Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta BETA 1.059 Skills/abilities change thread

Can anyone make a poll or at least a summary of skills/abilities improvement suggestions? There are quite a few here and are all over the place, maybe someone can break them down into groups? Like that AD&D suggestion from previous page, "Return the system to previous version", skills change suggestions, abilities change suggestions, stats change suggestions etc.

I think we all agree that we could have specialization with powerful skills too soon in 1.0.30 version while we now get too many low power skills and no specialization with 1.0.59

This is why I suggest keeping level requirements but have them a bit lower to allow specialization, and restoring the ability levels requirements from previous version to make increasing ability levels necessary again.

And remove the Attribute requirements as well, I assume?

The attribute requirements on skills definitely don't seem to do anything particularly useful, because they're still gated by level. Whoever said that as long as you meet the INT and LVL requirements, you can use master-level spells from all schools with just one point was correct - that's a problem that goes too far in rewarding generalization.

I don't really know what the answer is though, because if we go back to gating skills based on ability level, then it might end up going back to the same old "max that out ASAP" thing that everyone went for. Or maybe not, now that the bonuses from the "Way of the..." are in Talents now and not the Abilities.

I definitely agree that the level requirements are prohibitively high: it doesn't matter what my Ability level is, because there are only X skills I can learn per level, and X is not a high number at all. I don't feel the need to increase my Ability level because there's nothing to use the additional skill slots on.

You dont need to remove the attribute requirements.
You need to add more requirements or make the existing ones harder for the master level spells.


I think most of you are drawing a bit wrong conclusions about that whole "invest one point into each school and have a lot of master level spells eventually" - thing.

Its not that easy and it doesnt work that fast in the game itself.
Because master level spells have really high requirements that demand you have played through a lot of the game to reach those levels and stats.

If anything - this issue is caused most of all by the new mechanic of being able to remove learned spells and replace them with any new one - rather then anything else.
- and maybe that can be limited in some way?

Maybe it isnt the best idea to allow players to change learned skills and spells like that, completely freely?

How about if you gate what level of spells can be - changed - depending on the level of points invested in the directly related skill or magic school?

So... someone who has only one point in warrior skills would be only able to switch skills of the "warrior level one" variety. Someone who invested only one point in the Pyromancy would be able to switch only the lowest level fire spells?

-edit-

I do mean that you would be limited in changing only a specific level of spells. Not limited in learning higher level spells.
You could learn them if you have the requirements - but you wouldnt be able to change the learned ones for new ones as easily and freely as now.




On the other hand - the specialized classes have a clear advantage in their own specialty over the hybrid classes. Anyone can see that in the game.

A specialist fighter is clearly, very obviously a much better fighter then any hybrid class.
And thats what specialization should cause and mean.


A specialist wizard clearly has much more and more powerful spells then the hybrids.

While both of these specialist builds can use higher level equipment specific for that build then hybrids can.
because hybrids have to spread their skill points all over spells, skills and attributes.

There are several spells and warrior skills that my Air-battle mage will never have, never reach the requirements for. At least in the beta. She may reach those requirements in the full game - but much, much later then Jahan or Madora will, being kept as specialists.

- Thats actually how things perform in the game itself - right now.

This doesnt mean some adjustments to the system should not be made - but this should be recognized by everyone engaged into this discussion.

I think we need them for weapons and armor but not for skills.

Not in the current build, at least for the low levels we play in the beta. My level 6 ranger has access to the same powerfull spells as my mage.


We need that again.

Really? Does he have the same number of spells as a wizard too?

How much access does that "ranger" have for ranger specific skills and equipment?
Does he have exact same Int stat as a wizard?

My Wayfarer doesnt and i dont see any way to achieve that without turning him completely into a wizard by completely disregarding ranger skills and stats.




Sorry... i didnt express myself correctly there. cant believe i didnt notice it right away, but i was tabbing around five different pages.

I wanted to propose limiting how many spells you can change too. Not just which ones you can learn.

So... if you could (theoretical thinking) learn some higher level spells - you would still be limited in changing them, replacing them in your spell book.

