Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Latest News Patchnotes v3.0.31.292 - Meet our new AI system

Dear forum members, are you ready?

I said. ARE. YOU. READY?!

Because today we unleash AI 2.0 to the world and you had better be prepared because it's been kicking our behinds ever since we've been testing it out.

So welcome to a brave new world. If you find you are also getting your hiney kicked, don't panic. We think that's perfectly normal. But if you think this is a walk in the park, we simply have to talk to you and we'd like to know how you are still beating our system!

Seriously though: we are aware this will feel more like our hard core Tactician mode. And we need all of your feedback to be able to tweak the numbers correctly. What are you experiencing that makes it too hard? Monsters ganging up on you? Monsters controlling your party? Reactivity? Movement? Unfair advantages? Monsters have too many skills? You're not wearing any armour?

Let us know. Of course, there's more than just Super AI. Here's a (huge) changelist.

Improvements

• AI 2.0. Integrated new AI system for all enemies
• AI has received a big overhaul. In general it should be a lot smarter and have more awareness of its surroundings. This means that the AI might have gotten a bit more difficult to deal with, so don't underestimate your enemies and especially watch your positioning! Your enemies will make better use of barrels, surfaces, and combat control skills, and they’ll have better knowledge of the consequences of casting particular skills. Planning ahead is now more important than ever.
• Loot system overhaul
• Find less gear in random loot, but more gold and valuables. The idea is to get economy going and make trade more important. Uniquely hand-placed items and boss loot should feel more rewarding and rare. You HAVE to go shopping!
• Added three new arenas
• Forbidden Valley
• Enemy at the Gates
• Ravenshaw Mansion
• Added AI 2.0 to arenas
• You can now choose which starting class recruited companions should be, making it easier to compose the best-balanced party
• Removed durability from armor
• Weapon durability now only decreases when attacking objects
• Reduced AoE radius of most area spells to promote tactical gameplay
• Improved talk animation for female humans
• New melee attack animations for all races
• Improved female lizard skill animations
• Improved several item textures throughout the level
• Improved animations for several skills
• Improved list of usable items that should automatically get added to the bottom bar
• Improved Soul Jars: they now check if the player still has their Source collar before letting them absorb the soul in the jars
• Improved Burn My Eyes tooltip to include that it removes Terrified, Sleeping, Enraged
• Improved fog effects
• Updated several UI sound effects

Balancing and design changes

• Invisibility is now removed by Frozen, Petrified, Stunned, Knocked Down, Taunted, Sleeping, Wet
• Invisibility is no longer removed by all surfaces, except if they damage you
• Fortified status should now remove burning
• Poison damage no longer automatically contaminates puddles
• Wielding single wand now applies bonus from single handed ability
• Players receive their second Civil Point at level two. After that, they receive a point every four levels
• Weapon skills now show ‘chance to hit’ when hovering over a target
• All chests can now be moved and picked up, except special arena chests
• All containers that should be pick-up-able, now are (improved weight stats)
• Ground Smash now uses damage of equipped weapon
• Increased duration of Burning, Poisoned and Bleeding for most skills because these statuses no longer deal one tick of damage when applied for the first time
• Description of ‘Rested’ status now mentions that it protects from certain harmful statuses
• Added a new defensive ability, Perseverance, that allows characters to regain part of their armor after being controlled by a status
• Surfaces and clouds no longer disappear automatically. Exceptions: fire (2 turns), smoke (1 turn)
• You can no longer spot characters in sneak mode while preparing a skill
• Sneaking cones now show on all characters that can spot you, rather than just the ones that see you
• Incapacitated NPCs can no longer spot the player while the player is in sneak mode. Similarly, incapacitated players can no longer spot sneaking enemies.
• Damage statuses no longer tick damage on applying
• Set equip cost for all slots to 1 AP
• Trompdoy is now immune to poison and bleeding
• Purging Wands and Braccus Helm now give Source Disruption skill

