Since this topic might stay afloat for a while, long enough for Larian employees to read it, I'm putting my wall of text in here too.
I believe the following items needs work:
- The crafting system is, well, I can't really sugarcoat this... it's a mess.
* Recipes aren't working (water arrows to name one) and certain items do not seem to have a function.
* You make plate armour when using metal scraps and a hammer, but you need an anvil to make a pair of metal boots. Why is the anvil not used to make metal armour? It's just one example. Recipes just don't make sense.
* You end up wasting a lot of time dragging objects over one another in the hope you'll get some result. I doubt many people will find this system to be fun.
The whole crafting system really needs to be straightened out. In my opinion it needs to be rebuild from scratch, make it easier to figure out recipes, have found recipes be added to your journal and have recipe books add recipes to your journal after reading them, not cryptic information.
Give the anvil a nice menu/interface where you can craft all sorts of weapons and armour.
- It'd be nice if similar items were removed. There are two types of sinew, rat tails, chicken feet, tusks etc. There are already so many items in the game, it's driving me nuts. I don't know if some of these have different functions in crafting, but it seems to me that they just make the whole crafting system more complicated than it needs to be.
- Tenebrium weapons can't be upgraded like their normal counterparts. For example: I can't use my bow string on a Tenebrium bow or a sword on a grinding wheel. In my opinion this doesn't make sense and should be made possible.
- Tenebrium weapons should not be their own weapon type. If one is skilled in the use of Tenebrium, he suddenly knows how to use all forms of bows and melee weapons? This doesn't make sense and needs to be changed.
Just have the 1-handed, 2-handed, bow and crossbow types remain the same for tenebrium weapons and change the tenebrium skill to influence the amount of tenebrium damage one does if a weapon is a tenebrium weapon or a regular weapon treated with tenebrium. Just a thought.
It's also a big kick in the nuts for people (like me) who invested 15 points in their weapon type of choice, only to find out late in the game that their 15 points were wasted.
A respec is out of the question, since you'll lose any skills you learned. Skillbooks are expensive and in some cases unique.
- Certain items refuse to stack together. Rubies, pearls, empty potion bottles, arrows of the same type, skulls of the same type, apples and so on. At the end of the game I got double, triple and even quadruple stacks of same items that refused to be stacked.
- Lockpicks should only break when failing a lockpicking attempt. Also, right now they're even used up when the lock I'm trying to pick isn't pickable. Why punish the player for trying?
- Trap disarming tools are worthless, mainly because they are a one-use item. Why bother with keeping a supply of them when you can plug an arrow in/cast a spell on the trap?
- Vendors should rotate their inventory all the time, not just on a level up. I am a bit confused why Larian kept this system they introduced in Divinity 2. (Perhaps Divine Divinity functioned like that as well. Can't remember. Been a while since I played that one.)
Right now there's a potential low chance for people to get their hands on specific high level items, especially with loot drops being so random.
If inventories would constantly refresh, it'd give people the chance to hunt for better items or get their hands on that evasive piece of crafting material.
3 out of my 4 characters were still wearing several junk items near the end of my first game. In Divinity 2 you could avoid wearing junk items by spending tons of money on unique items with a fixed level. I'd really like to see this in D:OS. Specific vendors selling unique items at high levels.
- Speaking of the randomness of all these items: The Divinity games are not Diablo. Enemies run out in Divinity games. You can only reach a certain level. Why are all these random items necessary? It'd be a much better idea to just use non-random items with a unique item here and there, like in Baldur's Gate.
And you find soooo many items. My eyes felt strained from all the identifying and constantly comparing gear to see if it would be an upgrade or not.
- Shops should sell unique items which always have the same level and stats, just like in Divinity 2. This way unlucky people or people who dislike all those random blue and greens have a chance of equipping their characters properly.
- It'd be very nice to be able to level up items to your current level. Perhaps with a recipe or a large cost.
This way people can keep using the items they're attached to or items that have decent stats.
Example: I find a leather armour which gives an armour rating of 10, +2 strength and +2 dexterity, but it's a level 5 armour and my characters are rollin' at level 15. It'd be nice to be able to upgrade this armour to level 15 as well, keeping the bonus strength and dexterity the same, but increasing its armour rating to what a level 15 armour would have.
- It'd be nice to have the secrets log update itself whenever you find one of the secret chests.
Now that I think of it: Buying treasure maps is pointless. They're costly and the random crap loot you find in return isn't worth it. Not to mention that you can still find the treasure chests without buying the maps, as long as your perception is decent.
- Overall treasure just isn't rewarding enough. Take the end of time chest: You can go through all the trouble of finding the four clues, only to find items inside this chest that are useless to your party setup.
Sure, you can save-scum so you get the chance for better results, but I doubt that's the way the game's meant to be played.
- Character portraits. Why are there a limited amount of portraits to choose from while you have so many hair/hair colour/face/skin colour options?
Right now people are forced to choose a portrait they like and then model their character after it.
If you're keeping this system, at least make sure there's a portrait available for every hair style/colour/skin colour combination.
I think it'd be much nicer to have something like Dragon Age:Origins has. You create a character and a 'photo' will be made to act like your character's portrait.
- Those little buttons placed throughout the game. Eye strain. Make characters make a remark every time they're near one or something. Have them emit a glow if your perception is high enough. Anything to make them at least a little bit less hard to spot.
- Zandalor's hat! Where is it?!? You can't have a Divinity game without Zandalor... and without his hat!
Okay, I am nitpicking here... but I did miss that hat. ;_;
Bugs:
- Although most dialogue was fine, there were instances where dialogue was missing or contained spelling errors. There's not a screenshot key in the game (or not that I know of) or I'd have made screenshots of these instances.
I hope these will be fixed later on.
The most annoying ones were instances where I just saw "You", with the rest of the text missing.
- Source temple: Door to 'locked air door' looked open but was still locked according to the mouse cursor. I couldn't pass through the door, even though it appeared open.
Seems that people can do some sequence wrong/different in this maze, which might cause this.
- Some quests didn't disappear from my questbook/were unsolvable:
War of the Stones:
I checked the whole town, every basement and attic, Zandalor's house and the road to the dungeon where those giant statues reside, and as far as I know I killed every last one of them. The quest should be made to disappear.
In my second playthrough I talked to a mountain man after the orcs were killed, and the quest was properly completed. Still, if the player makes a choice to kill both the orcs and mountain men (or however they're called), the quest should complete after the last one's done for.
Goblin Trouble:
I let Lawrence be killed by the angry mob (serves him right), so I couldn't talk to Lawrence about this quest anymore. Please have the game remove quests when the quest giver is dead.
The Captives in the Crystals:
- I freed Arroka.
- I freed Haizea, although he was killed during the fight.
- I freed Antzigar.
- I got my hands on the Winter Ring.
Quest didn't finish.
It finished in my second playthrough, where I managed to keep every prisoner alive. Still, this one needs fixing.
- The jailers in Sacred Stone damage your reputation when you attack them.
Since these guys need to be killed in order to free the prisoners and since they're bloody evil, they shouldn't give you a -1 reputation.
Immersion breakers:
Random quotes tree - I know, I know, there's crazy humour in this game, just like in previous Divinity games. I've grown to love it and don't consider any of that stuff immersion breaking.
The sudden popup of random quotes was a different matter though. It felt improper and unneeded to me.
It would have been a better idea to turn this into an easter egg, as in: hidden from sight.
