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

This has been my issue with my first run through and my concerns with difficulty. I didn't know how a fight would be played out and what abilities enemies would use. Often I would resort to summoning something and hoping it could just soak up all the damage and CC. This of course, led to many reloads trying to deal with individual fights.

This is not an enjoyable experience for a new player. In the example of eating an apple beforehand, there is nothing in the game to indicate this would help in a fight. Why should a new player be expected to associate apple with poison resistance?

I'm not opposed to making a challenging game. I just think a player can be eased into combat a little more gently. Taking a poisoncloud arrow to the face in your second or third fight for half or more of your HP before you can do anything is terrifying.



I think your thoughts here Stabbey are spot on. But it is always difficult for developers to find the right balance of hand-holding and independence. I believe the tutorial area can use a little expanding and clarification. I'd have to run through it again to get specifics, but I missed a lot on my first go through, and I'm not particularly new to these sorts of games. If I missed things or didn't understand something, I'm sure many more players will experience the same.

So I will assume I am spot on too, because this is exactly what I am trying to say. You are spot on, JoeBart ^^




This post above is from Ellary, in another thread.
Nicely said, people. Godammit fanboyz, is it THAT hard to understand ?
I was in the game a few minutes ago. Guess what? Raze was kindly holding hands to some player, giving them hints about quests. I have an atrocious feeling that this situation is gonna be happening all the time. But maybe it's what the devs are aiming for.

That wasn't my argument. Of course getting to pick your starting weapon would be better (and if skill selection is in, so should weapon selection). Not having that option, though, wouldn't be a big deal for most people.




A couple people agree with you, which means a lot of people probably had the same experience, so you must be right.
A couple people disagree with you, but nobody else has had the same experience, because obviously they are just fanboyz.
Makes sense.


You mean like all the walkthroughs, FAQs, strategy guides and help forums, etc, that have been created for pretty much every game?

Any particular person having trouble with a particular part of the game doesn't mean the game design is bad, or necessarily needs to be adjusted (excluding bugs, of course, this being a beta). There is no way to design a non-trivial game to make sure everything is obvious to everyone.

Regarding the start equipment issue:

Gyson, I agree with you that it would be nice to be able to pick your starting equipment. However, I do not think that it is such a big deal if it is not in. I think that a new player (who has never played D:OS before and has an average experience with RPGs) will not as a rule completely customize their character but rather just pick up a provided preset. (As a side note I think I remember that in Neverwinter Nights you were explicitly warned against customizing your character as a new player because so "the game could become much harder" or something like this). So, a deep customization is probably interesting to hardcore RPG players or for people who already have a certain experience with D:OS - and in that case they will probably know how hard/easy it is to find a suitable equipment during the game.

So, in summary: It is a nice-to-have feature but certainly nothing game-breaking if it is not in.

You are right, I got a little overzealous. Three doesn't make a player base. Neither does A handfull of fanboyz having played the game since the alpha.

You have this point.

Well, I am dumb, you are luminous. Game is great, just a few bug hunting here and there, and everything will be perfect. Nice

Cromcrom, are you incapable of understanding any kind of nuance, or do you just refuse to believe anyone can have a legitimate opinion that differs from yours?

Probably both. And are you capable of acknowledging facts ?
You are the one who mentionned inventories, while I was talking about shop, opinion or fact?
All human people you can speak to in the beta so far have a trading icon. Opinion or fact ?
Some of them have nothing to trade, like 0 gold and 0 items. Opinion or fact ?
All people player meet between starting area and Arhu have at most 2 to 4 items to trade. Opinion, or fact ?
Arhu have a lot of items to trade, compared to them. Opinion or fact ?
Beside the fact that there is this trading icon, nothing, in its environment, or speech, hints the player that he has a bunch of items to trade: icon is the same, environment is the same (auto speech when you get close, in the middle of a bridge, just like bibius), speech is only a quest and introduction speech, that never mentions trading at any point. Opinion or fact ?

I don't care about your nuance or "legitimate" opinions, really. I try to prove my opinions with facts. There is no believing facts, there is just checking them.

Okay Larian. drop everything: Arhu needs a big huge cart blocking the entrance to the harbour ASAP, because after a whopping 5 NPC's, only two of which had names, players now have it fixed in their minds permanently that all NPC's only have a few possible things to trade. Yes, by the time they leave the beach and prepare to enter the harbour, they have completely given up on the idea that anyone has anything interesting to trade.

