Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Attributes, Skills, Talents and Traits Discussion

Thanks, you too!

That's not a good reason. I haven't said D:OS should be more like a different game. All i want is, is that it is a "good" game and a financial success for Larian Studios.

So maybe you could elaborate why you think the current system is good or better then lets say the skill system from dragon age.

You can look at it's beauty here:
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Force_Mage

Imho DD:Os current system is bad, because
1. it's not intuitive
I want a skill or a set of skills. I don't want attributes. I want more melee damage not attributes. I want to lockpick a door. I have to read and figure out how to get what i want. Maybe read some divinity original sin wiki later to figure out whats going on.

2. It doesn't promote diversity or choice
All characters are the same, they only differentiate with their skill/attribute choices which are dictated by the game. No lockpick? No charm? No animal friend? You will need those.

3. It's intransparent. Its not good at showing you consequences.
I put in a skill in water magic now what? How has that affected my skills?

4. Skills need to be bought or found

I was not "spamming" these screenshots to show what a skill tree is, because not all of them are skill trees. I showed them to show that there are many better ways to represent an attribute / skill system than it is done in D:OS.

On that first screenshot, it seems like the Slashing, Crushing and Piercing Resistances are missing from the character screen, but I think you might be able to get gear that changes them.

I go back and forth on whether Battle Magic and Defensive Magic should be deleted. At the moment, I think that Battle Magic should go, but Defensive Magic could stay. Healing, Resurrection and Shields could fit under there. That's basically Light Magic. We still don't know what the heck Shadow Magic is. It's possibly a secret school of magic, or maybe something only enemies can use.

Plus, spells could be used by having points in more than one category. Right now Fireball requires points in either Battle Magic or Fire magic. As I said earlier in the thread, if Battle Magic were to stay, Fireball could require Fire Magic 3 or Battle Magic 5, to differentiate generalists and specialists.



2. The presentation could be improved, sure, although I don't have any good ideas on how at the moment.

1. I am confused. First you gave an example of having to get Water Magic 50, because you only wanted the one spell Ice Blade. It sounded like you did not like that idea, because doing that lets you get any skills that require Water Magic 50 or lower.

Now you're saying that you want to automatically learn all Water Magic skills as you put points into Water Magic... even though you might only want Ice Blade at WM 50. That sounds like the opposite position.


I do agree that having to hunt down traders who might be carrying a skillbook you want is clunky. That was one of the bad things of Beyond Divinity's skill system. Right now the skill system in D:OS is quite unusual in that instead of putting specific points to improve your spell Ice Blade, instead you have to put points into Water Magic, which improves all your Water spells. The balance is off so much that I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not for a skill system.

You're absolutely right. There are different types of weapon damage, it's very likely that there is equipment that prevents different damage types differently.

Yes but defensive magic is another generalist skill. Getting it will probably allow me to use different elemental magic that is labeled defensive.

This doesn't change my opinion, that healing spells are not "water" elemental, but that's just my feeling.

Yes i think this is the mindset how the current system was made.

I have some, but i think its larians turn to check their facts. I don't know if at this point of time there is even space to change the system at all.

I was proposing a work arround. If the current skill system were to stay then they should at least get rid of the bought/dropped skill mechanic.

I think the current system is balanceable but it will never be truly good.

I've just thought of an idea for the spell interface that could make sense.

Titan Quest has a similar system to Original Sin, in that it has a general Specialist skill that you're required to increase to unlock higher tier skills, similarly to how you need points in Way of the Warrior to be able to use higher level warrior skills. It also doesn't use skill trees (Squares are active skills, Circles are passives, circles attached to Squares modify the base active skill, but are not active skills themselves).

It represents that by having a bar along the side that shows your current mastery level, and a bunch of skills at various levels.

Laying out Original Sin's skill interface that way would help people plan and see what skills are available and when.

