Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Give underwhelming attributes a secondary use!

[color:#FFFF66]Hello everyone![/color]

Larian, in the years of lootbox drama you managed to pull a smart and soulful game. I can only admire how much attention have you been paying to your little gem of a game since the release, stitching bugs and rebalancing mechanichs. I want to offer you a small idea of improving your cool game even more, because the devil is indeed in the details.

I want to talk mainly about attributes and their equality. It seems to me that an rpg is that kind of a game that rewards you for choosing your own path, your own way to play. And as I can understand as devs you care the most about rewarding players for their choices in [b][u]EQUAL[/u][/b] measures.

Lets say that I choose to play my elegant elfish girl as a fierce two-handed warrior (sounds like a terrible mix, I know). So I look into the game mechanichs and realise that I'd better be putting some attribute points into strength, because:

1. I will be able to carry a lot of weight.
2. I will be able to move heavier objects further.
3. I will gain a moderate damage boost for my weapon attacks and warfare skills with each point spent.

I mean, I am sold!

And what do I get if I want to play my little funny dwarf, lets say, as a deadly crossbowman. For 1 point in finesse I get:

1. A moderate damage boost for my bow/crossbow attacks and skills [b][color:#FF0000]and nothing else.[/color][/b]

I mean, I am not sold at all and I don't want to feel that one choice of the same measure offers me more benefits then another choice.

Same with Int and Con (even though Con is a bit different).

There are two things that could make players feel same about making those choices:

[b]Thing A[/b] means you are not adding any extra values to the existing attributes (like extra carrying capacity for Str).

If that is the case then you can review the percentagies. Fin and Int can give better damage per point spent. Due to the fact that Int attacks do not crit without a special talent the damage can be redistributed like this:

- [color:#FF0000]Str[/color] +5% dmg per point
- [color:#33CC00]Fin[/color] +6% dmg per point
- [color:#3366FF]Int[/color] +7% dmg per point

[b]Thing B[/b] is about adding some extra values to Fin and Int.
There you can be much more creative and I will only leave a single suggestion I find the most interesting

- Fin could as well raise your crit multiplier by 1-2% per point spent. That fits the theme of precise shots with sharp weapons (daggers, arrows, spears). It would indeed make a spearman a better consideration.

- Int could as well raise all your elemental resistances by 1% per point spent. That may seem way too strong but in fact in lategame with high int you have a lot of magic armor already and main threat for you are phys damagers and in early to mid game it will make you slightly tankier in magical duels.

Speaking of a pretty underwhelming constitution..
I dont have a solution in mind for this one yet. May be you can merge two pretty useless (for now) mechanichs by deleting retribution ability and adding its values to Constitiution. For ex 1 Con would give you 7% health AND 1% of retribution mechanich.

Feel free to suggest your ways of solving this issue if you agree. Feel free to disagree as well! :opa:

P.S. Sry for my english, it is not my native, but I tried my best. :hahaha:

In the early access FIN gave 1% increase to dodge as well as damage increase and STR/INT gave additional physical/magic armor respectively. It was dropped at some point unfortunately. WIT kept its secondary 1% crit in addition to +1 initiative (but with initiative changes the crit is the more useful part now really).

That was a nice mechanic as they do seem a little one dimensional now. If I am playing a STR based character there is no benefic whatsoever putting points in FIN or INT except wearing certain armour.

I'd play it differently:

FIN could add +1% to thievery monetary limit.

WIT could add +0.2% to bartering effectivity.

STR could add +1% to thievery weight limit.

MEM could add 0.1 or 0.2 (depends on how you see it) per point to loremaster.

INT could add 0.1 or 0.2 (again: depends on your POV) per point to persuasion.

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Why 0.1 vs. 0.2:

0.1 bonus for MEM and INT would be a pure addition, 0.2 bonus could be seen more or less as "replacement", because of the maths... I mean the "spillover" after you have issued the 5th civil ability point could be enhanced to be almost a level 5 civil ability for lone wolves.

0.1 (the addition) could help with not having to change gear so often on the other hand, which would be great too.

Didn't do the exact math right now (it's late here), but this is something I would really like to see. Can do it tomorrow for the level 18 "last real civil ability point" if you want (the one @ level 22 doesn't count if you ask me, because it isn't really that useful anymore).

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Ah, forget that tiredness... lets see...

+1 start
+1 at 2
+1 at 6
+1 at 10
+1 at 14
+1 at 18

= 6 (= 1 spillover for min / max builds)

+1 from "all skilled up" (I take this on virtually each of my characters)
+1 for racial possibly (at least bartering, loremaster, persuasion and sneaking are available this way - while loremaster isn't that great, having it @ 5 can improve the flow of the game somewhat)

= 8 (= 3 spillover)

+2 from my suggested 0.1 boost @ +20 = 10

Sounds right. Gives you two full final abilities @ level 18 if you want to.

And +0.05 would help out with the gear by giving you a full civil ability level @ 18.

(Yes, I adjusted it after calculation. Use 0.1 and 0.05 now for the values.)

Note to self: don't post while tired. ;-)

Con could give some armor and magic armor(scaled by level), con should increase the survivability of a character but if you have no armor you will get CC'ed to death, the way it is right now con only makes you die a little slower it needs to give you armor and magic armor in order to really make you more resistant.

I don't necessarily agree on the specifics, but indeed the new attribute system is basically a non-choice. You decide on a primary attribute and plainly level this up, with a sprinkle of memory added to taste.

The first game had a balancing act between attributes to reach maximum efficiency. For most practical purpose the game would not lose anything with the removal of attributes and instead level based scaling. Actually, the game would gain something, because hybrid classes would work better, especially those which mix physical and magical damage.
Though a similar thing can be said about combat skills, because warfare is so overwhelming strong. I really don't know what went wrong with his game, maybe the guy who did the math for them quit his job or the game became to big to properly allow for character customization on attribute and skill level. I really don't know, but it is a glaring weakness of the system. Level ups are an pure annoyance within the current system.