So... a Pyromancer or a Warrior with one single point invested could only change and shift the lowest level spells. (and that may be limited too to... 2 or 3 changes, for example)
While any higher level spells he was able to learn, because he meets the requirements - and because the game systems are meant to be more open - would be permanent.

You would be stuck with those - until you would invests more points into that specific skill-magic-whatever.



Which...if im right... would provide enough diversity for any hybrid build, it would allow you to pick and choose whatever mix you want - but specialized classes would have a bit of an advantage - IN THEIR OWN field of expertise.


While all other before mentioned mechanics such as lowering AP costs and cooldowns and others would also play a role.

Larian, why didn't you make a common sense system from the start ? Maybe starting simple, with basic mechanics, and expand them ? Now changing the system one month before release, while the issues have been known for such a long time. I feel so sad. Still hopefull, as I have always been, but sad.

Just about done with another play through. By far the best run through yet, combat is really diversified. I like this system overall better as well. Plenty of options. Filling 30 slots by level 5-6. Very impressed.

Alright, so after having played this to about level 7 now my thoughts are starting to formulate a bit better and here is my feedback:

There was concern about the previous skill advancement forcing people into thinking they had to stick to one set of skills, and hence, forcing people into a "class". I'm not sure the current scheme changes that much, it has mostly shifted from whence the incentive to do that comes. Now instead of skills driving your "class", it is your main stat. Since better skills are gated by level and main stat ability, the pressure of "I am a Ranger so I MUST learn all Ranger skills asap" has become "I am a Ranger so I MUST dump every stat point into dexterity or I won't learn the higher level skills I will need to make those skills worthwhile." We have a new class-based system and it is the strength class, the dexterity class, and the intelligence class.

For instance, this has made me wish that I never started with a Shadowblade. It is not really worth it to "dabble" in intelligence based Witchcraft when my other abilities are dexterity based. The reason why it hurts even more than before is because main stat increases come at a much slower pace than skill points, the latter of which come every level. Main stat allotments are too precious to spread out. It is much more effective now to have one of my intelligence based spellcasters invest a single, paltry skill point in Witchcraft and never have to worry about accessibility to higher level Witchcraft spells at the expense of others. They essentially come for free, given that my Wizard is walking around with 4 or 5 skill points he hasn't used and doesn't know what to do with them.

This predicament raised its ugly head especially so in the area outside the black cove with all the traps. In order to cast witchcraft spells, my shadowblade needed an intelligence of 7, which essentially took points away from perception, so no one in my party could do well detecting traps, etc. I've been playing since the beginning of the alpha and this was the first time I was tempted to rage quit the game. It wasn't very fun having my only recourse to cast a fireball spell before taking a step anywhere after the totems, wait for the cooldown, and repeat. Part of the problem is a lack of gear to raise perception. The gear seems very redundant right now. There are a hundred helmets and caps that I could buy to raise my perception by 1, and I have one now, but nothing available for purchase or coming from previous drops on other slots like gauntlets, boots, rings, or amulets.

In any case, I'm not suggesting we have to return to the old system and I'm not pretending that there were not some issues there as well. However, as far as the game being too easy with the old system, I think that is difficult to compare in like terms right now because, in my opinion, the increased difficulty now arises more from the improved enemy AI and adjusted loot distribution. My primary observation here is that the game continues to drive you into a particular class anyway due to the main stat requirements on skills and weapons, and this feels even less flexible because main stat allotments come at a slower pace than skill points.

Take the feedback for what it's worth, and I trust David and the rest of Larian to polish it up. Still love the game overall, and appreciate your continued work with the community to improve it.

I didn't play too much with the new build yet but I already can see that this system is better for me, because classless chars are my favorites.

A classless character has always its costs: you get more variable skills, but you can never get them so strong like a single-class character. Just like real life. And this would be fully ok, if everything else would fit better.

The amount of skill points is part of balancing, so I think they make balancing mainly for single-class characters and they let a little extra room for classless as well. If they give too much extra points to help classless, they assist single-class characters to get overpowered. Not to speak about other balancing issues...

So there is a need of fine-tuning here and I think it will be better on release but it seems to be a very difficult task.
Cheers!

I checked the attributes carefully for the first time today, and I didn't see any mention of "Lowers AP costs".

