Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Choosing starting equipment during chr creation?

I so much agree here, this is a very leggit and valuable point.
I tried the Arhu thing to buy shields. Great, it "works". Now, will the newcomer have the wits to start trading with ahru, or go through the convo, until arhu automatically disapears ? And I clicked on Ahru trading, and checked it. I am sorry, I couldn't help laughing. That Ahru guy is really taking his shop with him, isn't he ^^. Or its that "squeeze the whole shop into my pocket" spell. Yeah, I know, fantasy setting.
Mood braker. No sense. Just like so many other features and story elements, not counting bugs.
I am all for "educating players". But I am also for having proper teachers, which we don't have here. Sometimes, you need to "hold hand" a little bit to educate.
Of course your gonna start trading with Arhu, it is obvious the guy is a trader, and has many things to sell. You know what ? My ass. Again.

Would you get rid of the player's inventory, as well as Arhu's? They both make exactly as much sense.

Why does everyone have to know everything about the game the first time they play it, and not have to actually figure anything out? While it is certainly possible to miss the trade icon (especially if someone had never played a Divinity game before), it isn't that hard to find, either.

Two points.
- If you check Arhu's trade inventory when he is first met, it doesn't look like a "speaker" or "citizen" inventory, or "soldier" inventory you can talk to, before reaching him (bibius and the other one), which only have a few items, not this big bunch of stuff. It really looks like a shop keeper inventory, like you can find near, well, most shops.

- Player inventory doesn't make any sense. I don't know if weight limitations is even added yet. Piling crates in your inventory, bringing along piles or armors and weapons is a stupid mood breaker for me.

Sure, I am all for that. In a "make sense" system and coherent world, it is not a problem. This is Larian fantasy unbalanced and buggy world, and new players will probably get very disoriented in this special world. I mean, sometimes, things happen, you don't know if it is a "feature" or a bug...

Well, feel free to make a mod that eliminates the player's inventory. I'm sure there are a couple people somewhere just waiting for realistic size and weight limits in RPGs, because being able to carry loot just doesn't make sense.



So if people ignore the message box that comes up pointing out how they can trade with NPCs, how much extra hand holding is required?

I won't, that would be stupid.

I am sadly one of them, to some extend.

Really ? I think it does.


Ok, my bad. I sure can. What I say is that Arhu, when you first meet him, doesn't look like a shop keeper to me. Moreover, the convo starts and ends almost automatically, quite urging the player to move along. So maybe it won't strike player that this guy is holding a shop in its pockets.

And tell me, what is strength weight limit used for ? I am really genuinely curious.
If you can have this piling of stuff in your inventory, why bother having this "feature" ? Another design inconsistency, so far.

Whatever. Game's perfect. Never mind.

You're a little late regarding the weight limit issue ; it's been discussed a year ago. Search the archive.

I agree, the teleporting, cat-polymorphing guy's inventory is just too unrealistic. Who does he think he is, a wizard? Bending the laws of time and space all willy-nilly?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in the tavern and I just need to use my magic pockets to send my teleporter pyramid to my partner who is sitting in jail in his underwear and does not have any pockets.

I also am looking forward to the mod which makes all weapons and armour weigh 90, to simulate how unwieldy their bulk would be to carry in a pack, so you can only carry one of them in your inventory, and have to drop anything else you're carrying. I look forward to spending many quality hours in D:OS carting one item at a time back to town.

Right, so the inventory doesn't make sense, but it would be stupid to use realistic limits and carrying more loot than is realistic is fine.


So when you were complaining above about Arhu taking his whole shop with him and using a '"squeeze the whole shop into my pocket" spell', that had nothing to do with the inventory, but with not looking like a shopkeeper... whatever that is?
Ya, that makes sense.

I think you are complaining for the sake of complaining.

When you first meet Arhu, you don't know that he is a teleporting and cat-polymorphing merchant I am supposed to trade with if I want some decent stuff to start the game with. Looks more like a half naked wizard to me, fanboy. And when you realize he is teleporting around, well, its too late, because he just did it.
This is my point.
Your fanboyism is really blinding, is it not ?

Still no answer, I guess it is so difficult : Do weight have an effect on speed in this beta build ? If yes, fine. If no, don't bother, and remove it altogether. I know it's a tricky and hard one.

And I forgot, DOS is more a Hack n Slash where you must collect all loot you can, and sell it, than a proper even remotely "realistic" RPG. My bad.

And Stabbey, don't ever play my mods, they are hard, they try to make sense, they are freaking full of world interactions, and I try to offer the players great satisfaction in growing not only in power, but also in possibilities. You would hate them, really.



