Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Source system change suggestion.

Currently I feels like players are being punished for using source skills, and they feel more like the "oh shit" button or "god mode" consumable potions instead of being part of my characters. Although I haven't gotten far enough to use them this still bothers me to no end.

Imagine this scenario, the final boss encounter in this game when the game is fully released, a rogue character just use time warp, scoundrel source skill, reset cooldown, scoundrel source skill again, potentially destroying pretty much all of the boss's health bars in one turn, or all of the physical armor and stunlock the boss for the rest of the game, while his teammates also time warp and blow all of their source skills.

There isn't so much strategy involved anymore, just brute forcing the way through, and I personally feels like this is very unhealthy for a strategy and character building focused game like divinity original sin 2, so I suggest some changes.

Reduce the power/damage of current source skills by 25% ~30%+, make restrictions so a character can only have 2 source skills total, racials included, and each source skill uses 5 memory points instead of 2, racials included. The source points player collect around the game around becomes memory points that can only be used to support source skills, let's say, 9 total, the player has to choose who to distribute the points among his party, this means that the source points the player collects becomes a stat instead of a consumable. Also, the player must have like 5 level or 7 levels spent in the skills page in the corresponding skill branch, (racials not involved) all of these restrictions to make it so source skills can be each used ONCE per fight without needing any consumable source points.

The numbers can all be changed of course, the purpose of these changes are to make it so players don't feel punished when using these skills, and these skills aren't just "there" as decorations, players can actually use them freely instead of saving them because they don't know what's ahead. One of the possible downsides of these changes is making the player party stronger than before, but I think this can be balanced by making the content overall harder, or add harsher restrictions.


edit: just got my first source points, and it seems like source points have a cap of 1, not sure if this cap increases later, but this puts source skills in a wierd state, I am suppose to fight in act 2 and then run out of source and go back to act 1 to absorb more jars or something.

Or, time warp can be changed so its not so OP and any stunlocks disabled, made into softerCC and made into critical hits only effects. Much easier to do then change the whole system.

Although making Source into a stat has some merit as a general idea... Maybe it could be tied to an attribute, which could give constitution something to do. That could keep the overall source points low. And serve as counterbalance for other attributes.

If its a consumable recharged by dead bodies as it is now... there is no end to it and almost no practical limits.

It's not just about time warp though, the fact that a player can use only source skills for like 3 turns straight and not use anything else is kinda problematic imo, spores, next turn, spores again or chain lighting, or the fire one. Why bother use regular skills when you can just throw all the source you've collected at the last boss, "been saving em just for this moment!".

There doesnt seem to be any more ordinary skills except those you get at the start.

And a lot of normal magic skills from the previous game now serve as Source skills. While this game is supposed to be about Source powered Godwoken so having some spells that feel a bit epic fits with that. And using them a lot.

Most of the ones i tried dont feel too strong or game breaking.
There is a few obviously OP examples but that can be tweaked and nerfed.

I havent tried using source vampirism in combat so i cant remember or say if it has some Ap cost, but if the goal is to make source points less easily available, then source vampirism AP cost can be raised to nerf it.

As for bosses, im sure they will have their own source spells and defenses against ours.

Increase AP Cost and nerf the damage output on some offensive source abilites should do.
eg:

• Mortal Blow:
2AP > 4AP
so you'll need at least 5~6AP to get in place and setting up to deliver a nuke.
OR
2AP > 3AP and nerf it damage output...HARD!
It's capable of nuking even bosses so nerf hammer definitely needed here.

• Overpower: 2AP > 3AP
also really strong atm to shutdown bosses in one turn, then the ongoing turns the boss will just eat a chain of CC , so it's pretty much game over for bosses on round one.

• Same goes for the other. I see they start giving alot of "meta" skill an increase in AP for the latest update so doing the same for these Source powers would solve the problem as well.

It's way too late to really implement something like that, but I quite like the idea. Basically balances every fight around the fact that you'll use 1 or 2 source skills per fight.

More realistically, I think the source skills should just be toned down slightly, and then make source points more common. Again, balance fights around the assumption players will use 1-3 source skills in most fights. This will make source skills feel powerful and important without making players feel like they need to save them for the hardest bosses. I think this may be the direction Larian is planning for given they're saying source will be more common in act 2.

I personally find the Source Skills to be largely underwhelming. Yeah, some of them do massive damage, and could use to eat up one mroe AP, but last I checked Source Vampirism uses AP, so it's not like you can just pour out three source skills in one turn. Unless you use Time Warp, which I Admittedly have no access to because I'm not using custom characters.

Still, the most I really see needing done, especially since the ccharacters are -Godwoken- is MAYBE an increase in AP required to use the source skills. They already use a lot of memory (Sometimes too much IMO) and they're not gonna stay as consistently powerful late game (You'll clearly need to trade some of them out for better ones through act 2 /3.)

Overhauling the whole system... Well, it's probably way too late for that now that an official release date is out. But hey, if it really bothers you that much that a GODWOKEN has super strong skills then you can mod the game yourself after release and make things just to your liking!

Admittedly this is just me rambling a bit, since I still find the game challenging plus I find it a little reprehensible to eat souls and defile corpses just for a quick power boost when I'm not playing a full on vampire or literal monster of some kind. And I mean,t his -is- a role-playing game, after all.