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#598575 18/01/17 03:50 AM
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Hello everyone. I'm relatively new to the Divinity: Original Sin world. I first played DOS1 a few months ago and have now run through DOS2 a couple times in the last few weeks. I've started reading through other peoples' feedback and discussions, but there's a lot of it, so apologies in advance if I repeat something that has already been said over and over.

I'm definitely an Exploration Mode player. I don't mind having some tough battles, but my priority is much more on immersion in the characters and the story than it is on min/maxing and planning every skill point out. Most of this feedback is going to be about feel and flow rather than power balance or bugs.

1) In character creation, Origin characters should have a default class to match what it would be when you recruit them in the game. My first game, I created Lohse as a rogue and then was annoyed to find that of the three charaters that I could recruit, one was a rogue and none were heavy magic users. I would have liked if, when selecting her in character creation, it started with her as an aero/hydro caster (possibly with "default" next to the class). A player should still be able to change an origin character's class/skills during character creation, but a clear "default to this if this is your first time playing and you just want to go have fun and not have to think about it too much" would be great.

2) I don't think you should be able to respec other characters when you recruit them. I know it's not this way now, but I've seen this possibility mentioned. Once I enter the world, I want to encounter fleshed-out characters, not blank slates. It feels wrong to meet someone, wipe their brain, and then tell them what they're going to be. If you want to spec your entire party, that should be an option during character creation.

3) In general, I'm liking the story. In particular, I really enjoy how each origin character gets personal quests and sees different reaction options in dialogs. I'm curious how conflicting quest goals will resolve in multi-player games.

4) I like the scarcity while you're in Fort Joy - I don't think you should be able to get decked out with armor and skills early in the game. What I don't like is that you can get around that scarcity by selling all of the candles and barrels and bowls for 1 gold each. There's no reason that any of the vendors would pay you for those things - they're everywhere. Ditto for the paintings. If you -can- collect and sell those things, some people are going to feel like they have to and that gets really grindy and boring. Better to make them unsellable, determine how much money should be available to the player, and have that amount sitting around as gold (or as something you can earn through small quests).

5) Adding more combat points in a category after the first doesn't feel as meaningful as maybe it should. I'd like to see skills in a category become more effective as you invest more points in it. They do a little bit, but I'd like to see more e.g. Ricochet bounces scale with Huntsman points or if you shoot a fireball at a group of enemies and allies, the allies will take less damage the higher your pyro skill is.

6) The earth magic skills don't feel very cohesive to me (it didn't in DOS1, either). Is it about poison or rocks/dirt (or oil)? They don't seem like they should belong to the same category, particularly given that they are separate damage types. Right now, the category feels poison-heavy. I'd like to see some cool rock/mountain/wall skills.

7) In battle, the volume ground/cloud elemental effects is way over the top. About half of the battles that I'm in end up causing blazing infernoes all over the battlefield. I like the way the elements interact, but I tend to like to be a little more surgical with my attacks. I'd attribute the issue to a few causes:
-There are just too many ground effects to start with. The world starts out full of leaky oil/ooze/water barrels. Having a few of these is fine, but I think it should be reined in a bit.
-Too many actions create new ground effects or create them in to large/uncontrolled an area. I have no idea why e.g. all of the earth skills other than Fortify have to cover the ground in oil or poison, in addition to their primary effect.
-Once the ground is covered in elements, it's too easy to accidentally set them off. Non-AOE attacks should either be directed at a target or at the ground. If I shoot a poisoned arrow at a target, the result should be that the target gets poisoned; it should not be that he gets poisoned, and a cloud of poison forms around him and then explodes because some other guy is a few feet away and on fire. If you shoot a fire arrow at a pool of oil, it should definitely explode, but I don't think it should if you shoot it at a guy standing near a pool of oil.

8) The all-or-nothing of status effects getting through physical/magical armor feels wrong. I think it should be a little more probability-based. For example, if I zap you with lightning, whether or not you get stunned should be determined by a die roll. This could be modified by:
-my aerothurge level (another reason to boost it up past level 1)
-my int (or appropriate attribute for the skill in question)
-your current magical armor
-your resistance to that particular element (if applicable)
-if you have a status that makes you conducive to stunning (wet)
So, even if you have high magical armor, there's still a chance that I could stun you. And even if your magical armor is totally gone, there's a chance that my stun will fail.

9) If I'm trying to pick a bunch of things up, having to wait for the animation to complete before I can click the next thing is really annoying. I know the right-click trick, but that's not much of an improvement. Something that you have to do lots and lots of throughout the course of the game should be easy and fast.

10) Sorting equipment in inventory would be really nice; especially being able to sort by item type or most-recent. Several times, an NPC would tell me that they gave me something and I had no idea what they gave me.

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1) I think Larian hopes to put in a system to let you change the default classes of OTHER companions when you recruit them, so you can pick what you want and change them to fit the party.


2) You just complained about discovering that your other party members are the same archtype as you are, now you're saying that you hate the idea of respeccing them? Sorry, but in my view, even if it hurts your immersion briefly, a companion respec-on-recruitment is a better way to handle it than setting a default for the origin characters and discourage you from making your main character what you want it to be.


4) Larian could make those objects worth 0 gold, but really, if you're going around picking up and selling every single junk item worth 1 gold, the only one you're hurting is yourself.

If you really want to see a strange quirk with the scarcity, get someone with Telekinesis into the fort, and you can find 700 gold worth of free and totally unguarded (if sneaking) paintings. I'll also note that it really seems like selling the paintings and equipping yourself with better gears and skills is required to be able to handle the absolutely brutal level 4 enemies.

