Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Loremaster party wide?

So does anyone else think loremaster should be party wide? I believe it only gives basic info for everyone that doesnt have the loremaster skill leveled up. It would be nice for each player to be able to right click > examine and see the same thing.

That way one player can focus on leveling loremaster and the party benefits, without needing to frequently ask what each opponent is strong or weak to.

I thought about it... and indeed it is the easier way to do it.

But it also makes Loremaster a lot less special to the person who takes it.

You mean same mechanic like "magic pockets" feature ? Yes, it works for repair skill, dont know any reason why it should not work for loremaster.

However for multiplayer - magic pocket - should work only for one person characters. e.g. two human players are required to cooperate and juggle items, but one player not.

i dont think it would make it less special, i actually think it would make you value that party member more for doing something that benefits everyone.

It seems like a big sacrifice in convenience to have skills like loremaster and bartering and lucky charm only work for one character just so that player that invested in it feels special. Especially in solo play, where that doesn't matter. Make allies have to be somewhat near the loremaster/bartering member, fine, but party wide benefits would mean a lot less shuffling items and characters around. There's limits to how much skills should be shared -- persuasion and pickpocketing shouldn't be shareable, for example. But in cases where it's mostly a matter of a convenience, some sharing would help speed things up. Given a major criticism of D:OS1 was all the tedious micromanaging, Larian ought to eliminate all unnecessary clicks.

You are forgetting that the more you streamline these things the less the player is actually involved and the less "special" it becomes.

whenever I was forced to send by hand a ton of items from my strong guy to my barter guy I felt very special. I hope that in the DOS 2 that feeling will not be present.

How about a compromise that doesn't take too much off of a player.

Such as, for example, just letting the character identify a character's items... Such as... I dunno crazy thing... Right clicking on them and click 'Identify items'.

That way you aren't uninvolving the player. SURE it might be annoying, but the less you involve the player the less INVOLVED they are. It is something that many super streamlined games never learn, so focused on trying to eliminate every single "annoying" aspect of the game leaving players numb to the experience.

Identifying items works as you say, right click context menu identify, then a message "Your_party_smart_ass has Identified item for you". That is ok. That worked in DOS1 already. Now, the same way should work for opponents.

Also, Identifying opponents worked in DOS1 original release on ONE button. Just one button press and hold thats all. For enhanced edition, something wrong happened so 10 clicks was required to Identify an opponent. Pretty awful. I can say that I stopped use Identify opponent in enhanced edition because of crazy UI.

I thought that those UI things will be improved mostly in DOS2. Actually I didnt expect complete skill and game mechanic overhaul.

There's streamlining a game to death, and then there's eliminating annoyances that add nothing to the game. There's streamlining that just removes some extra clicks, like letting you use certain party member's civil skills if you're standing near them and there's streamlining that dramatically changes your behavior and experience of game, like fast travel from any location. I've come to like the limited fast travel in D:OS2 compared to the original, which ultimately made the game feel smaller and of less consequence, like you could just teleport around on whim no matter whatever you were, walking is for losers. It's nice to have SOME fast travel, to limit the tediousness of traveling back to trade a certain degree, but limitations to fast travel makes it feel more significant.

For every annoyance, developers should ask: does this really add to the game? Am I taking away something significant by smoothing this feature over, or is just basic quality of life? I think if let characters share civil skills across the map, you're taking something away (a certain realism, and making characters feel special and distinct, as you say.) But letting you share skills if within 5-10m basically just simulates your characters having a conversation, or one character helping another. In multiplayer, if you want to identify an enemy, you still have to find your friend with loremaster to use that ability, without necessarily asking them to identify each enemy, but still recognizing that its your friend that gives you this ability.

I might be even okay with reducing the range of magic pockets (though maybe it already has a limited range? I don't think it does) to create consistency and to encourage players to be prepared in combat. Like, how is it that all these companions have this incredible power? It sure is convenient, but I do think it takes something away. I'd at least like players to find some kind of magic bag of holding or something that explains this.

