Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Arena D:OS2 - Arena Early Access Feedback

Hello everyone!

We hope you are having a good time playing both campaign and arena mode

We would also like to hear your feedback, ideas and suggestions on Arena mode topic.

Damage is way too high currently. You can very very easily 1 shot a character from full health with a single source skill. My highest hit was 1088 with an enraged warrior, which is more than twice the amount of health+armor that most characters have.

* Full customization of our character class/skills/points/gear.
* Make us build/save our character before joining a game.
* Don't show your team composition to your enemies.
* Add ranking/matchmaking system.
* Add tournament feature at fixed times or with a queue.
* Let the players edit/create maps

This is part of my omnibus post I made on the Steam discussion area, which I'll post on these forums once I figure out how to make it not formatted like ass (your [List] function doesn't work like it's supposed to, BTW).

- When going into Arena, the default tab is always LAN. It should be Online the first time, and then whatever you used last should be the default going forward.

- When hosting an online Arena match, don’t take me out of general chat. Have it so both chats appear, so I can still talk to people while waiting for someone to join. That'll help me get someone to join since I can talk to people playing the campaign.
- - Have a way to separate my arena lobby chat from global chat, but have both appear in the same place. Like how in MMORPGs you can separate party chat from global chat, using /1 or /p, but both appear in the same space.

- In the lobby settings, show whether it’s Online or LAN, so in case you created under the wrong type you’ll be able to see that.

First of all, Larian well done on creating yet another splendid game! Having a blast in arena atm, yet I still encountered some minor issues that might be an easy fix for you guys.

Encountered these issues in arena:

*Sometimes teammates disappear from the minimap.
*Portraits that show turns can sometimes overlap the minimap.
*It's unclear which player controls what team, it shows in the lobby but not in game.
*Can read details of the status effects of my own character but not of my enemy.
*In some 2 player maps teams spawn to close to each other making spawnkilling an option.

That's all for now hope you guys at Larian can turn this great alpha release into a amazing full release!

Vriendelijke groet!

Right-click them and choose Examine. There you can get the status effects' tooltips.

I've only played a few matches by here are my initial thoughts:

The Bless/Curse mechanic really make battles nutty and unpredictable. In some ways this is good but overall I think it's too powerful. I'm not sure if the arena will have separate balance tuning but I would strongly consider removing a blessed or cursed character changing environments. It's one thing for you to intentionally target an elemental surface and curse/bless it but all the characters doing so as well takes some of the player skill out of a match. Especially with how long those statuses last.


Map size and Movement:
Some of the 4 player maps play too big and lead to a lot of standing around waiting for someone to make a move. A potential fix for this could be giving each character a first round bonus movement only AP so they can get to position quicker and the round will go faster.


Delay Turn:
Consider limiting the ability to delay a turn to only once a game per character.


Source Potions:
In a lot of chests I found source potions but they really were not worth the cost in AP to get there and grab them since they only had 1 source point per potion in the ones I found. Not to mention you have to spend AP to consume the potion. I'd increase it to 2 source point potions. This is especially true considering the opportunity cost of not being able to attack that round or just going to a source pool instead.


Character Level:
In the next patch version I'd like to see a couple of level sets to see how it plays at level 4, 6, 8 instead of everyone being at 8. Even if full character creation for the arena isn't implemented yet just add some character sets like you have now but for other levels.

When you bless a source pool in the campaign it gives you 2 points instead of 1, but in the area blessing a source pond makes it never go away, and you gain 1 source point after every movement over the pool. Is this intentional, because it seems crazy good if it is. I was able to get get 2 mages max source points in a couple turns of just walking over it.

Also cursing a source pool doesn't do anything unless the pool is blessed, in which cause it turns it back neutral. Is this also intentional? I think it would be cool if a cursed pool actually stole source points of players.

As it stands, with the set spellbooks and characters the arena is a bit, well, uninteresting.

Its been mentioned before but we really need customization more.

Or even better the ability to bring our campaign built characters in.

How are you supposed to balance when you can bring in a level 1 fresh-off-the-beach newbie or a level 30 slayer-of-all-gods?

You can say, this week is 4th lvl cap. And 1k gold per hero for equip, 200 for consumables
That is a TEST of possibilities.