I totally agree with you that selling huge paintings to prisoners in rotten tents does not work as a sensible source of gold income, and I'd rather have the gold amount directly placed somewhere. Small quests to earn gold are also a good idea.


5) Perhaps once you get off the island, skills will require several more points in the respective schools to learn. At least that seems like a good idea for balance. The low level skills on Fort Joy can be used with only a point or two, but the better ones need heavier investment.


6) Yeah, Earth is another pretty strange skill. I hate the change to remove Earth damage from wands/staves and replace it with poison which undead are immune to (and which spreads like crazy). The way it's split between Earth and Poison is a bit strange and unfocused, and it makes Earth resistance seem poor. I'd like more Earth damage skills too.


7) Agreed on all points.


8) Even after all this time, I still haven't made up my mind about the armor system. It has some good points and bad points, and I don't have any ideas about how I would change it, even though I definitely do not entirely like the system.


10) Agreed.

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I don't mind the split between Poison and Earth damage personally... Geomancy is more "Earth and nature" (Basically Gaia) then just throwing rocks.

It makes it, in theory, the most versatile magic type in terms of offense. It is also the only one that naturally goes between physical and magical (Necromancy being a physical armor targeting magic type that doesn't target magic armor)

The wands ONLY being poison? Yeah that is pretty annoying, even if it is more worthwhile MOST of the time.

Last edited by Neonivek; 18/01/17 09:43 AM.
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Originally Posted by Stabbey
1) I think Larian hopes to put in a system to let you change the default classes of OTHER companions when you recruit them, so you can pick what you want and change them to fit the party.


2) You just complained about discovering that your other party members are the same archtype as you are, now you're saying that you hate the idea of respeccing them? Sorry, but in my view, even if it hurts your immersion briefly, a companion respec-on-recruitment is a better way to handle it than setting a default for the origin characters and discourage you from making your main character what you want it to be.


I understand how those two points might seem a little contradictory. As I see it, you're going to have a couple types of players: folks who want to spec out everything and then folks who want some smart defaults so they can jump in and play.

The most natural place for speccing out early recruits (the ones you can get within the first 5-10 minutes of gameplay) would be in character creation. It's not like the first few minutes of the game require you to have only one character - why not give advanced players the option to start with all four from the beginning? They get what they want without a jarring second/third/fourth character creation for immersion players or new players who don't yet have a basis for making those kinds of decisions.

Two possible counter-arguments (depending on what's in store in following acts):
-There may be more recruits later in the game and this doesn't account for those. At that point, they could either give you a bunch of options (ala Hall of Heroes in DOS1) or maybe you don't need more recruits, but they're available.
-If you are using an origin character, the feel of the game so far is that you have a main with some recruits. You need them all to work as a team, but your main character is really the one you care about. If that will be true for non-origin characters as well (I haven't played one yet), then it might be problematic to start with four equally-main characters.

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I think, the main problem are traits like one-man-army who would have diffulties to identify player created from created NPC if full-team gets created. Also the fact, that you are a shipwecked prisoner and not went to adventure with a full team. ^^

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Those are all very good suggestions, especially for someone new to the game and the setting - who likes the exploration mode.

I dont think that having a better (story wise) starting or default build for your main character would be any problem or "discourage" anyone from changing it into whatever they prefer.
Thinking such a minimal detail would actually "discourage" anyone is pretty hilarious. It invokes the image of newbies paralyzed in terror because of one simple tag, which is a bit insulting. Not to mention it implies we know what those potential players will or may think.

Im also for removal of the obligatory ranged surface effects and reduction of size of surface effects.

I already suggested that such skills or spell effects should be smaller at lower levels and increased later, with either investing more skill points into related skills - or through new "more powerful - stronger" spell books. Drizzle - rain - squall - storm - maelstrom, for example.

I would prefer the latter option because then it would be a choice each player can make depending on his or her preferences. and it would give player the choice between getting more powerful versions of spells they like or getting new spells.

I also want a spell to cast a small cloud over myself (or anyone else) that would follow me for a time, spewing small lightning above me. Which would also zap me (or anyone else) from time to time.
It would be funny.

Similarly, investment in skills should increase elemental resistances and magic or physical armor, instead all of that being dependent on gear alone. (Strength and Constitution could also give smaller boosts to physical armor base value or something)
Gear can still play a role in that, but it needs to be nerfed appropriately.

Investment in a specific skill should also increase skill slots, instead of the Memory, which can still serve as a maximum skill slot limiter, like Con limits maximum APs.

Intelligence should additionally slowly reduce penalties for using higher level items or spells.
Therefore intelligent builds would be able to learn skills and spells more quickly and you can combine that with any build in a meaningful and easily understandable way.

I think that various poison effects should be moved into Witchcraft and or Rogue skills.
Would also like to see more "rocky" spells and effects.
And more Ice spells and effects for hydrosophist.




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The point 9 is important for me, as someone who picks up a lot of shit, even if its not to sell it, just for trolling reasons, or completion or testing. Having to wait out the animation is really annoying. Having played other RPGs where you pick up plenty of stuff, DOS2 takes the cake as the most annoying.

Hiver #598604 18/01/17 10:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Hiver
Investment in a specific skill should also increase skill slots, instead of the Memory, which can still serve as a maximum skill slot limiter, like Con limits maximum APs.

Intelligence should additionally slowly reduce penalties for using higher level items or spells.
Therefore intelligent builds would be able to learn skills and spells more quickly and you can combine that with any build in a meaningful and easily understandable way.


At least partwise that is, how it was in the first game. You needed a certain skill level to learn specific spells and a specific number of spells and an effectivity of a spell depended on your intelligence. Also it reduced cooldown and Constitution influence you maximum AP.


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