Additions

• Added and updated visual effects:
• Elemental weapon impacts
• Several grenades and arrows
• Several skills throughout campaign and in Arena Mode
• Added and improved several sounds for skills and usable items
• Added weapon swoosh effects that scale with the level of your weapon abilities (Example: Single-handed weapons will have a bigger swoosh at single-handed level five)
• Added map marker from Delorus, after you choose to heal him
• Added new effect for Party Reflection Dialogs and stopped these dialogs from appearing during combat
• Added new type of pitchfork to weapon treasure
• Added new simple tools weapon types to weapon treasure (mallet, pickaxe, scythe, pitchfork)
• Added several journal updates for quests in Fort Joy area
• Added new necklace types to treasure generation
• Added being able to sell junk in the trade window
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed random seed not being reset when loading a savegame. Happy save scumming!
• Fixed several signs that were no longer legible
• Fixed errors in status animations for male humans
• Fixed Bahara position at seeker camp. Some players were getting "can't reach" message when trying to interact with her
• Fixed incorrect reflection boost getting added to equipment
• Fixed issue with XP reward in multiplayer for "The Imprisoned Elf" quest
• Fixed blind status causing player to miss even after the status wore off
• Fixed non-weapon items not showing critical hit chance
• Fixed possible crash when unloading a level
• Fixed crash when a client player would press highlight characters button without having assigned characters
• Fixed issue with initial dialogs of Gawin and Leste
• Fixed the equipment of one of Trompdoy's illusions
• Fixed dialogs for certain characters after they had already met (example: Red Prince and Stingtail dialog)
• Fixed Gawin dying prematurely during one of his teleports
• Fixed Amyro becoming hostile if he is teleported out of his cell
• Fixed issue with resurrected characters causing arena match to end prematurely
• Fixed issue with Void Worm not spawning in the final fight of Fort Joy
• Fixed crash when player was committing a crime and then loading a savegame right after
• Fixed Gratiana's dialog if Gareth is already dead when the Seekers gather before the final fight
• Fixed hotbar positions of the button hints after reassigning keyboard shortcuts
• Fixed Gratiana's dialog if you had the Wand and had delivered the Soul Jar to her already
• Fixed issue with Gareth's dialog before the final fight. In some cases, he would not leave behind companions for the player to help during the battle
• Fixed a crash when destroying specific chests containing cloth loot
• Fixed Historian joining combat involuntarily in Fort Joy Swamps area
• Fixed the boat to escape Fort Joy still being visually present for other players after one player had already used it
• Fixed items disappearing when you left them in certain containers and tried to recover them after leaving the area
• Fixed several items not having an icon
• Fixed items getting removed from hotbar when switching from dual wield to two-handed
• Fixed Comeback Kid talent so it correctly saves the player character with 1 hp left
• Fixed Telekinesis beam effect not disappearing
• Fixed burning pigs not reacting correctly when receiving Blessed status
• Fixed multiplayer issues with Saheila quest
• Fixed being able to talk to Zaleskar's mirror after killing him
• Fixed Charmed status description
• Fixed possible infinite fire surface
• Fixed Tarlene's dialogue after you save Gareth
• Fixed issue that Source collars would not show up after getting resurrected in Arena
• Fixed necromancers not attacking after you destroy Necromancer Rask's Soul Jar
• Fixed projectiles sometimes colliding with roofs
• Fixed several incorrect imprisonment scenarios
• Fixed several issues with necromancer maze
• Fixed issue with curse status getting stuck on character after receiving it via items like Braccus' ring
• Fixed issue with starting skills not updating in character creation screen
• Fixed being able to pickpocket all loot by pressing space bar when ‘take all’ button is disabled
• Fixed smoke clouds not blocking vision anymore after loading
• Fixed gold in containers not being included in trade window, while the containers are in the player's inventory
• Fixed being able to get a Talent without meeting its requirements in the character creation screen
• Fixed Attribute bonuses from equipment so they correctly count towards requirements for equipping items
• Fixed Leadership not working on allies in multiplayer
• Fixed surface damage reflect. This should not happen anymore.
• Fixed several issues with Buddy the dog
• Fixed several minor dialogue inconsistencies in and around Fort Joy
• Fixed Voidwoken Drillworm spawning in incorrect locations

Savegame compatibility

Again, these changes are so huge, this new version is unfortunately not compatible with old savegames. However, if would like to continue your old savegames, we have made the old builds available on different Steam branches: ea_version_1 for savegames made in version 2.0.165.341 and ea_version_2 for savegames made in version 3.0.5.530 and ea_version_3 for version 3.0.15.252.

To switch to a previous build, follow these simple steps:

1. In your Steam library, right click the game Divinity: Original Sin 2 and select Properties
2. In the Properties screen, click on the tab BETAS
3. In BETAS, click the arrow to open the dropdown
4. From the dropdown, select an old "ea_version_" branch and then click Close

More?

