Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Consumables: usefulness and availability

Both D:OS and D:OS II are games full of consumables. They are primarily intended as a mean to fill the holes in your character build, to allow all kind of characters to access any magic effect of the game, and - considering that magic effects are useful both in and out combat - they are pretty much essential.

This is probably the reason why ending a normal playthrough without a shitload of food, potions, scrolls, grenades and special arrows is kinda impossible, even not considering the crafting in the picture: There is no space limit in your inventory and the weight limit is extremely generous. Also, the loot tables seem to be FILLED with consumables, to the extreme.

Now, if the overabundance of consumables is a relative issue, easy to solve with a little of tuning in the loot tables (and please, Larias, do something about that), the real issue to me is actual utility and power of the various consumable categories: that is, most of them are broken (too weak or too strong) and all of them are too easy to use in combat.

Let's see what I'm talking about in details:

Food: pretty much useless. Negligible effects and ridiculous durations. Also eating during a battle seems kind of lame.
Honestly, the only games where I can see the purpose of food are the ones with robust survival mechanics, but - given that food is already in D:OS - I would redesign it as follows: food gives characters a strong buff that lasts for several rounds (two or even more encounters) paired with an equal debuff. The most complicated recipes have stronger buffs then debuffs. Food can't be eaten during combat and food effects are not stackable. This way eating could become an interesting strategic choice.

Potions: Healing and cure aside, potions look like the dumb brothers of spells. They have decent effects, minimum AP cost but short duration. Potions in my opinion should be somewhat different from spells and definitelly more intersting to use than now: I propose to extend their effects up to 6-8 rounds and counter that by doubling their AP cost and by introducing a cooldown mechanic (1 potion per round).

Scrolls: Copy-pasted spells but a little bit weaker, given that, as far as I know, they don't get any bonus from stats/skills/traits.
I'd leave them as they are, except for the same cooldown mechanic I proposed for potions.

Grenades and special arrows: Utterly OP at the beginning of the game, then they lost part (but not all) of their appeal. They should definitely be nerfed (by increasing their AP cost or adding a cooldown or both, and - in case of grenades -by reintroducing the chance to miss). It would be cool to have their effectiveness somewhat tied to the character stats (finesse) skills (huntman for arrows, scoundrel/warfare for grenades) and traits. This way they could scale in power with your PC.

Alternatively, some of the expedients I've suggested in order to limit the spam of consumables could be replaced by an elegant quick item bar, something along the line of to the memory bar. In other words, you should be able to use a limited number of consumables during combat at the normal AP cost. Alternatively you can use any other consumable in your backpack doubling its AP cost.

Food

Any buffs would have to be REALLY good to be worth taking a debuff for. Otherwise people will just do what I'm doing now, which is ignoring the food in favor of other methods. Any debuffs would have to not cancel out the benefit (A +5 STR / -5 CON food for a frontline warrior is bad, a +5 STR / -5 INT food is good)

My idea for food is to have it heal a bit each turn, to make the strategic choice between a potion for a large chunk of instant healing or a small amount each turn for several turns. It also probably needs a stat buff as well because you get a lot more attribute points than in D:OS 1 - keeping the same values for food makes them worse in comparison.


Potions

The problem with cure poison potions is the exact same problem with cure poison potions in basically every single RPG: The enemy can usually re-poison you effortlessly, making the potion a waste of an action. Cure Poison should not only cure, but give you a 3 turn immunity to poison.


Scrolls

I don't think Scrolls need any more changes. The addition of Memory and being unable to respec skills mid-combat makes scrolls much more useful than they were in D:OS 1. I disagree with a one-scroll-per-turn limit just because of Memory alone.


Grenades and Special Arrows

Honestly I didn't bother using these even though I had a Rogue and Archer. I was doing good damage with normal attacks and Height Bonus + Flesh Sacrifice arrows that it didn't feel needed to do special attacks.

But I guess increasing the AP cost sounds good if they're a problem.


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The quick item bar idea is interesting, but I haven't decided if I like it or not.

Food: Interesting idea, but I still prefer mine because in my opinion the constant healing effect would make eating a no brainer. I mean, in your scenario I would always eat something before entering a fight, and then- when I'm forced to - I would use potions neglecting the effect of food.
As for my solution: yes, I was thinking at something very impactful, like in the examples you made.

Potions: Agree. Anything that makes potions more useful (at a cost) it's more than welcome.

Scrolls: Aside for the fact that at the present anything remotely related to memory needs to be rebalanced (memory cost of skills, stat cost of memory slots, etc.), I've already suggested Larians to allow players to switch skillset in battle, at the cost of an inactive round though. This should keep the strategic value of the mechanic, while allowing for more flexibility.
In this scenario, I think that a scroll cooldown (or a quick item bar) would work fine.

A lot of damage comes in bursts though, and certainly the healing from food per turn would be less than that the 35% you get from a small potion - probably 10-15%. So it would be a choice between spending your AP to get a burst of healing, or spending it on a trickle of healing with some stat boosts.

Yes, Stabbey, I've got it. And you are right. But that's way I think it would become a standard strategy to eat something before a battle begin, whit no AP cost, and then - when you're in need of an healing burst - to turn to the more effective healing potions. If would be kind of a no branier...