Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Will there be Non-pregenerated character Origins?

I don't know. Who is my best friend? Is he of my race, or is he of a different race and we have struck up an unusual friendship? Is the village my Generic Store located in a majority-X-race town or a melting pot town? How does my best friend feel about me being a Sourceror? Does he know? Was my generic butt dragged out of bed by the Divine Order? Or was I captured on the road delivering goods?


Thanks though, for ignoring everything else I said, pointing out that a lot more work goes into things than you know to attack what you thought is a weak point.

Yes! Ohh my goodness you understand!



Wait what? No! dang it!



No I already explained how it works. AHHHH!

Why do you guys add ridiculous extra layers of work ontop of this?

As if being "The Son of a Merchant" suddenly means that you must talk to every guard as if you are the son of a merchant.

As if being a Human Son of a Merchant... Means that every person who knows you are the son of a merchant must suddenly talk to you as if you are a human.

They already said in MULTIPLE videos that they have NPC's react differently based on race, so while they won't have to change EVERY LINE of dialog, they WILL have to change a large portion of dialog that is Race Dependent, which still requires testing.

Ok lets deal with this!



If it is addressed, it requires one line.



This of course is addressed by the origin you see. I am not asking for a completely legoblock origin where you can swap out entire details for others.

So when you select "Son of Merchant" you get the same origin.

I never said it wouldn't take no work... However I should state that "NPC's react differently based on race" isn't an all the time affair.

We already have videos on this.

Now as I said "Son of Merchant" doesn't overwrite your race tag or gender tag so the vast majority of the game does on as normal. It is only when the game fishes up your "Son of Merchant" tag that this becomes an issue.

And goodness people. I am only one person (and the only person who even understands what I am talking about), and I have to rebuff two of you guys at once.

I am being a bit overwhelmed to admit.

To admit... My question might be answered in the Form of Undead

because Undead are not JUST a race... They are selected exclusively through origin.

So in order for that to work they would have to add a Pregen character origin for every single undead version of a race.

So... They might actually make a non-specific undead origin (assuming they don't change how they work and remove the undead origin)

It's not us. You're adding in layers of work and then claiming that you never asked for that. If you can't even be consistent about what you want from a generic origin, how are we expected to figure out what you really mean?

You have quoted a kickstarter post which talked about how certain NPC's would have special, specific relationships based on origins. You've said that you want specific quests based on origins. And then you say this:



Well which is it? Quests and additional NPC's, or just an origin which lets you visit your parents store?

If the latter is all I'm getting, then why would I want that? Why would anyone want that?


Now I'm not trying to attack you, but here's a stumper of a question: Why would Larian want to put in a mixture of high-quality and low quality origins? When choosing an origin, would there be a clear indication which quality you're getting?

Ohh no you aren't attacking me :P

Sorry if I implied that.

Two people counter-arguing me at once :P Is like overload. Especially when I get a bit heated or suffer emotion drop (made up name for when... You know you are a bit heated... but then suddenly you feel completely drained and depressed from it)

"Now I'm not trying to attack you, but here's a stumper of a question: Why would Larian want to put in a mixture of high-quality and low quality origins? When choosing an origin, would there be a clear indication which quality you're getting?"

It is about how much involvement you want your character to have. It would likely indicate it by the description.

I just kind of wanted something between playing "The Red Prince" and "Generic" a middle ground.

Where you are still your own character but aren't disconnected from the world around you. You aren't a visitor but a member of this world.

Dragon Age's Origins are indeed a lot closer to what I am talking about.

To admit it could be achieved through an expansion of "Generic" (a sort of sub-origin), but it isn't achievable through it right now.

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Reminds me... All mentioning of how "Undead needs to be accounted for".

Undead is a origin. You cannot be "Son of a Merchant" AND "Undead" as they are two separate origins.

That's an odd statement to make. A Generic/custom background with no origins at all would be an example of them taking a half-assed option. It can only improve from there.

Are you also suggesting that every additional tag adds an exponential amount of work in QA? If that's the case, then I really don't envy the QA team in Larian.

I think it's clear that Neonivek is simply asking for "better", not "perfection".

I agree with this, but personally I'll be able to forgive the game depending on how many pre-built characters there are and how customisable they are.

