person, but this is a little to overwhelming for me. Maybe this approach would make sense in case of "category" specific points. However, it is not the case so far. And it discloses yet another design flaw I might talk about latter.

Maybe. This doesn't reassure me, as it proves the system is so weak that they have to create this system to prevent this. Still unrealistic for me. Major/Minor Attributes requirements would make more sense. Then you would need maybe more mental attributes, but this is another subject...

This is a weird way to gain power, but it really does make sense. This is really an increase in power gain, even if it not very subtil.


Another big flaw in character leveling design is that the specific talent levels gained can't be fine tuned. Its only 1 to 5. So, sure, each point do count, but you can't spare anything without having a big impact on character progression.
Big design flaw, that I illustrate with the following example:
I did not discover this, it is just about a player saying he found weird to gain level 1 in air magic after a conversation choice. So, before, he knew nothing about air magic, and after making a conversation choice, he gained one level in air magic. Now lets say that the player is already level 4 in air magic. So making the right conversation choice will make him level 5 in air magic (from Master to Legendary ?), which sounds a bit to much for just chosing the right answer.
I really think the Trait system is very very good and innovative (reminds me of the "Pendragon" PnP RPG, which I am a GM in), but there are again so far some design/balance flaws to it.

I globally fully agree with you of course. However, there are big problems to overcome first.

Features are so blend and thin, that they hardly require a tutorial (especially crafting/world interactions)
Want a crafting tutorial ?
"Drag and drop all items on themselves in your inventory , or drag and drop all items on very few placeables in the world (if you can find them in Cyseal, because those cyseleans obviously don't need any craftmen or craftmen guilds),until something happens."

Want a gathering tutorial ?
"Open crates"

Need more inner working tutorial ?
"Put points in talents when you level up. It doesn't matter that you ever tryied crafting anything, you can still become a master in crafting, all you have to do is put leveling points in this talent."

Want a skill use tutorial ?
"Buy skill in shop.
Click on skill. Aim and release. Wait for cooldown to be over. Repeat."

Want a spell use tutorial ?
"Buy spell in shop.
Click on spell. Aim and release. Wait for cooldown to be over. Repeat."
TADAAAAAAA, tutorials done.

Well, a few features are deeper (AP, sneaking, global combat...) and might require a deeper tutorial, of course.


OMG what are you talking about ? This a CLASSLESS system...


Oh, and I forgot:
"- Barricades seemingly are mostly made of rope and wood, when I detroy them, is there a good random chance I will get some wood or rope ?
- Forget it. This is waaaayyyy to realistic. This is a fantasy world, not a realistic one."

Swen agrees that the way Traits are currently working is not very good and will be changed.

(Trait) Bonuses for Conversation are Ambiguous





Yeah yeah, the ability system doesn't work like Skyrim's and you're disappointed. We know already. Skyrim's skill mechanics are based on a huge world which respawns and so doesn't let you get stuck running out of ways to gain more points in a skill. Original Sin's world does not respawn, its core mechanics are different to Skyrim's, and they are almost certainly not going to change at this late stage, so can you stop whining about the same thing over and over again?

As an uneducated player, I feel that Larian has an amazing story to tell, put some very hard work in its engine for some innovative features (moving items, changing some environments). However, they maybe didn't give that much attention to character design and levelling systems, and how the world relates to this.
But again and again, this is not even a beta, and I really really hope the Truth will hit me very hard, and I will discover how deep and engrossing the game is, after the world opens up in the beta.

The ability system doesn't make sense at all.
Actually, Skyrim system was not that good, I tried to mod some skill features to make them more lively (I HATE when you just succeed if you have the skill level. This is so unrealisitc). Check CSS tanning in steam workshop for a new skill improving world interactions, or http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/10850/?
for a mining and prospection skills for Skyrim. The 3 images there might give you an insight of some skill system I "created".


Sure, Larian's call.

Sure. If the editor is ok, and above all if I can understand the programming language well enough, I probably will be able to create a deep and lively system within days anyways. But still, I can't help raging about the missed opportunities here, because instead of a great open world RPG, we have a probably great theater play.