So to fix this, Arhu needs a big huge cart with him that is where he is keeping his stuff. But hmmm... no that won't do. People are used to cart's as decorations, and they won't associate the cart with Arhu. So there should be a big flashing magic sign which says "Arhu's store, open for business".

Oh damn... they won't be able to see the cart very well, because of the conversation. There needs to be an audio component. Some kind of looping sound clip proclaiming "This is Arhu's store! He sells things! Lots of things!".

And just to be safe, Arhu should mention that he has things for sale every three sentences in his dialogue. Then when the dialogue is over, Arhu will ask them "are you sure you don't want to buy anything?" "Are you really sure?" (the player has to confirm twice in case they misclicked the first time. Then and only then, he can hop on his cart and it'll lift off like a rocket and take him back to his atelier.

So, this is a picture of Arhu's trade window when I ran into him for the first time at the Cyseal gate.



Lots of mage weapons that my non-mage characters had zero interest in.

I'm aware that the inventory is random, and the results for each player are going to be different. That is actually precisely why (when debating the option of being able to choose our starting equipment) it's ridiculous to argue that Arhu has better equipment that makes the starting equipment obsolete. Because there is no guarantee of what you're going to be able to find on a vendor thanks to RNG.

I think it's also a bit presumptuous to expect every player to be willing to throw down their gold at the first few vendors they meet. Some of us are a little more.. miserly, and try to make our gear stretch as long as possible between "free" upgrades. That starting weapon someone erroneously insists is pointless might be a weapon that I end up using for several levels. Better, then, that I can actually pick the exact type of weapon I want to start with.

Inventories are shops. The shop is the inventory. Sometimes there is some cosmetics stuff surrounding an NPC that is a merchant, and there is a nice interaction that trying to pick up an item on display there will have the merchant ask if you are interested in buying that item.

Most NPCs can be traded with. I didn't check all. What difference does that make? Arhu is very, very obviously an important and non-generic NPC, and nobody should expect him to have the inventory of a generic NPC, even if you wouldn't necessarily assume he would have a full merchant type inventory.

Opinions can not be proven with facts, or anything else. You can justify or support an opinion with facts, but that does not make it not an opinion. You don't seem to have a clear understanding of the distinction between opinions and facts.

@Raze: sure. You made definitive points, as always. Several posts just for this that you perfectly summary:

That was the point of my "demonstration".

@Stabbey: I know, it's hard to admit: "well, indeed, Arhu doesn't look like he is the first person with a lot of items to trade you come across in the game.". Fanboys will never change.
And about carts, according to some movies, even Gandalf is moving around in a cart sometimes, at least when he can't put all of his fireworks in his pockets ^^. I know its irrelevant, because DoS blah blah.

And for me, the even saddest part is that my opinion is that trading with Arhu is really not that important, and we all wasted some precious time and energy on it, because there are other much more important matters.

I had a thought o.o and I hate to bring it up again~ but the toolkit can easily change starting equipment I am sure. Also remember there will be player mods.

Larian has offered us so much! much more then I had expected~ a beautiful game world, character creation options and they are even giving us a toolkit!

On release I will be tackling the toolkit and if anyone needs simple start gear changes, I will be more then happy to do so.

My point is not that "Arhu clearly looks like a merchant with lots of things to trade".

My point is that your premise, which is: 'there is a problem with Arhu not looking like a merchant with lots of things to trade' - is dumb.

It is a dumb premise because Arhu is the 6th friendly NPC you can meet, the first one with a distinctive design, the second/third one to force dialogue, everything about Arhu's first impression screams "THIS GUY IS IMPORTANT." Basically no one is going to not trade with Arhu because "the five generic guys I traded with earlier had nothing interesting, so this unique guy must not have anything interesting either."

The Source Hunters start with magic pockets, so a wizard having access to his inventory remotely isn't that far-fetched a concept for the Divinity universe. It does not matter at all that a new player does not know that Arhu is a teleporting cat wizard BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT HE IS. Some of the town's villains do not look like villains on first impression - but they are.

So again: Your premise is dumb.

I would just correct Stabbey and Joebart on the matter of apples and some kind of great experience with the game.

I started playing OS much later then Stabbey, two versions of Beta ago. Or more like one since the beta got updated a few days after i started with the first version of it.