No Raze, what I am saying is that you must not expect new players to automatically trade with Arhu when they will first meet him, as hiver was suggesting above. For the reasons I mentionned. Actually, its you that came with that inventory thing, but the occasion was too nice to not rant about this unfinished and unbalanced feature (if what I think is right, because I still have no answer yet as if carried weight has an effect on anything, because I may very well be wrong here).

edit: well, never mind, I will check this myself. Piling crates is not that hard.

edit again: Stabbey, don't bother me when I ask for proper cyseal map marking, because it would be unrealistic, and make the game too easy, when you ask to carry the whole town objects in your backpack for free.

Divine Divinity had a nice weight-based inventory system in my opinion. It was flexible enough so that my character did not have to run into town every five seconds because she could not carry anymore items but it was still restrictive enough that my wizard could not carry 10 battle axes with her at a time (at least when she was still low level).

I am pretty much sure that the inventory weight balance is still getting adjusted in D:OS.

What one learns early on is to hit the trade button on every conversation to take a peek. Mt favorites are bosses. As you talk before the big fight, you have the classic "plans" talk but then click the trade button and... "Hey before we fight? Would you like to trade pins? Sure! Thought you'd never ask." trade items. It's funny you can do it, but also interestingly enough refreshing.

I hit STR based Weight limit (mining is very heavy), works as one would assume. Now if one agrees with item weights that is another thing. To me the weights, carry capacity balanced with convenience and fun seem close enough to right there.

YES when you go over capacity you can no longer run.

I checked, indeed, I was wrong, because you are reduced to walking when overburdened. That's great . I was carrying maybe more than 20 barrels and crates and baskets in my inv, but this could very easily be fixed. So, fine .
I would really go for a little bit more realism considering this issue, but well, we have a nice RPG feature here, now for some polishing.

With a trade icon in the dialog box. Which apparently you don't think anyone can figure out.



Why, for thinking most people can figure out how to trade? If not in the first encounter with Arhu, then a subsequent one.



I don't expect new players to trade with Arhu, nor are they required to. Some will, some won't.



No, my post was responding you saying that Arhu having a shop with him (you know, his inventory) was laughable, a mood breaker and made no sense. You were specifically taking about the inventory, not that he didn't look like some stereotypical shopkeeper, which is what I responded to.
Later you said the "fantasy setting. Mood braker. No sense." thing you meant was that an NPC with the inventory of a shop keeper can not look like what you think a shop keeper should look like, rather than having the entire shop with him.

Yeah, I'm just a total fanboy, every single thing I post is sucking up to the devs and saying everything in the entire game is perfect and doesn't need changing at all. I have offered literally zero pieces of criticism and all my posts are attacking anyone who dares to criticize anything about the game. I definitely did not make a thread listing over 40 complaints and issues (and counting), not me. I am a mindless fanboy.


Cromcrom's definition of "fanboy" apparently is in its entirety: "does not agree with every single opinion Cromcrom has".

@Raze: re read my post #496224. Closely. And quote me when I wrote "inventory", please, because I can't see it.
Great, we both agree on this one

Actually, I would have thought that the huge shopkeeper inventory would make sense if the guy was close to his shop, or at least the place where he keeps all his belongings. This place is not obvious when you meet Arhu, because you actually never met shop keepers at that time, only guys with a few items, and arhu doesn't look very different in this prospect, so I am not expecting him to have such a complete panel of items to trade.
And it might be some kind of "opinion", because he has, when you meet him there, the same panel of items he has when you meet him Inside his laboratory.
Anyways if you still don't get it, I am starting to doubt it's my fault.


@Stabbey, lol, you hate it when people call you fanboy, don't you ^^. Relax, I admit I am actually trolling you a little bit on this one, because I perfectly know you are doing the proper amount of criticism when you think its needed ^^
But anyways, you are still blind.

I just want to jump in here and explain something. Earlier I pointed out that Hiver's criticism is flawed and irrelevant, and there are multiple reasons for that:

1) For example, he brought up Arhu selling shields at the city gate. Well, Arhu's inventory is randomized, and there is not always a shield available for sale. For example, in the game I have Arhu sells a lot of cloth gear, staffs, and magic books. No shields.

2) Upon starting a game, a new player might say this: "I'm trying to customize my character and can't seem to select my starting equipment. Am I doing this wrong or does this game just suck?"

