Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Killing shouldn't be the solution for everything!

Hi,

i found a very interesting Idea for D:OS2.
https://larian.uservoice.com/forums...shouldn-t-be-the-solution-for-everything

Exactly because i am currently playing D:OS1 and you can kill NPCs (without serious consequences!) to get what you want!

What are the chances that this will be implemented in D:OS2

What? That is outrage idea, I am goin to killl you.

Now you see it works :-]

First off the game being completable while killing everyone is something larian is proud of and try to ensure. (Their N+2 approach) I am in favor of it staying.

That being said getting better rewards, be it loot or access to other side quests and anything else for talking your way through something can be a good gaming experience as well.

D:OS 1 had certain fights that could be avoided with a speech check, so the groundwork is already there.

The consequences of trying to murder your way through the world in D:OS was people being hostile that would not otherwise have been and loosing out on side quests.

As for the idea that lower level enemies (bandits) would not want to fight with some big hero, you can generally view that as one of three things from a story perspective ignorance, over confidence or fear of someone bigger forcing them to fight.

An interesting mechanic that might prove to not be worth it from a fun gameplay perspective is giving enemies the option to surrender or flee if they feal a fight is hopeless (just blew up all theirs friends with a meteor shower for example) ultimately though I think it would be frustrating to lose out on XP/ loot from enemies who fled.

All that being said the greatest hope we had for more charisma based encounters was the bard tree option that lost out to polymorph and summoning master.

Which is completely feasible if you give XP for "defeating" enemies (kill, flee, surrender, change sides) instead of just death.

That is also one of the things often requested, and re-requested, and re-re-requested, continously in the Neverwinter Online Foundry community -- being able to grant non-combat experience and rewards.

In the "DM Tools" I would love to see being able to simply "grant" bonus experience or other boons for "creative" solutions, or interesting role-playing.

I feel like having the GM (DM) being able to grant XP, possibly stats is a must. The more freedom you have when running a game with people the better.

And I agree that non-death XP would be a welcome system to improve player choice. Wether you would gain the same amount of XP is debatable, but probably ideal.

It would not change the loss of loot, but you would probably save on your charters own resources (more health, potions, arrows, grenades, ect)

Well, that is a really cool idea.
I do this all the time DMing my Pathfinder game. I really like when people avoid fight in a intelligent way.

In D:OS 1 you even get XP for killing Rats, Sheeps and honest Citizens which is ridiculous!!!

It encourages to kill anybody!

Make my Charisma skill really matter!

I still agree with larian's decision to have any thing you kill (except for summons) grant XP.
The amount of XP can always be balanced but I felt like the minor amount of XP you gained for killing neutral animals was fair.

There are still consequences to killing neutral animals in town which I find is the better approach. (Also potential lost quest hints/resolutions)

Again ultimately I agree that having more non combat XP would benefit the game.

The only tricky part of that is when people try to do all the non-combat XP and then kill everyone when it is done. (Doubling up on XP) it may be healthy for the game to allow this (more freedom and options)
If it is not intended, it might be solvable if there are consequences further in the game. (Have information travel via the tags system to people in future towns?) With NPCs reacting accordingly

I'm guilty. I'll try to persuade enemies first and if I'm successful, I'll kill them anyway. I mean, they're still bad guys, right?

I really don't think it's necessary to let us kill everything, consequences or not... I mean, sure, in real life you could kill anyone you want, theoretically. (Have you tested this theory?)

Is this really that important for immersion?

It is part of larian's design philosophy, what they call N+2. Quests will have the "intended" solution, a fallback solution if the player does X (be it kill someone important or sell something they needed) and a second fallback for D:OS 2 if another player completes part of the quest in a competitive environment.

Allowing players to kill anyone gives them freedom to play how they want. This will be particularly important in D:OS 2 with potential PvP questing, as you can kill the NPC player 2 is trying to help, to accomplish your goals. It is more organic and immersive to not put arbatry limits on who can be attacked. The only limit is are you strong enough.

Ultimately as has been said before, the more freedom you give the player the more they can be immersed in the game. (no sudden message saying you can't do that.) But there will be consequences, in this case a player min maxing the game to get the most XP possible by killing everyone and everything.