Now its a proof of concept that arena migh work.

Stabbey you still have a choice to use the pre-rolled heroes or add them up some other way for balance.

But I think there should be a peen measuring mode where you just bring your best.

Basically I should be able to play through and you play through and then say:

'stabbey I challenge thee to a duel I demand satisfaction'

Then we hop into the arena and get satisfied.

Yeah i would like to use my specialised build/s to wreck face in arena but im stuck with rogues without vault bleck.

The host should always be in "Ready" state, since they're the only one who can start the game. It's kinda silly that it prevents you from starting the game because you haven't clicked "Ready" yet.

Source powers are way over powered for the arena. It's basically get to source and 1 shot someone back and forth. Hopefully that changes at higher levels or I don't see the point.

Turn order needs to be addressed. With two teams having 1 of each class player 1 always gets to go first for each class every round barring some buffs. Initiative ties should have some random modifier so player 1 doesn't always go first or alternate the ties each round.

Customization of party and being able to do so before match is a must have. So you can load ur whatever setup u want. But these are propably coming being that obviously a must.

You should add some presets too with customization, like certain levels and gold. For example lvl 10 characters 1000 gold each etc. Gold number is completely made up but just for example. And make alot presets like this. Lvl 3, 300gold - lvl 7, 700 gold - lvl 10, 1000 gold - lvl 15, 1000 gold - and so on.

Then the lobbies would look like this - MrPwnerz lobby, preset lvl 3

And u just join and load one of ur lvl 3 parties u made.

You can get to level 30?

This look like the multiplayer system of the last Xcom: Enemy Unknown, if there isn't any legal issue doing the same it was a nice way to match players using a certain amout of "customisation points"

Yes. Customised characters . Online competition would be great
Anyone want to play? Us vs AI? 2 vs 2 etc

First of all this game mode is a really awesome idea and I already wished for something like this for the first game.

But sadly this mode is very limited in it's possibilities and options so at the moment i'ts more of a demo than a fully and complex demo.

My wishes for a big future content update for the arena would be:

-Completely custom characters with their own skill and attribute builds.

-A way to have a complete individualised equiptment for my characters. Right now arena characters only have white equipment without any special stats and effects on it. That leaves out so much potential of the game's system.
The game offers so much complexity and options to tune a character with equipment, the runes, echantments and so on. It would be a blast to create tons of different character equipment builds and let them fight against each other.

-An option to save and export my created characters to share them with friends and the community.

-A way similar to the GM mode to create custom arena maps.

I hope Larian will give this game mode more attention in the future and maybe add some of my ideas to it.
There is nothing better to have some awesome PvP battles with friends in in a complex and deep RPG system like Divinity.

The probablem with a real customizable Arena is the lack of balance in the combat mechanics. Some combinations would be totally broken.

Sure it would.

But thankfully the game is complex and open enough to find counters against many things which seem to be overpowered at first.

And the too much broken stuff could be fixed with some balance patches easely in the future.

Right now the Arena mode is a nice demo but nothing more.

I really loved the idea, they mentioned in during the EA about having kind of coop arena brawls. You create your characters and get pitched against other players with equally 'low level' characters. After the fight you get your spoils and exp, can level and upgrade gear for the next fight. Though nothing seems to be done into that direction by the end.

Well thats also a very nice concept. Would be really motivating to get better and better over the time.

I think the best would be 2 modes. A sandbox mode where you can overlevel and overequip your character as much as it gets to just play around with friends.

And then a serious mode like the one you've mentioned. With actual matchmaking, rankings and a progress.

There are tons of potential.
The arena mode as of today was the only disapointment of this wonderful game for me.

I'd like to see a "do arena as you play the storyline*, then, after you're done you can continue levelling up doing arena".

This would be something. Maybe some extra currency for arena gear and similar things, would add a whole new dimension to this game and increase replayability 10x.

* like WoW does it with queueing up for PvP matches

So no character creation for the arena mode in the Definitive Edition? Just a bunch of new preset characters and an updated lobby? That's really disappointing and so much wasted potential...

A bigger roster of characters to play as would be great along with more maps, balancing improvements.