That's a better approach than locking all the other tabs for spells that you have no points for and hiding what you haven't learned. If there are secret skills which you need to unlock somehow, they could show up as icons with a (optional) name and description that only says "Unlocks when you discover a certain thing".

If there's a secret tab, an entire branch of secret magic, that is where a locked tab could be used.

I think your suggestion would make a lot of sense Stabbey!


Titans Quest Skill System / Talents


I just put the current warrior skills into an excel file:

Dont you think even that alone makes it better to understand?

What i think is that the current warrior skills are not fitting together.

Either would it be:
"Weapon based"
Way of the warrior
Unarmed
Sword
Axe
Hammer
Shield
Spear
Exotic

// all these types would include one and two handed weapons

OR
"Hands-Based"
Way of the warrior
Melee Single Handed // would include shields, unarmed and all 1-hand
Melee Two Handed // would include all two handed weapons

OR
"Fighting Style"
Guard // -> Sword and Shield
Destroyer // -> Two-handed
Berserker // -> Dualwield
Martial Artist // -> Unarmed

OR
"Material Based"
Blackrock
Magical
etc.

OR
something completly different.

But mixing weapon types with how much hands you need to hold it and materials and even trade skills looks weird imho.

My personal oppionion is that forcing fighters into a certain weapon type is a bad idea, because it makes itemisation so much more difficult for a game, most interesting would be fighting style

From Forktong on the first page on this thread: "Battle Magic: Probably gonna ditch it along with defensive. The idea was to have an ability to be a generalist instead of a specialist."
So, I suppose we can ignore these two skills until the next update.

@Janju: I usually don't like skill trees because in way too many cases they force me to put points in skills/talents I just don't want. Also most of the time the "early spells" become obsolete once you unlock the following tiers. Some games do it right imho by giving these early spells utility that late big nukes won't have but unfortunately they're a minority.

I think the DOS system is good because if I want to learn, for instance, "Ice Blast", I have to find the Ice Blast book, then put points in my water sorcery skill to boost the spell. To me it's a clear and efficient system. I don't have to plan something like "ok first I'll buy "magic gills" then "douse fire" so I can learn "ice blast"", which seems a bit silly to me but I suppose it's mostly a matter of personnal tastes. Another result is that skill trees favor specialisation in one specific tree, but I think it's usually more a designer choice for easier balancing.
I suppose one good thing with skill trees though is that they give a clear view of the progression path, and thus good sense of progression in general. On the other hand, that's just visualising the obvious so that's not much of a worthy point imho. Again, it's probably more a matter of personnal taste than anything else.

I don't miss "dark & light" magic, imho it's more a trope of manichean fantasy, to me Healing being a water spell makes perfect sense in a context of magice based of the 4 elements.
I agree that at the moment, which npc sells what seems a bit random and not intuitive, but I think it's more due to the game being in an early stage than the result of poor design.
Also the tooltips reflect in real time the result of your leveling up skills (for instance fireball will do more damage after you put points in fire sorcery, the tooltip will show that before you validate your choice) so it seems transparent enough for me but I agree more clarification wouldn't hurt.

I definitely agree that in the current build, diversity is not encouraged, due to some stats/skills/talents being must-have while others are plain useless. That's probably my biggest concern about the game right now.
I suppose the next update on skills/stats/talents will bring more clarification, and gives us a clearer image of which direction the devs are taking. I think it's necessary for all of us to "reffine" our feedback.

Yes i understand that, but weither you buy skills and learn them or not in DOS you've wasted points to get to the requirement of your wanted skill.

Yes this utility of the minor spells can be achieved with high level talents that can augment basic spells. What you describe is what i would call the best design there is.

The problem is, before you didn't already find the book "Ice Blast" you don't know that it exists and after you find it, you probably have the wrong skills skilled for it.

Concerning pre-requirements and skill trees, i think it depends on how the skill system is designed. DOS doesn't have to use trees. Larian can think up whatever they want as long as its visual and helps me understand what's going on it's ok imho. I think we both agree on that.

