Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Get rid of the "Memory" attribute

Memory is a pointless attribute. It does nothing aside from increasing skill slots, and if you put points there, you start losing significant amounts of secondary abilities like dodge, because you can't then put those points in finesse.

instead, why not just have skill slots be controlled by the intelligence stat? same rule; 2pts intelligence gives you an extra memory slot. This would keep the function of the memory attribute, without having to waste skill points on it.

at least intelligence has value to some other things, even for primarily warriors it's not a complete waste.

Right now, the way memory works is nothing but a complete drain on every other skill. It's like I'm punishing myself simply to have a TINY bit of flexibility.

and source point skills take triple the amount of memory? why? what is the point of that? source points are limiting in and of themselves.

So fighters, rangers, and rogues have to split their attribute points, but mages get extra benefit from something they were already going to use in the first place?

If you're going to do that to mages, at that point, it might as well be better to return to the school-based skill slot system from DOS EE instead.

The memory stat is specifically so that you have to choose between power and versatility. Well, with all the 3-turn cooldowns, it's more than just versatility. Generally any ability is going to be more powerful than a normal attack, especially for mages. If you based memory slots off of Intelligence, then any caster would just dump all points into Intelligence without question, and at that point, why even give a choice of where to put stat points?

That said, I do agree with your point about source skills. I haven't found them to be powerful enough to justify 3 memory slots even without the source point cost. Maybe that'll change in Act 2+, but in Act 1 I just don't find enough value in any source abilities that I didn't get from equipment.

I've always thought the Source skills cost too much. Maybe make them more AP expensive but less memory cost?

My only issue with memory isn't memory itself, but the abilities that cost more than one memory point. None of the source skills are worth using because they both cost a scarce resource and 3 memory. There are a few things I'd like to see changed about it.

-Make all source skills cost zero memory, but have them cost a varying number of source points.

-Don't make any skills that cost more than 2 memory, and relegate skills that only have 2 memory to high level skills, and summons.

I'm fine with the memory skill conceptually. Enormous versatility with little cost to power was a huge problem in D:OS, especially for mages. Versatility and power are now checks against each other. The power gain of getting another skill shouldn't underestimated.

I do wish memory had some benefit for every point invested, instead of every 2 points. Just feels annoying that 1 point added to memory is essentially useless. I also agree that 3 memory slots and a source point feels really extreme for many abilities. Requiring 2 memory and slightly reducing the power of the abilities would make for a better scaling of power I think.

Memory should definitely have some sort of alternate effect as well. The difficulty is what would be good for that attribute. Perhaps it assists major attributes in reducing cooldown?

Tbh, I miss D:OS's stats affecting recovery AP and total AP. I wish memory could imitate that somewhat.

I do not believe that major attributes reduce cooldown anymore. I am glad of that because attribute-variable cooldowns make it more difficult to balance the power of skills. A skill balanced with the power of a 5-turn cooldown is much more powerful if you reduce that to 2 turns.

Would have to be some tiny bonus, like 1% increase to something. Probably pointless to bother with that, really.

Just had a random idea for a much bigger change to memory: what if you could learn infinite skills (or up to some high limit), but without the sufficient memory, each ability would be weaker, resulting in longer cooldowns, less damage/healing, shorter range, weaker effects in general. Just an interesting idea to toy with. Say, every skill above your memory cap would increase cooldown of all skills by 1, and decrease skill effects by 5-10%. Maybe every 2 or even 3 skills above your cap would increase cooldowns by 1.

I think this could open up a smoother curve of versatility vs power in the relationships between memory and primary attributes. A global +1 (or more) cooldown is pretty harsh, nevermind decreased power, so investing in memory would still be important. But you could forgo some points in memory if you were willing to use specific skills less.

Probably a bad idea. Memory would feel less special, and more like you're forced to invest in it to not suffer downsides, rather than improving your versatility by investing in it. Kind of how leveling up feels like it punishes you by making primary attributes seem weaker. Still fun to ponder how it would change the game.

But still, with the attributes doing so little, the sense of progression is almost non-existent. I really liked D:OS allowing you to maximize AP via attributes and having varied AP costs balance things out a little. Balance is so difficult to achieve in this game. XD

It might ultimately not make balancing easier, but another benefit is that Utility skills would be less affected by memory than combat skills. If you're not worried about cooldown and damage but just want to be able to set something on fire or teleport an object around outside of combat memory isn't a limiting factor even if these aren't class features. However once combat effectiveness is on the line, memory becomes very important.

I played 2 playthroughs without putting any points in memory, raped through every fights and never felt the need to have more skill slots, just use a varied party if you want versatility. For the Early Access, this stat is useless.

This issue has been touched on before a couple of times. Memory stat is there as a form of balancing. Without it players could literally learn and field every skill and spell in game, you'll have every counter on hand and your character is basically a 1 man army making having party members pointless. Even D:OS/EE system is pretty much broken as ultimately, you can field all or majority of the skills & spells by mid level.

O yeah. In DOS EE 1 point in each spell school was super strong.

In DOS2 every point deducted from Intellect into Memory hurts your damage by 5%. But also, every point diverted from your main spell school into another is 5% damage lost (e.g. putting that point into Hydro instead of Pyrokinetics is 5% less fire damage). It makes one think a little more about which schools are worth spreading into.