As a matter of fact, i didnt have any idea that Apples were giving poison resistance, before all this Stabbey criticism of the poison cloud arrows started.
He was writing he was dying very quickly, being one-shoted and frustratingly party wiped in one turn - while i was going through those same fights at the time, without those problems, except occasionally loosing one of the team who i would quickly resurrect so he doesnt miss on the XP.

That was at worst.
Myguys would get damaged, but not killed and they were able to walk out of those clouds.
While i always tried to keep the party positions very spread around.

Still, this made me curious and i went looking whats so different about my characters.

And then i saw what effect apples have.
Which was just one part of it - since im almost always using Earth magic and almost always have various parts of equipment that provide some protection from poison or Earth magic types of damage - which poison is.

In the current release, the vendors have too many items with poison resistance through the start. Almost all boots, helmets and those... things you put on the hands are mostly poison resistant.
And thats the whole story of my supposed huge experience with the game.

Plus, of course, JoeBart should remember the Snowhite.

Well, what I wanted to prove is that:


So ok, he is a powerfull wizard/trader/whatever, people will automatically trade with him in hope of getting better gear during his auto started and teleporting end of speech, my premise is dumb, blah blah blah.

Feeling better, fanboy ?
Can we move on, now ?

Quick time out - can you guys please either use quotes, or @name, or "Hey, Bob.." to indicate exactly who you're replying to? I have all these people with the "Re: Gyson" label over their posts who are actually responding to someone else.

I'm like "Why is Stabbey yelling at me about carts? I never mentioned carts..?" Heh.

Ellary, I'm hesitant to accept the toolkit as a "fix" for any problem (unless it really can't/won't be fixed by the developers) because the truth is we simply don't know the impact or restrictions of using the editor. We don't know if it can even be used on the main campaign or if that content is "locked", or if using it to alter the main campaign will have repercussions (like disabling Steam achievements (if there are even going to be any Steam achievements, that is)), etc.

So, yes, the editor is a possible solution, it's just that we don't know if using it to fix one problem will end up introducing problems of a different nature.

I agree that Larian is offering us a lot and a beautiful game world, though, and am anxious for release.

Sounds to me Hiver that you simply stumbled upon the benefits of apples by sheer dumb luck; and not your thoughtful experimentation with the game as you have insinuated in the past. Don't take that to be an insult, it is not meant to be. Were you eating the apples as a way to restore HP mid fight and happened to notice at that time they were giving you a poison resistance benefit?

If that is the case, I don't see how you can expect a new player to stock up on apples to deal with a somewhat difficult fight. The game really doesn't do anything to imply that a skeleton archer might use poison arrows. Nor does it do anything to imply zombie enemies will deal poison damage, splash it around when hit, and be healed from poison.

Because of that, in my first few battles I wiped quite a bit. Early game there is little a player can do to alleviate poison damage/status effects other than resistances. In my playthrough, I could not find a cure poison spell or potion early on. I had a scroll, but a one use scroll is not of much use when you're facing the same dilemma in the next battle.

I further think it is a little strange to have enemies capable of inflicting so many status effects so early in the game. In a level 4-5 fight, I was dealing with freezing, paralysis (shock), fire, poison and knockdown. I'm not saying enemies shouldn't be able to do this. What I'm saying is a player should introduced to these concepts somewhat slowly, and the difficulty can ramp up later in the game when the player has the knowledge and means to deal with multiple status effects from enemies. Pacing is extremely important to not only educate the player, but also to introduce new and exciting game concepts as the player progresses.

I would also like to clarify for you Hiver, I do not think the game should be simple or easy. A complex system adds longevity to a game and allows players a deep and satisfying game. A challenging game gives a player a sense of accomplishment and wonder. But one thing a game should not do is dump so much onto a new player early on that they become overwhelmed. This is especially true for a "normal" difficulty level which is what the vast majority of players will play.

If you want special black ops skeletors coming at your face at level 2, flinging fireballs, poison darts, summoning spiders and ancient dragons, save that for the masochistic difficulty. On a normal setting, allow the player the luxury of experiencing the game and getting lost in a beautiful world.

I completely agree.

It does mention how food heals and can have other effects in a tutorial popup. You're supposed to eat all and try (cheese comes pre-identified apparently though). As class-A hoarder however I obviously didn't listen to do so :p

Ones you know the bonus they will always show, so it's not that hard to expect people to know what bonusses food gives.