Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition A Power Gamer's Gripes (Honour Mode)

I admit, there is a compulsive power gamer inside me. If it's possible to save scum, I will save scum. If you can exploit something, I will exploit it, unless it's an obvious cheat. Often the line between tactic/exploit is very fine and difficult to see (placing crates/barrels, sneaking, for example, which I talk about more below). However, in my experience with games like for example Diablo 2 and Dark Souls, it's very possible to make games where "compulsive power gamers" can get enjoyable experiences. There can only be a majestic sense of fulfillment/fiero after a challenge if you've actually done everything you are capable of doing.

Here are some of my main gripes.

Boxing in enemies
This (placing barrels or crates as obstacles for enemies) is unique and fun. A dimension of mental challenge that doesn't exist in the average RPG. But it's also right now very easy to exploit. Enemies won't do anything if they're boxed in or path is blocked. Why don't they attack boxes, or flee? And why is it possible for me to shoot over or between boxes in many situations but not for the enemies? Also, you can of course place/throw objects while invisible too, without any reaction from NPCs. Which leads me into my next point.

Throwing heavy objects onto enemies
This is extremely overpowered early game. Also, it doesn't work at all on some enemies. Just feels like a broken mechanic in these two ways. Which is unfortunate, since it's part of a potentially unique way of playing the game. Definitely seems like an intended mechanic that wasn't given enough attention.

Sneaking
Enemy AI here is lacking too. Easily exploited. Move out of NPC LoS -> Enter sneak, stay there and end turn until you have max AP and/or cooldowns are refreshed. If you miss your attack the enemy turns to you, sure, but just use magic or a special ability like Ricochet and it's a 100% foolproof way to win pretty much any fight in the game. AI just stands completely still, not doing anything. This is made even easier with the invisibility skills.

Save scumming for vendor items still possible
Save before opening a vendor window, then talk to another NPC, or just do random stuff. This seems to generate new items in the vendor, depending on how many NPCs I talked to beforehand (I open their barter windows, don't know if that matters). Granted, save scumming is dull and I don't like doing it, but if I'm soloing the game as a crossbow character, and some NPCs can sell bracers with +1 Crossbow, I can't let RNG decide whether I get them or not. Too much on the line for it to be an RNG thing. Can't resist it. There's also the chance to get very powerful immunities (burning, stun, poison) this way.

Shooting manually placed grenades
Craft/find various grenades -> optional: become invisible or sneak -> place/throw (not actually throw them as an ability, but as an inventory object) grenades near enemies -> shoot at said grenades from afar. If at least one of the grenades is an explosive one (e.g. nail grenade, firestorm grenade), every grenade goes off. Explosive grenades trigger chain explosions. This is awesome. However, it's a very easy way to kill anything in the game. Again, a unique and fun mechanic, but it needs a nerf. (Warning: if you do this, and grenades kill enemies out of combat, you will not get XP).

Honour Mode isn't hard enough
Even when on a playthrough where I manage to suppress my compulsions, I find honour mode lacking in difficulty and hardcore feel. A few main thoughts on how to increase difficulty in the honour mode.
- Remove/greatly limit resurrection spell/effects.
- Auto-save when I enter combat.
- Create a big drawback for fleeing and/or limit it. Both through the "Flee" mechanic and through teleporting pyramids or by entering a new zone/dungeon in combat.

Note: Soloing the game
A little forum browsing and genre-savviness reveals that many players want to solo games like this. I like it, too. Soloing DOS feels very wrong. NPCs talk about you as if you're two people and the game automatically resurrects and teleports your partner to your position at certain points in the story (maybe it was at only one point, but still). Feels really weird. (I did notice though, and kudos for that, at many points in the game when a character is speaking he/she changes dialogue line to "I..." instead of "We..." if he/she is alone). Also, the Leadership bonus is too big to miss out on, though I semi-solo sometimes by having a character standing outside of combat but at a distance that triggers leadership. I would love a Talent that lets Leadership extend to yourself, but only yourself, for example.



PS. I'm convinced the main reason there is a big relative disparity between review quality (very high) and number of sales (high yes, congratulations!, but relatively low seeing the games reception), is that your branding/marketing is... well... sub-optimal. The game is the most innovative in the genre since infinity engine days golden era. But, you have two generic looking and generic acting characters with generic looking promo art and a very obtuse, generic, name. There is an obvious design focus on the sandbox environment which doesn't extend to- or connect with the characters, fantasy, story (only partially here), or marketing. The game is full of creativity, personality, and humor, which also didn't come through marketing wise, and which is the reason I'm surprised you didn't do a better job on the superficial level of the game.

Why I'm mentioning this here is because from my perspective there's probably going to be an influx of DOS players for years to come. Traditional core gamers return to Diablo 2, Age of Empires 2/3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, etc. Some people play Morrowind or Planescape: Torment now (both nostalgic returners and first-timers), when their successors have piqued an interest. DOS really is an amazing game. It's just that lots of people haven't realized it yet. Some of them will realize it later. Because the branding/marketing not being as engaging and representative of the game as it could've been, you'll see a relatively high number of players coming around to playing the game later on, and as a standout game in the genre, there will be retrospective analysis and discussion of the game. I just think it's unfortunate if many of the current issues weren't adressed, as they help refine a game that is awesome, but also a little rough around the edges.
DS.

Could say much, but yeah. Already wrote too much. Looking forward to the next update!

Some good points. I didn't know that you could blow up grenades on the ground. Definitely sounds like it could be OP. Maybe they could blow up, but have reduced radius or damage? But with how easy it is to craft grenades, seems like you could put down a few grenades every fight and easily create massive carnage.

AI definitely has an issue with blocking and sneak. The former should be relatively easy to fix I'd think. Seems like if there's no path to the player but there's a destructible object in the way, they could just attack it. Though would make for some funny ways for the enemy to kill themselves if you used oil barrels and whatnot. And some object have a lot of health. So ideally enemies would be able to throw objects out of the way, but that would take much more AI coding to get them to throw them in an intelligent way.

Sneaking is even harder to solve. How do you make it both an effective tool and something enemies can counter if abused? A sort of search behavior wouldn't be that hard I think, but then how is sneak useful? (I mean, it's already pretty useless in combat barring cheesing enemies since it's so prohibitively expensive AP wise, but let's say sneak is made to be good in a non-cheesy way.) Maybe enemies would only employ a search function (looking around, basically) if all players in the combat are sneaking. Otherwise the enemies will just focus on the visible players, which I think is fine.

I also agree fleeing is a touchy thing. I actually think Escapist is ridiculously strong since it lets you heal up and reset your cooldowns out of combat and then rejoin all refreshed. Even with just a need to be some distance a way, it's pretty easy for mages and rangers to flee. Generally combat isn't hard enough to warrant the time spent on it, but it basically takes advantage of turn-based combat with real time exploration in a weird way. What if enemies got some kind of stackable buff when a player flees? Like, boosted damage, movement speed, attributes, slight heal, etc. Basically they're tasting victory when they see a player run from a fight. Don't know if that would really counter any flee and heal over and over again tactic, but it's an idea.

Ultimately Larian isn't designing the game for hardcore players, even if a lot of people think that. They're primarily designing a fun game with a moderate amount of tactical depth. Which makes sense economically, since most people aren't hardcore players and just want a fun game. But it is nice when AI or cool tactics aren't so easy to exploit

BTW, if you're looking for a harder playthrough, check my signature.