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

RPG - a game where you assume the role of a character in a fictional setting. There done. Let's move on.

Why not? People think differently about many topics and that there is not one golden rule to everything...


Logic? I must have missed that. Pretty much your whole point is based on what others think about the topic (hence the link to wiki). It's just one big argument of authority. And you're not even interested in what other people think here. You only want them to think like you and accept your opinion - that you just took over by different people (who wrote a book about it, or two). At least that's how pretty much everything you write here appears to me, sorry...


Ahem, no. Actually the very opposite is true. Discussion is only possible when there are different opinions and views. If everyone thinks the very same on every topic there is nothing to discuss left. You can very well talk about SP in DOS, no matter if you see the game personally as an RPG or not. It's completely unimportant anyway because the label "RPG" is only used to described certain elements. It has no meaning beyond that. It has in particular no meaning for game designers. You can very well discuss certain design elements without ever using the term RPG at all.


Your confusion comes from the simple point that other people have different definitions if you ask me...


Yeah, there is a reason: people trying to describe their game in as few words as possible which is the sole reason for genres to exist in the first place. Over time that can of course raise certain expectations within players, but - surprisingly - quite different ones, especially (and I agree with you on that one) since games included more and more elements of once different genres. Still, it's only a mere description. I don't even see the value in talking about that so much at all. I'd rather return to discussing the concept for SP in DOS 2...


There is a book about everything, whether it has any point or not. I don't see the point. (Edit: I mean the genres, not game design in general here. There is a lot to be said about game design.)


Can we now go back to SP, please? I mean, we won't ever agree on the definition of RPGs anyway. There is no point in discussing that any longer.

There is no use reasoning with Lacrymas.

That means every game ever.

Actually, I don't care to discuss this anymore. It seems clear to me that most of you simply don't understand what a genre is, how it is formed and what is its purpose. Even though I am a teacher in real life, I simply don't have the years required to explain everything that needs to be explained from the very beginning, so it's pretty moot. Continue your SP discussion.

We do not care what a genre is, neither the genre RPG nor any other.

We want to find out how to improve the SP experience of D:OS2.

Oh well...





This. So much this.

You missed my point.



Thank you.

...This thread is very schizophrenic.

The thread topic is literally about wanting to make more than one character and wanting to roleplay them, why is any of this other trash in here? Seriously, let's revisit it


Why are we arguing about what is and isn't an rpg? I may love many of them but JRPGs aren't RPGs

As to the topic I am clearly on record of being immensely in favor of the option to make and roleplay as many or as few of the characters in my party as I so desire, be it just 1, 2, 3, or 4. This is a pretty clear cut desire to me and seeing as how Larian is writing MP dialogue anyway it should be pathetically easy to implement not to mention they already fucking did it for DivOS.

Raith, please remember the law of Madscientist: (just invented by myself. I need to copyright it )

"Every sufficiently long thread will go off topic at some point."

In the obsidian forums somebody announced that chris will work for Larian on D:OS2 and we ended up in a discussion if KotoR2 fits to the SW universe. (please no comments on this topic here)

Well, seems like I started quite the debate process on MP versus SP experiences and RPGs in generel with this thread of mine . Some very interesting points here so far.

My conclusion from the thread is that preferences vary and that there are arguments for each preference, so to "conclude" wishes for Larian as a developer:

Single Player experience whishes:
- Some people would like a setup where 1 main character is created, and the game has X number of predetermined companions with detailed backstories and interaction during the game. Just be sure to introduces several potential companions, so one can choose the classes, races, and origin stories one wants to experience
- Other people would like full control of all 4 party members, this includes having full control of attributes, skills, origin stories etc. from the start. For this to work it is accepted that the automated interaction is disabled just as if another physical player was controlling the party member (basically it is 4-player co-op where just one player happens to control all party members)

One players preference of one method over the other shouldn't have to exclude the one not preferred in the game for other players enjoyment. My biggest recommendation to Larian is to include both options, the first sounds like what they are actually implementing, but the second should be rather easy to implement as it essentially is 4-player co-op with just 1 player creating and controlling all party members.
This gives the most freedom to play the game as you want. I could easily see myself playing the first option after I have finished the game with my preferred option, the secondary.

