Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta BETA 1.059 Skills/abilities change thread

It seems that there are no specialisation options for mages anymore.

From what i have seen so far, all spells have Intelligence and level requirements.

As a mage, you just need to put one point into every spell school and take the 3 strongest spells of each school available at your level. You get the strongest healing spell for one skillpoint, tha most damaging spell for one skillpoint, ...

This makes mages extremely generic. Any character with enough intelligence can be an all purpose mage with very little investment in skillpoints.

There is no real advantage if you specialize in any one or 2 of the spell categories. You can equip the full arsenal of given element, but the jack of all trades mage will have even more variety and will most likely perform better in combat.

I should mention that I like the reorganization of the abilities into their new categories (although I'm not sure why Barter is under the "Craftsmanship" instead of "Personality").



Better now than waiting another three weeks for that change, though.

Or skillbooks have level requirement only... Hmmmm... Thinking and discussing

Larian I must first say that this game is truely something special, you have a masterpiece here and I cant put it down already.I really believe this game can win several awards and go down as one of the greatest rpgs of all time. ive beaten the beta 3 times now with 3 different friends, who i have all conviened they were going to buy it from the great co-op exp. I felt getting this great game for only 40$ was a steal and all my money was well spent. it reminds of a top down,co-op, turn based version of Dragon Age(which I hold in the higest regard because its an amazing take on the RPG genre). and I REALLY want to guys to succed and get all the awards you deserve for this game.

BUT this lastest patch has really made the game horrible, please do NOT leave the class/ability/talent system as it is in this new patch update. I will go on record as saying had I bought the game after this current patch update had been implemented I would have never even finished it one time, I would have tossed this out as another bad rpg attempt.



The new system has done nothing to change this. I can start a new game right now create a fighter put 7 in intellegence 8 in strength. 1 point in pyromancy, 1 point in witchcarft, 1 point in man at arms, 1 point air, 1 point in earth. after about 1 hour of play i will have enough gold to go and buy 3 books from each of the classes i know. thats 15 skills in less than 1 hour.

The old system allowed for you to do the exact same thing.1 point in way of warrior, rogue, ranger,witchcraft, and air. now you have a charecter who can learn 15 skills in less than 1 hour.

the difference between the 2 system is that the old system gave players the choice to specialize in 1 area as the new system does not.



Its true when i made my warrior i wanted to learn all the warrior skills but you didnt force me to i choose to do it that way, as you read above with the old system I could just as easily have choosen to learn 3 skills from 5 different classes and have 15 different skills instead of 15 warrior skills had I CHOOSe to do so.its what I i did on my 3 playthroughs in the beta, but guess what the players CHOOSE to do this, you didnt force them to they made the choice to say "hey, i want to be a really good focused warrior instead of being a warrior who can cast magic and heal". the previous system didnt FORCE anyone into putting all 5 points into "way of the" the players made the choice themselves.

the only difference between the new and old system is that now instead of being able to be really good in one area you cant.




Then your players were not thinking very hard, after you had 5 points in a "way of the" ability the old system then allowed you to pick another "way of the" and bring that up to level 5 also. in turn giving you skills/bonsus from 2 different classes and passive from 2 different classes, to say "once i got 5 in way of im done" was from the point of view of not very smart players, and the new system has now been dumbed down to suit such.



as I mention above the new system does not stop players from "simply buy all the skillsbooks" it just now allows you to buy all the skillbooks 3 at a time from 5 different classes. in turn leading to charecters that know 15 skills, 3 from each class they picked,in less than 1 hour of play.




Well you see,this is only valid because you removed the passive bonuses given for "way of the" abilities, the readson you would go for 5 points in "man-at-arms"/"way of the warrior" would have been to get the passive bonuses and to access the skills that require lv5 way of warrior. I had the choice if I wanted to, to focus on being a warrior and if i did i got my skills faster than someone who tried to be a mage/warrior/ranger. which makes sense someone who spent 2 years training to be a warrior becomes a master warrior faster than someone who spend 7 years hopping from trying to be a mage/warrior/ranger master.

you see the old sytem gave the OPTION to become a master of your choosing as early as you wanted OR if you CHOOSE you could train in several arts and slowly become a master of them all

The new system has taken away options, because it is now cut and dry that the way to become the best is train in 5 different arts at one time and get skills quicker. VS the old system which gave the choose to either master one quickly or master several slowly.

