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Now this is an early observation and it might end up being not true, but it seems to hold up. I'd like to know your thoughts and observations as well since I obviously am just one person and cannot chose every available option.

So as you all know currently when you select a custom character you can select several tags like Noble, Mystic, Barbarian (the only tag currently not shared), Jester, and what have you.

So you select Noble and you are kind of right you are playing a Noble...

Yet the dialog options are very much based on the Red Prince and his dialog. So because the Red Prince is a total meanie, your Noble options are almost exclusively being a total meanie (and being a weenie oddly enough "Don't hurt me! I can give you stuff!").

So if you were planning on playing a "Princely" or diplomatic Noble... Not going to happen. You are basically Red Prince Jr (Well his "Snob" personality at least).

Likewise all tags shared with the characters are likewise based on their character SO far. So if you want to play a sort of mean mystic... not going to happen.

It can actually lead to some odd personality dichotomy as you will be the nicest person in the world before announcing that you would NEVER associate with the rabble.

Mind you this can't be fixed. Since giving The Red Prince an option to be nice is against his character. As is giving Lohse an option to be mean against hers. (And Sebille has a REALLY hard to pin down personality given she is just flat out psychotic)

So Custom Character players will just have to bare with it.

Last edited by Neonivek; 15/09/16 07:22 AM.
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That makes the tag system seem pretty broken in its current form. In Dragon Age: Origins, they gave you a custom character, and gave you the opportunity to add flavour to the custom character by having an origin.

Ideally, the tag system in D:OS2 would provide the opportunity to play a custom character like in Dragon Age, [I]plus[I] provide the choice of playing as an NPC like Morrigan or Alistair. That would be pretty cool, assuming Larian can do a good job of making compelling characters.

It really seems D:OS2 is built primarily for the predefined characters, and custom characters are just tacked on as an afterthought. I don't know if I should be excited about a tacked-on feature.

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Originally Posted by Ayvah
custom characters are just tacked on as an afterthought.


That is because it is. Basically cutting pieces off the pre-gen characters in order to fill out the Custom characters action.

But I've already probed the game's fanbase. People prefer the more expansive pre-generated characters.

As opposed to Less expansive but more customizable player built characters... even in tandem.

I even was outright told, by a developer, if you play Custom characters you are missing out on a large part of the game's story and replayability... Even if you play with other types of custom characters.

Though how much the game diminishes the amount of impact your character has if you play Custom is to be seen. Indeed Pre-gen characters get a lot more dialog options and solutions to problems then Aspiration Tags do AND the developers also said the game adjusts to the tags you pick quite nicely. As well pre-gen character's tag sets seem to work together a lot more nicely then two random ones you pick.
-One of the reasons why I wanted more confirmation from players. I cannot confirm this definitively.

So in conclusion it is a shame for us. Yet it is the more popular choice.

Last edited by Neonivek; 15/09/16 09:39 AM.
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One thing so far.
First encounter versus voidlings, i used Electric Discharge on them, causing them to be stunned. Then i moved in, that caused me to be stunned as well. Now we all are prisoned in an endless circle of stuns, since none of us is able to break it, and electric field doesnt seem to end by itself either.
It happens in the background while im typing this :)

I dont know if its intentional or not, but for sure its funny ;)

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I had the same concern.
Actually I find it sad that the story is in any way linked to a character rather than a set of tags.
I thought the points of the tag was actually to be able to choose rather than stick to a predefined character.
The predefined characters should only be there for default purposes...

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Originally Posted by sajm0n
One thing so far.
First encounter versus voidlings, i used Electric Discharge on them, causing them to be stunned. Then i moved in, that caused me to be stunned as well. Now we all are prisoned in an endless circle of stuns, since none of us is able to break it, and electric field doesnt seem to end by itself either.
It happens in the background while im typing this smile

I dont know if its intentional or not, but for sure its funny wink


The electric cloud will wear off eventually like it did in DOS EE (assuming it is not bugged in this alpha version).

On topic: I very much hope that more tags will become available and will hopefully be less specific i.e. tied to a certain pre-gen character. I think right now only 5(?) pre-gen characters are available, aren't they? So, hopefully we will see more characters and more tags.