Multiplayer thought / question:
How does 2 player co-op work, I wonder, or even 3-player co-op? Are we talking 2 party members created and then the game introduces the remaining 2 as predetermined companions (with interactive dialogue etc.), and how will that even work if the 2 physical players differ in action? My head is starting to spin with all these options

I disagree, that the Source Hunters didn't get any depth over of the course of the game. I would even say, that they got more personality than an Commander Shepard over the course of 3 games for example and that with a simple trick: every decision I took, they earned an point on an personality aspect so after I while I played them as the characters they were. Not only because of roleplaying aspects, but because the gamemechanics supported this kind of characters they were.

For me this is part of actual roleplaying: Not only choosing an answer but also staying in-character. In ME people I know often choose an answer not because it fitted Shepards personality, but they wanted the approval of their companions, so Shepard stayed a blank and didn't became a fully realised character.

In Original Sin I know now, that my righteous and law-abiding Knight is a vegetarian (because it would be cruel to eat somebody you can talk with) and that he is without fear and that my female Wizard isn't above stealing for the greater good, while being suspicious because the game rewarded me for their decisions.

So the system worked in SP, although I would have liked some more automatism during conversation. But if they balance this out in the sequel, this could work even better. But I have to agree, that it depends on the quality of the actual dialogues in the game. Harebrained Studios showed how much personality you could give an player character with just a few words, to mention a more modern example.

I just want the option to create and control as many or as few members of the party as I want with companions handling the rest, it doesn't need to be an all or nothing thing it should be to where you can make and control 1, 2, 3, or even all 4 characters in the party. Making it either 1 or 4 is stupid since that's not how the MP is, it isn't just 1 player or 4 players.

Also I would hardly call what "points" have been brought forth to be particularly interesting, it's basically been.

"I would like the option to create and control multiple members of my party like in DivOS"
"I don't want to RP multiple characters, I would like companions"
"Well that's cool and all, but it would be an option and not mandatory"
"I don't want to RP multiple characters, I would like companions"
"...Are you just going to keep repeating the same thing over and over again? You haven't brought up any reason why I shouldn't get what I want and what I want isn't mutually exclusive to what you want, you are just being kinda childish."
"I DUN WANNA RP MULTIPLE CHARACTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Bit of an exaggeration but I have seen nothing in this thread that says that those of us that want this shouldn't get it, it really just seems like the people that are bizarrely against it think that it would force them to do it as well.

Shepard didn't stay blank at all. What you seem to miss is that a party RPG is much about group dynamics, just like in real life. It's a typical reasoning in such situations to think about what the group or friends would do and how you could get their approval. If you act against the will of your friends, it's as much a deliberate decision than acting for the goodwill of your friends. I'd say this group dynamic is even essential for all group/party based RPGs and a defining difference to solo RPGs in which you only take the role of one character. In such games there is one element less to think about, specifically what your friends might think about you. It's a typical lone ranger approach. In a group RPG instead everything you do is a group approach, often with you at the center but with your friends/companions being essential parts of the adventure. You need them and often you want them to stay with you. That's actual roleplaying here and there and actually the opposite of a blank character. It makes some decisions even harder if you have to weight your own convictions and opinion on a topic against what might be the direct social consequence for your own character. Of course that element gets the stronger the better and deeper the respective consequences are. That's actually the reason why I hate the idea that your companions in DOS only tell you what they think, while they won't do anything beyond that no matter what. Sure, ME did the same and it wasn't perfect, no question. But DOS should build upon that and in no way cut back some of the most important narrative elements of a party based RPG...