What a new player will definitely not say is this: "I'm trying to customize my character and can't seem to select my starting equipment. But that's ok, because even though I've never played this game before my ability to see the future has shown me that there's going to be a sword available in a crate before the orc-fight, and I can always check Arhu and the other vendors for gear when I arrive at the city, which I somehow know will be shortly after starting. Thank goodness for my mutant superpower of precognition, or else this whole starting equipment situation might have proved vexing!"

You see, Hiver's argument is largely from the perspective of a player who has played Divinity : OS many times, who knows where to go to obtain what and roughly when it can be obtained. And that's fine and dandy, but completely not helpful. Because this is not knowledge a new player has or should be expected to have, and so it's silly to argue what the game eventually provides in time for a problem that players will run into immediately at character creation.

All interactable citizens/shop keepers/whatever have a trade icon, even if they have absolutely nothing to trade. So the Trade icon doesn't mean you can trade, it is a built in permanent convo feature. And Ahru's conversation, I checked, never, at any points, hints you toward trading with him. Or so it seems to me.
I back Gyson 100% on this one.

Cromcrom;
You talked about Arhu's inventory, even if you didn't use that word, and said the situation made no sense. Like I said above, I took that to be referring to the inventory itself, and replied on that basis, and after that you clarified what it was that didn't make sense to you.

Personally, I think it makes no sense to be fine with an NPC carrying around a shop's worth of stuff, but only if he looks a certain way.


Gyson;
Every RPG I've ever played has either provided a weapon at the start (possibly with a choice) or made weapons available very early (from loot, conversations, quests or trade, etc). Expecting some kind of upgrade option relatively early doesn't take any kind of clairvoyance.

If I start an RPG and can not customize any aspect of the character, then I simply can not customize that at the start of the game. It doesn't necessarily mean I missed anything, or that the game sucks.

Too many times, Hiver comes at issues by essentially saying "why aren't players doing this obvious thing that I with a crapton of experience know how to do".

For example, Hiver said that poisoncloud arrows weren't a problem if people just ate apples ahead of time. It's apparently the player's fault if they didn't immediately experiment and eat all the different foodstuffs they could find in Cyseal, and somehow they're supposed to know before time that a specific archer would use poisoncloud arrow on their first turn, so they should know to eat an apple before. His advice may be correct, but it requires knowledge and experience that a first-time player won't have. That's expecting too much of a player.


Cromcrom sometimes tends towards treating the player as a complete dunce and not being able to figure out anything on their own.

Sign-posts giving directions to places (and the pointer on the compass making it clearer which way north is), signs outside of buildings saying what they are, map markers for buildings filling out automatically as you enter, that's just impossible for anyone to figure out or use. Clicking on things which highlight? Too hard. This does not mean I am against the idea of asking NPC's for the locations of things, which mark your map. I am not. That is a good idea. Nothing wrong with it.

Apparently it's expecting too much of players to read the tutorial pop-up mentioning trading, or to see the big red button and click it with this clearly important NPC who has a distinctive design and forces conversation. Apparently Arhu's dialogue has to include a "you can trade with me" option or else no one will ever know you can trade with him. That's expecting too little of a player.

Well, I'm not suggesting anyone is concerned they'll be stuck with their starting weapons forever. I am saying that new players will have no firsthand knowledge of exactly when an upgrade will come along. Heck, when I started Blackguards I didn't get to upgrade one of my character's starting weapons until hours into the game. For the longest time I was stuck clubbing opponents with a torch. We shouldn't expect a new player to know that Divinity : OS will be any different, or that they will have had the same gaming experiences as you or I. New gamers are coming along every day, and Divinity : OS may even be their first RPG experience.

I just don't feel that "you get a better weapon eventually, so who cares if you can pick your starting equipment during character customization" is a solid argument. And, I also feel that when using a classless system to allow players to completely customize their character, you should go all the way and extend that to starting equipment. Of course, as Hiver mentioned to me:


..so, take my feelings on customizable starting equipment with a grain of salt.

As for the topic on weight and inventory space that seems to have sprung up, I agree that this game does it unrealistically, but at the same time the gamer in me is at the end of his rope when it comes to spending my playtime managing inventory space/weight. I'm just tired of the hassle/headache and ready for all games to offer unlimited space (even though it's unrealistic). Blackguards was particularly harsh when it came to encumbrance, but at least it didn't do it in half measures like Skyrim (which managed to be annoyingly limiting *and* yet still unrealistic at the same time).

Anyway, everyone (in general) should maybe take a deep breath. While Hiver has certainly set the bar for ugliness in this thread, there's no reason for everyone to start taking pot shots at everyone else over these topics. We all obviously just want the game to be the best it can be, which should be more hug-worthy than troll-worthy.