The end result of both systems are the same, you will know lots of abilities from lots of different classes. the difference between them is one system tells you to be different(like everyone else) and here is how you NEED to play the game(the new system).
the other system tells you do whatever you want man its your choice how you want to reach the end result.(the old system)



already addressed this, players had the choice to do this if they wanted, no one forced them to. They no longer have this choice and are instead with the new system forced to build a certain way or not receive any benefits.

I am now forced to put points into body building if i want the man-at-arms talent, now forced to put points into constitution to get other man-at-armts talents, now forced to put points into perception to get oppurtonist. I no longer have the choice to put my stat points where i want them, i cant be full strenght or full consitution or full intellegence if i choose. I have to put my stats where the new system tells me to or else I cant get certain talents. Talents were free before and are now locked behind restrictions based on the way you think players NEED to build their class and if we dont build the class the way you think it should be built we have no access to certain things. Dont see how this gives us more choice.



discussed already, its not more choice. Its "put this stat point here, put that point there, put this point there" and if you don't you cant use these said talents. I loved your game before this patch because it wasn't telling me what to do, now you only want us to play the game you way you THINK we should play it.



Dont see your logic here. The old system gave you the CHOICE to build your characters under a class based system or you could ignore the class system and build the way you wanted. With the old system it was up to you the way you wanted to play. Now it "be different, be diverse, put this here"(just like everyone else who plays the game).

and yes you are right the presets are not classes because before in the old system you freely had the choice to ignore everything you put as the preset for wizard. you could make a wizard and put all your points into strength if you wanted to, then get the zombie talent and leech talent and be a "zombie wizard"(whatever you wanted).

The new system tells you "NO you cant put all your points as a wizard into strength or we are going to take all your starting spells away, here put 3 of your 5"free to put them where you want"starting stat poitns into intellegence and we will give you your starting spells back"

I dont see how you think this new system gives you more freedom, it completely hinders creativity. Which I loved that I could be creative in the previous patch.



This is again you changing the game this patch to fit how you think players should play the game, and if they now choose to play the game a different way than the way you think it should be played they are punished for doing so. i.e taking away abilities/talents if you want to be a strength wizard or want to be an intelligence warrior.

previous system let you use your imagination and didn't hinder you for it.




once again you are forcing your views this patch on how you think it should be played,you are 100% contradicting yourself here. What was just said above does not line up with the new system.


The old system gave you the choice to be a full fire mage if you wanted, that was our choice, we had the choice to ignore all the "do this" signs and do whatever we wanted.If we wanted to have 1 full fire mage and 1 full water mage that should have been up to us to make that choice, it should have been our choice to make a party setup that if one of your charecters dies it messs up our synergy, that was our choice. now you are saying "hey dont try to be different and be a full fire mage, be a mage that can do everything, thats how we think you shoud play.

The prevouis system allowed you to have a warrior with touch spells also, all you had to do was put an ability point into fire element and now you can use fire touch or put am ability point into ice and then you had ice touch. you could still be a full consitution warrior and have touch spells.

The new system now forces you to put abilitie points into fire element(which, ok noting has changed even the old sytem did that) BUT on top of that forces you to put 2 or 3 stat points into intelligence just to use the spells. this system takes away all your freedom to put your STAT points where you want them to and instead we have to put them where the devs "think" they should go.

You are saying you want to give us more choice but everything this patch has just been you taking away our freedom of choice and replacing it with your ideas on how it should be played.



