Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Thoughts on single player experience

I don't know why you think we'll be stuck with the 3 companions we escape from. They might just be in our party, while the others make their own party and escape and we find them later on.

Well, I don't know for sure, but isn't that supposed how MP works? I mean if every companion can at every time be taken over by a real person by drop-in MP isn't that companion automatically always the same person.

Just think about following situation. A group of four real persons start a campaign in DOS 2 together: each of those is creating their own character. Then, after some time one of the four has no time to play and the rest of them continue with an "AI bot companion". Do you really think it's possible that the people are then able to dispose that character then, replacing him by a new, random/predefined one? I guess the missing player will be delighted to find out that the character he created is gone... Same scenario with one player starting alone though, having his game open for drop-in MP.

That's also the reason why I'm so heavily opposed to the idea of drop-in/drop-out MP, even if you want to play the game completely alone, from beginning to end. The game is still riffled by the same basic design no matter what, at least in DOS 1. The only thing Larian changed for that was that they enabled predefined traits for the "AI bot" that was called your "2nd main character" at release. And all they plan for DOS 2 is to replace these predefined traits with a fully fledged out origin story aka backstory. The rest will very likely just work the same like in DOS 1, now with four PCs that can bcome AI bots if you play alone (which doesn't make them real companions in any strech of the traditional sense of the word in traditional CRPG design).

So maybe I'm all wrong but then again I'd be very curious to know how SP was supposed to work, given the still existing possibility of drop-in/drop-out MP. With the existing basic design of DOS 1 multiple companions for DOS 2 is imo pretty much impossible...

That's only your very own definition, not more not less.

For me personally, RPGs are all about choices and decisions, which includes both narrative and gameplay ones. I know the tendency of many to reduce that all to combat but I don't agree at all with that. In many RPGs narrative decisions are as important or even more important than combat (with Witcher being the best example). That's also the reason why Witcher is imo more an RPG than many others on your list - and a reason why DOS fell short for many in terms of being a fully fledged out RPG.

It looks like you are fishing for reasons to be contrarian :p RPGs aren't about the story, nor C&C (Spec Ops: the Line had a marvelous story and choices, yet it's a third-person shooter), it's the menu-driven combat that separates RPGs from other genres. That's what they are, genres aren't what we personally define them as - a sonata is always a sonata and an FPS is always an FPS, regardless if you think that it's a minuet and a turn-based strategy :p It was defined like 15 years ago. Yes, the name is stupid, yes it should've been changed, but it stuck, so we get to deal with the consequences.

Even CoD : Black Ops 2 had choices and consequences ( for a CoD game it was even impressive. For any other game it wasn't :p ) where one thing you decided to do at one point in the game could turn against you way later in the campaign ( way later being, erm, no more than 6 hours since the game is hardly any longer ). There even were multiple endings. In a Call of Duty game. yes, shocking!

And yes since the MP mode implies you start the game with 4 chars meant to be played by a specific player, I doubt there will be any chance of swapping during the course of the game. Meeting the other escapees is a possibility, but I strongly doubt they will be able to join the party. They will at best act as NPCs. Just like in Seiken Densetsu 3, where you would occasionally meet the characters you didn't pick doing their own quests or just chilling.

And while I'm aiming at playing the game coop, I am not convinced by drop-in drop-out either. I mean, either it means you're dropping in the game of someone else and potentially "ruining it", or the friend you decided to play the full campaign will somehow continue his session without you, which sounds a bit moronic =) Fortunately, if someone doesn't want his game ruined by undesired drop-ins, he should be able to create his game as solo/private/something. Dunno how it went for DOS1 in this regard.

It looks like you're still going on selling your own opinion as facts. Honstely, I'm getting tired of that. It seems like you can't deal with differing opinions, nor do you try to understand the reasoning of other people...




Of course RPGs are about the story. DOS without a story and C&C is simply a strategy/tactical game. Deus Ex without a story or C&C is simply an FPS/stealth game.

(And Spec Ops: The Line is indeed a hybrid of various genres, like many games nowadays.)

Excluding narrative topics from the definition of RPGs is imo completely pointless. It's of course possible that you're not interesting in them. They're imo still essential to define the genre.


By whom? You? Great. It's nice that you try to compare everything to music, but the comparison is pointless here. And I've been in MANY discussion about what the core of RPGs is in the past 20 years and it was never ultimately defined by anybody, sorry. But sure, I don't want to take away your definition. You can have yours, I have mine. In the end it's just a classifiction to describe various elements/systems of a game, nothing more, so the whole discussion is pretty much completely theoretical anyway (and therefore without much real value)...


@Dr Koin
That answer of Swen in the AMA might please you: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3lz39o/we_are_larian_studios_developers_of_divinity/cvak0ri

If that's what they are going for, they seems to be trying to reinvent the wheel, but going in a completely different direction and it looks more like a stick. I still think the companions are just going to be like every other RPG ever and we'll be able to swap them. The people you are playing with are going to be able to choose which character they want when the opportunity presents itself like the camp in DA:O.

I don't know. I asked multiple times during the KS how many companions will there be to choose from (while Larian staff was present!) and I never got an answer to that, not even telling me that they don't know yet. That might be coincidential but it could also be that they found the question stupid because there are only four characters no matter what. Either you control them yourself or other players do so.

