Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta General Feedback Thread

1. Yes

2. There will be some kind of introductory area (after a certain quest the main characters comment on something that happened before you start out on the beach), but I don't know if there will be any explicit tutorial stuff, or if levelling will be described. There should at least be additional tooltips (same for spell descriptions) and UI improvements.

3. note to self: buy Tornado spell book

6. Conversation AI options for your non-lead character have not been implemented yet, so for now you have to answer for both.

Quest markers are evidently not included in the current Alpha, and I am finding that mostly refreshing, but occasionally frustrating. I hope that when they do come in they will be fairly minimalist and optional, with the quest design being such that you can do the quests without them, with a bit more work. Indeed, I wonder whether quest markers could be done away with in favour of simple map markers showing places mentioned as important during the quest.

There are times when some sort of marker makes sense, as it is a location the townsfolk would know so all you would have to do is ask, eg the old church or Esmerelda's house, or when someone says they are marking a location on your map. But there is no obvious reason why such places should only show when you have a particular quest highlighted. Maybe mark them on the map when the location becomes significant and simply highlight the marker, if any, for the selected quest.

There are other quest stages when I really wouldn't want a marker, as I shouldn't know where something is: such as in the murder quest phase which says we need to check Jake's body, or the Staff quest talking about "one of the secluded beaches in the area".

The advantage of playing without quest markers during testing is that needing a marker can highlight a design flaw: on an early playthrough I got frustrated because I couldn't find Esmerelda, it turned out that was because she is invisible behind her hams; and I still haven't managed to find that old church, in spite of a signpost which claims to point toward it.

Different players like different aspects of a game like this: some like exploring, some like solving puzzles, some like combat and some like following the story. Aids like quest markers need to support different play styles, but I think they also need to avoid hand-holding to the extent of spoiling the overall experience.

I would like to have them optional. As much as I like to be a bit puzzled and to think on my own, there are also times when the frustration level rises because you didn't found something for whatever reason. As playing a game is about having a good time enjoying the story and the gameplay it is quite a good idea to eliminate possible frustration and let the player decide, in sane limits, which way he plays and how easy or difficult the game should get. I think it's kind of good manners to give the player a bit control about his experience.

The old church is in the "under construction" area of the map so its not accessible in this build



I think its fine this way; a major part of the game is exploration, and adding quest markers would take some of that away.

Well some Questmarkers like to the Barracks at the beginning or to the mortician would be nice.

But i think what this game really needs is a kind of big tutorial where it shows what you can with the game. Like crafting that you can craft also weopons and not only thingd like french fries or that you can kill a lot of people and still finish the mainquest. You have to show new players that they dont play in a diablo like world but in a world that wants you to have fun and explore things. When i played the game i just did all the quest and killed a lot of enemys first and only later discovered that crafting is really just more than for fun.

I dont know how, but i think this should be done for totally new players that just buy the finished game on steam(or somewhere else) and they dont know anything about the game.

Played it since a week, think i explored and killed everything, didnt do al the quests though(since i killed some quest related characters earlier).

Liked it overall.

Few remarks:
Rotating camera with Arrow keys would be nice for when ur running arround/exploring and in combat because from one angle, ur view is sometimes blocked by trees, roofs,...

A resizeable inventory tab, then u can make it small and leave it open.

Till now, the fights where rather easy.

Make the quest related characters unattackable!:p

1.0.87 Feedback

- It seems to be essentially impossible to leave Cyseal without gathering the companions. The enemy forces are too overpowering without having 3-4 fighters on your side. This might be intentional, but I'm sure some people will complain about the difficulty.


- Firefly's 7 AP to cast is a really high cost for a skill that does 1 damage and just basically puts down a surface. Those are the kind of skills that should have a LOW AP cost, not a high one, but this has a longer cooldown and higher AP cost than Flare, which does a lot more damage.


- The Regenerate spell is too weak. It heals 3/?/7/9/11 damage per turn based on your character level. The idea to scaling the power of this spell as your level goes up is a good one, but both your total health - and more importantly the enemy damage - scale up a lot faster. The spell doesn't heal enough to be very useful in a fight, and using it after a fight saves potions, but again, it doesn't heal much, so you're left standing around for quite a while healing, waiting for the cooldown, and healing again. The spell needs to heal more and scale better with how your total HP scales up.