Dont have to say much on this, you even ended it with "in my opinion". Another example of your opinion and choices being better than the players, and as such your opinion needs to be most valid so the game is changed to fit such.

give the players their TRUE freedom of choice back. its what made your game unlike any other RPG please understand that( your game was special for that reason, not saying its not special anymore but that TRULY set you apart). your game was great because of ALLL the freedom we had to put points where you wanted and not be punished or locked out of certain talents and abilities because we CHOOSE to put all our stat points into 1 thing.

It was true freedom to build how you wanted from the very start in the charecter creation screen, it is now "freedom within the confined of what we want you to do"(which is the resriction every other RPG imposes on you, which i hate about other RPGs and the reason I dislike the game after the patch.



From the bottom of my heart I want you to understand that you dont need a skilltree system or a d20 system or any other system for that matter. You HAD a special system you HAD a system that was unlike any other systme put into an RPG you were innovators/pioneers. YOU where the first RPG to right in the very start of the game in the character creation screen be able to build from the ground up the way you wanted to build and not be punished for it.

Your new system has taken that VERY VERY VERY special/unique/unlike any other trait away from your game. that"right from the very start build how you want no restrictions and hand holding" and turned it into a system found in every other RPG out there.

please take back your originality and give the players back their true freedom of choice and change the game back to the masterpiece you had before.

I agree with not liking the new changes that much. I understand why they were done, but as others have said - now instead of focusing into one elemental branch, you spread points out amongst all of them. You still end up having a ton of spells early on. Plus most of the spells in each school are arguably useless, and given players limited AP per round, its hard to see why there is ever a reason to go full investment in just a single school of magic.

And the level requirements - why are they capped at both intelligence and player level? Surely the best spells should be limited to high intelligence. Maybe higher tier spells take up more "spell room" i.e. 2 slots instead of one.

A few things I don't like about it...

a) Too complicated. Unnecessarily so. You pretty much have to start planning things out on paper to figure out if you have enough skill points to gain certain abilities.

b) Too restrictive. Over half the traits are now red (unavailable). This is massively limiting. You've gone from 20+ choices to ten. Further, this effectively creates a class-like system. The choices are now say 3-4 obvious choices per character class. Finally, this not further encourages specializing. The only way to be immune to stun is as an air wizard and put everything into air. You might as well make a tree-system.

c) Naming. I don't like that the names of the skills are different than the names of the abilities. Air, Earth, Water, Fire, Witchcraft, Way of the Ranger, etc. makes sense. Different name doesn't make it any cooler and just add more complexity.

I think there would be much better ways of dealing with the power curve from gaining a new spell skill -- and a ton of spells. Such as...

a) Scale lower level spell power down.
b) Better explain that in order to raise skills you need to save points.
c) Reduce the number of spell books available for sale or require quests for obtaining the ability to purchase them.
d) Start the NPCs with fewer spells.
e) Increase the cost of spells books.
f) Increase the action cost of spells, but do decrease the action points for having more skill ranks.
g) Make traits which give spell bonuses per type. For example: Elemental Affinity (Air), Elemental Affinity (Earth), etc. Same with ranger spells.

In any case, I don't see it as a positive. It now seems so restrictive that you might as well just make traits class abilities tied to the skills.

Someone has already posted here that the current system does not limit you very much in the number of skills you can learn (put 1 point in 5 schools and you can now learn 15 spells at level 5).

What about basing the number of skills/spells a character can learn on his level? So, a character at levels 1 and 2, can know altogether only 5 spells, a character at levels 3 and 4, only 6, at levels 5 and 6 only 7 and so on. With such a system you would have control on how many spells and skills a character can know at a certain level...

Then, in order to make the character progression last until the very late endgame, you could increase the number of skill points needed to acquire the skill levels. Right now it is 1+2+3+4+5, isn't it? What about making it something like 1+2+4+8+12? So, a fully specialized character would be only possible only very late in the game.

And finally, make the spells again dependent on you specialization level and also on primary stats. So, if you say have something like 3 points in fire specialist and need to acquire 8 ability points to get level 4 in fire specialist, then you can still progress your character in-between since you gain intelligence and can learn level 3 fire spells which have a high intelligence requirement.

