Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Smaller additions and adjustments

NWN's solution to this was to add a bunch of "class" portraits that don't show any person but something representative of a character class. If there were some icons with things like sword&shield, book, dagger, magic staff, mortar&pestle etc. then you could pick those if there is no suitable character portrait.

Three out of four of my examples are actually Larian's dialogue..! What's wrong with "Later, gator." That's quality stuff!

There is nothing "rude" in calling something badly written - badly written Stabbs.
But there is something rude in calling things that are not rude - rude.

That example you quoted is very badly written and intentionally so, in order to create a presumed false excuse for the current form of the quest remaining the same, despite how illogical it is.

The "but i didnt mind it!" or "but i like it" has nothing to do with internal coherence and logic of something written.





I dont think there would be a single person that would actually like that. We do expect literal character portraits in our RPGs - because we expect characters, people. Or our alter egoes. Not tools. And certainly not classes - especially in this particular game.

In any case, i miss the bearded, mohawk, and face painted Roderick, - with all those combined, thanks. While i miss any single Scarlet portrait that would actually look like the face i see in the game. Not to mention the haircuts and skin tones.

OR.. it's simply a harmless example that's not secretly trying to do anything beyond just paraphrasing.



..vs..



If you felt like there was a hidden agenda in "Later, gator." beyond making you chuckle, you may have missed the point.

I guess I should have typed..

1) "I can't put my finger on it but there is a hint of fascination in the air surrounding you. Please, fair Bertia, tell me more about yourself."
2) "I can see you're distraught and I hate to bring up such a tender topic, but might we discuss your stolen sheep some more?"
3) "What does it have in its pockets, precious?"
4) "I must beg your pardon a thousand times, for as much as I would love to stay and chat my duties require that I depart your company."

Oh, dang it.. I screwed it up again.

That right there is even worse writing example.
Not surprising really, since you presented that general logic and common sense problem to mistake something written in false, pretentious manner as automatically correct repeatedly so far.

Those examples of writing are not bad because of the mere style they are written in. That has nothing to do with it and is a secondary feature or consideration. Just like nice graphics are not the primary reason why some game is actually good or not.

That writing is bad because its missing the relevant information and it does not represent the actual turn of events at all.

And you intentionally obfuscate them to make it seem like "oh some player could miss it, you know..."


REPEAT MODE ON:

When you question Roberts, you can get to the point where he explains his role in the events - concerning the disappearance of the body. He is completely innocent of it and the money was simply left to him, as a hint that silence is golden. From whoever removed the body. Without Roberts knowledge, help or support.

Therefore as point 1. I should have the option of just leaving money to him.
Instead - i am forced to take it away in one of the three ways, which all lead into RPS minigame.
One of the three choices is to argue he should give money to Berthia to pay her for her sheep he stole and used.

If a player chooses that option - it means he wants that to happen - specifically.

You win the RPS and go to see Berthia. When you start talking to her THERE IS NO OPTION ABOUT GIVING HER MONEY AT ALL!!!

Thats whats wrong, among other things. Not the style or faux, pretentious verbosity saying nothing rolled in a different wrapping.


There is no dialogue lines saying:

"I just talked to Roberts, he admitted stealing your sheep."
B: "Oh, that scallywag! How dare he! The filthy delicious mutton thief! Ill sue him to Aureus! That was my mutton to eat!"
"Hold it. I did bring you the sheep back didnt I? You can still eat it,... with sufficient cooking, or better yet, burning... ugh..."
B: "But, but he stole it! He is a dirty thief!"
"Lets just say he didnt steal it to eat it... Umm... I convinced him to pay a hefty sum of money as a recompense. Would this be enough?"
B: "Oh... that is a lot of money..."
"You can buy a heard of sheep with it Berthia. And need not run off to Aureus either. If he wanted to do anything about your sheep he would have. He didnt. I did. Do we have a deal?"
B: "A whole heard... all that mutton... legs, shoulders, breasts, loins... oh my..."
"Quite so."
B:"He... he didnt do anything you know... untoward... with my little darling, did he? Because if he did Source Hunter I`ll... I`ll..."
"No,no,no... nothing like that i promise you. He killed it. Very fast and quite expertly too. I guess being the mortician he learned a lot about killing and... well, lets just say he was in a bit of a problem and thought a some mutton will solve it. He was wrong."
B: "Ah.. oh... he did? Well, who would have thought that about our Roberts... Expert killer you say? Hmm... and he isnt half bad looking either. Ok, Source Hunter, ill take your deal. Just this once!"
"Good..."
"Wait!... do you think... do you think Roberts likes... mutton? At all?"
- Looks Berthia up and down -
"Im sure he would."
- Tips helmet. -
"Ill take my leave. Mam..."


