Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Some personal impressions

Have to make a couple of things clear first. I havent played the Alpha at all.
Ive just started playing the game beta version, with a hotfix 1.0.239, a few days ago.

I also intentionally did not read any hints, didnt even try to see if there is any sort of game manual or asked about any feature or mechanic of the game - at all.

So you are getting a completely fresh perspective of an old cRPG player, going into OS completely blind and unprepared.




Onward:


Could you make the video option - not require restart of the game?
I mean, if that is possible... it would really be great.

***

That music... Ive just started and its already under my skin. My bow to the maestro.
Can i get the games music somewhere? I mean like... can i buy it?
Im not sure have i gotten that for my pathetic 25 dollar backing.

So fitting, so beautiful. There is a clear theme of a "good thing long lost", or "good times of the distant past when everything was better, brighter,...", a bit of sadness after a good thing, mixed in with understated heroic notions and sense of epic events that are about to unfold.

Its really, really good and really addictive and memorable.
You got yourself a hit there. A classic.

***

The character creation screen with those leaves falling...
Its all fits together so well.
I wouldn't add or take away a single thing from it. (and thats rare for me)

(Well, the character creation screen could use a few more portraits that fit with the selected look of the character, which could then serve as my character portrait inside the game - that would be very nice, but i trust you are onto this and it will be made available later on. If not - i can do it for you)

***

Very nice intro, with the illustrations and all. I especially liked that you went for those slightly animated illustrations, instead of actual cinematic cut scenes. Younger, old Max Payne memories ... (very nice).

Maybe, if its possible, add a bit of a smog and clouds animated effect in the transition between the opening animated illustration and our two characters appearing on the beach instance.
So its all more in line with the atmosphere and theme of the introduction, as it presents it.
The illustrated introduction makes it all look smoggy, cloudy and seen in a dusk kind of atmosphere. But the beach itself is very bright and shiny.

What i mean is; have character load into their positions as they do now, dont change anything - just add more smoggy clouds over them and over the visible screen to hide it, - and then have the clouds slowly drift apart - revealing our heroes on the beach.

Would fit much better with the intro illustration atmosphere and presented feel of the area it achieves.



----------------------------------------------------------------------
Things i havent been able to figure out naturally, just based on playing the game itself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------


- Crafting. I still have no idea is that even available in this beta... let alone how to do it. Ive tried all the usual things, clicking around, trying to force different items onto each other... and other stuff like that.
The game is perfectly playable without it though.

***

- Whether there is any levers extra (except the obvious ones) to find in the black cove, in the first place - and how to find them.

(i opened the way and then after when i was leaving i ran into one more lever to pull by pure accident)

Suggestion: add a line or two of text in the chief pirate diary mentioning one lever he hid in the bushes - but dont mention the others like it. Just reading that there is one lever that is purposely hidden will be enoguh to let players figure out there might be more like it - for any player.

Furthermore - if the pirate undead need the living to bring back their flesh then the chief pirate might have set up the levers and all that to lure various people in? eh?
Maybe changing the plot setup to make this clearer can be done? Maybe it was the pirates that intentionally drew the Orcs there - to attack them? Its only writing change, no gameplay changes necessary.

What was that about dragons in the chief pirate journal? I was expecting there will be a dragon somewhere in the cave there from reading that...

- Make the fight much harder. They have the blood stone which gives them super powers - right?

***

- Took me a long time to notice and figure out that there is some kind of skill menu. At first, when i removed some of the spells icons from the hotbar - to my horror - i couldnt find any way to put them back.

The icons for skill menu and inventory that are under the character portraits are really too small.
Really, really - really.

As are the other icons on the Ui in general.
Something should be done to make it clearer to the players that they are there and that there is some function to them.

Maybe making them a little bit bigger or making them have some nice, non intrusive and rare light effect?
Something like a small glow or shining effect that rarely appears - from time to time?

Illustrating them differently? So they look more like items from the game maybe? Maybe make them blue rather then black - so they stand out from the rest of the character portrait frame more then now. Blue background - gold icons?

Also - change the icon for skills menu. Seriously.
The inventory one is at least familiar and appropriate - once you figure out you can actually click it, but the skills menu icon is just... too generic and non descriptive.

***

Headless Nick quest. Is the head inside the black cove or... not?
Atleast that could be made a bit clearer to the players. After all, it is Nick and his daughter telling us this story. They should know as much at the least.

***

How to get out of the Zixzax dimension - but i see that was mentioned several times in the bug thread.




