Hey Larian!

A friend of mine and I are avid gamers and we are both active in the game industry itself as artists.
We played through D:OS1 right before the second game came out so we could jump right in.
Now we are at 110h+ in the second game and still not done with our first run! Which means we haven't gotten around playing the DE version yet.

Either way, we both agree that the overall game-time is being spent way too much at the shops: Trying to buy the right thing for your character, constantly going back and forth between vendors, the other player having to wait to check out a vendor's goods while the other one is checking it out themselves. On a usual weekend day, we can end up playing 2h of combat, 1h of exploring, 2h spending in the shop menus.

In other words, we aren't really fully enjoying it that much. It should be a lot more like 2h of combat, 2.5h of exploring, and only .5h in shops.

We discussed several ideas over and over again, and we think a solution that could fix this issue is enchantments. Maybe not specifically to make blank gear better, but moreso to enchant unique gear and keep them on your current level.

Right now, we have the issue that we don't really care what the weapon is named or how we got our hands on it, we only look at if it will aid our characters.

Being able to enchant your favourite gear because you like its stats, its looks, its name, or how you achieved it will make it a lot more memorable. And on top of that it would make it also feel more immersive. The possibilities that this adds to the roleplaying part of a gamer is medium at best but it adds a lot more to the polish and feel to the game. And it will improve the flow of the game massively.
One game that I can refer to that did it decently well is Pillars of Eternity 2.

The enchantment can be as simple as increasing the armor/damage of the gear to the level you are at. Price wise, it can be as expensive as buying a new gear of your current level.
Or it can be achieved by fusing a similar gear type into your current one to bring it up a level.

Besides that idea, the overall experience buying from vendors could be improved a bit.
  • I would be nice if you can choose from which character you want compare the available gear to (maybe while hovering your mouse over the item, you can press a button like "G" to swap the compared item from a different character).
  • In multiplayer, the other player(s) have to often wait in line to only check what the vendor is selling - can be solved by letting multiple people check one NPC's goods simultaneously).
  • The bartering system is okay, but has only that one function: to make things cheaper. Otherwise, it doesn't feel appealing since it never really came into play otherwise.



Additional feedback:
  • We are a bit sad that the crafting system has been neglected so much in this game.
  • Talents are lack-luster. We enjoyed it in D:OS1 that there were so many talents that were only to be unlocked if you were focused in one skill branch. And many of their effects are not that extreme (the old Fallout games had some fun perks/talents. One of which is more gore, which can be more useful for necromancers).
  • We turned the dynamic camera off since it was moving around way too fast. It felt like we were all over the place and completely lost orientation. Or we wanted to select something and the camera immediately flies away before we could select it. But now without the dynamic camera, we often miss the full action when the arena is really big. (Maybe add a range variable that tells it shouldn't trigger the dynamic camera unless the action is really far away?)
  • Multiplayer dialogue feels a bit too much on the rails. In that, there has been many story events where it feels like that the game picks a random main character. Or if one party member went a bit too close to dangerous animals and triggers a fight even though the person right behind them can talk with animals. (So maybe have an option for the players to be able to intervene in an ongoing conversation with a character of their choice. Or when you are the one being spoken to that you can request for a specific character to take it over. )


Last edited by vometia; 20/09/18 11:16 PM. Reason: formatting