By forcing players to put a lot of points into the same attribute which both is required for higher level spells and at the same time boosts the strength of this class spells is not optimal imho. Basically if i put all my skills in a single magic school i will do extrem damage which is either imba or worthless (when encountering an entity immune to that magic school or has magic shield against it). Binary choices aren't good.

Actually, for me this would be the most funny intriguing and interesting point about the game which would keep me playing on - I see it rather as an exploration game where you should discover things on your own!

Huh? No you haven't. More powerful skills have higher requirements, whether than means increased character level, or 6 points into the Fire Magic skill, it's still a gate which is there for balance purposes.




Agreed, we should know what skills are available. There could be possible exceptions for secret skills and secret trees that have special/story requirements to learn - but those should be rare exceptions.




This depends on a lot of things which may change once Larian's break is over and they make adjustments to the skill system. Specifically, it depends on how many ability points you get per character level, what bonus points you get for higher primary stats, and how many ability points it costs to increase the ability's level.

I don't think it's as big a crisis as you do, though. If someone specs an all-fire mage, to the exclusion of all other forms of attack/defense, then it's their own fault if they end up not being able to do much against fire-absorbing enemies.

Even so, it's still not binary: they can have other options, like using a second school of magic (even if it isn't as strong as their primary), supporting their partner who does the work, or hiring a companion that has attacks or spells that they do not have, or using the Summoning Magic school and getting an element that can attack enemies who are immune to fire.

There again I think it's more an "alpha thing" than a flaw that is here to remain.
Like, right now the accessible areas are full of "books", and I think it's safe to assume that, in the Divinity tradition, there'll be plenty of stuff to read, which will provide a lot of information about a wide array of things, like the pantheon, the source hunters order, and the 4 school of elementary magic among other things.
I mean, Cyseal, the starting village, has a library, it's probably there for a good reason.
So, which spell exists or not, that kind of information will be in the game, accessible to anyone willing to spend some time reading about it.
Another benefit of not having skill trees is that it's probably easier for devs to add "secret skills", that will not be required to complete the game, may be entirely superfluous in some cases, but are always a nice reward for those who find them.
Of course in our current age of walkthrough and guides quickly accessible on the internet such "secrets" lost a bit of their value but still that's the kind of addition that I like in games.

As opposed to this:

Way of the Warrior: 10
Unarmed: 0
Single-Handed: 10
Two-Handed: 0

No, I do not find that easier to understand than the raw numbers. Especially if bonus points from Talents, Traits, and gear let you exceed the cap.




I think that a lot of them currently are not working as well as they should be. Whirlwind and Flurry's reach are short and they're not hitting as often as it seems like they should be.


Either would it be:
"Weapon based"
Way of the warrior
Unarmed
Sword
Axe
Hammer
Shield
Spear
Exotic

// all these types would include one and two handed weapons

OR
"Hands-Based"
Way of the warrior
Melee Single Handed // would include shields, unarmed and all 1-hand
Melee Two Handed // would include all two handed weapons

OR
"Fighting Style"
Guard // -> Sword and Shield
Destroyer // -> Two-handed
Berserker // -> Dualwield
Martial Artist // -> Unarmed[/quote]

Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity used weapon-based specialization - BD went much too far in that respect, Divinity 2 used a hands-based weapon specialization (Unarmed, Single-handed, single-handed with shield, two-handed, dual-wielding), which I thought was much better, because it lets you change weapons up as long as they use the same number of hands.

I don't see a big difference between what you define as "Hands-based" and what you define as "Fighting Style". Currently in the alpha, there are no skills that are weapon-specific. Even the backstab can be done if you take a certain Talent.

I made another version:


green bar shows the currently maximum skill possible at this level. yellow shows extra possiblity from other talents or traits.

Light yellow shows how much points are spend, orange shows points gained from items like weapons or armor.