Thx for all the feedback!

The core problem we're trying to solve is preventing access to higher level skills at lower levels, and reward specialisation while still allowing you to play class free.

The current idea is that requirements solve the former problem, and giving you access to (more) spells in a school + "something extra" takes care of specialisation rewards. We didn't do the "something extra" yet and there's certainly room for debate on which requirements we use on what. It's also unfortunate that the skills are now random at traders. As such, the new system can be improved a lot and will probably yield something that works well enough.

But, that doesn't mean that we're not open to suggestions that achieve a solution to the problem we're trying to solve. If somebody posts a better idea here, we'll certainly consider it.

I agree that the changes are too biased towards a classless character and do not provide any incentive for specializing.

Investing ability points in skills should yield more benefits than just increasing the number of skills available (at this point this benefit seems irrelevant - having more than 3 spells per school is not necessary). A higher skill level should unlock more powerful skills, improve skills and/or reduce AP costs.

So, if the new system is retained, skills should also be given a skill level pre-requisite in addition to the character level and/or attribute pre-requisites.

Thats not really true SGnri, - and the rest of you.

And you should cut out accusations and empty assertions of making the game horrible now or taking away player choices. You are practically insulting at several places in that post of yours, because you are not getting exactly what you want.
Which is pathetic.

You actually did not supply any actual evidence for any of those assertions. Except your own statements that it is so.
Just because.

The old system does not need to come back. If you want specializations into pure classes to provide some advantages over the hybrids and mixed builds then that can be achieved by adjusting this new system, not by throwing it away.


- nobody is forcing you now either.


- no it didnt.


- thats your own personal fault. Not surprising seeing how you think that laughable excuse for an RPG from EA-ware is a good game. (although it was the last mediocre RPG they managed to produce - after which most of those devs went away, as practically all those that created BG games went away long ago)




- False. (it is true you can do that but the conclusion you draw from it is false)

1. You did not understand what Swen was saying. He was referring to the fact that the players had too many skills too fast - of a single class.
Not all of them or several of them.

Which caused people to think about the game as if it was a class based game - needlessly.
Because it isnt and it was never intended to be.


2. those skills you can buy are all low level skills. You are not able to buy and use any of the higher levels ones - because of specific requirements.

SO - someone who did not invest enough points into a "fighter" specific skills and stats WILL NOT BE ABLE to make as good as a fighter and as fast as you, with your specialized fighter will be able.

Comprende?


Your specialized fighter or a warrior - will be better at fighting in that specific way, then a hybrid build.

BUT IT WONT BE better then them overall. Just different. Specialized. A better fighter. NOT A BETTER wizard, rogue or ranger, not better IN EVERY WAY.

BECAUSE - there is no reason in this universe to let you be better then anyone else - just because you would like it.

Ill repeat one more time: If you specialize now into a fighter - your fighting abilities will be better then fighting abilities of a hybrid build. But you will not have a better build in general.

Comprende?



You are saying that you would want a fighter with high strength to have as many spells and use them as well as a wizard?

- is that what youre saying?



That doesnt make any sense at all. If you said that someone who spends 2 years training as a fighter - gets to be a better fighter then someone who spent 2 years training a mix of skills - then you would be correct.




- im afraid that you misunderstand this on a fundamental level.

This was never meant to be a game where you can just choose any skills and spells as you like and therefore make completely insane builds like fighters without a point in intelligence that can use all spells as you see fit or wizards without a point invested into strength - that can use any weapon and fight as well as any fighter.

Obviously, you have been distorted into such non-logic and complete nonsense by EAware, Zenithesda and other such mass market abominations.

Well, my only plea regardless of the final form of the skills system is the following:

Please don't slap requirements on skills that make you able to use said skills only in the last 5% of the game. I mean, I want some fun with my difficulty, and having choices is fun, whilst not having choices... isn't.