There is not a single narrative reward for actions in DOS imo, especially not in respect to companions or your 2nd character. Simply because they don't have any real relationship at all beyond the situative minigame. Whether they are righteous or not makes no different for the interaction and relationship between character on a greater level which makes the system a lot worse than the one in typical Bioware games. It's just mathematics pressed into a number, ripped of any emotional impact. Of course much is imo a consequence of the game being made for co-op, where the core of the experience is the interaction with real players OUTSIDE the game. Such a systemic approach is perfect for that because it's main goal is not immersion and emotions based on character interactions but situative fun while you interact with your pals in real life.


The system don't worked very well in SP altogether imo. It worked great for MP but surely not for SP. The main problem of narrative in DOS is that it's almost exclusively seen from a systemical point of view. Everything in DOS is based on systems, and so is the narrative and especially the interactions with characters inside the game. It's indeed mimicing the functionality and feature set of a PnP while pretty much disregarding the aspect that people play SP RPGs often for very different reasons. That's why the love&hate stretch goals is so incredibly important for the SP aspect of DOS. Done in the right way, it could enhance the systemic approach of DOS with the emotional impact it deserves for the SP. Relationships between realistic and lifelike characters (that are MORE than values on a character screen) and a narrative that forces the player to make moral, emotional and multi-layered choices with consequences that enhance the immersion and impact of the choices are what SP RPGs are imo all about, beyond the combat aspect for course (which is pretty much the same for both MP and SP).


About "one PC + companions" vs. "4 PCs":

I don't agree at all that Larian will go for a traditional implementation for the former (think Bioware games), but Swen already communicated that the latter will be possible. But seriously, I don't know how both are supposed to work in the same "mode", in the same campaign, in the same narrative. They are different on many layers and one will always limit the other one in certain aspects (like already present in DOS btw). It's imo not true that both ways are easily and simultaneously doable for DOS 2, especially not if Larian will enable MP hop-in/hop-off even if you want to play the game completely in SP (I don't speak about the option to turn your visibility on the lobby off). A traditional SP party RPG with lifelike and realistically written companions will always suffer from that approach. So I'm happy for all of you who basically want to play a PnP session with yourself ("4 PCs") because that will be possible in DOS 2, according to Swen and based on how DOS worked. The real issue here is though that many people who expect a traditional SP party RPG will be severly disappointed, especially after Larian announced that the want to improve on the narrative that much...

@LordCrash

Good points but I have to disagree with the two first sentences



Shepard stayed blank because aside from one or two lines of dialogues, there were no signs of him beeing affected by the horrors around him or what happened to him. He could be an stonecold sociopath, that says things, because he knows that the people around him want to hear it (my personal interpretation of the character), not helped by his dead fish-eyes and his emotionless expression. And besides some few lines, there exists no group-dynamic. Everything is build around Commander Shepard, your companions have no life besides Shepard, who most of the time knows what to say, because there exists most of the time only two lines of dialogue (beeing a jerk or saying what they want to hear). You are Commander Shepard, you are the Center of the Universe. It helps for being self-indulgent, but it doesn't gives you a real character, not helped that there isn't any real personality in your lines.

A character where this worked better, was Mike Thorton in Alpha Protocol. You also has to choose, but he was always some kind of asshole, because every answer of him is writte n as one. You understand much better why his environment is reaction this way, because of this.

But Bioware - Games are most of the time a bad example for real-life group dynamics, because most of their characters are anything, but real. Well written, but not real. I can't lay my finger on what it is, but you always know, that they are just characters, not people. Maybe because most of the time, there is a definitive way, to resolve their quests and at the end of the game they want to kiss your butt, for being such an incredible person (while you look at them with your dead fisheyes).

I think it was better solved in Pillars of Eternity, because alrhough you learned some about your companions, most of the time they stayed for themselves and wanted to be alone. Don't know why, but that's sound a bit more realistic for me, when you put a bunch of misfits together and you have to kill at least two dozen monsters on a daily. After a long day, you want some time for yourself.