The skill texts shows what skill is possible to use at this skill level.

Frankly, leaving alone the hack&slah and MMO stuff you listed, I can't see how Dragon Age is among the most successful RPGs of the last years (maybe your are talking about commercial success, so in this case, and only in this case, you are right, sadly), considering that - well presented or not - its character system brings to an infinite, boring to death, series of thrash-mob-combats in pure MMO fashion. A typical sample of post-Baldur's Gate Bioware's crap. If you REALLY want to see a good character/combat system, you should check the indie market.

That being said, I agree that in Original Sin there is a lack of information that need to be addressed, not at cost of removing skill books, though. They are in the game because Original Sin is a game that claims Ultima VII to be its main source of inspiration. Exploration is THE core mechanic here. So, searching for the best skill books MUST be part of the game.

Now, broadly speaking I'm not against skill trees, but the system Larians has built so far can works properly with a couple of fixes(and I've read many interesting ideas in this thread).

1) Intelligence is definitely overpowered. I can see why it is (they removed mana from the game, so they need a reason for mages to pick this attribute), but nonetheless the ability point bonus has to be nerfed.

2) Perception looks like your typical dump stat. Maybe if they change its name in "awareness" an make it relevant for the initiative order...

3)There are also dump skills in the game, or at least they look like dump skills because of the lack of information: treasure hunter, field medic and charisma, for instance; and "strange" skills too, like the rock-whatever weapon ability.

4) A cap to the amount of points you can put in a skill at a given level is probably the most urgent fix.

5) Traits, in typical D&D fashion, are a chaotic mess where you can find a little bit of everything. They should delete the "must have" ones, the "skill bust" ones, and concentrate their efforts on traits that give you options, both in combat and outside of combat, and/or that change your play-style in a significant way.



Oh, please, save these for hack&slash and MMO likes. This is a game about exploration, quest solving and tactical combat; not about grinding and itemization.

You know what? I want DOS to be a commercial success. It's like those hollywood movies you know, you gotta build something that is mainstream with some oddities or you will go bankrupt. I don't want larian studios to go bankrupt. Anyways, lets call your bluff. Tell me what great indi-rpgs did i miss out on.

I played dragon age 2 on highest difficulty level and it was not easy.

I dont understand what your problem is with MMORPGs either. Games like WOW, Old Republic have solid RPG Systems behind themselves.

I don't understand how anyone in 2013 can find the idea "skill books" good.

Acquisition of Spells and Skills could be done:
1) - by trainers
2) - by character development (skill trees, ect.)
3) - by items (like books)
4) - by events

They are all valid, but i would prefer 1) & 2)
Secret Skills&Spells could be realised with 3) & 4)

Ultima 7 had no dropping skill books, the spells for the spellbook had to be bought from wizards who sell them. Which was totally inline with the story and the world.

What do these two things have to do with each other. What i say is that a wizard should just be as dependent on his items then a warrior. This is a balancing topic which has to be addressed.

Janju - that second diagram is indeed much more clear about what the levels do. I'm just not sure that each Ability in the game will actually have enough Skills/Spells associated with it to make that useful for more than just the magic tree.



Yeah, I ran some numbers, and even if you increase the number of Ability points it takes to raise the level of an Ability, there's still a tremendous boost you get from starting with 10 Intelligence (and therefore 10 AB points per level), compared with 5 INT/AB points per level.



I can think of a few spots where it could come in handy. I haven't tested this yet, so I don't know if some of these are already implemented or planned in the game.

