Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback My critical feedback thread

I'm just going to say straight off the bat that I enjoyed the first chapter very much, and the thing that interested me the most was the story and how it can be completed in many different ways. Story is the most important aspect of this game for me and I have no complaints in this department, I am completely happy with how this side of the game was made and looking forward to new adventures that are as varied and detailed.

Now I am going to talk about things that I personally think could be improved:

1) Stat system:

This was discussed on the forums quite a few times, but I want to bring a little different perspective to this particular topic. People were mostly talking about how it is unsatisfying to become weaker, specially when multi-classing as you level up because the amount of points required to maintain a certain bonus goes up with each level. This was addressed by Larian, and it was said that the stat system would change to one that will give a flat bonus depending on level.

But this will probably mean that in essence the progression will be the same, it will just feel different and more rewarding. My issue is more about the fact that you need to increase a stat by 4 points each level to keep it at the same relevance level, and we only get 2. Which if we count ONLY Strength / Finesse / Intelligence means that in order to stay at the same relevance in a particular stat we are supposed to get a whooping 10 points of stat increase from gear PER level, so at level 7 in order to keep the same stat relevance gear is supposed to provide extra 70 points, not counting stats besides the main three, my character managed to squeeze out 22 and that is 48 short. That in my opinion is unreasonable.

2) Racial skills:

Some of these do not work very well compared to others.

Flesh sacrifice works well, because it gives a scaling bonus of 25%. Metamorph works well as well, because it is an utility skill.

The above two work well because their usefulness stays constant regardless of attributes and regardless of level.

Dragon's blaze doesn't work very well because the damage scales with intelligence.

Encourage actually does scale with level but in my opinion very poorly and could use a significant buff.

3) Armor system:

It's alright to have this system of protection in which armor protects the wearer from negative effects but for this to be an effective system armor needs have have a significant enough value, imo AT LEAST 50% of the total HP pool. Right now being decked out in the best gear possible, while being under fortify and frost armour the total armor AND magical armor both add up to about 30% of the total character HP pool, which means that 70% of the time the character is prone to being chain CC'd.

To make it better I personally suggest armor to take a certain high % of damage while letting some of the damage slip through to the HP, that way armor will run out slower and will be more meaningful. For example armor could take 66% of the total damage received and let the other 33% affect HP.

4) Combat abilities:

I'm not exactly sure what was wrong with the cap of 5, and why it switched to these astronomical caps of 15, where each point is much less significant than it was in DOS1. Imo it's much more rewarding to have a meaningful 1 point in any given combat ability than having to take baby steps each level that you hardly notice.

Civil abilities are still capped at 5 btw so.. ?

5) Source skills:

When a skill requires a source point to use AND requires multiple memory slots, it should be quite more powerful than basic abilities. Overpower for example does exactly as much damage as Crippling blow, yes I know that it also destroys enemy armor if your armor is greater but accomplishing that is a feat in and of itself, that is just the attached utility.

I think that Source skills should either take only 1 slot of memory like any other skill, since they are already limited by source points OR they should be much more powerful than they currently are when compared to regular skills.

6) Bless:

It makes every detrimental surface completely irrelevant. I'm not sure if that's very cool. I can just cast bless on my character and rush through anything without a second thought.


That's my two cents for now.

1) As far as I understand: It's a bug.

2) Dragon Blaze I can support, mainly because Red Prince for example is a warrior.

3) Stats at level 7:
Life / Armor / Magic Armor Class
408 / 264 / _34 Twohanded warrior
378 / 133 / 214 Dual wield warrior
278 / 114 / _61 Mage
296 / 118 / _16 Ranger

Those armors could have gotten tweaked, because at level 7 there are body pieces supporting over 100 armor/magic armor, we just did not care.

4) It is true, leveling skills just does not have the same effect like DOS, but on the other hand, the coste are the same and perhaps the total affect as well, just the costs per step are lower and so is the gain.

In DOS the costs were 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 summarizing into a total of 15, you just don't need to save 5 points for the last level up.

5) At some time in the EA, will they will offer a different style of skills and stats I heard. But otherwise most seem to share you opinion, high level skills need far to many slots.

1) I think that it was discovered that damage does go up naturally as you level, it's just displaying your bonus damage modifier. That said, it does not look good at all to have a negative "bonus" damage modifier. Even if it is only bonus damage, needing to spend 2/2 points per level to maintain a neutral bonus damage is no good. Spending 2 points would be fine if you got 4 or 5 attribute points per level. That would let you keep up and still spread others around to different attributes.

2) Agreed.

Dragon Blaze is garbage and useless even if you are a warrior. You can throw a candle if you need to light things on fire. (Replace with "Shed Skin", please!)

3) Kalrakh, loot comes from RNG, so posting what you got doesn't mean that others are getting the same.

4) It was probably changed because the 1-2-3-4-5 system, with increasing ability points at higher levels was not all that intuitive (and not explained at ALL by the game itself). It is the same amount of points, but the smaller numbers give each point much less impact, making it harder to see how the individual points matter. This encourages leaving alone skills which give small percentages and focusing instead on your Skill abilities.

5) Agreed.

Those stats are not purely RNG loot, there is also stuff like bracchus body armor and of course stuff you get from shops.

As I said, body pieces with over 100 are now kind of normal stuff to find in the shops. My stats are just to show, that is possible. How much effort/luck is needed is hard to tell.

first off loved how you presented your feedback. ^_^

Fire breath I wish they would make it scale with level and not any stats. It pretty much forces Lizards into being wizards. (< I had to!)

Civil Abilities are capping at 5 is something I didn't know. This explains why we don't get points for them often. I personally enjoyed the 5 cap on combat abilities. Made multi classing much easier.

Yeaaah, the stat system should make one feel like there's constant progress and each bonus per point invested should be additive. Now if they want, they could use diminishing returns like Dark Souls, where the value each point in a stat adds gets smaller as time goes on until theres a point to just stop investing cause its inefficent or to keep adding for every minute increase cause you don't want anything else. There can also be break off points like in Dark Souls on how much one should invest for various kinds of builds

To clarify: I would not tie diminishing returns with level. The stat system should be well defined enough to stand on it's own

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! This is the best suggestion to tweak the armor system. But I'd add that players should be able to decide how much of an attack is absorbed by the armor and health. It would allow for player to decide if they want more overall health and protection, but limited time of CC resist vs greater alloted time for CC resist, but be more fragile over all. It'd create a spectrum of builds and make things like the current defensive stats actually matter and desirable! Vitality for those letting their health eat attacks to keep CC resist! More of an armor type for those relying on it as both CC and health for a limited time! Woooo ..though the numnbers would need tweaking and it doesn't exactly solve shields

Racial Skills and bonuses do need more work. Should be more general and helpful for every build, such that no one feels either pidgeon holed into a "class" or race to be more effective. Everyone should feel powerful and distinct

Combat abilities need alot of reworking. Some are clearly better than others and block needs to come back for shieldds

Civil abilities .... Eh, I'll wait for crafting again.

Also, the 5 vs 15 is weird @_@ Just pick one!