Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback An in depth examination of role playing immersion

Let me preface this post by saying that I love Divinity Original Sin 2. It's my favourite isometric RPG in many years, at the same level as games like Baldur's Gate 2 and Fallout 2. The gameplay, world, graphics, combat, exploration are all so good that I really want to go back and play it with my brother again, but I'm taking a break for now to make sure I don't get bored and quit before finishing a play through. I will be discussing story elements, so obviously there will be SPOILERS.

The only thing that was not good or excellent was the role playing immersion, which was directly affected by the number of side quests and minor encounters that did not have satisfying, or even "finished", conclusions. If it was only one or two encounters, I probably would have been able to fully invest into my roleplaying as Fane who gradually went from amused and dismissive of mortals to valuing their lives and world enough to sacrifice his own race's return for their sake. But by Act 2 I had noticed so many underwhelming conclusions that I started to compile a list as I think these problems were caused by not enough development time or focus on roleplaying compared to the other areas. Since DOS 2 nailed so many things, if Larian could improve this aspect of their RPGs the games would be practically perfect. I'm going to be listing the encounters and giving specific examples on why they feel unfinished and the options that should be available for characters who roleplay as good, evil, or neutral. I went through the whole game as a good character.

1. The first and probably most famous example is Buddy and Emmie. No matter what you do you can't reunite them. The just ends when you tell Emmie Buddy misses her, even though there's no reason you can't ask her to come with you or get Buddy to accompany you down there. There's the implication that Emmie has been cursed and beyond help but there's no option for you to put her out of her misery, at least as a dialogue option. Obviously you can just attack her and kill her but this doesn't work for immersion as this is something you can basically always do to anyone. A "good" ending should be that you wait until you get bless and come back to bless her, making it safe for them to meet and possibly stay in the fort or go off into the wilderness if you lead them out. A normal ending would be that you reunite them before getting bless but this ends up getting Buddy killed, and then Emmie attacks you either in madness or suicide. An evil ending would be to say you're going to kill her for the Evulz and then tell Buddy she's still alive or something cruel. Or kill Emmie right as Buddy is about to speak to her within earshot right in front of him. There a reason there's a mod made to fix this - the quest is just not finished.
2. The second is the bear cub you meet. In my playthrough I had found the dead bear already, but had no idea why she died as there was no signs of battle or dead enemies nearby. Then you mention to the cub the bear body you found, and the cub finds her, and just stands there. You can't do anything after that. Why can't you offer some comfort? Why can't you tell him off for being weak? Why can't you say he's better off dead and then kill him? What about an option for Spirit vision, where the mother tells you and the cub to continue living? Why is there no option to figure out what happened to her in the first place? Or better yet, as already suggested elsewhere, why couldn't this bear have been the pet that you could summon if you have enough persuasion, instead of the weird black cat that was just a nuisance? I didn't care about that cat at all because he had no story leading up to that point; but this innocent bear cub that lost its mother would have been perfect to have this option. As it is, I don't know why this encounter is even in the game, if it's just to make you feel bad or to make the world edgy and dark, but the inability to respond appropriately leaves this unsatisfying.
3. The next is the conclusion of Act 1 - it didn't really affect my playthrough, but I had missed out on saving those three seekers in the camp before taking on the ship and Alexander with the other Seekers. However had I saved them, I would have cared whether they lived and died later on... the thing is if you can be bothered to heal some NPCs, you are going to care about them at least a little bit. Especially for a good character. Those three characters should be available to go with you in that battle, and if you put in the effort, and keep them alive throughout the battle, they should survive after the ship teleports to the Hall of Echoes and stay there for the rest of the game. This would also have helped the empty feeling of the Lady Vengeance thorughout the game - pretty much only Gareth and Malady are there throughout, and they don't really have consistent dialogue for you to come back regularly to talk to them. Maybe having those Seekers on board would have given you a bit more investment in the ship, even if they're not party members. Have Matis instead of that Lizard lady who I don't even know handle the mercenaries, and give the other two something useful to do like Han did, and this would have rewarded the player for saving the Seekers and protecting them instead of rendering your effort pointless in a needlessly cruel way. Gareth doesn't need to be affected either; enough Seekers definitely died during that battle for his revenge arc to remain the same.