• Spotting the cute dogs are actually zombies could be done from farther away with higher perception.
• Spotting that the scarecrow is a trap.
• Spotting ambushes, like the escort mission where enemies pop up. The easy way to do that (at least it sounds easy to me) is a higher perception could lead to a bonus to a character’s initiative on the first turn ONLY in ambush situations.
• Possibly, spotting non-obvious elemental weaknesses/resistances, even if you don’t have the INT and Loremaster to normally spot it? Maybe if you hit a weakness or resistance, information on that monster type's weakness/resistance will show up on the Trophies page? Maybe that's treading too much on other things.
• Maybe some conversation options where a person is lying or not telling you something, and your perception is high enough, you can get conversation options.
• Some buttons could be hidden completely unless you have high enough perception.

Yeah, some of these don't seem that useful.

• Charisma increases initial reactions to your characters. I'll have to play with it and see if it's working and seems worthwhile.
• I don't know what Treasure Hunter does, but if it increases the amount of gold you find in loot it could be useful. You're right, more information is needed.
• Forktong said that Field Medic is probably going to be deleted. (I can think of a use for it, it could increases the power of healing items, potions and spells by 10% per level, but I wouldn't object to just deleting it.
• Black Rock and Sourcery sound like skills that you can only use after certain plot points. I think those should be displayed as "???" and locked from putting points into them until you reach that point of the plot that they become available.
• I guess Leadership might increase your saving throws against status effects, but more information is needed.
• Man of Iron just seems to increase poison resistance - by a LOT, actually.

Yes. I had an idea to cap it at equal to your character level, but that might be a little too strict and inflexible.



You mean Talents, but I completely agree. Most of them are functional, but uninspiring. The ones that boost skills could be useful if they allow you to boost them past the normal cap - which I think that they already do.

Pet Pal is one of the more interesting ones, but so far it seems like animals don't usually have much more interesting stuff to say than humans do. It might be possible that I haven't found the right animals.



Yes, I know. I've found them (or at least seen part of that quest on the stream. My thought still stands.

Well, there is at least one cat and one dog talking to which gives you new quests / new solutions to the quests ^^...

Theme Park MMOs and H&Ss have functional game systems for the kind of gameplay they provide, a gameplay heavily based on itemization and grinding. Thank god, this is not the case of Original Sin. I hope it will be a commercial success too, of course, but for the same reasons Ultima VII was.

Have a try with games such Knights of the Chalice, Frayed Knights and the Age of Decadence beta if you want to see a deep RPG system.



Again, this is first and foremost a game about exploration and quest-solving. Any game mechanic that encourages one or both is welcome. So ability books are welcome.



Ultima VII had no dropping skill books simply because it had no active skills . In both Black Gate and Serpent's Island spells and reagents cold be either purchased or found through exploration. In both games the most powerful spell had to be found. So, in both games you had a mechanic that actively encourage exploration.



Again, this could be true for your average MMO/H&S. In this case it's hardly a problem.
1)Because Wizards DON't need to depend on weapons, as long as they have their own money sink (spells) and interesting stuff to find (again spells, robes, whatever). There is no balancing issue here.
2) Because this is not a class based game. In OS it's extremely unlikely (and probably detrimental) to have pure wizards, pure rangers and pure warriors.
3) Because this is a party based game. "All classes should work in the same way" is typical MMO crap. No, they shouldn't. They just need to have a unique role in the party and not to be overpowered. Actually it's a good thing if they work in different ways, depend on different stuff, etc.

They are all good uses of perception on paper. Maybe with more information about how it works, I will change my mind. An hook to the combat system like the one I suggested, anyway, would make this stat definitely more appealing.



Good Idea.



Probably it works also on companions.




Yes, I meant talents. As Elwyn wrote, there is a couple of extremely creative samples of how to put to good use animals in the game. In one case it's an alternative way to solve the "main quest" in Cyseal. It really impressed me.

Maybe Perception, NOT Intelligence should be the stat that lets you see Enemy attributes like HP, AP, and Resistances. That would give mages a reason to spread their attribute points out a little, wouldn't it?

Good idea / bad idea, what?

Right now, anything that makes perception look more appealing for the player is an improvement. Your suggestion definitely is worth a try, Stabbey.