Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Items that cannot be upgraded in Divinity: OS

The AP bar thing isn't quite obvious. It's deducible, I'll give you that much. But I think I was about level 4 or 5 on my first playthrough before I realized what it actually was and what it meant. I thought we were supposed to track available AP in our heads, which is totally doable using the character sheet but a little memory-intensive. It wasn't until a battle involving an oil barrel spilling on my characters (thankfully not ignited) that I noticed the difference.

And in terms of crafting, I read the recipe books and knew crafting existed, but I had no idea how to actually do it until I was multiple rerolls in.

This is a game with a lot of puzzles in it, and when it comes to those, I'm totally against holding the player's hand more. The UI itself shouldn't be one of those puzzles. There are some things which are truly obvious, but some things aren't. I'm also a tutorial minimalist -- really! -- but this doesn't mean I'm anti-tutorial. I believe in them, fiercely; I just believe they should be made as brief as humanly possible. I'm not talking about a slow walkthrough where you need to click multiple boxes as the game goes over everything as if you're an idiot. I'm talking about quick, painless explanations of simple things which can be missed otherwise.

One additional sentence added to a dialogue box which already pops up; one second of showing an item dragged onto another item and the crafting dialogue popping up. That's it. Maybe three seconds total of added "tutorial," because important second of the crafting demonstration might need a little bit of setup.

I think your key block here is that you realize the "issue is between the keyboard and the chair" and you immediately assume the game is explaining things enough. I'm not debating that Sherlock Holmes wouldn't need more tutorial; of course he wouldn't. But is it an "issue" that I'm not Sherlock Holmes? "Between keyboard and chair" doesn't mean everything is "obvious" and that the game shouldn't help the players out in certain occasions. Not everything is supposed to be a puzzle.