***


(thats just a quick example where it could go, although a very short, direct and clear form would suffice.)


Common sense and logic would dictate that - since you bloody just bullied and forced someone to give money for that specific purpose - the player would be able to actually say it.
Which would then, as common sense would suggest, affect Berthia decision on whether to go to the cops or not. YOU ARE GIVING HER THAT MONEY AS COMPENSATION and presumably its a very fair sum.
(the exact amount is never disclosed but all concerned describe it as very generous and substantial)


Ergo ipso, etc, etc.


- Discussion finished. I am not writing this for various posters to argue about it, especially not based on wild assumptions of "what i really meant".

Im writing this for devs to notice and maybe think about. Not for someone who is on my ignore list to "try to debunk" or disagree with. Its just annoying having to deal with it lest someone else sees i made no reply and then think you must have "presumed" right.


Moving ON.

He was posting a paraphrase and his own personal interpretation of the conversation. He was not suggesting or demanding Larian write the dialogue exactly like that.

There was literally no point in calling it "badly written dialogue", and following up with "laughably bad" except for your need to snipe at and belittle other posters.

You WERE being rude, for no reason at all, and the fact that you don't even recognize that is a problem you should work on.

That's all I'm going to say about this.




(Today, I actually lost the minigame and Roberts kept the money.)

I do think that clicking Robert's topic "About the money you received..." should have a "Never mind." option to let you back out.

And I agree, there should be a dialogue to offer Bertia the money up front, and that should change the quest's outcome.

Hiver, do you even know what you're upset about or is just a trigger reaction at this point? I feel like I read something akin to "Why u paraphrase??? Die in a fire!".

I actually spent a few seconds thinking about how I could try and clear up this crazy notion you took from my post, and then I laughed because the entire thing was so completely ridiculous and not worth it.

Oh well, I'd like to think most everyone got the simple point I was making. Oh, Hiver.

Which is why I always preferred to pick a class portrait over an unfitting portrait. That way I could imagine the character's features myself, instead of having a portrait that's different from how I view the character.

Of course a fitting character portrait is better than a class portrait but I consider a class portrait better than an unfitting portrait.

I think I would be happiest with just being able to provide our own custom portraits. That way I could just take a screenshot of my character during character creation, crop the head to the appropriate size, and load it in.

I dont care gyson, whatever. I had enough of your writing and opinions of what you think i think.
Just hop off to some other thread and tell them what they are thinking and how wrong is that or your ideas about whatever.

or rather, go and admit yourself to some institution. And take Stabbey with you.



And you are assuming i was thinking he did?
No wonder youre on the same brainwaves.

Paranoia and constant ridiculous accusations the second someone says some of your ideas is not good. Or BAAAAD.

Its BAD, his paraphrase is BAD, his "interpretation" is BAD, his other suggestion even WORSE. Cheap, superficial, overblown empty schlock.

All of your posts in this thread are laughably bad.
And thats not me being "rude" - its just true.
You tell me i should understand something while you are rude and constantly belittling me... by accusing me of those same things you are doing and inventing my secret motivations - because i said something is BAD?

Thats an actual psychological issue.
Go and treat yourself in some institution. Together. You may get a discount or something.





***




ffs...


Anyway,... other smaller stuff:


It would be nice and a bit useful if there were some steps down on the right side from the Esmeralda house entrance. So my team can get to the doors quicker when coming from the eastern side, instead of going around through the market.