For example, look at the D&D mage spell system, both old and new. It only takes getting to level 11 (around halfway usually) to open up the option to use the most powerful (tier 9) spells. But at level 11, is restricted in how many can be used (usually just one or two per rest cycle). So available relatively early, but not in its full glory. The not in its full glory part is already mostly covered by the fact that spell damage also scales with level anyway. I'm just using this example to mention a magic system I actually enjoyed using.

Spell damage does scale with the level but that doesnt matter much in that sense, because at those specific sections of the game you meet enemies of lower levels.

An actual RPG game is not supposed to be an action game where you have everything at your disposal completely freely and then its only up to you which combinations to use.

Different RPGs take a different approach to the balance of this, some make all of it inanely easy, some are more restrictive, some a lot.
I am not saying OS should be one of those that is very restrictive in this sense, which it is not - at all. But i dont see what kind of sense would it make to suddenly turn it into another mass market abomination by just allowing everything, every time, for everyone in any possible way.

Or into a class based game with those kinds of specific restrictions. Because simply - it was never meant to be such a game.

80% of the valid problems being raised with the new system (which I still think is a huge step in the right direction overall) might be solved by something like this:



In other words, it'd be a partial retread of the previous beta versions' system, with skills divided by ability level prereqs into "Level 1" through "Level 5" skills, while character level and/or attributes would make the skills stronger and/or act as additional prerequisites.


I also agree with the below feedback on ability naming/grouping:






Finally, I really like how the old "Way of..." ability bonuses were divided into the bonuses given by the "skill" abilities and other more general bonuses given by talents. That said, I think many of the talents are still too tied to these new skills in ways that prevent broader character customization, or that simply don't make sense. The worst offenders for these talents:

1) "Headstrong" (20% bonus against Frozen/Stunned/Petrified/Knocked Down) - prereq should be Constitution or Willpower, not "Scoundrel" ability

2) "Sidewinder" (decreases flanking penalty) - prereq should be Speed or some other stat, not "Man-at-Arms" ability

3) "Thick Skin" (extra armor) - benefit calculation should scale on Constitution, Body Building, or Armour Specialist, not on "Man-at-Arms" ability

4) "Weather the Storm" (extra magic resistance) - prereq and benefit calculation should be/scale on Willpower, not "Man-at-Arms" ability

I never said throw the new system away, my point was that everything that can be achieved in the new system, could be achieved in the old system, SO why create a more constricting/restrciting system that gets the same job done? his point was the new system gives more freedom of choice, which i proved it does not. the end result will be the same the old system allowed you to take which ever route u wished, while the new tells you when and how to do it.



whats being forced now is where to put your stat points, and ability points. previous system put no restrictions on it and offered true freedom.
new system locks you out of talents/skills and forces you to put stat points and ability points where they see fit not the player.



debatable, as we are doing now.




regardless of what MY standards are for a "good" RPG, the points and logic I put in my post still stand valid.




(dont remember exact stats this is a mock, the point will still be made)

Lv 3 pure fighter 11str = 5 fighter skills

Lv3 hybrid 9str 7int = 3 fire 3 water 3 wind 3 witchcraft 3 fighter

lv8 pure fighter 14str = 8 fighter skills(there arnt 8 fighter skills at lv8 there are only 5)

lv8 hybrid 10str 8int 7dex= 3 fire 3 water 3 wind 3 witchcraft 3 ranger 3 rogue 3 fighter

^
this will continue into the higher lvs

The fact the pure build has more strength means nothing when the hybrid has access to double or triple the amount of more diverse skills.
the pure build would have 2 extra skills divine light, and cure wounds
hybrid would have minor heal, and fire ball + the other 10 skills it has.

how is the pure build better?




read my above post. the new system allows for a fighter with 4 less str to double or triple the number of spells of a pure wizard build. so under the new system I lose 3% accuracy but instead gain access to 10 spells that have a 100% hit chance and hit from 15m away?? theres nothing to think as a 9str 7int fighter my spells may hit for 5% less damage but yes i have way more than a pure wizard.



well yea thats what I meant but

if you trained 2 years straight to become a certain thing 2 years later you are that thing.

trying to be 5 different things would spilt your time in 1/5 for each individual thing so you inturn after 2 years you would only have accomplished 1/5 of what the pure build was doing in his certain class. im trying to show that being able to become a powerful pure build quickly in the game makes real life sense.

it only made sense that players pushed way of the warrior up as fast as possible, they wanted to be a warrior. They didnt want to be a half warrior half mage BUT they could if they want to. new system doesn't give both options. now to try and rush to be a pure anything will only hinder your progress in that certain thing.




the original post was about how the new system gives more customization and takes away the class based system. in turn giving more freedom.