- Phoenix Dive is a Fire skill, but it only seems to require you to reach level 5 - no Int or Fire magic requirement. THIS IS GOOD. Phoenix Dive is a very nice skill to get melee fighters to the action instantly, so it is good that there are no "mage-y" requirements to learn this. I will note that it does a crazy amount of damage, especially notable because Madora starts with it at level 3, and it does 40-60 damage a lot, when normal attacks can have trouble breaking into double digits.

Hi all first post here.


My feedback currently:

- UI or should i say moving screen via mouse on edge of screen. I know there is lock that you can't move screen if you put mouse near icons preventing it from accidental screen movement but for someone who played a lot of games i don't need screen lock. It is especially frustrating when you talk with people. You accidental move camera off screen and can't back because there is this screen movement lock.

Introduce completely free camera.

- Use of Esc. Make it so that it closes all screens first then after all screens are clear it open save/load/exit/option menu.

Manualy using mouse to close inventory is a bit annoying after a while.

Or make it like in BG2 where right click on character icon = inventory and right click again on portret closes it. Currently it is done with double LMB which can sometimes lead to unnecessary movement of character when you miss with a mouse.

Naturally binding keys is must.

Still can't believe devs use keys like I for inventory where most of gaming is done on left side of keyboard and having inventory as S or A would be ultra quick. Sure it is trope in developing games and this supposed to help newcomers to see inventory but it is not 95. You can show them in tutorial that S is inventory along with other options to open it (like double LMB or character icon).

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As for quest marks i am for no. Main quest sure there can be few but side quests ? They are optional and part of fun is to explore world.

Instead of questmarking every little thing Journal should be expanded so places would be mentioned in Journal and how to find them. People who played Morrowind or other older RPG know how fun it is.

Also Personal Journal (i mean writing yourself) would be fantastic imo.

In the newest build the camera isn't moving smoothly anymore. It jumps a tiny bit every now and then when you walk around which is horribly irritating.

I see some people already mentioned tutorials. It would be really nice to have it in the game, if only for the general things. There are many gamers who simply do not know this genre, so everything is new for them. I can remember: DivDiv was my first RPG, I had to think a lot to figure things out. Ok, my English was not that good and I was a kid, but a tutorial is a really big help.

If there are UI elements in the way of moving the screen with the mouse, you can use WASD to move it (as long as the mouse cursor isn't over a UI element), or hit Home to re-centre it on the lead character. Normally you can use the arrow keys to move the screen, as well, but only the left and right arrows work for that during a conversation.

- Right now, Rangers are terrible. They start with a stance and one active skill. Their damage output against Undead enemies is garbage, making them very useless against about 75% of the enemies in the alpha. Yes, they might be able to purchase more skills, but that costs money. Their low damage makes their skills low priority on the purchase tree.


- The Lockpicking skill book should be deleted from the game. Instead, you automatically learn the Lockpicking skill once you put a point into that skill. The same goes for the Pickpocketing skill (once it's implemented). If Repair needs a skillbook to learn, the same for that as well.


- The control scheme could probably be a bit more intuitive as well. My suggestions:
Enter - Start chatting with partner
Space - End Turn
Shift - Sheathe/Unsheathe weapons
Tab - Switch controlled character.


- The idea of picking up owned items in a store and having merchants ask you if you want to buy them is a good idea... but it is completely unintuitive, because right now the icon is for that of stealing them. No one who wants to legitimately buy items would click that openly. It should be replaced with a "coin purse" or "dollar sign" icon and it should always trigger the merchant's "do you want to buy this" dialogue when you click - even if the merchant isn't in the line of sight.

I tried this out and the first time, Esmerelda didn't see me so I just stole the item outright. The second time, she did see me and ask if I wanted to buy the item. I said yes, and in the trade window, I sold her back the first item I stole from her. She didn't mind. That shouldn't happen.