Purely cosmetics. I dont think the team needs to waste time on it but i just think that architecturally... it would be appropriate.

I just had to say it.


-----


After talking to Esmeralda about all the clues and she revealing info about Evelyn, when that whole thing is finished, the dialogue loops back to two sentences i had at the very start. One of them is "Who are you again?" and one more i just blocked out from memory. :P

It just looks like you never actually talked to that person.
which is pretty much how that looks with any other NPC. It would be really nice if the previously selected dialogue lines were either removed or at least grayed out.


-----


Whats with all the crabs and those sprays of water they are doing?
That "move" is huge and it barely causes any damage, which just makes it seem ... bad. It looks like they are vomiting huge amounts of water...

Maybe... they could be made to look a bit meaner and maybe adjust those water sprays to be smaller?
Have you ever seen a water metal cutter? The stream is very small, thin - but under high pressure.

It could look like some watery laser beam. (as in actual continuous beam)


-----


Those cloth hats look really horrible on characters. Im sure youve seen this mentioned a lot of times so far. Its not just because they remove the hair from the character so everyone look bold under it but because it looks like a... pot, on someones head. (like a chamber pot..?)

Either replace those with those elvish looking leather helmets of lower quality or redesign that model. Please. Even that model only with a neck covering part added would look less horrible.


------



Star - Blood stones are too black and colorless when spent. Some red drop shadow effect around the edges would make them more noticeable against the backgrounds, adding a bit of ominous feel to them as a consequence of previous tempering.

I feel like I took a nap at the end of page 1, and then a huge multi-page argument happened, got deleted, and then I came back at the tail end of it on the new page "2". How did this go so far south in one post?

/


The delay between me casting a spell and being able to select another one is three seconds, actually.

3.

THREE.


...


There should be no delay at all. Let alone three seconds in which mouse pointer is just stuck in previous "form".

some suggestions for smaller additions in the future:

a diary, notepad, editable section in the menu
For example near the "recipes" tab, the journal, or as an usable book you can carry with you in your inventory. See, i don't have a big problem to play with a pile of scrap-paper in front of my keyboard, but i am someone who writes down stuff while playing, for example:
- recipes and combinaitons i discovered
- what i want to improve next level up on what character
- sometimes even which character in my party is able to do what (so who was my crafter/lockpicker/pet-pal again? ^^)
- puzzle stuff, so that i don't have to read the whole book/riddle/bleigh again
- lists of stuff i need (for crafting for example), things i want to do during the next play session and so on....

also i would like to see

Minigames
such as a drinking contest, gambling, or even fishing. Or something to "challenge" NPCs in the world (i really like the simple "minigame" to argue with people already). Would be nice if you could challenge a trader to gamble for an item, for example, or convince a citizen to a drinking contest, and if you win, you get a small reward (he may tell you something special, or give you a random cheap item such as a fish or an apple).

Nice suggestions, though we are running out of time so im not sure it is possible to introduce whole new mechanics and content such as those minigames. I always wandered how hard it is to add a small text editor page so we could write down our own stuff inside the game, since i would like that too. Often, in RPGs.

Yep, 3 weeks to release.

Maybe something like this could be added later - or as part of a future DLC or free update, who knows?

Other stuff that would be nice to have:

- more character-creation options, such as hairstyles, colors, would also be nice if you could customize body-shape (love to play as a rogue or stealth character, so now i have to play female, because the male body is too bulky and muscular for my backstabbing hide-in-the-bushes rogue ^^), the tallness and the voice of the two main chars.

- animal companions: would love to have a dog/boar/wolf/whatever as companion (instead of humans) with their own skill-trees and abilities (for example digging up stuff when you don't have a showel, sniff for hidden "detectables"). Since you can talk to animals, you should be able to hire them too ^^

- more hidden crafting recipes for fancy little stuff, such as a magical backpack (you know, those who lower the weight...), or an item you have to carry in your backpack that identifies all stuff you pick up (especially later in the game)...