4. The next example relates to the Dessicated Undead guy you free from a tomb. This problem relates to a sense of responsibility that a good character would have - both to protect innocents, and not cause innocent deaths, either directly or indirectly. The problem with this quest is that to play it "properly", giving far more backstory about this undead guy and more exp, you have to get innocent people killed, since if you let the undead guy go he ends up having killed innocent people by the time you find him next. From the very beginning you have to act irresponsibly, despite this guy being released definitely being a bad thing. There should be an option to escort the undead while he seeks an end to his Source Hunger so the innocents don't have to die to complete this quest properly. Or let him take your source or at the very beginning so that no innocents have to die when you meet him next. The quest does have variation later with a child being killed or not, but the other innocents are unavoidable when just being responsible from the very beginning would have been easy enough to implement.
5. A similar situation happens with that child who's possessed by a demon in Bloodmoon island. Except the option to kill her isn't there at the beginning... at least I don't remember there being the option. Again, irresponsibly, you teleport the girl to the Lady Vengeance, but then you can't do anything regarding the DEMON inside her until it rears its ugly head later in Act 4. Simply giving the option to start the dialogue with the demon earlier would have been welcome. Plus, the undead cat, who I persuaded, was just left in the tomb for no reason. Why didn't I teleport the cat as well? While the quest itself does eventually result happily with the demon being destroyed, several innocent civilians had to die for this to happen, and all your character can do is remark that they were caught unawares, giving no indication that they feel remorse despite these deaths, while indirect, were your fault. The way around this would be if you teleported the cat out in the beginning, then the cat would have slowed the demon down enough that the innocent civilians escaped to the outskirts instead of being caught unawares, and the cat could have died instead. And it that does happen, the real conclusion would be for the girl to say a sad goodbye to Buttons before it dies. The reason this is more satisfying is because Buttons actually has agency and relevance to the quest instead of being inexplicably left behind. However I am open for Buttons to somehow survive this and stay with Iris after that as another option, which would be a happier ending for them.
6. The next example probably had the most effect on me, being the Forest Tiger in the Elven temple in act 3. I really wish this wasn't in the game. It's obvious by looking at her name as the "last" forest tiger that something really engaging and emotionally investing could have been done here, but instead no matter what I did when I talked to her she attacked me. The extinction of an entire species is one of the worst things that can happen from a good character's point of view, but this encounter is designed so that you are forced to possibly commit genocide over such a throwaway character. I say this tiger is throwaway is due to the fact that her existence doesn't make any sense in the world and its lore. I'd already heard multiple times that the Elves and their forest homeland was destroyed by Deathfog, and obviously that means a lot of animals died too. However not one character, not one elf, not one book, mentions forest tigers at all, not even the elves just a few steps away, to confirm if she's really the last or if she's just lonely and mad, then I could have accepted her death if others were out there. A bear at the entrance even asks you if you care about the animals and forest in general, and you can say you do. And then this encounter basically punishes you for caring. This should never happen, since emotional investment requires some gratification for important and serious topics like genocide. You could theoretically run away from combat, but that is needlessly inconvenient from a gameplay perspective since she might interfere with the much harder fight with Alexander nearby that I later had. If this should have been in the game, then from the very beginning there should be a way to stop her from attacking you through the dialogue; persuasion or not. You should never force a player, especially a good player, to commit genocide, especially in such a needless manner. I would have gone with the constitution persuasion to promise to do something for her people once I became divine. After this, helping the forest tigers actually became the main reason why I wanted to become divine, even over the eternals returning. But like the rest of the game, there is no mention of the tigers at all after this. This also prevented me from having a definitive ending, as I overall liked the ending where the Source was purged from the world more than the Divine one, but since I did not become Divine I don't know what happened to the Forest tigers in the ending. The elven ending with Saheila implies that the forest eventually recovered in some capacity but still no mention of the tigers or any other animals that died to the Deathfog. This could have been fixed by allowing the persuasion to succeed, even if it's really hard, and then some mention of the forest tigers being sighted near the elven forest area after the elves returned, which would imply that I either found the other Forest tigers or I resurrected them as Divine somehow.
