Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Feedback on Memory

I don't like the idea of lowering memory cost based on the spells respective attribute. It basically removes the mechanic of memory and memory requirements late game which were used to balance certain spells. The balance would no longer be there when you have 3 or 4 points in all the schools you want, giving all spells a 1 memory cost. Or the other scenario would be you put 1 point in a school and now you have to spend 3 or 4 slots for a good spell? that would never be worth it. In which case the freedom of hybridization is removed.

I like the idea of changing it to 1:1 slots and upping memory cost on most spells better than the current system, but it is going to feel kind of chaotic when you have like 20 slots right? You cant even have that many on your bar can you? And popping the window up to manage that memory could become a little tedious. Also, if there actually are almost no 1 cost spells, then it would just be transferring the irregularity from the attribute assignment to the memory slot assignment which does nothing. There would still need to be 1 memory spells.

Also, Naqel, you are being toxic. When someone brings up a different opinion, it is not them attacking you as a person. You aren't the epitome of logic in this thread so it would be nice if you stopped acting like you were.


Dude, someone else making sense is not a concession. Why do you think you are better than everyone else?

I don't think I'm better than everyone else(I know it ), it is however worthwhile in a discussion to acknowledge the merits of another person's position on an issue, even if one remains opposed to it in general.




Actually, there wouldn't.

So long as a reasonable amount of odd number cost spells(3, 5, etc.) exist, there doesn't even need to be a 1 cost spell to take advantage of the 1 memory slot a Memory point grants. Either way, I have quite clearly suggested that the costs would need to be altered to take advantage of the new possibilities.


As far as UI goes, it could be redone to only show the memory used as a X/Y, instead of rendering the exact number of slots, and filling them with an icon for each slot occupied(only a single empty slot would be shown to drag a new spell into).
This suggestion is however mostly concerned with the gameplay implications of the system, not the visual presentation of it.

I agree - memory feels too limited anyways. Making it 1 to 1 makes it a bit easier to get (even if one 'new' memory is less useful than 1 memory in the current system). This would also require rebalancing skill costs - instead of 1 to 3 memory, they might cost 1 to 6 or 7. A few of the current skills honestly feel like they are not worth it for 1 memory, but if rebalanced to 1 memory in the new system they would.

A nod from Larian's public relations or whatever might go a long way to ironing this out. If their is indeed gear with that many +stats than we must also throw out preconceived D:OS itemization ideas. Because in OS we were level 20-ish at the end game and had ~20ish in a stat for a hybrid with good items. If adding memory slots is really 10 levels of points then yes, that is complete shit.
BUT, in D:OS you gained more points in the higher levels, that could happen here? Also, we are seeing higher numbers across the board. And we are seeing level 10 characters in the completion of the opening act? Maybe the level cap is higher as well?
So, Larian may have opted to have higher numbers in general, with smaller individual effects, to even out scaling. After all, It's easier to balance smaller steps taken more often.

Unfortunately, most of this is based on too little information. Perhaps our goal should be ironing out what our concerns are for memory and the current stating and itemization so Larian can direct a response / focus their efforts.

My concern: I always play at least one play through of a battle mage, I love the flexibility and the aesthetic and what it offers, I'm not alone in that. However, from my EA experience I do not have the ability to
a - have enough skills to live that flexibility in combat. (memory being the largest contributor)
b - have enough +stat to be effective as a party member. (since I've moved from 2.5 to at least 4 stats i need to invest in, not including the combat skill investment trade off - which seems well compromised)
c - have the itemization to support that archetype (would be helped with crafting)

Completly agree on 1:1 ratio. It's really stupid having to invest 3 whole levels only in memory to have enough slots for a source spell. Wtf?

the more i think about it, the more i am of the opinion that pvp is the issue. i like the arena idea but it seems like pvp cripples the core game because everything only loosely related to pvp (ie eg skills) has ultimately to be balanced around pvp and hence the current system

I don't see the point. Memory and spellcasting could follow different rules in PvP and the campaign.

