Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General My top 4 complaints with D:OS

Warning: This post should be fairly clean in terms of spoilers (using spoiler tags when required), but posts after this have no such guarantee. Scroll down with caution.

Updated regularly, so it might become 5 complaints, or 3, who knows.

#1. The Ability you gain access to over the course of the plot
Imagine how frustrating it is to dedicate rather heavily into a weapon ability such as Two-Handed and then realize you would have been better off saving your points and investing in this ability instead. You shouldn't have to be an online researcher or reroll from that far advanced in the plot. If anything, the ability shouldn't be a Weapon Ability at all, but a Defense Ability, protecting you from the harmful effects of that-which-shall-not-be-spoiled... which, of course, you'd need to defend yourself from if you actually plan on holding it.

#2. Invisibility is overpowered
Infinite gold, and never being in a fight you don't want, ever. Really?

Whenever I think of this problem I think of Death Note. Remember how when Light realizes Ryuk, an invisible demonic friend of his, is under video surveillance, he tells Ryuk he can't eat apples anymore, because they'd see an apple disappear into nothingness? Well apparently that kind of logic just doesn't exist in D:OS, because an NPC can be staring right at a painting, watch it mysteriously float for a second then turn completely invisible, as if entering an invisible backpack, and think absolutely nothing of it. It's already easy enough to steal everything which isn't bolted down, using clever tricks such as distractions or timing; it shouldn't be that easy.

Also, not every battle should be skippable with invisibility. Most of them, definitely, but there should be some enemies out there with nonvisual means of detection (heightened senses of sound or scent) which allow them to detect invisible characters as if visible. This is something which should be clearly displayed, just how Invulnerable enemies clearly display that they are Invulnerable. I'm not suggesting all enemies bypass invisibility any more than I'd be suggesting that all enemies should be Invulnerable. But we do have some Invulnerable enemies, and we should a roughly equivalent number of invisibility bypassers.

#3. Trait dialogue blindness
aka the most frequent cause of savescumming

Until you memorize all the dialogues in the game through repeated attempts, assuming you want to min/max the trait system, you're going to be saving before dialogue choices more often than you save before battles. After all, an accidental death during combat is something you can negate with a Scroll of Resurrection, but messing up your traits is permanent. The real cause of this is that players have absolutely no idea how they are going to effect their traits before they answer a question. It can sometimes be very difficult to determine whether a particular response is Heartless or Vindictive, or if it's Materialistic or Egotistical. Please, please just indicate directly on the response what effect it will have, so that instead of "No, we will not be escorted by the guards," we see "No, we will not be escorted by the guards (Independent)." I am probably just about done with traits at this point, but future players will thank you for having to stare at loading screens less often.

#4. Lockpicking has 5 or bust syndrome
Useless in Cyseal, might be good once you invest super-heavily into it, I don't know.

With my first playthrough I put a point in Lockpicking at character creation. Then rather early I put a second point into it; 2 ability points. I was somewhat frustrated to come across a lot of "Lockpicking level too low" situations, so I raised it again (3 more ability points, at lowish level); I was kind of unlucky with gear, so I didn't get any +Lockpicking items. So then at rank 3 I try some more locks, and... "Lockpicking level too low." Again.

Now don't get me wrong, some of the locks in the game should definitely require 4 or 5 in this skill. But really not the Cyseal stuff; that level of Lockpicking is simply not reasonable that early in the game. Or if you are going to require a hefty devotion to Lockpicking, at least give us some way to realy commit to it, kind of like how you can get really high Charisma early on by taking the Politician talent, and/or equipping the Smelly Panties which are fairly easily found, and/or crafting Tooth items which boost your Charisma further. Either give us the tools, or lower the early-game requirements. No comment on later-game requirements, since I rerolled in frustration.

Don't T weapons use the weapon skill associated with their type as well?

No, they do not. If you have 4 Bow and 2 T and use a T bow, you get +20% damage. If you then equip a +1 Bow item such as bracers, your damage does not increase at all.