It hadn't even occurred to me that they could have done this on purpose, though I guess it makes sense. I agree with you, the trade-off is not worth it, just let me scroll. Scrolling down in particular is annoying, as you have to go out of your way to avoid the skill bar.

Request: Rename the Evidence Chest in the Barracks to "Evidence Chest". RPG players will know to look for their stuff in that better than they will "Chest".


Request: Give the mushrooms different names instead of just "Mushroom". It's a convenience thing, because the only other way to identify them is to describe what they look like. Naming them will also make it easier to put recipes that require a specific mushroom into in-game books.


Ice Elementals should probably have a high saving throw against slipping on ice.


I know the "Spotter of Secrets" talent isn't enabled, but one idea is that maybe it could have an audio cue when you're near something flagged as secret. Not very loud, maybe higher perception lets you hear it from farther away.

Is there a way to open the inventories of both characters at the same time? Or the inventory of even four characters (with companions/henchmen)? Imo it's a real chore to transfer items between characters....would be much nicer if you could do that while all inventories are open and you see exactly what everyone is carrying around...

I like the progress bar that shows you crafting something, but the icon for the crafting should show what the finished product will be, not the icon of the ingredient you're combining.

Yes, there are actually two ways.

1) As an example. Click on Roderick and press "I". Then click on Scarlett without closing Roderick's inventory. Pressing "I" opens Scarlett's inventory right in front of the still open Roderick's inventory. All you have to do now is to drag Scarlett's inventory a little bit to the left so that you have two inventories next to each other.

If you just want to transfer one item from Roderick's inventory to Scarlett:

2) Open Roderick's inventory and drag the item from the inventory to Scarlett's portrait on the left side of the screen ("magic pockets"). Now, Scarlett should have the item in her inventory.

Thanks, Elwyn, the first point helps a lot.

I wished that this was also possible in shops or while bartering with people...

Questmarkers have been mentioned here quite often. The absence of Questmarkers is only in the Alpha, do I have this right?

This would be a shame I think. I played a couple of hours now and i first wondered that there is never a big blinking marker on my map so I startet to read the quests really carefully and I have to say it's been a long time since I've had so much fun with quests in a RPG.

It is really not that hard to find the locations or people as one pays a little attention to the dialogues. I really love that so I hope they will not be implementet or they are optional but then it should be possible to choose before the character creation one of three options:

- absolutely no markers, not temporaily activatable
- a hint option where you can show a marker for a quest for a short time
- markers allways on

This should serve all playstyles for this matter.

The game should at least have important locations marked on the map as you discover them, like "Thelyron's Residence" and "Barracks", and such places that NPC's specifically direct you to or mark on your map. For other, less obvious locations - like the one a certain diary tells you about - the journal might possibly contain x/y coordinates as notes.

This game DOES have quest markers if you look at the big map (and minimap), it just doesn't have a marker on the compass.

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Already made this suggestion, but it should be possible to leave a teleporter pyramid on the ground and use it to teleport to your partner. It's not all that useful being forced to take it with you with you teleport, it cuts out half the utility of the thing.

Additionally, if you do leave them somewhere, maybe the location of the stones should also appear on the map so you can find out where they are. (Possibly with an option to turn the marker off if you really don't want it.)

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One other issue with the dual-decisions: When disagreeing, There doesn't always seem to be the fourth option of "fine, we'll do it your way" for both characters.

Rod: It's time to make a decision...
Rod: I decide for option A.
Scarlett: No, I want to pick option B.


Rod:
1. I insist on option A (Charm).
2. I insist on option A (Intimidate).
3. I insist on option A (Reason).
4. Fine, we'll do it your way (Option B).

Scarlett:
1. I insist on option B (Charm).
2. I insist on option B (Intimidate).
3. I insist on option B (Reason).
4. Fine, we'll do it your way (Option A).

It's true that Scarlett could have agreed with A at the first opportunity, but I like having the second opportunity to agree because it gives a better sense that she gave in or accepted the argument/threat/charm presented by Rod. It makes it feel a bit more natural having that option in there.


Bug: When you do say "fine, we'll do it your way," both characters still get the separate Trait bonuses, even though they should be the same because one changed their mind to agree.