Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Can we eventually get a list of late features?

I don't read over in this forum much, interesting news. I was already starting to lean on waiting a month or two to really play. I'll dabble in the release like the beta. As great as this game is, it is being rushed, this game is far from alone. My gut is saying wait 30-60 for simply a more polished run.

You might want to go back and finish reading this thread a bit more, there was an update from Swen, and he thinks some AI personalities will be in at the start.

I don't think it is rushed so much as being packed to overflowing with features so that Larian will need to finish stuffing stuff in there a bit after release. It is a big, feature rich game that will easily stand on its own at release, and there's not much reason to wait unless you specifically wanted AI personalities or all the companions (yet these may make it in anyway).

That said it's never a bad idea to wait for a couple patches, unless you find it hard to avoid spoilers on the net. Although if too many people did that it would probably impact on the initial release hype and thus sales (if less people are playing and talking about a game), even if you buy full price a bit later to support worthy companies.

I just want to make sure it's understood that I'm not complaining and meant nothing more than precisely what I said in the original post. Whether we want to call it "late features" or "upcoming bonuses", I'm just hoping to make an informed decision when deciding when to start playing my first post-launch game.

To make an informed decision, it would help to see a list of upcoming features that didn't make it into the game, even though the plan is to add them in later as time allows. Also, an ETA of when those features are expected to be available in an update would help.

Together, that simply allows me to decide whether I want to begin my post-launch adventure in Divinity : OS on June 30th, or days/weeks later. It all depends on what features I'm willing to wait on or not, and for how long.

I also have no expectations for such a list to be available prior to June 30th, as I'm sure the developers are working on getting everything in right up until the last minute (and, as such, won't be able to accurately say what did and didn't make it until then).

Basically, I'm just looking for something like this *example*:

AI personalities: - first week of July
Additional companions - first week of August
Some other delayed feature - mid August
Some other other delayed feature - end of August

Then my friends and I can look at the list, figure out what's worth waiting on, figure out how long we're willing to wait before the anticipation becomes too much to bear, and make a decision to start our game after a particular update. Nothing more, nothing less. No complaints, accusations or disappointments here, just wanting to be able to make an informed decision, but needing some honest developer feedback around June 30th to do that.

My thoughts are about many things in the game. It's a great one, so when I say I'm probably waiting, it's not about chastising or anything like that. I've done it with a few of my favs the past year with solid results. It is how I'm leaning, unless there is the magic patch that addresses a lot of things. I hope so, but I'm totally confident there will be several quick patches after release, which means nothing but improvements. I'm thinking I'd rather just have those as well before really putting the coop time in.

As for other and how it impacts sales, I cannot concern myself with that. I'm in. For others I've already recommended the game. If someone would ask we directly, "should I wait?", well then I may say yes to that.

In general, pretty much any code is rushed if you lay down a date and you aren't done. Now for a game it's not critical, for business, I've seen that too many times, I'm not sure I've ever seen it succeed.

One example now is the coop code with losing track of who is controlling who. The history of coop was for many patches it wasn't linking, so the host controlled all companions and the joiner their single one. Then there was a way to link, but you had to release them, go back and get them and whoever was to control them had to invite, then it worked right for a patch or two, now it seems there is some confused management going on. So is that going to be nailed on the 30th? We don't know. But if not, I suspect it will soon work afterwards. To me there are a lot of small things that can be polished up, I'll check the release but just bracing a lil bit.

I can finally answer the question, since we just locked everything down and bar any critical issues, the version I'm playing now is the version that's being released on monday.

Pretty much everything we planned is in there, but we had to make a few changes to get things ready as Murphy has been rather active here in Gent, Belgium. Extra companions will come later but the henchmen are in (most likely extra henchmen will be added in function of the needs we see). There's one extra AI personality (loyal i.e. the same as if you had no cooperative dialog) and the others will be patched in afterwards. We've also cut some of the Phantom forest dungeons levels and may make those available for people to fool around with as mods.

As I mentioned before, given the scope of the game those are minor things, and if it weren't for the Kickstarter campaign, we'd probably not even communicate about it. As it stands, I think the game is highly enjoyable and feature packed. Obviously if you wait, you'll have the advantage of patches and a bit of extra content, but there seriously is already a big & fun adventure to be had.

"Loyal" isn't really a personality.

So okay... then it looks like I'll be waiting for a few patches before playing the game (or reading the forums). AI Personalities was my 'line in the sand'. I've got other games anyway.


EDIT: What do you mean by "Extra Companions"? Is all we get on release Madora and Jahan? How many remaining ones will be patched in later?

Thanks for letting us know

Seconding Stabbey's important question: How many companions are planned and how many are in at release?