Pretty outrageous, isn't it?

1) Haven't quite gotten to that point yet, but from the sound of it it's extremely silly. Should be altered in some way.

2) Seems to be the easy fix is to have invisibility turn off before you pick up items. As for using it to avoid fights, that's the player's choice. Consequence free stealing isn't balanced, but avoiding fights comes with the penalty of no experience and loot rewards.

3) I agree that dialogue traits are often incredibly unintuitive, and would not be adverse to your solution.

4) Lockpicking and dirty deeds need a buff, period. Lowering lockpick requirements might be a step in the right direction.

3) sometimes I question why making one choice is classified as "romantic" while it sounds more like "altruistic" to me

Anyways most traits have several conversation opportunities so you can always correct your choices. Eg whether you have 1 point into practical or 30, you are still only going to get 1 bonus for crafting.

4) with the option to brute force most locks with no consequences, I agree that the lock picking is rather depreciated in the game

I agree with your complaints, however my #1 by far is still the skill bars being limited to 10 slots on screen at a time. It ruins combat for me more than any of the major balance problems.

I kind of felt this way, then I discovered backpacks and pouches. For example, my ranger has two backpacks (one is E's, you can pick it up by holding down Alt and clicking on it when you find it). The one which isn't E's has any form of generic combat consumable, such as scrolls and food, while E's backpack has all the special arrows. Each backpack is bound to one icon, so with just three slots I can quickly pull up any of 20+ different items. It's three slots because, unfortunately, it doesn't let you use them directly from the backpack, so you need to drag the consumable to the empty third slot on the skillbar or overwrite the old one.

So organizing the items you can use is much more intuitive, and with 5 skillbars now I really don't feel like true skills are much of a problem.

They're not. You have a number with vertical arrows on the left side of the skill bar. Give it a try.

I and a friend just started playing coop, and stealing almost ruined things for us. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Once he realized the exploits possible, he just stole everything; literally everything. I did't, because I consider it pure cheating, and now he buys most anything he wants. Not to mention, it is a really boring proses. And now he does not care about saving gold to buy something he really wants, he just steals.

It does not make sense, they go to ALL the trouble to make this game so realistic in almost every way, down to emotional responses and attitudes giving you bonuses, then, you can steal everyone blind, right in front of them, and even sell it back to them, with absolutely no consequences in the slightest. In fact, it's pretty much a gold-god-mode.

I guess Wall Street did the programming on the stealing code . . . ;?

Sneaking should be much more important and influential, and getting caught stealing should incur a prison time that costs actual XP *and* gold.

This way rich characters risk finishing the game with a lower level, not a bad tradeoff versus best-in-slot gear.

On the other hand, there are tons of ways to become invincible in this game simply because we can load saved games. It's as simple as that. In many ways the player makes the game, if you want to abuse it, you do that, and you will find challenges have dissappeared.

Um, no. XP penalties would be absolutely devastating in this game, and utterly circumvented by savescumming anyway. There shouldn't be harsher penalties for failing; it should simply be more difficult to succeed.

So here's an idea: let's say your average civilian notices a painting literally disappearing into thin air. Logically, he deduces an invisible thief. What do you do when you see an invisible thief? You summon someone you trust who can detect invisible people, obviously. This is a magic-based setting after all.

For these reasons, I think the Burn My Eyes skill should allow both players and NPCs to "see" invisible characters. This is something the players could use too (such as that one fight by the campfire). However, when an NPC detects an invisible thief, they just don't summon the guard; they also summon the local pyromancer.

So in Cyseal, handling the occasional invisible criminal might be something Arhu does (he works in the same building as Aureus, after all, so they've worked out some kind of arrangement). So what would likely happen is some guards would be dispatched along with Arhu, and you'd have to choose between going to prison or fighting them.