But if they are going to provide the option to build a custom character, I'd really appreciate if they would take it seriously.

Origin tags do, as well as for designers and writers. There are relationships between different origins, conflicting quests, etc, in addition to all the origin specific details. Every origin added takes more work than the one before, just to stay at the same quality level.

Pregenerated character tags do.

Not tags in general.

As, for example, "Soldier" tags do not apply to the vast majority of conversation and provide entirely optional conversation pieces that sometimes do not alter the responses given to you. (In fact... Sometimes it does absolutely nothing. A few are just "thoughts" you have)

That's why I specified origin tags. Also, that is the topic of this discussion.
However, the other tags are not trivial; there is a lot of work that goes into each, and the more tags there are, the more permutations have to be tested.

There are more origin tags then the "pregenerated character" tags.

There are 4 Race tags, 2 gender tags, 10 Aspiration tags, 4 character tags.

Characters get 2-3 Aspiration tags and one character tag
Generic gets 1 gender tag, 1 race tag, and up to 2 aspiration tags

Essentially a "Character tag" replaces Race and Gender tags.

"Son of a Merchant" wouldn't replace Race or Gender tags.

Now each of these tags are not made equal. Gender tags, for example, have the least use.

This is reasonable. You're talking about competitive questing. I absolutely appreciate that when you add more options to the competitive questing, it gets exponentially more difficult.

You're implying that "Origins" are directly tied to competitive questing. What this also implies is that the "Generic" background is unable to participate in competitive questing.

Neonivek seems to be asking for the "Generic" background to be improved on, and asking for something that gives you some implied history where you could turn up to a village, say "hey dad!" and move along. Not an origin in the same depth as The Red Prince, with competitive questing and the lot as such.

It kind of makes me wonder why we're even getting the option to create a "Generic" character (aside from the fact that there would probably be riots). It really sounds like it would be a relatively crap choice to make, and I wonder how you'll stop most people from making the crap choice.

The reason Generic character exists is rather simple and I really do appreciate it exists.

You learn this if you roleplay with people but what a LOT of people prefer when making a character is to have someone with absolutely no one to tie them down.

There are people who would genuinely prefer that they have absolutely no one in a game... then to have a wife and two kids.

The issue is... That there is nothing between playing a premade character and playing a complete blank slate. So yeah it can feel like they are actively punishing you for not wanting to play one of their characters.

That sounds right, yes. For instance, the former Elf slave has a list of tattoos of people she wants to kill. That's part of her origin. That includes people that other people with Origins might want alive for other reasons. Origins give you special goals and special relations with people.

Generics by definition do not have origin-tied goals. They have no inherent personal goal to kill or negotiate with the former slaver, so there is no conflict with the elf.




The problem with that is clear. It's apparently a LOT of work to do just one single fully fleshed out origin.

What he is asking for is that not only should we get all the existing fully-fleshed-out origins, but also a decent number of crappy, low-quality origins.

A player picking up the game for the first time would have to choose between origins. If all the origins are mixed together, and they have to choose between high-quality and crappy origins and pick a crappy one, that will leave them very unimpressed with the experience. If the crappy origins are clearly marked as crappy origins, then why would a new player pick one acknowledged to be crappy?

What's to stop people from choosing the "generic" background and having an even crappier experience?

I'm not at all suggesting they should be mixed with the high quality Origins, but if there's going to be a Generic "custom" origin, then I would normally gravitate to it. What's going to stop other people from choosing the Generic background and being disappointed?

There would need to be some fairly prominent warnings.

Nothing.

However, there's a much, much clearer difference between "highly detailed origin" and "generic character" than there is between "highly detailed origin" and "crappy low-quality origin".

There is a difference between "Not all encompassing" and "Crappy low-quality origin"

Especially since, once again, there is NO Middle ground between playing Larian Studios Own Characters that They created themselves with their own stories and characters... and playing an absolute nobody who popped into existence one day.

It would be like calling a Motorcycle a "Crappy Low Quality Vehicle" because it only has two wheels.

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Also Goodness I wish the Developers would chime in and answer this.

So we can finally move on.

I think he understand that, but he's implying that creating a middleground would still be crap and would only make people more confused.

Whereas we think it should be no less confusing than it is now (which is something Larian should improve on either way), and it would make people less disappointed.