So I checked it out for myself. I made a Warrior with 5, 7 and 10 Strength, and the tooltips showed no difference in AP cost. I tried with a Ranger with 7 and 10 DEX. Same deal, no difference in AP cost. I went for a Wizard. No AP cost difference even with 6 and 11 INT. I did note that the 11 INT Wizard had 1 turn faster cooldowns.

Well, THERE'S something that the Skill specializations could do: Levels 2 to 5 could reduce the AP cost for that school's skills by 1. (Maybe Rank 5 could reduce it by 2.) Wouldn't that make a difference in skill specializations?

***

Before the patch, you used to get 1 AP reduction with every two points into STR/DEX (INT worked differently), and primary attributes cap at 15, so that's 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 - a total of 5 points.

If that was changed to the Abilities:

Skill Specialization

Rank 1

• Enables use of this school's skills
• 3 Skill limit

Rank 2

• Total of -1 AP
• 5 Skill limit

Rank 3

• Total of -2 AP
• 7 Skill limit

Rank 4

• Total of -3 AP
• 9 Skill limit

Rank 5

• Total of -5 AP
• NO Skill limit

You'd still end up with the maximum -5 AP reduction, and that provides a benefit for specialization.

Example: You have two high rank skills from Earth and Fire, and they each have the same level requirement and same INT requirement, and the same base AP cost of 11.

If your Fire specialization is Rank 5 and your Earth specialization is Rank 1, then even though you can use both of the skills, you clearly get a benefit from specializing into fire, because the AP cost is much lower.

(Obviously of course, there should be a minimum AP cost for skills (different for each skill) so it won't get too overpowered.)

Some skills have 4 or 5 base AP cost so they would cost 0 ?

Should better be a percentage.
-10% to AP per level
+10% to effects per level

Of course the base AP cost of high level skills should be higher to compensate.

This is enough to make specialization usefull.

Then lower the level requirements by 1 or 2, and maybe increase the attribute requirements by 1.
This way a specialist can have access to higher skills. He will be capped by his level while other classes will be capped by the attribute.

No. Obviously, there should be a minimum AP skills would cost. Preferably one which can be set for individual skills.

Weapon-required skills currently always cost at least what it takes to swing the weapon (they probably should cost a minimum of what it takes to swing the weapon +1, but that's just my opinion).



Yeah, something like this sounds good. +X% to effects may not affect all skills, but it should affect enough to be useful.

It depends on how what variable type Larian uses to store AP, but I suspect it's an integer, not a float and so I don't think there is such a thing as 1/10th of an AP. Earlier I did suggest -10% cooldown each for Ranks 2 and 4, which seemed to make sense given that there were some skills that cost 10-20 AP, and I suggested a minimum of 1 turn cooldown reduction there.

I do not know what the AP cost is, but I think the range is also unlikely to go much past 20 AP, which is why I also suggest a minimum of -1 AP per ability rank - because a 10% AP reduction is unlikely to be noticed on most skills.

I agree that if AP cost reduction becomes part of the School bonuses, the AP costs for the skills will have to increase for most to all skills.

I agree with lowering the level requirements for a lot of skills as well. That would make the "X skills maximum per ability level" mean more than it does now.

I don't agree with increasing the attribute requirements, they already look pretty steep. Plus, you only get one attribute point every TWO LEVELS, so increasing the attribute requirements would be very restrictive as to your build, and it would cancel out the point of lowering the level requirement.

Skill Specialization


Rank 1

• Enables use of this school's skills
• 3 Skill limit

- no skill changes allowed.


Rank 2

• Total of -1 AP
• 5 Skill limit

- 2 skill changes allowed. single change. Lowest requirement level skills only.


Rank 3

• Total of -2 AP
• 7 Skill limit

- change 3 skills. single change. Next requirement level skills only.


Rank 4

• Total of -3 AP
• 9 Skill limit

- change 4 skills - single change. Next Rq level.


Rank 5

• Total of -5 AP
• NO Skill limit

- change 5 skills - single change. Any Rq level.



How about this addition?
All of these of course refer to changing skills of that single .. err, skill. Type of elemental magic or warrior, rogue, ranger skill.