Throughout the game, the theme would be "Pyromancer = sees invisibility." Essentially, these enemies would have Burn My Eyes up at all times. I don't mean just any fire-themed enemy, I mean someone who is a dedicated spellcaster (usually holding a staff) and uses fire magic. There aren't a lot of them, but essentially every town has at least one, so it would be the occasional thing for invisibility characters to worry about. If the mouse over an enemy in the distance and see the Burn My Eyes status, time to come up with a new plan.

If you do manage to take out the town pyromancer, it will probably have a detrimental effect on your ability to purchase fire-based skillbooks, but it would come pretty close to giving you free reign of the town. Kill Arhu, and he can't help out anymore. If that's something you're okay with, then you can go back to using invisibility it pretty much the same way you can use it now, to steal everything with ease. After all, you did win a boss battle of sorts, so you kind of deserve it.

I find it a shame that you get quite a bit of daft stuff in the game which spoils it in my opinion. I mean, it's not funny in the slightest, more childish than anything.

I don't think they had any need to include this daft stuff, It would be a far better game without it.

So, just to be clear: If it's red when you mouse over something, it's not yours, but it's not stealing? Some are red, and some are red and say "stealing" or such.

And no matter what you steal, or how, if nobody sees you, there is no consequence, even in the future? In another game, I can't remember the name, even IF your able to steal something, selling it to anyone except the black market gets you in trouble.

I think you're referring to skyrim.

This is a brilliant idea and I recommend it heartily.

Looks good - matches my bottom 4.

1. - agreed.


2. - Generally agree that invisibility shouldn't work as easily on everyone, BUT - it should be skill level related, so whether any specific enemy would manage to detect you or see you should depend on the skill check between your skill in that magic and his own. So characters who invest more get to actually feel it in the game.


3. - Trait dialogues are fine as they are. When they work as they do now, it all gets a bit of a wacky fun effect, (Larian game right?) - and plays like a small randomizing element addition to the gameplay.

I just like to roll with it, and never really try to game it.
It keeps things fresh, as some traits change over time and i have to adjust for that. Or i suddenly notice Roderick is immune to crippled just right in time.
Or some other character gets better at something else.

It really isnt a feature that needs to be min-maxed.

+ Different results that seem "weird" to some players should be looked at as just a bit of Larian type of making a bit of tongue in cheek fun of it.



4. - agreed, yes.

1 - Definitely agreed. The T skill is terrible, game breaking design. It's so bad that part of me just assumes it *has* to be a bug. No way could a game deliberately design its weapon specialization system that daftly.

2 - Agree. FWIW I think stealing of any kind (whether grabbing from someone or grabbing a painting from the wall) should require Pickpocket skill. There should be a small amount of "heat" for each item you steal. Pickpocketing skill reduces the heat.

3 - Agree.

4 - Lockpicking needs an overhaul. Not only should the early locks be lower level (just like low level items don't require Loremaster 5 to ID), but lockpicks shouldn't break after one use! It's ridiculous because even using a weapon to bash the door down, should you elect to do that for some reason, is less costly, because you can just repair the thing at no cost. Other games fix this issue by having doors in town result in arrest if you attack them and items in chests having a chance to be destroyed by bashing a chest versus lockpicking it. In this game, not only does picking locks require you to burn a bunch of skill points, its actually more expensive than just exploding the chest.

#1. The Ability you gain access to over the course of the plot


#2. Invisibility is overpowered
A single point in Scoundrel is necessary to choose Walk in Shadows as your starting talent. Afer that you can just steel everything that is lying around, enter guarded zones (enter Sacred Stone to steal some T when you are < lvl 10) and make the stealth passages a joke.

#3. Trait dialogue blindness
I guess that depends on how much you want to roleplay.

#4. Lockpicking has 5 or bust syndrome
The ability is completely useless. There are close to no doors/containers that you can't just bash in or open with a key without any trouble.
You should still get it to level 5 (3+ items) for the second map because that way you get to lockpick the one important door in Silverglen:


#5. Inventory management!
#6 There are close to no sidequests that have any long term influence on the game.
The only big exception is Bellegar, who you will meet multiple times during your journey.