- gear-enchantments and consumables such as wetstones, poison, elemental effects (fire, earth, air, ice dmg) that you can apply to a weapon for a few turns.

ofc nothing really new, but i liked those things in other rpgs. Probably some of this is already in the game, we just don't know it yet ^^

A boar animal... companion. Why didnt i think of that?
Im going to steal that.

One relatively bigger thing, but im going to throw it in anyway.


The trap house before the Withered gardens basically doesnt serve any purpose.

There is a very easy way around it, and the loot in it doesnt really inspire trudging through its traps. There is plenty of loot around - especially in the gardens behind it and it is much better.

I already said and still think that Withered gardens and undertakers hut should exchange places. It would provide better gameplay and fit the overall narrative of the main story in this area better.

Especially if the easy way around the house was then removed - so the players would actually need to go through it to get to undertakers hut.


A hint in that direction from some NPCs or a mention of it in some journals players are sure to see, like Evelyns and Roberts journals and ledgers would be enough to point in that direction, while warning about the dangerous trapped house that was overrun by undead, etc, etc, etc.
(similar to the blacksmith house undergound tunnels)

Evelyns diary: "...- let that fool play with his experiments in that hut of his. How little he understands..." etc, etc -

Roberts ledger or journal or dialogue (adjustment): "... - why would anyone buy that hut, when no one has been able to go through that cursed house before it? Is doctor looking at the future, getting himself some nice property for a very low price in this crysis? I dont see any end of it myself. Foolish hopes more like... not even the legion has managed to stop the undead. He will need to spend more money on demolishing that accursed old villa before it then on that hut itself thats for sure... if anyone can even do it. Fools, they are all fools. With all this... money.. ah, ill - ill buy myself a way out of this crazy place!"

Source Hunter : "Didnt you say the doctor payed very little for the hut?"

etc, etc -


Withered Gardens should be in the place where the undertakers hut is. It would be a far better position for them, - overlooking the church? A part of the graveyard and the darkness around it?

I think that they are planning something with that trap house and it might have a quest that you don't know that is bogus until you manage to survive the ordeals of and when you manage to get to the end you noticed it was totally pointless unless they are planning to have something kind of ambush there and waiting for the players to stumble upon it...

I think the Trap House might be a stub for something really important in the game...

Could be. One would hope so.

Im still leaving that suggestion out anyway.
Its not like they need to do anything i say, minchi... im just throwing things out.
They are going to do whatever they want to do regardless of what i say.


Another such highly improbable suggestion:

- I really should do this on my own, in a mod, but unfortunately i am not that good at programming myself. (not that good means - at all) -

The game wants to enable non-class builds, gameplay and style of character advancement, right?
Yet it continuously presents classes and class like categories of skills during the character creation and inside the game - in character screen.

All that should be removed and changed into the real, actual classless presentation - such as Path of Exile has. In terms of character building and skills presentation inside the game.

Im fairly confident that if the whole team goes into super extreme crunch mod and works in three shifts, 24/7 for the next 18 days this can be achieved.






Alternatively, i am sure that setting up the empty - "do whatever you want" character preset as the main and starting model, while removing all the "classes" into a separate part of the character creation screen and renaming them to just specifically "example presets" - would affect player starting psychological reactions a lot.

Better form of that idea would be to remove all presets completely. And just leave the empty, "do whatever you want" character model as the one players will adjust at the start.

Better, even more improved form than that would be changing the visual presentation of skill "categories" inside the game as i said above. Not using the class categories as they are portrayed now but creating a field of skills visual presentation for all skills.

Not a bug but there isnt anything there where the X is. I dug all around and over it. (yes i know there is a burried chest on that patch of sand a bit away from it, thats clearly not under the X)
Its a piraty themed cave and there is a big X there.

Fix it.
(im on my way there to check it with Perception 11 but i doubt it will reveal anything)


- This would be a great spot for a hidden tresure requering 10 perception:


- This looks utterly horrible.



- It would be really, really great if there were some options to go from this:


to this:


Lowering gama in options does not help much, since that darkens the whole game, Ui included, and it is rather coarse. Some brightness and contrast options would help. Both for Ui and the game, separately.
If possible.


- Some steps here would be nice and useful: