Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Bugs & Technical Problems Ongoing hotbar issues; very frustrating

Created an account just to report these very frustrating hotbar issues that are wrecking my enjoyment of an otherwise awesome game:


(1) Temporary "item skills" that are learned upon activating another skill (for example, the Petrifying Visage skill that is learned after activating Medusa Head) – none of these will stay on the hotbar. Every time I reload a saved game the slots where I placed those skills are simply blank.

To use the skills, I have to cast the base skill, open the skillbook, and drag the temporary skill back to the hotbar. Every Single Time. It's incredibly annoying.

The option to "Remove Unmemorized Skills" is not selected in the options menu, so that is not the problem.


(2) Items and skills are still being randomly added to the hotbar, even though I have it locked and have all automated hotbar behavior turned off in the options menu.

The biggest offenders seem to be bedrolls (I currently have seven of them in my hotbar, even though I only have one in inventory), as well as teleportation pyramids and skills from items (Flurry, All In, etc.).

This problem can be avoided by simply ignoring the top hotbars – using e.g., hotbar #5 instead. I'm concerned though that eventually *all* of the hotbars are going to fill up with bedrolls.

Of course, I have all of the "Automated Hotbar" behavior turned off in the options. This doesn't fix the problem. Random items are still added to the hotbar.


I honestly don't understand why automated hotbar behavior is included in the game at all. It has no useful purpose, and surely in a game as tactically complex as this, the users can be trusted to accomplish the very basic activity of adding the items we want on the hotbar?

These are incredibly frustrating problems for what should be a simple and straightforward function. Open skillbook or inventory. Drag skills or items to hotbar. They stay where you put them. When those skills or items are available, click on them to use them. It should not be this complex and difficult.

Anyway, there's so much to like about this game, but the continuing pointless hotbar issues are just driving me nuts.

Update – I figured out part of what is happening to the temporary skills in the first point (1) above.

When the relevant skill is activated (e.g., Medusa Head), the temporary skill (Petrifying Visage) is automatically placed on the hotbar – on the *first* hotbar, amid all the seven bedrolls and five teleportation pyramids and other junk the game has added there.

To get that temporary skill onto an actually usable hotbar (e.g. hotbar #5), you have to cast the base skill, open the skillbook, and drag the temporary skill into place.

All of which would be fine as long as the temporary skill *stayed where you put it*.

For some reason every time a saved game is loaded, those skills are just deleted from the hotbar. So every single time they have to be put back into place.

All of this is so pointless. Just stop automatically changing everything around on me and moving all the buttons. Just let me decide what goes on the hotbar, and leave it where I put it.

Just leave the wished spot on the hotbar empty and prevent that skills get automatically removed. Should be at least a workaround?

[quote=Kalrakh]Just leave the wished spot on the hotbar empty and prevent that skills get automatically removed. Should be at least a workaround? [/quote]

It's a good thought, but unfortunately won't help solve this problem. Probably I'm not describing it very well.

The first thing, even with "Automatically Add Skills" turned on in the options, the temporary skill is not going to be put in the right place, or even on the right hotbar. It will show up on hotbar #1, amid all the clutter and broken buttons that the game adds (that the game adds even though all the options to add things have been turned off). I'm using hotbar #5, which is the only way right now that is possible to avoid the clutter.

The second thing, even with "Remove Unmemorized Skills" turned off, these particular skills still get automatically deleted from the hotbar every time a saved game is re-loaded. (I'm talking about Petrifying Visage skill, Bull Rush skill, the Flight skill from spread your wings, etc.) *This is the central and most important problem right now.*

If the skills would just stay where they were put, then it would be totally workable. But right now nothing will keep them from being deleted from the hotbar when the game is reloaded. So they have to be manually put back on the hotbar every single time, just in order to use them.

Currently I do have several empty spaces in my hotbar where the skills should go. I just keep the empty spaces there to remind myself that I do in fact have those skills – and so that I'll have a place to put them on the hotbar every time I have to drag them back again from the skillbook.

I just don't understand why this central problem is still so broken after all this time. I mean it's the hotbar – its something where things being confusing and frustrating and moving out of place is going to affect people every single moment of the game, in every single combat or interaction. This is so much more important then some side quest not fully closing or whatever – all those other minor things that are in fact getting fixed.

And, maybe I'm too optimistic, but it seems like it should be a very easy snip to fix it! Just give an option to truly turn off all automated hotbar behavior. Just kill all the routines that move things around out from under me on the hotbar. All of them. Don't do it one item-switch at a time – just kill all automated hotbar behavior. Things only get added when I drag them there. Things only get removed when I drag them off. If we could just do that, then getting the skills set up might still be a bit unwieldy the first time around, but then at least it would then be playable and not constantly frustrating and causing problems. /little rant

In case anyone is uncertain how to replicate the problem:

(1) In the options menu, turn off everything under "Automated Hotbar Behavior."

(2) Learn the Polymorph skill "Medusa Head" (other skills have the same problem, but using this one as an example)

(3) Activate Medusa Head. When activated, the skill "Petrifying Visage" appears in the skillbook.

(4) Open the skillbook and drag "Petrifying Visage" to the hotbar, so that you can use the skill.

(5) Save the game.

(6) Re-load the game you just saved.

(7) "Petrifying Visage" has now been deleted from the hotbar. It has to be manually placed back on the hotbar again in order to use it. Every. Single. Time.

Also, just for the record, here is why it is impossible to use hotbar #1:

(1) Turn off all of the automated hotbar settings. In theory, this should prevent the game from moving things around on you and messing up your hotbar setup. (Spoiler: it doesn't.)

(2) Click the lock icon next to the hotbar until it is locked. Logically speaking, locking the hotbar should prevent things from being moved around and messed up. (It doesn't.)

(3) Add a bedroll to your inventory. Watch the game add a bedroll icon to the hotbar, despite (1) and (2) above.

(4) Throw the bedroll on the ground. Pick it up again. Now you have two bedroll icons on your hotbar.

(5) Bang head against desk. Curse some unknown game designer's stupidity. Drag the pointless bedroll icons off the hotbar.

(6) Save the game.

(7) Reload the game you just saved.

(8) Now, in the place where you previously removed the bedroll icons from the hotbar, you will have the icon for the skill "Sucker Punch." Or at least I do. Even though my character doesn't even know the skill "Sucker Punch."

(9) Hover the cursor over the "Sucker Punch" icon. The tooltip reads "Bedroll."

(10) Bang head against desk.

(11) Drag the "Sucker Punch" icon off the hotbar as much as you want. Every time you reload a save game it will be back again, still labeled as "Bedroll." Sometimes it may have moved to another location on the hotbar. It is likely surrounded by another pile of bedrolls and other random junk that the game has automatically added.

(12) Switch to hotbar #5 and put your icons there, so that you will have at least a little bit less insanity to deal with.

Hotbars are broken. I don't know who in the world thought automated hotbar activity could possibly be a good idea in the first place. Whatever the case may be, the reality is that they are broken. They need to be fixed. Simply eliminate all the automated hotbar routines.

This is scheduled for an upcoming patch. Let us know when it lands, whether it did what you expected.

OMG It is fixed !!!!

This is so frikkin' awesome. Thank you !!!!!

I need to fan myself. Like seriously, guys, this is awesome.

There are still a few lingering things – the issues with bedrolls and teleportation pyramids being automatically added is still happening for me, and the issue with getting a "sucker punch" icon added (even though I don't know and can't use Sucker Punch). All that is still happening on hotbar #1. (as of patch 3.0.180.158, March 8th)

However, none of that really matters, because the issue with the skills being deleted from the hotbar upon reload has, as best as I can tell, been completely solved. So you can set up hotbar #5 any way you want, and it will stay the way you put it. This has fixed a major headache for me in the game, thank you!

For others who may be struggling with hotbar issues, just turn off automated behavior in the options and put everything on hotbar #5; it works now.

This is still partially broken, or at least working poorly.

Casting Medusa Head gives me Petrifying Visage, and I can put Petrifying Visage on the hotbar okay, but as soon as it's been used it disappears once the Medusa Head buff fades. If I don't cast it there's no problem, it stays on the hotbar.

This doesn't happen with Bull Rush, if I had to guess it's because Bull Rush has a 1-turn CD and can be used repeatedly during Bull Horns, whereas the Petrifying Visage CD is longer than the Medusa Head buff, which is causing some unintended happenings.

I'll check this in the latest developer build, and create a bug report if it is reproducible.