Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - Flames of Vengeance Mindreading embargo

more a rhetorical question than anything else-
Why are mindreading costs in FoV so damned high?

i just started FoV for the second time, and after all the mindreading in the Hall of Echo's Gauntlet fodder- all of which, the costs were ~2000 exp with lvl 6 Mindreading- of which, i tacked a few of those points to Mindreading. okay, back to the point- starting FoV with Mindreading lvl 7, General Augustus' mindread cost was 9000!
<insert various "It's Over 9000!!" meme's here>
in my first run at FoV, with a moderate Mindreading Rank (like... 4), a majority of Mindreading was well over 10k exp.

i was worried my near infinite Experience Debt would negate any experience i'd earn clearing dungeons and quests.

In the original release of D2:ED, the Mindread skill was generally considered to be not worth boosting (a minority did). Presumably the higher costs are partly to make the skill more important.

The experience needed to level goes up in proportion to the cube of the level, so the costs to mindread also have to go up, to maintain the relative cost/reward benefit for stat and skill points, at least.

Opponents respawn in some areas in FoV, and I assume give more experience than the regular opponents at the end of D2:ED (haven't got that far yet). The debt shouldn't last significantly longer than in the earlier portion of the game, despite the higher values.

There are many skill points available from quests and mindreading in FoV, so you can easily max the Mindread skill.

Also, high mindread costs generally mean good rewards - there are a lot of skill points to be found in FoV from mindreading, so that might explain the cost of those reads.

But Raze is right, there are a ridiculous number of skill points available in FoV compared to the earlier stages of the game, so I would personally recommend maxing out mindreading - it's only 15 points.

It's true that there are more skill points than you need.

But I would not max out mind-reading, because almost all of the mind-reads are in the first part, before any fighting, or before getting the tons of skill-points from solving quests. Those skill points could be used to finish up your main skills. And once you DO start fighting, that seemingly huge experience debt is a joke, it vanishes after one or two dungeons. You can clear it by doing the non-quest bonus dungeons.

To read, or not to read.

ahh...The ongoing debate of the mind game...

EDIT: The way I see it, if you have the points to spare, spend them. I didn't make it that far into FoV, before a misshap causing a fresh start replay, but I maxed it out because I just felt soooo DEPRESSED acquiring that much debt from the get-go. Books or no books. IMO

it doesent matter the skeleys respawn allowing for infinate xp as long as you dont level up to much
so do all the mindreads first then grind away your exp debt

Really? On the PC version all respawn points start to give 0XP after a while. ED let you farm for infinite XP, but DKS fixed that loophole. The '360 version could be different though.

The FoV section doesn't have that.

It don't like it.

that's a no brainer.
i went to my battle tower, snagged any accessories with Mindread (so i wouldn't have to allocate points there), mindread everyone important in the Great Market then down to Plaza, then equipped everything with a Wisdom bonus and down into the Abandoned Cave on the right side of the tavern there- the lvl 36+ Skeletons and Ghosts gave enough exp to pay off the debt so far- and even get a level.
then off to Laniwar Lane, mindread all the important people, then get rid of the debt via the Playhouse quest and the Temple Ruins in the back.

The Abandoned Cave is a decent place to farm for XP as the enemies do respawn each visit- but the greater your level, the less XP they reward you, and the more XP you need to level up.
As is the Nihelm Temple Ruins or whatever it's called in Lanilar Lane.

OK - I stand corected - I just tried the Abandoned Cave again, and they do seem to keep respawning. I guess Larian missed that one.

Although, I admit I'm getting b**ger-all experience for them at level 46

No, it's intended (the "cursed" section of town has it too, and a few other locations).

I was pretty sure the cursed section stopped respawning for me after a while, towards the end of the game I was always finding empty streets. I'm probably wrong though...

Maybe it stops after you stop the curse?
I've never returned afterwards (was my final piece), and it kept infinitely respawning for me...

Do'h - that would be it. Obviously if you stop the curse, you'll stop the undead

I thought this was halfway clear ?

Maxing out mindread is not essential, but I really thought being able to freely mindread even the worthless ones added to the game. I liked the extra dialogue. and you get so many skill points in between Draconis and Vengence that you aren't really going to miss the 15 points you put into mindread.

...That is the question.

To anyone who's actually read this entire thread this far - there's only one piece of advice I can give you: "Make up your own mind!". You can complete the game regardless of the character build you choose. So: if you like mindreading, then by all means reduce the cost. If you don't: then don't waste your skill points. Either way, have fun, and play the game the way you want to play it!

Wise spoken Trippy !

I will add this:
If you love Mindreading, do all the Mindreadings, with or without investing points in the Mindreading skill .

I do it this way :
1) Mindrading everyone I can ... without putting points in Mindreading (maybe 1 or 2 from equiped items)
2) Love to play this beautiful RPG as long as possible : so if I wish to lower/eliminate my XP Dept I must each time kill enemies somewhere in Aleroth (I heard something about respawning enemies )
3) Via the "Mindraeading XP Dept" I can "control" the way my hero will be level-up : fast or slow ! For me this is important because I love the "trading" ... but (so far) my goldcoints are rolling away from me very fast ... straight to all that can have the name "trader" ... so most of the time I love the XP dept so I stay longer on the same Level to have the chance to find goodies I can sell or find more Gold to buy goodies I wish to get my hands on them ... .

So, in this case I've ALL things (mentioned above) I wish in one playthrough ...

And THAT's just So great about this RPG :
It don't hold your hand
It give the player the chance to use his brains & be creative ...
And the outcome is that you, player,
Can play this game in the way you want :
You can find your Own Unique Way to play the Dragon Knigth Saga !

"Controlling your leveling" that bring back memories of the Oblivion leveling system :P

LoL - I had an Excel spreadsheet to track my 'Oblivion Leveling' - if you got it right, then you could get all stats and abilities to 100 before you hit the maximum level limit (around the high 40's in Oblivion if I remember right - although you had about twice as much lee-way in Morrowind).

I was really glad that DKS didn't require the same level of 'anal renention' (with respect to your character stats) in order to create a decent character...