Of course it is, but you still start (and can level up) skills that require ITEMS and are used in specific ways and this is nowhere said in the game, like that you can use Anvils to repair items if you have a certain skill, how many players you think know that?. Both systems exist in old games, so you can't chalk this of to player experience. Game needs to say what item is needed for a skill, what is craftable in the inventory and what is a quest item.

The game needs to actually say that you gain new abilities by buying them, this isn't at all transparent to a new player. As stores aren't marked, new players may get confused where to buy anything related to THEIR class/playstyle to boot. In this case the game also needs to improve the markings around towns, I mean that in the virtual sense, there needs to be notation of "Vendors" on the maps.

What you write as obvious is not what I mean at all

Crafting is exactly NOT obvious because nowhere in the beginning of the game are you ever asked to craft anything. I would bet with you that the majority that is interested in D:OS has no clue about crafting and will never have a clue about crafting, unless they read this forum or watch a let's play where the player has that clue. Dragging random items over other items in your inventory is absolutely NOT intuitive (anymore). Don't forget that games have established different methods for crafting for many years now. And the biggest games (Diablo 3, Skyrim) have dedicated systems for crafting. We can't just act like that's not a fact.

That aside, I think I get what you are saying and agree, the skills are really bland and thin in their complexity so the tutorial in the normal sense may not be required, but they are still opaque to new players all the same.

The worst thing Larian can do imo, is not take the problem of the "missing beginning" seriously. Of course I don't want a run-of-the-mill pop-up string tutorial in an unskippable boring sewer (Oblivion!). But there must be some better way to begin the game than just plopping us on the road with no idea what to do or where to go.

####

Heck it needs to be only a simple INN where both our chars wake up after a binge drinking night, finding their stuff gone and the door locked. This short sequence could teach players all there is to know about the game-systems, and via character dialog tell us what we are doing and why in the process. And maybe interlink that with the story of the murder in the town. Give us some motivation, some background, some tutorial. Not insanely much, just enough to get us going.

or in fact, your Academy idea, with good written quests that teaches all that. The setting doesn't really matter, it's just a matter of teaching players how the game wants to be played. As opposed to teaching players how parts of the game are played.

As long as it's all optional. ^^

@eRe4s3r
All you say is so freaking right I would cry of relief, because I thought I was the only dumbass here (no offense ^^).

I was of course (a little bit) exagerating in my "tutorials", just to try to make things clear.


+1

OMG this is what I have been trying to explain for so long (although they are very poor crafting systems imho. But yet, still better than DOS :-( ) ... +100


Sounds like a decent/great alternative to the Source Hunter's academy.


OMFG this is so true again, yes, please.


Again (and again, and again, and...) this is alpha. Hopefully, they will fix the introduction, and some gameplay systems. (NO STABBEY, DON'T HURT ME, THIS IS NOT REALLY LIKE WHINING, IS IT ?)

Well I only come here every few weeks after playing exactly 1 hour of D:OS because I don't want to spoil my D:OS experience ;p

If that'd be all the time you'd give me on it to decide whether to buy it or not, currently I'd not buy it. The first hour of the game is... extremely bland.

Let me just make an insane thought experiment

..... Start of D:OS ....... #Setting

Burning village, dead bodies and magical caused damage everywhere. Source magic lingers in the air.... you awake unsure what happened, binge drinking in an inn happily with your partner the world exploded in a magical cataclysm and you blacked out. You look around, finding yourself trapped in what are the remnants of the INN, looks like the floor collapsed and you are trapped in the cellar... smoke fills the air but most of it seems to escape through cracks upwards...

..... Start of D:OS ....... #Gameplay

There are various tools and barrels of watered ale down here, fires blocking what appears to be stairs. The lifeless body of the maid that stood right next to your table a few meters away from you. Figure out how to douse the fire and build some kind of make-shift weapon to whack the debris out of the way. Of all things that survived the explosion, the door and it's lock still stood solid, despite scorch marks. Now if only you could find the key somewhere.... maybe behind some debris?

