Obviously there are many things to tweak here and there, so I won't go into an extensive list of things I'd like to see changed and will simply focus on the aspects that I really believe should be improved.
First off, the argument mini game is very enjoyable when playing co-op. However, I find it utterly useless when arguing with an NPC. Although it is now possible to skip them with space, I think they should just not exist at all outside of PC vs PC interactions, it just makes things confusing. Is there luck involved? Does it really matter I have a very high reasoning skill ? Did I just lose an argument in that context on pure shifumi randomness? I'm an extremely skilled and charismatic speaker yet my way of convincing people is rock paper cissors? Something just doesn't work when trying to convince NPCs.
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My second concern is the most important to me: talents. We get way too many of those, and a lot of them are very situational or simply weak at best. We end up prioritizing which ones we'll pick out of a real choice of 5 to 6 talents, all of which we'll end up having soon enough anyway. The moment everyone picks the same talents over every other ones (i.e. All Skilled Up, Bigger and Better) every time, you know something is not right. So here my thoughts on talents:
- We should get one less often. On the full course of a game, we should end up with only a few picks, maybe 5 or 6 at best, not more. Why? So that committing to one of them feels like a real choice that has consequences.
- They should be stronger. Fewer picks means we can get more powerful stuff. Immunity (or near immunity) to an element for example, the ability to lockpick without ever having to use lockpicks, almost never dull the durability of an item you repair, double potion effectiveness and duration (instead of food), immunity (or near) to certain effects (we already have one for fear, let's have more), a big one time boost to an ability, or critical chance, or critical damage, etc. These are just examples. Why? So that committing to one of them feels like a reward.
- Combine the two aforementioned and talents become that precious once in a while pick you are so eager to make when leveling up, knowing you will get powerful rewards, but in very limited numbers. The way talents work ATM are just a list of prioritizing the better picks first, then the okay picks, the not so bad picks, and then whatever's left.
So maybe you guys at Larian are simply just giving us the opportunity to fool around with a lot of talents right now since the BETA only provides so much space for us to try things in, and on the release the game will hold back more, in which case most of what I just said will be pretty irrelevent. If it's not the case, though, maybe something to consider?
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Next stop is crafting! ATM too confusing mostly by lack of information. It's pretty much try and try again, and spend a point in the craft ability and then try some more, maybe try over what you already tried before see if it works now. Not only confusing, it's also very disgruntling. And then you get to miss out on a lot of stuff by ignorance.
Lucky for me when I tried to craft, my co-op partner did as well and he had a higher crafting ability than I did, so eventually I figured that stacking iron bars on the anvil was not just all that could be done with iron bars and an anvil, but that I lacked the proper skills to do anything else. The game sure didn't tell me anything about that, so that even if I DID end up spending points in crafting I probably would never again have tried to drop iron bars on an anvil, accepting the idea that the anvil just had no use whatsoever.
The game needs to hand out more information on crafting. Discovering new recipes and tips from reading books scattered throughout the world is great. I love that, no problem, I would not change anything in that regards. But the game needs to tell me when I try a valid combination why it's not working if it isn't. Sometimes it does, but often it will just leave me ignorant. Seriously, I ended up thinking that the anvil or the whole crafting system was broken. And the only reason I thought that was because it used to work that way in previous builds, I might have just accepted the fact that anvils were just cosmetic environment if I was new to the game. I might have stuck to that idea had my co-op partner not tried to do the same combinations a few moments later with a higher skill and succeeded immediately. "Oooooh so THAT'S how it works!".
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Last, but not least, make them monsters tougher! They don't have to hit harder or have more advanced skills and spells, just some more HPs. Most of them die too fast as soon as the party gets some AoE or heavy single target spell/skills. Maybe it's just the power curve that is tester friendly right now so we can try stuff again and again without too much pain, in which case, again, what I say becomes irrelevent. If it's not, though, something to think about.
My first impressions when I tried D:OS on the very first Alpha Build available was that combat was hard but rewarding and satisfying. We won fights greatly outnumbered because we made good use of spells, synergies, and elemental combos, and that felt great. As of today, I feel we win because our guys just hit stronger and have more armor than the bad guys. That's not as rewarding or as satisfying. I used to strongly consider ice and lighting spells to gain control over the battlefield. Now I just whirlwind, phoenix dive, and bull rush the crap out of my enemies. Sad monster face.
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On a last note, I'd still like to thank the whole Larian staff for the work they are doing on D:OS, and the work they have done in the past on other Divinity titles that I also enjoyed a great deal. Player feedback can be harsh, but we're here because we love your games. Godspeed!