The points I made where that
1. no it doesn't give more customization/freedom, both systems provide the same amount of customization once you get to end game except one of them on top of giving the same customization cuts out your choice to build freely from the start and to advance quickly become a pure build and build up to that same endgame customization as you feel with no restrictions.(so why hinder when the result is the same? is my point, i never thought/said the game was designed to be a certain way, they had a version that actually had customization from start to finish and put in a version that actually has less customization from the start, so how can they say its more customizable?)

2. it does not shy away from class based systems. it in-fact promotes it by telling each person that decides to be a warrior "put 3 points in str to get your starting skills,oh then 1 in constitution so you can body build, then 1 in body build so u can man-at-arms, then take body build to lv2,wait then put more str into your build so you can use more skills, but also go add more speed to get more talents" This type of system promotes everyone ending up with the exact stats, because if u do other wise you wont get any skills or talents.

so the system that was supposed to offer "more custimaztion" does in fact the opposite.

Another problem I've spotted for mages is that there is no longer any AP reduction for their skills if you invest more in a particular school of magic. It seems like a MASSIVE nerf to just have access to more spells, and thats it. No other bonus.

I would vote change the system - make more powerful spells take up more spell "slots". That way it limits players stacking up all of the best spells and ignoring the lower level ones. If players want to be the best mage, they have to invest more heavily in a particular school of magic BUT multiclassing chars can still have access to good spells.

nm

I speak in favor of the old system, and from its point of view.


To stop access to high level skill books just put stat point requirements on the skill books. previous lv5 "way of the" skill books such as phoenix dive and lower resistance could require 20str before you could use the skillbook(or how ever many points you would want people to have before they could get that certain skill)
This would still give players to choice to put way of the warrior to 5 first if they choose, but would not allow access to all the high level abilities you want to save for late game.

I dont think their should be level/stat/ability requirements placed upon talents.

I just don't want to revert to the old "Way of..." abilities, which wrapped too many general bonuses (e.g. additional AP points, armor, health points, etc.) into one OP ability. I like how these bonuses are now separated into talents (often with stat prereqs - though the chosen prereqs still need work, as I already said), and I like how the abilities were rearranged into more logical categories (though that at least is more of a cosmetic change).

The thing that really needs to be fixed with the new system is how nerfed the new "skill" abilities are, as has been already mentioned: you only need one point in such an ability to get any 3 powerful skills in that category. To give players a reason to invest more in these abilities for a particular build, higher levels in the abilities need to be tied to and/or unlock higher-level related skills, and/or increase the effectiveness of related skills.

Even before the Talents were changed, I was thinking that there were not enough Talents available. I think once I heard a dev mention that there should be 40-50 Talents. In the last patch I often was not sure at all what Talent I should get, nothing much looked great.

It may be that some of the changes are a little restrictive, but maybe it wouldn't seem so much if there were more Talents.

Mixing skills, abilities attributes and talents to achieve what you want is a freaking enigma, even more considering it should be balanced all the way from low to high level.
St Exupery said:
"Perfection is not achieved when there is nothing to add, but it is achieved when there is nothing to remove"

The whole system needs to be rethought from the ground up.
I do believe there are many redudant things in the actual system.
It really feels like a piling of stuff.

I have been designing rpg systems in mods for quite some times now, but your system just doesnt make any sense now, just a big blob really.
I mean, there are even abilities called skills ^^


But trying to solve this enigma is really fascinating

Do we have green card to rethink it all, or are there prerequisites ?