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

Definition of good/evil/chaotic looks little rusty. But what about innocent - sinfull point of view. Innocent means clear mind, pure live, harmony. Sinfull person could be a commoner - Cheese salesman who cheat change money to customers and fuck sheep.

Measure innocent vs sinfull migh be closer to reality.

Measure good - evil gives relative results always.
I have a cow - good. My cow died - bad.
Neighbor has a cow - bad. His cow died - good.

So what if I kill someone, to save another person's life?
If the line from innocent to sinfull is a scale, would that move me towards "innocent" (as I did a good deed by saving someone's life) or towards "sinfull" (as I intentionally killed someone)?

Once again, I think we should get rid of any alignment system.

I think choice and consequence is enough.
You do something and other people react to it. Different groups of people might react differently. So the assassin guild likes and dislikes other actions than an order of pacifist monks.
Whatever alignment system you chose, you can always create a situation where this specific alignment system (whichever you choose) will fail or at least lead to strange consequences.
If you use some kind of system that determines how people react, hide it from the player and show us only the consequences.

My personal opinion:
good examples:
- The witcher (only played part 1): You have many choices but no alignment system. When you face the consequences the game reminds you that this is the result of your choice. Some consequences hit you at once, others do it many hours later.
- Age of Decadence: The ultimate example of c&c in RPGs. The game is almost perfect in simulating a "realistic" world. However, the game forces you to extreme specialisation: Either you use a char that is optimized for avoiding combat (the easy way, I have beaten the game this way) or you have a char who focusses only on one type of combat ( I had no chance as assassin even though I tried to optimize my char). Anything else will kill you. I think D:OS2 should be a bit more forgiving, so in some situations fight, talk and sneak may be all viable options for a char.

bad examples:
- Baldurs Gate 1+2 and similar games: Each char has a fixed alignment that is completely independent of what that char actually does. (See the post about Viconia. You lose reputation for saving an evil person. This person is evil because of her race, she has done nothing wrong)
- KotoR 1+2: Both games are very good, but the alignment system encourages you to follow one extreme path, even in situations where it does not make sense. (You get stat and spell bonusses depending on your dark/light side).
KotoR2 is great (and Kreia is one of the best chars in gaming history) because it shows that whole good vs evil thing is nonsense. But even a game that tells you that the whole good vs evil thing is the cause of most suffering uses exactly such a system. This is an example where the story (which is very good) gets in conflict with game mechanics (not so good).

My favorite thing on RPGs its smart dialogue, I really love when charisma, intimidation and intelligence checks matter, on fallout 3 I remember facing a robot on a museum, and I could use charisma to perform as a president, tricking him to avoid combat and get the declaration of independence easily, I could also use a robotics check or an intelligence check to solve the problem without the combat...

I also remember being able to convince the Enclave president to auto-destruct his whole organization, via intelligence checks, proving him that he was not suitable for a global leader...

This might seem to have nothing to do with D:OS, but this dialogue with this robot, the whole independence trivia involving this quest, this multiple checks options, and all of them so smartly written (and other situations like that) its what made me love fallout because this was one thing I most loved on PnP Rpg (vampire the masquerade), being able to argument, influenciate, deceive, and seduce...

But on D:OS charisma gameplay its lame tbh, the rps mini-game its just very very bad for single player gaming... I could understand it would add some cool interactions on coop tho... I know that I can disable the AI of my characters and pick the results, but that's NOT the point, I want them to disagree but not solve things via RPS in the end...

I love this game for a lot of reasons, the combat it's especially perfect, but the way it handled the charisma checks and alternative ways of talk your way out of stuff its really really bad... so bad it made "charisma players" like me who love dialogues chose to just kill everyone...

Why can't the guardians romance? Or why can't we at least have a reason to why they shouldn't? Because the way it is its just very strange that they are eternally bound to each other and they don't fall into a very intense love/hate relationship as I figure it would normally happen if you happen to come to life over and over with the same person as a partner in combat...

And why Madora and Jahan are so damn cliche? Jahan its just painfully bad... maybe if he was an Orc instead he would be a very interesting character, how could an Orc become a power-hungry demon-obsessed Elementalist? Now that's an interesting story...

I know this is not the game focus, we have Bioware for that, but its something that I missed on the game and does not demands additional programming, so I think I should speak it (?), maybe lots of people agree with me...

Now, i'm gonna make an exception for Charla, she is perfect... the fact she is an overly happy skeleton who sells stuff and greets you in such an adorable way its so paradoxical and yet so natural that instantly made her the most interesting character of d:os to me...

well... pls make d:os 2 with charisma being worth our precious XP... and if you guys voice vendors bring Charla back.

Bye o/

I like a lot of what you said here. However, I am a little confused that you five so much praise for The Witcher, yet you haven't played 2 & 3? In my experience with the games, they only get better.


I understand that this is something that will potentially be explored in D:OS2.

@Ayvah: Give me a better computer and I will play TW3 as much as you want .

Also this whole DLC madness makes me crazy (I am already, but thats another question )
I will wait until they release the ultimate final game of the year edition (One package with the main game and all add ons, DLC and whatever included)

I like that Larian allows you to finish the game even if you kill everyone.

Next challenge: allow you to finish the game even if you kill no one.

Or something like Planescape Torment, in which you can complete the game by killing only 2 opponents...

Hi,
any news?
Will Larian implement some suggestions from here?

Killing was already not always the only solution for everything in D:OS 2.
There weren't any fundamental changes to the game design after the Kickstarter.

So this means that discussions are essentially for nothing because no one reads them?

Are you just looking for an excuse to complain?
Your question assumes there is nothing between redesigning the game and completely ignoring the discussion.

The game was designed from the start to have multiple solutions to every situation, including non-violent ones in some cases (the premise of this topic). In the 24 minutes between the question and answer, I didn't go interview all the designers, writers and scripters about whether this topic in particular inspired anything put in the game.

I was trying to pinpoint the scope between feedback and actual game, as I have pretty much lost my DOS1 memories of Early Access.

There will be more shown about the game design later this month.

I love this topic, though I probably wont add much not keeping notes and posting a mega-post for the 5 pages read.

I do very much agree the KOTOResque (which I have a lot of experience with ;)) idea clashed a lot where the plot gives gray an option but gameplay-wise you get heavily punished for it (locking content even).
D:OS also used a similar system I hated, the perk one. Never liked it at all. It literally forces users to powerplay... and... that was all it did. It was a pretty poor counter-productive element added to D:OS that had no place and heavily detracted from roleplaying (I picked an option I liked, now the perks are +1/+1, I get no bonus at all... greeeeeat). Not to mention how pretty much all were skifted to one side in the first place with option A having a great bonus and option B improving a stat that was worthless.

I already put my thoughts on killing, XP and such discussed early on in another new topic.
And I agree much can be learned from Planescape: Torment and Deus Ex in rewards system, even if they are first-person semi-FPS. There is no way their system cannot be implemented in an isometric system. Especially one story-centered as D:OS2 is shaping up to be.