----------------------------
Suggestions and ideas
----------------------------


The very start:
Maybe, instead of telling player to open the inventory - with a popup, which is a very fourth wall breaking thing to do, and a bit insulting in a way - Scarlet could just ask about their orders. And then players should figure it out themselves. (maybe the orders were sealed with instructions to open them upon arrival? - if you need a quick excuse for that)

Do i really need to be insulted because there can possibly be some players that dont know there is an inventory to open - in a cRPG?
We dont really need to pander to hypothetical players incapable to or ignorant about opening inventory - in a RPG game, surely?

How do you expect those younglings to learn anything if the whole industry just keeps force feeding them and pushing silver platters in front of them? Surely you guys dont need to do that too? Please?

Shouldn't we strive to teach them how to take care of themselves?

Could there be an option to hide such hints in the main options?

I know its only the start of the game and that everyone are used to such things by now. But there is no doubt it affects the narrative negatively - and since it is only a very small thing - it could be easily avoided and it should be avoided.

***

The undead should be really scary enemies. Instead of moles you pop easily. And they should be much more resistant to slashing and piercing damage too. Currently i can only notice a small reduction in damage when i use swords and other blades on them.

They should also be completely resistant to Air and Water magic. Although that can be saved for tougher individual undead enemies - if you really want ...

(I dont really get why undead would be damaged by any sort of electricity... except just because thats the way some previous games did it and it just became a cliche and a trope that repeats itself without any actual real reason. If anything, i would make them heal when electrocuted - they are dead for zombie sake! Dr Frankestein Monster? Surely there is enough of material about electricity and different undead in the general fantasy lore to support such an idea...)

***

Let me zoom out more. Its great. In a few cases, like black cove - the camera remains zoomed out much higher, due to differences in height of the ground.

It looks really, really awesome and it really shows off the art design skills of the team and beauty of the game environments.
I didnt notice any slowing down because of it, either.

***

ALT key should highlight items only acording to perception skill of the character.

***

Statues quest suffers a bit from the restricted camera angles because the player almost cannot see one or two symbols on them. Maybe moving the symbol of the right most statue more towards the player PoV would be better?

***

- inventory hassle solution ! -

Simple - move the "all items" sorting icon-tab to the bottom of the sorting icons-tabs list. Or just remove-disable it completely.

Have the "equipment" sorting tab be the first and the default one instead.
If the things are arranged that way - the players will quickly and easily figure out how things work - and actually wont use the dreadful unsorted "all items" icon at all.

Ive started using the Equipment tab and trading by using different tabs instead of "all items" and its all much better!
Really.

Because its not really necessary, useful or needed the way it is now.
This will save you the effort of adjusting or creating some sort of sorting mechanics.

***

- The "Ill take my leave" dialogue line with which we end conversations should be taken out of the dialogue options and put to the upper left of the the big gray section of the dialogue screen, where all dialogue options are.

So it is always visible and easily available. In this way we can always end the conversation quickly, without having to scroll through all dialogue options to get to it. You can make a button out of it. I dont care.
There is enough of free space inside the dialogue window to do what you want with it.

Just make it easily and quickly available - because the game has a lot of conversations and its very annoying having to scroll down looking for it each and every time.

***

Also, concerning dialogues... you really should make the sentences i already chose and my character "spoke" - disappear.
Maybe you can somehow select all quest relevant sentences and make them disappear after they have been chosen for the first time?
And leave only the trivial - plot unimportant ones to remain - because an empty dialogue window isnt nice either.

***

Sneak and weapon toggle icons should be a bit bigger and bit more pronounced - significant, since those two things are. Currently, they almost look like just some nice part of the game Ui art - almost.

***

Could you make right click useful for something? For example several of the "ctrl +" abilities could be linked to the right click - without the need for ctrl itself.

***

How about opening the inventory when i right-click on the empty item slots in the hotbar? That would be very useful. VERY.

***

How about having all characters pictures on the side of the inventory too? So when we move items between them, we can just drop items onto those pictures, not on character portraits.
It is a much shorter distance and so it would be much more elegant then moving the pointer across half of the screen - for every single item we want to move.

***

- Esmeralda & Evelyn

Esmeralda has nothing to say at all about Evelyn - until i figure Evelyn out and read her diary and other letters in her house. Only then i get a dialogue option to mention Evelyn to Esmeralda - and only then Esmeralda says how she doubted Evelyn for a long time, blah, blah, blah...

That simply doesnt make sense and should be corrected with something small and indirect.
Like for example - having the option to talk to each of the suspects about other suspects. Which they can use to blame and cast doubt onto others so to confuse the player more.


-



im still only two thirds of the way through so i will probably add to this thread, and keep on adding after i play through new incoming beta version.


-edited details-