Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Feedback after playing Beta 1.0.288

When several types of onscreen messages occur at the same time (conversation +damage effect +journal updated) they obscure eachother and get rather difficult to read.

When a time-sensitive out-of-combat situation occurs (fire-based situations so far) I would want a way to pause the game, but I can't see a pause button, and P/pause do not get the job done. Getting more familiar with the game can reduce this problem (I act fast enough not to need pause.)

I haven't played far yet; is there a purpose to entering combat mode manually? (TAB key, active character draws weapon) I tried using it as a stand-in pause+command feature, and it didn't work that way. (Didn't activate turn based actions.)

In the tutorial dungeon, I got the impression that any spark or flame should set the oil ablaze, and there are candles all about the place... but putting one on the oil field caused no flame. "Using" it unlit it. Reusing it relit it. Attacking it caused 0 damage and did NOT topple it...

How real should candles feel?

- Should they ignite anything easily flammable?
- Anything that they can be held directly under (tablecloth, window drapes)
- Should you be able to light candles without carrying a matchbox/equivalent/spell?
- Should you not then also be able to light oil fields by the same means that you light candles? (using a few Action Points at close range, perhaps with speed/luck-based risk to burn yourself).


Question regarding skill use / result prediction: All skills I have tried to use so far, have had a show-area/effect and confirm-action phase. Except for the stances, but starting/canceling them carries no cost and has no direct effect. Will all abilities that directly affect the world/creatures or cost something to activate have a stage where you can see areas/effects and confirm/cancel the action?

Visual / interface:

I can see my character, but not what my character can see. Natural in isometric top-down view, yes, but still troubling at times. Could we have a toggle or press&hold button that reveals the area near the cursor, or a similar key to lower all obscuring walls/environment?

I also find it slightly impractical to attack in melee from an angle where my character obscures the target. Could we have a button that "fades" the active character out and let's you select other targets/items more easily?


Maybe things will feel different once I get familiar with the game and controls. I see a few not-that-clearly-stated hotkeys (skills are numbered, F1/F2 does character selection) and note that the control menu seems incomplete at this time. It seems apparent that things will also feel different once all interface/input is implemented and explained.


"Inventory" seems a bit misleading. It's more of a "character" screen, and it took me a while to realise that it concealed more features behind a few icons. (Discovered at levelup due to green dots.)

I feel quite disconnected from the characters at this time, and their in-passing-realtime remarks pass unnoticed when I'm looking for some UI element or other. I review them in the log, but it is not ideal.

Can we filter on-screen-messages like we filter log-messages, and can we filter them separately?

Could we, by preference or default, relocate messages that are not tied to an object in the world, so that they do not fill the central area of the screen, where so much else is going on?


EDIT: By the way - entering the tutorial dungeon does feel a little unnatural. Making a character say "maybe we should look inside" sounds forced. Maybe it's just because we don't get to know her expectations; I thoughtfully assumed that she hoped to discern something about the enemy's interests by observing the place, or that she thought they might have left some big clue behind. But I never really got that impression. I just looked at what she said and came up with passable reasons for her to say it.

When you get a more complete tutorial dungeon, perhaps you can also:
- Make it more relevant (ie. veterans should also play it). The characters go in because they are looking for something, and they find something of interest. Or because they need to sort out something obviously bad inside.
- Let the players pick veteran-mode when entering
(similar/same dungeon, more/tougher monsters, no tutorial popups, random loot instead of perfectly placed fireball scrolls and water arrows, a way to complete the main objectives and get some cool loot without needing to try out specific features that depend on specially placed scrolls)