At the end of the day should they not be allowed to do that if they find it fun? The game should be balanced around the average or a bit above average XP gain to not force someone to min max, but they should still have that option. Increasing the non-combat XP options would be a welcome change but it should not come tied with a reduction to current options.

Try to kill a rat with a sword. It's not s easy. This tiny little bastards are really quick. So you must be a master to kill a rat.
Same thing with citizens, they fight back.

I just finished Vampires the Masquerade Bloodlines and next I play Deus Ex again. Those are some of the most immersive games I know. You get exp only for solving quests (and exploration in DE). There are several solutions for most quests. Sometimes you get a better reward if you avoid killing and sometimes you must not be seen to finish a quest. There may be a quest and somebody wants you to kill everyone while somebody else wants you to do something at the same place without using violence.

I really like those 2 games, but I am not sure how good you can compare them to D:OS. They are single character action games while D:OS has a turn based party.
Since exp is very important in RPGs, there are some things that should NOT give exp:
- Randomly attacking people or animals without consequences.
- Killing everything AFTER getting exp for solving quests peacefully.

Wether or not I agree with you I'll ask these two questions. (I'd like to know the different perspectives on this)

Why shouldn't you get experience for killing people or animals? (if the amount of XP is balanced. IE a negligible amount for killing a weak passive animal)

Why should the game not treat the completion of a quest and the hypothetical fight with the quest givers as separate experience events?


For me it is a fundamental system question of if a game is giving experience per action (combat, dialogue, ect) or if it is giving experience per milestone (quest)

As D:OS is a mix of both where and why would lines be drawn as to what gives experience.

These are interesting questions. The first one seems to me, why would a skilled adventurer become more powerful, more practiced from killing a defenseless animal? Experts don't get better from doing easy things, after all.

The second question is more difficult. It can be a bit odd to, say, get experience for convincing the immaculates to let you through, and then killing them anyway. I could see it being justified that the enemies are worth LESS experience because they're off guard now, but that's hard to get across intuitively, and anyway, it doesn't really address the fundamental problem.

Maximizing XP is just something some people do, and really, most people won't bother with killing every NPC after completing their quests.

Overall, I expect there to be many situations where just killing everyone is not the ideal solution to a quest, though with the ghost component, that can make the kill everyone approach more interesting since it will open up new dialogs and possibly whole new quests and solutions.

I slightly disagree about someone gaining no experience from simple tasks (skilled adventurer killing an animal) I am of the opinion that there would always be more to learn. That it would be akin to practice with a dummy, sure you dont necessarily learn new things, but you gain more experience and further ingrain muscle memory.

That being said it would have to be a very small amount of XP awarded (single or double digits at the most)

As for your second point, reduced XP from combat after a non combat solution is reached could be workable. You wouldn't even really have to tell the player that they are getting less XP their knowledge in this scenario shouldn't impact their enjoyment.

Ultimately I agree with your overall point that people will play the game differently and more power to them. Sometimes killing will benefit them, others they will miss out on something and that is fine.

I simply hope that those who want to play a little more on the alternate solution side will get comparable rewards and enjoyment.

Those issues comes from dark age of RPG. In the first Dungeon Master book there was a number of XP for every creature. This system was extension of chess-like war games. Yes, Dungeons&Dragons was a fantasy remake of tabletop military war-game. Replace canons by wizards with fireball so here we go. Removing a statue from the game board gives points towards victory.

However in role-play game focused for role playing the core system which rewards by dead body giver wierd outcome.

Someone here mentioned Deus-Ex. That is great example of new point of view. Player has targets and playground so he has non-linear chance to achieve those targets.

As long as we want to be game more role playing there should be target oriented reward system rather then dead body counter. Story might be bloody, oor story might be about sneaky investigation. One way or another reward for reach the target should be same amount of xp. There one issue with rewarding for non-bloody players. We get used that heroes steal stuff. In fact majority of hero's income is made by stealing from killed bodyes. There should be a way how to deliver item reward for those who fallow non-violent path.