Read more about this update on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2/posts/1776988

Watch our Kickstarter update video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htMbzflLD5Y

Enjoy!

"Removed durability from armor"
"Weapon durability now only decreases when attacking objects"

Oh my lawd... I can finally play the game again. Larian - thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Still need to see whether (after years of posting these same UI requests on the Larian forums since the D:OS 1 alpha, lol) any of the much-needed UI improvements in the below topic have yet been implemented. But again, scrapping the unbelievably tedious and pointless durability mechanic is hugely appreciated in the meantime. Keep up the good work!

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=593933#Post593933

Nooooo. Warlord incompatible with The Pawn ? I'm sad... Though it was overpowered.

Nope, I've got plans for tonight and you didn't warn me... Please withdraw it immediately and release it again tomorrow morning when I am

What about the blood elixir bonus vanishing? Is that fixed or not yet?

EDIT: Well obviously I'm happy to get a new version to try, thanks.

I am overjoyed to see a new patch to play as I was getting burned out on the game, but with this I am excited to play again. I am concerned though that during standard difficulty it was quite difficult to defeat some enemies as they were straight up overpowered and with more intelligent AI it worries me if their overpowered abilities combined with updated AI will make them far too difficult for the average player to defeat, though obviously I'll have to play through and find out for myself. Looks like i'll also have plenty to do to update the wikia with new information. :p

Good update nonetheless.

Excellent, I'll try this out soon. I'm almost finished migrating my hard drives to a larger one and then mirroring them.



Sounds good, assuming that merchants have more things to sell so you have an actual selection, but I am told that will be the case.




I hope there's full attribute, ability, talent and skill customization, but even if not, this is at least an improvement.



Sounds very good, as I wasn't finding myself running out of durability using weapons and armor only for attacking very often anyway.

Does this mean "Indestructible" is removed from the pool of affixes on items? It should be removed even from weapons, because it's too situational.




Helpful, combined with the change for surfaces no longer applying damage on the first tick.
Reduced AoE radius of most area spells to promote tactical gameplay[/quote]




I was pushing for this on character creation, but this is also perfectly acceptable. I approve.

All-in-all, this looks very good.

@Stabbey It doesn't let you manually change their stats, but it gives you a list of all the classes in the game and you can pick them a new one and it'll adjust to that classes stats and give them new weapons/armor accordingly.

Looks great as always. Can't wait to see if the AI really is actually smart. :P A little concerned classic difficulty will be pretty brutal for regular people, even while explorer mode might be a little too easy for those people. Will probably be rectified with Tactician mode when classic mode can be toned down slightly and tactician mode made more difficult than existing classic mode. Though honestly probably should be 4 or even 5 difficulty modes (not including an iron man mode), just to make sure there's a difficulty for everyone.

Initial impressions:
-A bit confused about making surfaces except smoke and fire permanent. Does this mean they'll stick around even after combat? I feel like this is counterproductive to the whole surface insanity problem, particularly with electric fields. IMO, they should disappear faster than already. Glad poison doesn't contaminate water anymore though.

Perseverance sounds cool. Curious about the percentage of armor regained and what a control statuses counts as (hard cc like, knockdown, stun, charm, etc?)

Yay durability gone (mostly). Yay second civ point right away. Yay companion class choice. Yay weapon swooshes.

tl;dr
Crocs not as dumb and overpowered; Getting money is much more fair and balanced now; Environmental effects not as insane feeling; being able to choose companion classes at acquisition is a game changer.

Been playing for about an hour now and I can say that my concerns about the difficulty have gone down a bit as they aren't as brutal as I had initially thought they would be, however this is for me who is someone that has been playing this game and others like it for a long time so this may still end up more difficult for other players who are newer to this type of game.

My biggest concern was the Saltwater Crocodiles as they were, pre-patch, extremely powerful and would be newbie smashers and even vet smashers at times, however I defeated them with little stress unlike before, they still spam Fossil Strike a lot but I believe that the damage from them may have been nerfed meaning they aren't as bad of a threat as before and along with that I noticed the new AI quite clearly as before this patch they'd walk through fire like idiots, but now they made a clear decision to use their turns to get around it and come at my party. A note directly on the Saltwater Crocs though, they are still a little stupid when it comes to their teleportation ability as they will teleport away and walk back to the same position which basically wastes their entire turn making it easier for players to take them down.