Would that not be a memorable start?

I am just saying..... if Larian wanted, the start of the game could teach all game-systems in just 1 scene and 1 room. Also, maybe this is where the quest to hunt down that source mage stems from. Maybe he killed already before.... and you were just in the area of effect? Motivation, hook, some revenge...

Also, you both survived that, so additionally that bonds the characters together and some dialog choices there may reflect starting dispositions. And mages could have handled this differently than warriors or rouges. Maybe the maid had a spell-scroll on her? ;P

Aside that, simple things would improve the game drastically on top of that
-Marking Quest Items and Craft Items
-When you "pick" a object in inventory, objects you can use it on are highlighted (takes a lot of the scariness out of the craft system)
-Once crafted, always known / crafted stuff needs to be logged somewhere
-better map notations, especially in the start town but in the case of that huge town, more hand holding.

AARPG's are that way

I share the same view. This is soooo sad :-(

However, I really hope that this "out of nowhere" start has some story explanation. I really have an unexplainable feeling the DOS Story is amazing.

Any chance to mark them on the map ?

With so many people independently suggesting the idea of a Source Hunter Academy (or agreeing with it) as a tutorial/introduction, I think there's a good chance that it'll be in - but maybe only in the full version (because of the time it would take to create, polish, and test it).


I agree that crafting by dragging items over each other isn't a great system. Will it produce an item, or just swap their places? If it is a combination, what will it produce? Do I want to make that, or would I like to cancel instead?


I like the murder mystery idea, but even I can agree that there needs to be more world-building and setting information, especially on the Source and Source Hunters. Even when reaching the end of the murder quest, there really is no big hook to make me emotionally invested in the story. It's just "oh, okay, I guess I'll go to the next questing zone then.

This has been a recurring issue with the series, because the games tend to give you as much freedom as possible, which also means you aren't pressured so much to worry about the main story. Divine Divinity and Divinity 2 had pretty slow starts, you were expected to reach about level 8-10 before the main plot started in DD, and level 6 or so in Divinity 2.

Even so, Divine Divinity and Divinity 2 did eventually put some parts that helped, like getting locked up in Stormfist by an ungrateful, obnoxious brat, and having your friends and comrades try to murder you in Divinity 2 (and later on what happens to Broken Valley). There's quite a lot of content in the alpha of D:OS, but there's no big moment that really makes you emotionally invested or otherwise care.

In earlier versions of the D:OS story, there were things to make you care - in one of them you were in fact the only two survivors of an attack on the Source Hunter Academy.

Oh? You mean they replaced a hook to motivate players with... the bland start we have now, and wonder why the press doesn't get hooked? Not saying that start specifically has to be it, but emotional hooks and generally a motivation to engage a game needs to be there, or it fails utterly as an RPG.

I am most certainly not your average RPG player, I am BG2 and Torment cultist and hold some NWN 1 user modules above anything made commercially post BG2.

And believe me, most good NWN1 user made modules, have one HELL of a hook at the start. Literally any module I played has had a more involved start than D:OS currently has. So yeah, I am another one of "those" that hope that this gets changed. And worried that D:OS apparently is supposed to release at the end of April... we still didn't even beta-test the day/night schedules.....

Ps.: Mentioning those because day and night schedules add another layer of "micro-management-hell" to the game ;p Especially with no way to actually rest-anywhere to pass time. Still some time to get that in, but I am worried how it will affect the gameplay...

I think Stabbey talks about Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity.

Well, "those" are two for now, so let's stay cool ...


+1. I am really looking forward the night/day cycle, but I am really afraid the "Schedule" feature could be just a huge waste of time for some "realism", while so many other "realistic" world details are missing so far.

I do not think they replaced it Most probably, it has just not made its way into alpha yet. At the very beginning of alpha Swen mentioned in one of the numerous videos, I think, that in the alpha build you begin right on the beach without any introduction. There should be a proper introduction in the final game.