Lets say, there are Immaculate order. So hero kills Immaculate on sight, steal his stuff and proceed to the end of story. That is the only way how to get reward. In theory, player could use charisma and sneak skill to achieve a target. Player could discover nature of order so fooled followers would see their mistake, revolt and leave the order. So their lives will be saved. That is a story! Currently, player is punished for non-violent path.

If anything should be new in DOS2, omit new races, omit new skill, omit most of was introduced. Develop a wide dialog net which allows different approach to the story. And make it so that all approach will get same XP reward and very similar item reward. In extreme there are two games types - hack&slash vs point&click adventure in one game.

Same as Larians implemented insane rule - you can kill anyone. Now they should implement another one - you could not bleed-out a living creature to proceed. However you migh hire a story driven NPC non-controllable mercenary or poison a food to remove certain subjects. That would be the innovative approach.

The problem is that it points to a design philosophy fundamentally structured around violence. I can't kiss anyone I want, so why should I be able to stab anyone I want?

There are plenty of limitations to what we can do and I think it's odd to say it's necessary to be allowed to be a psychopath and kill an entire peaceful village. I like the style of RPGs where you consistently can't attack NPCs. (But you may be able to provoke combat in dialogue.)

It bugs me a little how the game assumes you want to be a psychopath. Like I'm in a battle where one of my companions has high fire resistance and I cast a fireball to clear the enemies around them. The companion also takes a little damage. The companion then complains at me like I was attacking them maliciously. It's not like other games where they may just snark, "Watch where you're shooting!"

The problem with D:OS (and D&D and any other RPG I've played) is that a lot more work goes into the combat than the other parts of the game. When they showed the alpha gameplay at PAX, it was 100% combat. No one ever bought D:OS to play rock paper scissors, but this was still pretty fun for a persuasion mechanic in an RPG. D:OS is a combat simulator strung together by a story. (Fallout 4 was the worst-case example of this.)

D:OS is fun, but let's not pretend that "kill everything" is true freedom. This is certainly not what freedom means in my daily life.

I really would love if Larian considered how they would design the game if they completely removed combat as a mechanic. How could they design the game to be equally complex and exciting? How would the player achieve their goals without stabbing everything that gets in their way?

I like what you're saying, but I actually disagree a little bit here.

I don't think that there should be a single pool of XP covering everything. I mean, why should talking improve your combat ability? I think that taking a non-violent approach should provide a form of XP that improves your non-violent approach.

I agree Ayvah: true freedom isn't just letting you kill everyone and complete the game, but letting you kill no one. The latter is MUCH harder to implement well. You shouldn't be able to defeat the final boss with a charisma check, for example, but perhaps by careful scrutiny and examination throughout the game, judicious sneaking and non-combat solutions, you can acquire various clues into the final boss (and other bosses, for that matter) that will let you philosophize or lawyer your way out of combat :P. However, between all the origin stories and other factors, I could see that being insanely difficult to implement. A modest attempt at making most combat avoidable would be nice though, and I think Larian is very much heading in that direction with their focus on roleplaying in general.

I think one mayor problem is that exp are like a drug. Some people will do everything to get them. In divinity2 I killed every animal for 1exp, even if I need a million exp for the next level. (Thank you for the killer rabbit, it was the only thing that stopped me for a while).
The good thing about bloodlines or deus ex is, that your reward depends on how much your actions overlap with the intentions of the quest giver, NOT on how many things you have killed to get there.

I would like if there are several quests that partly exclude each other. So killing everybody is one option but it will prevent you from finishing some other quests.

example: There is a castle and in the castle is a party:
- The black ring wants you to kill the king and you get a bonus reward if you kill everybody and nobody escapes. (Some people will try to run when they see combat)
- The merchant guild wants you to talk to some people on the party. They want new laws or better prizes.
- The thief guild wants you to sneak in, steal something and get out again without being seen.

Min maxers will find their way to get max exp (talk to person A,B,C, sneak past guards D,E,F and kill person G and H when nobody is looking). But you cannot make every quest giver happy and get tons of exp for killing everything.
I think a real RPG schould be more than a combat simulator and you should have several ways to approach a situation.