Last edited by Elwyn; 15/09/16 12:23 PM.
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I understand that they can't have a full length story for every Commination from the custom tags. However I think they could either nick some story plots from the scripted characters or come up with a few genetic ones to cover the ranges of custom characters. Then either have the tags determine your story or there is an NPC behind a tower towards the sea from the kitchen area who asks about your past, purpose, and future desire: this seems like a brilliant way to chose the story for vision characters, if it isn't already.

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You can play a diplomatic noble. You just don't take the (NOBLE) tagged conversation choices, which seem to be mostly about, yes, contempt for the common man.

But a short description of the descriptors wouldn't be amiss.

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Ok another thing: im in Fort Joy in the room with jars, i picked up one and fight started.
Now it doesnt end because one of the enemies (Pyromancer Guardian) is coming up and down the ladder and his turn never ends.

Edit: his turn actually ended after about 20 or more moves like that ;)

Last edited by sajm0n; 15/09/16 05:24 PM.
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yeah. I was very disappointed to see the "the game is meant to be played with the pre-fab" characters note.
It seems very strange for a rpg of this nature.

The tag system below, seemed like a great idea, for making npc dialogues more personal. however, others commenting that those tags are just cut and paste from the pre-fab, sounds very disappointing yet again.

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Heavily subjective area - so I'm treading as lightly as possible but my 3 cents are ->

My friends and I ALWAYS ignore "story characters". It ruins the immersion of dropping ourselves into the realm and playing as our avatars of sorts. I really liked how DOS1 had story characters that could be added to the party if that's what you wanted, but the main characters were your creation! The tags are interesting but as others have noted seem limited or forced for our custom characters. After a few of the dialogue options, I restarted without any tags (outside the forced ones). Now I worry that I might be hurting my success in the game by not having added any. All in all my first impression is that I don't like the system nor do i see an easy way for you guys to fix it. Sorry to be unhelpful on this one.

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Yeah playing without tags is like cutting your character's left arm off. As a LOT of problems are solved exclusively through tags and little else.

Though playing as a non-pregen-character is like cutting your right arm off. As even more problems are solved exclusively through character tags.

Last edited by Neonivek; 15/09/16 08:37 PM.
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I rummaged a bit through the files yesterday ( >.> <.< ) and I'm fairly certain that tags / responses exclusivity and similar things can be easily modded if Larian won't make any significant changes to the system.

That said, I dislike current system :| can't really get into RPGs where main char doesn't feel like completely 'mine'. But it always boils down to personal preference and apparently pregen presets are quite popular.

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For the record, after playing for 90 minutes as Ifan, the soldier and rogue tags feel pretty generic so far.

Maybe this is their interpretation of nobility? If so, I think they should rename "noble" to "aristocrat" so that it has the connotations of being a bit of a dick.

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In all fairness Ifan is a generic character :P

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In general i am pretty unimpressed with the predefined charactes beeing just that. pre defined characters.

Why is the red prince called "The Red Prince"
He is the red Prince why cant he have a name? I dont get that.

I dont get how in an RPG the de facto way to play a character is one that is very much pre defined.
There for the most part are just character based dialogue options and mostly they dont branch.

So either i play my character as THE red prince or i dont.
I get that this is early in development but i think this needs to be a dressed.

There is a difference between the origins beeing ORIGINS or them beeing Characters whose personality you get to enact.

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Yeah, in it's current state I really find that tag system pointless : it doesn't help you to create a custom character since it's not informative on what you'll get once you play the game and the fact that it just seems to be a copy/paste from pre-made characters just makes me feel like I'm wasting my time since the whole point of the process is to create something that feels unique.

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I already finished the alpha with a custom character, and it seems that outside the camp area, there are very, very few times where your tags come up at all. Not sure if that's limited to custom, or if the origin characters also have a dropoff.

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Well i think Origin stories are cool but people should be allowed to have cool custom characters as well.. don't punish people because they want to play their own story and not someone else's... but that's just me. Anyone know how many origins the finished game is supposed to have?


There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” – George Carlin-
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I think the biggest issue with that system is that one tag mix together things that should’nt like the origin of a character and his personality. (Nobles have the right to be good guys too)
Why not separate them into categories like origin rags, personality tags, knowledge tags, goal tags and so on ?

Last edited by Bewoulve; 17/09/16 08:37 AM.

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