If there are really a bunch of real companions to choose from I'd like to have that actually confirmed by somebody at Larian...

Edit: Swen said on the AMA that you'll be able to "recruit" companions in SP: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3lz39o/we_are_larian_studios_developers_of_divinity/cvao1es
Honestly, I'm curious how that should work. I mean you start with four (meaningful) characters in MP. So there are no additional companions if you play the game together from start to end. But in SP there is? I have no idea how that is supposed to work, given the fact that players can always hop in, taking over one character and given the fact that you had to start in SP with four characters as well (which are then less meaningful because you can exchange them for others)? A lot of open questions imo...

Here you go - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_video_game#Character_actions_and_abilities

I'm not really an authority to define anything, so it's a moot point to supply my own definition :p

There is no authority to define video games genres - AT ALL (it's not like there is a DIN/EN norm for it...). Wikipedia is surely not such an authority neither. In the end, there are ONLY personal opinions and definitions about that one and that's the point.

Did you check out the sources? They were pretty reputable and professionally written. I don't trust wikipedia if they have bad/no sources :p There are actually papers and books written on the subject of game design and genres, just like for everything else, so it's not like nobody knows what they are talking about.

Thanks for the previous link, somehow I missed that during the AMA ! Well that settles it for people wanting to RP the full party. Nice!

I don't know who told me that but, as I mentionned earlier, they are aiming for at least 1 origin story per writer. If Origin Stories are indeed the basis on which they make the companions/characters, you would have 7 ( 8-1) companions.

@DrKoin
I have no idea how they want to pull that off from a narrative point of view. Also why to look for new companions if each and every one of them

- has the same basic goal like you,
- can't turn against you,
- can be freely developed in terms of skills ans traits?

The only reason I could think of is to explore all origin stories in multiple playthroughs because that's pretty much the only thing that differentiates them if I understood the concept correctly.

They already said in one of the KS updates that companions in SP won't be able to turn against the player. They can only voice their opinion and be angry with you - and that's about it. So much to the depth of narratie roleplaying and party interaction in SP...

The way DOS 2 is envisioned only favors the MP imo. To make the SP really a lot stronger and richer they had to detach it completely from the MP which is pretty much against their goal of hop-in/hop-off MP. You could by the way disable the MP in DOS which basically only made you invisble in the lobby. The game design was 100% the same though.

Sorry Lacrymas, your definition of RPG is completely arbitrary.

This is the most importent sentence of the wiki (regarding this topic):
"Although some single-player role-playing games give the player an avatar that is largely predefined for the sake of telling a specific story, many role-playing games make use of a character creation screen."

The artice does not divide RPGs in 2 different groups.
There is simply the fact that different games have different freedom in character creation.

There is no difference between arcanum, fallout (RPG RPGs according to you) and D:OS1 (Self insert RPG according to you). You can freely create your char(s) in a system without classes. They have a background (airship crash survivor, Vault dweller, source hunter) and a goal (save the world).

In PST you are limited to a male human who starts as fighter and has no dump stats, but you have still many different ways to play him.

I consider the terms "RPG", Action adventure", "FPS" and so on are abstract concepts that will never be difined precisely (There will always be people who find arguments against a specific definition). Each real game exist in a continuum and follows some of these concepts more or less. Most games have elements of several of these concepts. Some games (like deus ex) are so hybrid, that pushing it into one genre will never describe the game completely.

From my point of view, D:OS is as much RPG as a game can be.

Soulbringer, VtMR, Anachronox and most JRPGs don't have a character creation screen and are RPGs. Fallout 3 does have a character creation screen and it isn't an RPG. I don't know what you people have against menu-driven combat.

Fallout 3 is not a RPG? Yeah... right...

I have nothing against menu driven combat. Nobody ever said he is against menu driven combat.

All I say is this: " The amount of freedom you have in character creation (from none in JRPGs to absolute freedom in games like arcanum, fallout and Larian games) is not enough to determine if a game is an RPG or not."

I am sure that there are some games with complex character creation and nobody would dare to call them RPG. (though I do not have an example at the moment )

by the way: I started my gaming career with the snes. I think secret of mana was my first RPG. I have played many JRPGs and I liked many of them. Anarchronox has one of the best stories and characters in gaming history. It had the story that was most fun for me (together with "Sam and Max hit the Road"). At least if you like insane nonsense

I meant it as a definitional differentiation of RPGs, not as a system of combat :p

Back to SP in DOS2 now though, guys? I think the definition of RPGs is a topic for another thread if there is really something left to discuss on the topic...

How can we even discuss SP when we aren't even clear on what an RPG is? I didn't think this was so hard or so confusing. You don't say why you don't agree with me, you just say "just cuz", that's not an argument. I back up my arguments with logic, history and sources, not wishful thinking :p We have to get at the bottom of this, otherwise all discussion regarding RPGs is moot. D:OS is an RPG. Why? Because of menu-driven combat. Fallout 3 isn't an RPG. Why? Because you control the actions of the character directly. Simple. Effective. Clear. I guess the confusion comes from the fusion of genres? Genres like Action-RPGs and Action games with RPG elements exist for a reason. It's not because people were confused and were simply drooling on their keyboard, somehow managing to form words. There are even books published about game genres and game design, so that would've been a lot of drool :p