The change so far on items and loot is astounding, best change they've ever made, at the point I am at in the game right now I would have maybe..200-300 gold without pickpocketing NPCs, I have about 1500 right now and am able to buy whatever I need when the time comes. This change has drastically increased my enjoyment of the game and the balance of things as I can now fairly equip my characters for upcoming battles without having to worry too much about the enemy have 200 armor and my tank have 10.

I've noticed some dialogue changes also, with Migo, specifically he's more cautious and kind now as before he'd threaten to tear your head off. Obviously not a big deal for any game mechanics, but I think it makes him seem more balanced between his corrupted madness and his human desire to see his daughter.

I've found some spelling error, item errors, what you'd expect and once I've gathered enough of them I'll probably make a post or add it here with images so they can be fixed at some point.

Interesting about the drasticness of the money change. I did feel like it could be slightly more generous, but not like 5x more gold. I suppose as long as there are enough big gold sinks later in the game (like, quests that require large gold investment, ways to pay a lot of money for permanent attribute increases, and the like), and great items stay very expensive it's not so bad to give people a bit more freedom earlier on to at least gear up on greens/rares and skills. Probably more fun that way for most people, and will help deal with the more difficult AI with better gear. Maybe tactician mode can impose a gold penalty as a balancing factor.

Ouch...Really, really not sure how I feel about making EVERY silent monk attack the player if they attack even one of them, they are realllllly strong..

The rouge tag is missing from the customization screen.

I can say right now, with 100% confidence, that the Kniles the Flenser fight is extremely overpowered and nearly, if not completely unbeatable.

Kniles himself will battering ram at least 2 of your party into knockdown and proceed to either full party stun with Electric Discharge or one shot any non-tank characters with low or no armor.

The Meat Golems will two shot anything, including your tank, by hitting disease on them and hitting them for nearly 35-50 damage.

And the worst offender of the fight, Kniles will trade places with a Silent Monk and that monk will probably become damaged right away if not at some point in that fight and that will aggro every monk in the dungeon, now even though there is only 3 in that area with Kniles it really doesn't matter at that point because you WILL lose. The monks are overpowered if you have to fight more than one at a time, Kniles is...I hate his tactics but I have to say it makes sense with the new AI and is "balanced" in a sense that he knows how to use his environment, but the monks need to be made to not go aggro if enemies damage them or/and they HAVE to not be able to all go aggro if one is damaged. The golems and kniles will be manageable only if the monks are changed or if a player overlevels and overgears, comes back and nukes Kniles, otherwise they won't have much hope fighting him as the primary escape plan. I had to take the boat out as challenging Kniles was just not an option.

So after I left the camp and came back in I fought a guard and his dog only to find that Griff of all people comes over and interrogates me about an assault..on the magister guards...who keep him locked up like an animal... and I fail a prompt with him forcing me to have to fight his whole camp.

Yeah this patch was amazing, but you guys introduced a lot of things that don't make any sense and throw a lot of things out of whack.

In my previous post you can see about the monks and kniles, but here fighting the magisters and than getting into a fight with Griff over killing the magisters just doesn't make any sense and I think limits a lot of that "dnd freedom" you guys talk about, because now I'm killing the people that are keeping him prisoner and he's acting like I've killed his mother.

My biggest issue right now is how Ifan just doesn't want to backstab his ennemies. He keeps going out of the backstab zone when he's inside. That's bad.

I managed to take down Kniles pretty easily tho. Party level 4 with two hander, enchanter, rogue and ranger. Bursted down the psycho and managed to keep him cc'ed the first two turns, enough to bring him down for good. Then the golems came to my party and decided it would be a good idea to enrage everyone without attacking. It wasn't. A.I. still needs some improvements on some points.

Quaozer's post reminds me, yeah AI for some reason seems to buff the players party. Magister Calin will cast restoration on my party and the Meat Golems cast Rage on my party. I'm sure there is others too.

Jeezuz kraist. I will try this this weekends probably. Skill crafting sound super duper cool, may be I should wait some more month? Nah, need to put my eyes on you devs, so that you don't spoil the game

Were your characters healed by the opponent's Restoration? The AI should only be casting it to do damage (on a zombie characters, or one with the decaying touch status).
Rage has some negative effects that can be used offensively (dodge and resistance penalties).

Nope he was healing me, no zombie talent on any characters.

Speaking of ; what's with the enemy being clairvoyant about what abilities my characters have? Like, why do the enemies KNOW that my character's got the zombie talent? He isn't visibly rotting, or anything like that, and the talent doesn't mention a smell or anything.