And regarding identifying items, I'm not sure how much this adds to the game at all. It kind of adds to the vibe that you're finding amazing artifacts that not every person will be able to recognize (except, funny enough, uniques.) It adds slightly to the expense of finding an item. It adds a gold sink if you don't invest in loremaster. But I can't say we've lost much by making green items come identified. I'd rather see another more interesting use to loremaster to replace this, but I imagine its staying. I almost think it would make more sense if blue items were also found pre-identified, but you had to identify unique items.

Actually right now, identifying items doesn't add much of a gold sink at all. ID glasses cost 37 gold, but identifying at a merchant costs a fraction of that - Literally just one or two gold. A proper gold sink would have the merchant identification cost a comparable amount to the ID glass.

True, identifying at merchants is clearly screwed up. I expect that to be fixed, and for ID glasses to not be consumed on use for that matter. I still think that's a lame reason for loremaster exist. It's more of a matter of what you lose if you don't pick loremaster than what you gain regarding identifying items.

Identify glass consumed on use is sick mechanic. (Althou repair hammer consumed is OK. )Lore master or Merchant nothing else is required. DOS inventory is literally infested by items. Removing some at all is for a medal.

Have such an idea, that some skills might be usable only in proper enviroment. e.g.
Loremaster >>identify item works in library or in a pub.
Repair & Smithery >> skill works up to 10 meters from an anvil. (and consume some resource, more expensive equipment, more resource is consumed)
Craft >> works up to 10 meters from an toolbox / tooltable.
Magic pockets >>works in one screen. (30m ?)

if not proper environment met, you get just a message where you need to go. However, it requires some smart designe for levels. So an industry station is located somewhere close to a teleport point. DOS1 homestead is a great example how not to create a home location. Whenever I was forced to run up and down again in those huge empty location I spend my time to swearing level designer.

I think the identification costs (and probably a few items) will LIKELY increase after we get off the island.

Since there are several good reasons why everything is so cheap on that island... SURE a Loremaster miiight charge standard fares to identify items...

But when everything is such garbage anyway and their fees would be more then most of the people on the island can afford... the price of a decent meal is a good starting point for what is less then an hours work.

I'll bring back my idea for identifying items too since other people are. My suggestion is two types of identifying items:

Identification scrolls - lowish-cost single-use items which can identify any item and have no requirements. These can be bought in stores and sometimes found in loot. These are functionally identical to how Identification Glasses currently work, it's just a different name, model, and icon.

Identifying Glasses. These require points into Loremaster to use, and they are infinite use, but they can only identify items up to a certain level based on the specific type of glass. 5 Ranks in Loremaster, 5 levels of ID glass. A Level 1 Identifying glass can only identify items up to level 1. These do not appear in loot, they must be bought or found in pre-placed locations. It is the lowest cost glass, but it is still pretty expensive.

This gives players a choice between investing in Loremaster and ID Glasses and ID Scrolls. Id Glasses have a much steeper cost up front, but once you invest that much, it lasts forever. ID Scrolls are relatively cheap and have no requirements, but you'll need to keep paying for them each and every time, adding up to more cost over time than ID glasses.

Ah. So you created 6 new items which might infest my inventory. Thank you.
Well rather than this, I would have all the items identified directly on spawn.
Is it possible to identify items without other items?

There is also one possible nice feature. You can use a strange item, his passive powers will work, however you will not see them in your stats. And of course, the active spells are not available. What you think?

This is a Divinity game. You're going to have insane amounts of junk in your inventory anyway. Hell, I don't craft and I keep picking up everything just in case I have a use for it later.

But fair enough. You are right that a simpler solution cuts out the middleman and just has items auto-identified via Loremaster if the player has the appropriate level. They could even put a magnifying glass icon in the interface which is disabled unless the player has Loremaster 1+