I've probably missed most of the good opportunities to provide feedback, but wanted to here just in case it helps.
I found Honour mode to not only be an exercise in frustration, but a direct contradiction to the core game-play experience.
The first big issue are the instances where things outside of my control can cause a party wipe (I.E. party pathing, misclicks from AI animations during combat, skipping turns due to combat lag, etc.). A no mistakes game mode almost assumes a game was also made with no mistakes. And this isn't the case in most games on the market. Not a slam on Larian, but its where we are at. I restarted Honour mode about 6 times, only one of those was my fault, or anything I could even control. (clicked hail attack on my party because the skill number was the same as heal from a different toolbar). But even though that one was technically my fault, it would have never happened if I could stack my toolbars the way I want. (hint hint
)
The bigger issue, and the reason I wanted to post, is that Divinity:OS seems to me, to be all about exploration and more than that... trial and error. Honour mode says, throw that all out and don't be creative, don't be curious, don't try new things... If you make a game that says, "click this and you will either be rewarded or die (summary)"... I don't think a "make no mistakes ever" mode suites the game type. It's almost a genre changer rather than a difficulty changer. It would be like playing Thief through in normal mode, and then, in the most difficult mode, for the criteria to be to run around with a rocket launcher and blow everyone up. I felt forced to change my style of play, not because the difficulty was harder, but because I knew the criteria was too much to ask for this type of game.
I would suggest that difficulty is ramped up in other ways:
-require more perception for traps (and increase lethality of traps) But also fix traps so they show sooner with proper perception (frustration with EE, where 15 perception still only shows a trap after I'm about to step on it).
-reduce resistances requiring a more focused gear approach
-limit items such as scrolls, potions, arrows, etc. and force the player to craft for them.
-offer incentive to spread skill points out reducing primary stats.
-increase charisma checks.
-increase mob resistances to various types of attacks.
All in all, after 3 play throughs, I have found the very first encounter of the game to be the most difficult. Its a coinflip as to if I win based on any misses, etc. and due to lack of skills to counter with. I have found that I ignored crafting, buffing, and debuffing skills almost entirely and found no issues after that first encounter. While I generally don't care for extreme hardcore difficulties, I'm making the suggestion as i feel there is room to add combat difficulty as a preference over the no mistakes mode that exists today.
In other words, I'm ok with telling players they have to explore more to win. I'm not ok with telling players they have to have not done that thing they already did to win.
I hope this makes sense and helps with future design decisions.
Edit: I should probably add that I put this in the D:OS2 forum as a form of suggestion for D:OS2 development. Thanks.