Basically, changing skills - instead of being freely available, would correspond to invested points, would be dependent on the requirement levels for those skills. How many times you would be able to change those skills would increase the more points you invest into a single skill.

Just allowing all skills to be changed whenever and however many times someone wants may seem "nice" at first superficial look, but it actually has negative consequences on the gameplay.

The core mechanics of RPGs all depend on each other, and balance each other.
So, such an option, without being connected to or balanced by any mechanic of the game being enabled freely, without any cost, constraints or interdependency with any other game mechanic - actually cannot work very well.

Personally, I think there are better ways to balance it than a system which has fairly arbitrary and certainly confusing rules about changing skills. What do you even mean by "2 skill changes allowed. single change"? "5 skill changes allowed. single change"

As in one time and one time only (barring increasing the ability), you can change up to two skills?

EDIT: No, wait, is the idea that you can change one skill and one skill only up to 5 times?

It just seems to be very inflexible, which seems to be going against the intent of the changes made in this version.

I disagree that your method is the best or only way to balance the system. It is way, way too restrictive. It's more of an intent to punish players than to balance the game. I'd much prefer the old system to it.

Man, that was joust a rough example. Not a word of god.


What i actually meant is that at rank two, you would have 5 skills and be able to change two of those skills - limited to those of the lowest requirements (level) - once.
Not any skills, however times you like.

At level, or rank 3 you would be able to change three skills, out of seven you have. Not all of them, not a gazillion times - but only once.


- And i meant that only as a very general example - just to get the idea across.
I would expect, naturally that most of you would start crying and demanding more then that.
For free.

My suggestion is different because it would alow "more of that" but it would not be free.
You would get "more of that" by investing points into that skill.

THE SAME as you invest points into that skill to get reductions of AP cost, instead of just getting it for free - or more correctly put - for nothing.

The rules are vague and require a great deal of explanation, they do not make sense in an easily understandable way (why only change x skills out of your maximum? why only once?).

Those rules would fit maybe in more of a short rogue-like which you can repeatedly play to completion very quickly than in a 50-hour long RPG like D:OS. Of note is the fact that D:OS has only a finite amount of XP, you can't grind forever to gain more levels to get points to reallocate your skills - not that it matters if you've reached max in an ability level, because if you've reached ability max and reallocated your skills, that's it, you can't do anything else.

It discourages trying different skills together and see if they work for the build. It discourages experimentation. It discourages playing around. This system, in essence, goes against the spirit of the game.

Yes, it is different, but "different" is not an automatic point in its favour. Different can be a bad thing. It is not at all the same as the other ideas, because you have a bizarre, arbitrary "you can change these skills one time only, the end" rule.


EDIT: The problem from before was that specialists were encouraged too much. The problem now is the opposite - specialists get very little benefit at all from specializing.

Your idea doesn't really address the core issue of "how to make a system work for both generalists and specialists without unbalancing both". It goes off on a side track to solve a problem that does not exist, and it creates a system which is bad for everyone, but notably less bad for specialists.

You still don't understand how tricky for balance this -AP thing can be, do you ? Weapon swings cost 3 and 4 AP, and you want to give -5AP bonus ?

And the core issue is this:

Prevent access to higher level: make attributes limitation. PLayer will need STR 10 or 12 or whatever to use some very heavy blow technique.

Reward specialisation: make attribute limitation. The more STR specialized/focused a player will be, the more access he will have to high STR specialized skills.

Abilities, if they are not removed, can still be used as they are, giving arbitrary slots to the player, although I am against it because it doesn't make any sense, just arbitrary limitation.

What is the core concern here? Just made level 7 and this team simply laugh at everything:

BattleMage (Mix Warrior/Fire/Witch)

Enchanter - All Schools unlocked

Jaha - All Schools unlocked

Madora - Added Dex to make he War/Marksman

Each has 10-20 skill options each move.

Teleport is powerful.

Summons is powerful.

Maximizing AP and AP recovery makes players very powerful.

I love the options, but the AI has to throw more at me. That said playing normal, will be starting hard soon.

I think the system is plenty good, the AI just has to be more powerful.