That game had also some personality mechanics, which helped you at some points and like in D:OS they helped, because they showed that there were consequences for your decisions.

What you say is true but sadly DOS was worse than that in single element of character interactions imo...

I fear you might missed an important point of mine: The question is not whether ME was perfect here (it wasn't, no question) but whether you build upon it or whether you just cut its relationship mechanics. And that's what DOS largely did. In no way is the SP epxerience in DOS in terms of character interactions, relationships and narrative better than anything(!) Bioware created for a SP game so far (DAI included, sadly). We can of course talk about the narrative and technical shortcomings (and honstely, many narrative shortcomings are just limited by budget and technical possiblities, not by skill) in Bioware games but that has no real value for DOS and DOS 2 imo, at least not if we think about ways how DOS could make it better or even just gets on par...

And you really want to compare technical stuff? Sorry, but it's pointless to talk about Shepard's facial expressions here, given the fact that you don't ever see a face in DOS...

There is an difference between creating lots and lots of text and sell this as "groupintercations" and creating really relationships and D:OS created at least a real relationship between the two source hunters. Who were the focus of the story and actually got some personality, even if this was over the mechanics. For blankslate-heroes, which we played, this was the perfect tool and to be honest, it worked because D:OS still stayed a game and not a mildly better B-Movie, who tried to manipulate us with cutscenes. But if you want to do this, than such details like face-expression has to work, otherwise it's not believable that anyone would follow your polygon-messiah.

I'm hammering on the relationship mechanics, because for the first time in an roleplaying, it had consequences for playing an character playing the way you wanted and not only making decision with your Avatar. This is a real difference, I think and one, which helped the game. Of course you had to use your imagination to give them all the depth you want, but well, that's why they were blankslate heroes and that's why it's still A GAME. You can argue if there was a real connection between the hunters and their companions, okay, but the relationship between the hunters was alright. But of course it could be even better and I hope this will be the case in D:OS 2.

No, that's wrong. D:OS created an ARTIFICIAL relationship between the two source hunters. It was not a relationship which felt real, mostly because it was constant throughout the entire game.

The Source Hunters really had two types of interactions: The pre-scripted bantering which happened back and forth about a world event, and the dialogue where the player and the AI personalities could pick a choice.

In my case, the first time through, I picked AI personalities which were opposing, and so O experienced seeing the SH's cleverly banter in a friendly manner in-between rabid arguing about what to do. The final disconnect was at the end, where after a game of the pre-scripted friendly clever banter, I was told that my source hunters spent the rest of their lives in a hate-filled battle to the death between them.

It was not a real relationship because there was no change at all in it. It was static from start to finish.

I don't agree at all on that one. I'd even say the contrary is true. I could play a lot of RPGs how I wanted in the past (although I usually don't want to become the PC myself). Just think about Elder Scrolls or Fallout for what you describe here...

And which consequences do you mean? I don't think consequences of whatever sort were one of DOS' best elements...


It was not alright because there was ZERO emotion involved. The two source hunters were just two more or less numbers-based robots who only acted according to their mathematical foundations. They had zero sense of real characters for me and I never felt(!) that they had any meaningful relationship or connection throughout the game.

And I don't agree at all that it's my job to give characters depth and to fill blank slates (and I have actually a hard time in doing so...). That's the job of the game designer in a story-driven RPG, at least in the way I see them fit. But then again, that's maybe where we fundamentaly disagree with each other, based on how we want to play the game. It's the same old TES vs. Bioware discussion, whether you want to BE the hero (and fill the blanks with your own personality) or whether you want to experience a great narrative with well written characters, stories and reletionsship, GUIDING your PC throughout the experience. You want the game to be like TES, I want it to be like a Bioware game. Sadly, there is no way that we can have both I'm afraid...



(And I'm actually pretty sure that DOS 2 will be much more to your liking than to mine. I think it will pretty much suck on the same level DOS 1 sucked in relation to the narrative experience I wish to have, offering a blank slate type of game instead).

Whatever just ignore me.