I don't doubt that many, if not most people would consider the game complete enough to want to play ASAP, though personally I will wait for the AI personalities. I have looked forward to those since the kickstarter as a core feature of the single-player experience; it is imo the feature that makes the co-operative dialogue system so special in single-player, and reminiscent of P&P gaming with friends (especially because sometimes friends act like they have artificial intelligence ;-)

I have read people saying it is also fun to roleplay both protagonists but I'll save that for potential future playthroughs. I want my first one to be single player and as special as possible - I have been avoiding the beta and spoilers with an iron discipline to make it so. An RPG like this one comes along... well I have never looked forward to a game so much so I will wait.

I don't mind waiting and make no judgements about development priorities or anything as I am not in a position to make an informed one (ie I have no idea what caused them to miss release).

That Murphy sure gets around, I know him well



p.s. This has done little to reduce my near critical mass levels of hype and excitement for this amazing game. The editor stream almost broke my resolve...

A rough idea of how long we will need to wait would be greatly appreciated.

This is REALLY disheartening... No Personality is a HUGE downgrade for the experience. That should have been a BIG, BIG priority. Only two companions (both of which have the most common classes) is also a huge bummer. I'm set on playing Warrior + Mage as my hero pair, but now I'm FORCED to forfeit that plan or make a double 'Lone Wolf' run... If I wouldn't be so hyped, I would wait a few patches, but the wait is already consuming me, so I' play nonetheless. >_< Still, I'm very disappointed by Larian.

Only one AI personality is a pretty huge deal... I don't have anyone to play with and I don't like the idea of having a companion whose decisions are constantly in line with my own =/

I take it with "random" they are just that.. random? Like if it randomly decides to be Heartless will it consistently behave that way or will it just decide to be inconsistent and do something kind?

Do we have any kind of ETA on the arrival of more diverse AI personalities?

The Random AI is random on a per conversation basis. Reload before a particular conversation 20 times, and the AI should agree with you about 10 times, and disagree the remainder (forcing a RPS session, which you may or may not win, depending on luck, pattern recognition, charisma and situation bonuses or penalties).

I'm not sure I see why personalities are such a big deal. Looks like Larian was hitting that big release wall and had to prioritize some stuff, and "personalities" lost, and honestly I don't see why they are as big of an issue as people are making it out to be since you can control the decisions yourself. I mean, I understand the desire for personalities, but I due to the fact that you can choose I don't see it integral.

The more disappointing thing is the lack of companions. Only two seems pretty... not right. Companion diversity is pretty important in RPGs with parties. Hopefully those will be patched in soon. It's fortunate that Jahan and Madora are the right classes, at least for what I plan to roll, though.

It's also disappointing to lose dungeon levels but, yes, please do let us mod those back in. It will probably be "relatively" trivial compared to some other games where mods added things back in (Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodines).

Because it gives your other character a, well, personality. The way it is now, it's a mindless puppet you can freely control. She might as well not be there, it wouldn't make a difference were it nor for the main plot. For the sake of role playing, she's just another henchmen and not part of a "duo".

Because I don't want to control the decisions myself.

At least not for my first playthrough. Random livens it up, though I would prefer to create a specific second character whose decisions reflect their... well, character (eg a conservative mage or reckless barbarian or unhinged archer etc) and may even surprise me.

Well, to be fair I think "Loyal" was one of the AI personalities given as an example from the start, although since it is basically "choose what the player chooses" it's obviously the easiest one to implement.

I suspect the remaining personalities will be groupings of traits (e.g. personality-A = romantic + altruistic + obedient + righteous + timid + compassionate + forgiving + spiritual, personality-B = pragmatic + selfish + independent + renegade + bold + heartless + vindictive + materialistic, personality-C = pragmatic + altruistic + independent + renegade + bold + compassionate + forgiving + materialistic, etc, etc).

Eventually players will figure these out and throw the information on a wiki, which is when "Random" will shine (assuming Random = "surprise me" or "pick a random personality from the available list" and not "pick a random response every debate").

If someone really wants to start playing on the 30th and is willing to actually do some RP, they could figure out ahead of time what kind of traits they would like their partner to have and then manually select the appropriate responses for them (and resist the urge to "cheat" when the arguments get inconvenient).

With no other companions besides Jahan, I'm a bit bummed about being stuck with Madora, since my choices when conversing with her basically amount to either calling her an crackpot (being really mean) or subscribing to her paranoia newsletter (acting like an idiot). Madora basically turns the main characters into clueless trolls, heh.

@Swen

Could you give us any ETA on more/all AI personalities and companions?

I'm probably going to postpone my first playthrough until they'll arrive...

A bit disappointing.

Can you confirm that more personality options, and the rest of the megadungeon levels will be patched in the game sometime?

Also, will the only "storied" companions be those 2 from the early access?

RPGs always have some levels cut in development and I wouldn't expect Larian to finish the megadungeon bits unless they were somehow integral to its overall story. I'm not sure why Swen thought it worth mentioning tbh as I'm assuming there is plenty of megadungeon as is, though the cut bits would be cool to give to the community as a modding/learning opportunity if nothing else.


AI personalities & remainder of companions are confirmed to be coming (see Swen's last post ITT) though we still need an ETA and clarification on how many companions are already in and still to come.

he pretty much did, didn't he?