Well, that's not necesssarily true. The ability point distribution of course should cater to the experience which means that you maybe should get less ability points while leveling up. Imo you shouldn't be able to master two or more schools before very late in the game. Or at least not without sacrificing everything else in terms of character development.
And of course the balance is still there. You seem to forget that high level skills still have high AP costs and high cooldown times. So even if you have a huge range of spells at your disposal you probably can't use many of them more than once in combat.
The high and very rigid memory requirements that our currently implemented only severly limited the range of spells you can use in combat which imo reduces the fun of combat because you have less flexibility and a much smaller range of possibilites to adapt to your enemy. Lowering memory requirements once you level up in a school would give you real and tangible benefit for leveling up. It's pretty disappointing if you put another ability point in a school just to notice that you can't really use any of your new skills because your memory limit is still full. That takes a lot away from the enjoyment of getting stronger and leveling up. Leveling up should really make you stronger and should enhance your arsenal. Balancing (I only speak for SP here!) should be the result of multiple factors: memory requirements, AP costs, cooldown times, source point requirements and the price for spellbooks. Right now the memory requirement dominates the rest and is imo way too rigid and strong. Mid-level skills with a three slot memory requirement are hardly worth to be taken into your deck since they severly reduce your arsenal while still having high AP costs, high cooldown rates and source point requirements on top. It even goes that far that your wizard can come into situations in combat in which he has no ready spell at all during a turn because he has only very few low-level skills and his one or two high-level skills are still in cooldown. On top of that it's kind of boring to use the very same spells all the time because your arsenal is so small. That just doesn't sit right with me. Reducing the rigid memory requirements for level up in a certain school would imo soften that issue and would actually encourage people to level up and enjoy the new spells and skills they have at their disposal.

If you have 1 'mega nuke', you can fire only one 'mega nuke'.
If you have 3 mega nukes, you can fire 3 'mega nukes'.

If for each 'mega nuke' you are allowed to have, even if they all take a whole turn to deploy, you are still allowed to fire an extra 'mega nuke' within a single encounter.

If one 'mega nuke' competes with one 'regular nuke', the 'mega nuke' will always win.

If a 'mega nuke' competes with a number of 'regular nukes' of a roughly equivalent total strength, that's actually a choice to make.

Doesn't limiting the amount of slots for skills and or spell make most spells and skill near useless and promotes min/maxing ? Reminds me of wizards in D&D games for example wich have limited spells per spell lvl and 95% of those all spells are never used because of it.

the point is that there are not different rules as of now. you are correct theoretically but as long as the pve rules equal the pvp rules the issues remain

Again, you forget that memory isn't the only balancing tool. There are others, namely:

- AP costs
- cooldown time
- source points

Most 'mega nukes' nead at least one source point. So the number of these high-level abilities you can actually use during an encounter are already pretty limited.

In DOS 1 really high-level 'mega nukes' had really, really high AP costs for a good reason. You even had to spare points from a previous turn sometimes in order to have enough APs to be able to cast a 'mega nuke'. So there are of course ways to limit the number of 'mega nukes' a wizard can cast during an encounter. And cooldowns for 'mega nukes' should of course be pretty high as well, covering several turns.

My suggestion is primarily serving the purpose to enlarge your arsenal. You might still be only able to cast one or two 'mega nukes' during an encounter but you have more of them to choose from - which is currently effectively limited by the memory system. But on top of that I really think that climbing up the ladder in a spell school should make you effectively more powerful in using spells of this very school. If you are a pyro master with 5 ability points in this school you should be able to cast a wide variety of different pyro spells. If that's not the case being a master spellcaster feels imo pretty crippled and not very satisfying. Becoming stronger and enjoying a larger arsenal over time is one of the most important things in RPGs. Right now the system is way too restrictive.

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that the high-value AP system in DOS 1 was actually better. It offered a higher flexibility and more player freedom. The current system is imo only better for PvP gameplay because it allows for a pretty rigid balancing. But then again I think most people will play DOS 2 for the campaign and for the RPG aspects and I'm not convinced that everything that is good for a well-balanced PvP game is equally well suited for a (SP) RPG campaign...


True. But I really think (and you might agree with me) that this paradigm should fall. It imo doesn't benefit the campaign.

LordCrash, I think we are arguing on two separate wavelengths. I am not saying that the memory system isn't too rigid and that it doesn't need tweaking. I am saying that giving the player the ability to reduce the memory cost of spells to one with in a couple of levels would remove the mechanic for the most part. And the ability to balance around it. If you don't want the memory mechanic in the game that is definitely worth arguing, but if it is a good mechanic, then allowing it to be minimized so easily by the player is not good design. By only level 6 in EA I could have gotten I think 3 schools to level 3.

The purpose of the memory mechanic is to make players choose what spells they want to use in a battle, in essence what build they want to go with. It creates a good place of decision making and strategy, and also gives the game some "replayability" so to speak, because you will change how you play throughout the game by switching out spells and trying new things. Personally, I like the mechanic. It does have the drawback of making leveling up and finding new spells a little underwhelming as is, because finding a new spell and replacing a spell that you already liked does not really fell like great "progress". But it is still fun.

It is meant to be limiting, otherwise it has no purpose. That is why it needs some, I would argue, minor tweaking. I also think we are a little biased because we only saw the very early game which of course felt really tight due to so little memory at the start. In my opinion, if at end game I can use 8 to 10 different spells, some with varying memory costs, that seems fine with me. So if by level 6 I have 7 slots (which I did on 2 characters), that is well on its way. I don't want to have 20 spells on my bar, that would definitely defeat the point of memory. I already have 4 different characters for flexibility.

But that's wrong. I want memory to be in the game but for another purpose. Memory should limit the spells and skill you can use from schools you're NOT good in. In my system the memory requirements are only lowered when you progress in a special school. Skills and spells of other schools in which you don't have many points will still be efficiently limited by memory.


Nothing would be changed if you had a bigger arsenal at your disposal in that respect. On the opposite, you would have more flexiblity in combat. The choice would happen in actual encounters, not beforehand. I don't see the point in building up a pretty limited deck while I could do the same thing in combat. This is especially the case for a game like DOS2 where you often don't know the strenghts and weaknesses of your enemies. So what you often do right now is:

1) Building a deck.
2) Finding out the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies and dying
3) Noticing that your deck isn't perfect of that encounter
4) Reloading
5) Changing your deck
6) Fighting again

That's not per se bad, but unnecessary. If my arsenal was bigger (and balanced by both AP costs and cooldown times) I could decide right in battle which spells to use without the necessity to lose first and reload the game. Of course, failure can still happen and not every strategy is a winning one. But the memory system right now (in combination with all the other balancing elements) is just most tiresome than it had to be for the campaign.

And of course I know the roots of this issue: PvP MP. Being forced to build a pretty rigid deck makes balancing for actual PvP MP so much easier. It's how classical card games function and it's imo a good system for that purpose.

For SP (or coop MP), well, not so much imo, for the already stated reasons. AP costs and cooldown times are imo WAY better to make the campaign both more fun and more flexible, with less loading times and a more satisfying character progression. And again, on top of all that, there is still the source point restriction, even for medium-level spells. This game has so many possibilities for proper balancing, I really don't see why the memory system should dominate it all with all its unflexibility in the current state.


I'd still limit something, just not everything. And I really don't see how giving the player less options in combat is something that enhances fun.


I disagree. Especially in the end game you should be able to use a whole lot more spells and skills. Balancing should be way more heavy on AP costs and cooldowns, like suggested before. If you adjust both APs and cooldowns the game doesn't magically become much easier if you have more spells and skills to use. Just your flexibility rises and you have more way to react to your enemey, without the instant need to reload a previous game and to adjust your deck.

The soft level cap for players is around 30. Abilities now cap at 15 points, or so I've heard, and those "3 Memory" skills are considered level 2. Memory usage is supposed to go as high as 10 for some skills.

So I think there's probably some flexibility to drop the Memory cost for some skills as a reward for specialization without making things too easy.

Out of curiosity: Where did you hear that?

ya I mean that's basically saying you would prefer there really to be no memory system and use other mechanics for balancing, because you would like the game better if you could have all of the spells in your arsenal and decide during combat what to do. Which is a fine opinion to have. But I don't see the memory as a balancing system. It has nothing to do with preventing spell combinations, it has to do with creating a situation where your character becomes dynamic and your playstyle can change throughout the game by trying new builds.

Implementing skill tree related memory will actually serve to pidgeon hole your character into a single build more often that the current mechanic. How could I ever justify using a 5 memory Aero spell when I could use a 5 memory pyro spell for 1 memory instead? I would instead just have an Aero focused mage that uses Aero spells and a pyro focused mage that uses pyro spells. (of course each mage would probably spec 2 or 3 spell trees, but you get the idea). And their skills would be much more "set in stone" so to speak. They are of course changeable, but it will mostly be adding a utility here or there, or adding a new respective powerful spell.

No, I said the memory system is find, but for aspecific purpose. It's fine to limit the use of high-level spells for which you lack the proper school ability level. And it's fine to limit the overall amount of spells you can use (actually it's fine to have this general trade-off between more spells/skills and the possibility to upgrade your base characters values).


I fail to see how limiting the player gives him a better experience here. There is nothing more dynamic in the current solution either. It's actually less dynamic and much more rigid. And DOS was a classless game for a good reason, in order to maximize possibilities, but of course with the whole structure of a classic RPG in mind. The current implementation is working exactly in the opposite direction, by giving the player less possibilities during combat. This whole "build" thing is derived from PvP-MP and it works pretty well there, for balancing reasons and for the very sake of trying out different builds. For a classless SP game with traditional RPG mechanics it doesn't. You don't need a build for dynamic gameplay or for different playstyles. On the opposite, having a bigger arsenal means that you can change strategies on the fly, without the need to reload and change your deck. Why introducing a mechanic that is inflexible and rigid when you can to the same thing better and faster without? But of course your character is kind of tied to the way your levelled him up which only makes sense in an RPG, even a classless one.


Of course you would and that makes only sense. Of course a master aero wizard should be better at casting aero magic than an amateur. It's pretty pointless to let your pyro wizard cast aero magic if you have an aero master in your party, so what's the point anyway? Why skilling any school if it's pretty much pointless in the end? Skilling up and becoming better in a school should give your character real benefit and a pyro master should of course be better at casting pyro magic than everybody else. DOS was never meant to be a game in which every character can do pretty much everything. And I don't think such a system would enhance the fun of playing the game, on the opposite. Much of the fun of playing a party-based game comes from finding a good combination of characters with different professions and skills. If everybody can pretty much do the same this becomes pointless. A classless system doesn't mena that everybody should be able to do everything equally good. It means that everybody can evolve into everything by climbing up the ladder in various skill and spell schools.


That's how games with skill schools work for a good reason (see above). Actually every RPG works that way, even solo action RPGs like the Witcher. If that's not good anymore we could ditch the whole RPG system altogether. Why spending points for skill schools if that only makes you character less flexible? It's a good question, really, but if you think it through, the answer is that if you really want a completely flexbile game in which everybody can do everything you can just ditch the whole RPG thing alltogether. What you want is truly a PvP-kind of experience, with everybody having the same basis and everybody has a set amount of skills they can use in whatever combination. But sorry, I like my SP RPG campaign experience and I honestly don't think that such a PvP-derived "everything is possible" mechanics serves this well.

If you read what I wrote, I specifically state that it is regardless of those other restrictions, that having more 'mega-nukes' still increases the frequency at which you can deploy them.

If increasing that number comes at the expense of multiple smaller ones, it is a choice to make.

If both cost the same, you take the bigger ones, because it'll diminish your flexibility to a much smaller degree.

I'd say get rid of the memory system but leave the source point requirement for the mega nukes atleast for the RPG campaign. If they want to balance for pvp then have 2 systems in place, 1 for pve and 1 for pvp. I strongly disslike busywork wich is what i call it when i have to swap in and out skills and or spells on a regular basis wich the memory system forces me to do as is.