7. The next is more light, thankfully, but still immersion breaking nonetheless. I had been playing as Fane linked to Beast, and my brother Red Prince linked to Sebille. I expected to have a heart to heart discussion about our journey and everything we've been through so far with Beast, like in other older Bioware RPGs before the final battle or region. Instead, Fane can only say "let's have sex" or nothing. I was completely baffled by this as there had been no flirting or anything romantic between us until this point, just as good friends who had each other's back. This must be an oversight; it's so ridiculous that I can't imagine it being anything else. And another thing, relating to Red Prince and Sebille - I'm pretty sure Lizards don't have nipples. Ahem. However, on a more serious note...
8. My brother as Red Prince actually did develop a romantic relationship with Sebille in the end, but this breaks immersion in relation to the Red Princess. Now if the Red Prince made it clear that he loved one and not the other, just friends with benefits with Sebille or something, that would be fine. But he pursued actual romantic relationships with both as if he loved them both, but neither of them, Sadha or Sebille, paid any mind to this despite them being right next to each other and discussing their relationship to the Red Prince within earshot of the other. I understand this was actually not a problem if it was Sebille being played while Red Prince was the other character linked, but Sebille really should have had some dialogue towards the end to discuss whether the Red Prince would stay with her or Sadha, and obviously it was Sadha ie. resurrecting red dragons.
9. In general Act 4 handled innocent deaths rather poorly as well as the optional enemies. There was a group of outcasts and animals summons (I assumed) that just outright attack your party. Seeing their green links between the summons and outcast my instinct was to kill the outcast and free the animals, but they still continue attacking me and they all ended up dead. The important thing here is context; it's obvious that the outcasts care about their summons somewhat, but there's no notes or explanation as to who these people are or why they're attacking me, when all other enemies in the game made sense context wise. Then there was Loic the Immaculate, who seemed familiar to me from the last game, but again there's no journal or notes in the area or on his corpse to explain his presence here. He doesn't say anything in combat either, just a generic, if very problematic, mage enemy with voidwoken around. Worse still there is a dead bear in the area. Another innocent animal dead, and there's no spirit to shed light on what happened either. You should always think twice about adding the body of an innocent to the game, as a good character will tend to feel upset as finding more and more innocents dead that they might have been able to save. Though admittedly bunnies and rats don't count for this as it's too impractical for them to survive even minor events with this invasion scenario.
10. The kraken at the docks is a more downplayed example, but it did signal to me that there are too many times where you stumble upon piles of innocent corpses too late to save them and clean the place up, when it could have been more exciting and emotionally investing for you to fight the Kraken as it's attacking the docks, rather than after. The lizard consulate felt good about this admittedly, since there were a decent amount of survivors and you do actively pursue someone through it. If the docks had let you save a few more people aside from that one frozen family and littered the place with less innocent civilians that would have been fine.

Wow, I realised just how long this got. This might sound overly negative, but I love this game so much and Larian, and I just want to give as much feedback as possible as this was the only area that needed work. I could go on and on about the good things as well, and I'll definitely put them in my review on Steam, but I figured it would be more useful for Larian to see this list of my own problems and specific solutions for these problems.
If anyone encountered similar problems, I'd like to hear why you thought they were problems, and suggesting ways to fix them would help Larian further. Some probably think I got too nitpicky with some of these but for someone that loves being immersed in their character experiencing the world, I had no such complaints about Baldur's Gate 2 or Fallout 2 (restoration mod included). I do hope this contributes in some way to Fallen Heroes, Baldur's Gate 3, and all Larian's future games, as they have quickly become one of my favourite developers apart from CD Projekt Red.