Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Combat problems

I've been having a lot of problems with combat. Enough that I don't even care to continue playing the game any more.

I'm only ever able to get 1 - 2 attacks per round. Monsters/enemy characters get up to 4 each and usually a bunch of them are spawned.

So far I've cleared out the area going up to the light house and it took me over six hours to do. Honestly, I'm finding the game not nearly as enjoyable as I had hoped. I'm hoping that with this being only beta, it will get much more balanced out.

Most annoying bugs I've found:

0 - HP and still going. Multiple times I've had enemies still attacking me with no more life left. Once my main character was able to heal with 0 HP.

"Walk around monster bug". So when I go to attack, sometimes instead of attacking, my character will walk around the monster and then doesn't have any more action points (or what ever they are called).

The game was played on as normal with the male fighting melee and the woman fighting with magic and summoning a wolf. I'm just frustrated with the whole combat portion of the game. I've never played a game (including Alpha/Beta) that had combat this unenjoyable.

I'm actually very surprised how frustrated I have become on the first day of playing. Normally the frustration I feel now would be from crashes or other technical glitches. I hope major improvemens are made

So this is your first day of playing, huh? I think this is just a matter of you not being used to it.

Did you find both of the companions in town? If you only have two guys (without Lone Wolf), no wonder you're finding it tough!

Were you using a Fighter and Witch? The witch is geared towards buffing/debuffing Try maybe starting with a Cleric and Wayfarer, that gives two healers, a melee fighter, a ranger, and a summoner with just two people.

Yes, the combat is hard. That's intentional. You are supposed to be careful and plan. Maybe lower the difficulty to Easy (under Options > Game), at least until you get used to it.

Not used to it is a minor statement. In fact, now that I've woken up and really thought about it, this is going down as the 2nd most annoying and miserable game experience that I've ever had. The 1st most annoying experience was with a game that I loved and when I got to the point (which took a week) I said "f- it, this game isn't fun any more" and never picked up the game again-- about 8 years ago.

I've been expecting at least one post like yours about not being used to it. Honestly I know the community has had the game for months now and been threw a lot more growing pains then I have been. However, this is my first experience with the game and I'm already disgusted with it and ready to move on. Being in beta, I hope things improve.

Now I've been a customer here at least six months before Divine Divinity (Well... Sword of Lies as it really is called) so I know Larian will make great improvements. Now when I sat down to play it I basically went, "lets pretend I never played a Larian game and see what I think". During gameplay I kept asking myself, "would I buy this if some new and unheard of company made it?" The answer now is no.

In fact the only reason why I put myself threw all those hours of hell was trying to prove to myself the game isn't that bad as Larian made it and I just gotta figure it out. Right now the towel is in the ring and I don't feel good at all about it. I'm worried the product will fail to be quite honest. I know there are great reviews now, however, if I was totally new and tried this as a demo from fileplanet... I'd have given up after an hour of combat and figure the game was made too hard and I would get very little enjoyment out of it. I would have simply moved on.

I'm not sure what is needed here to prevent this ever happening. Maybe the guards giving a huge dialog like "You two going out alone... like that? You better get an army if you want to survive a little. You can afford it, find people to enlist." Make some kind of hint that the player (like me) missed something rather huge.

Ah, I see. You think that the game doesn't guide you enough. It could warn you when trying to leave the west harbour gate, it does warn you when trying to leave Cyseal from the north and east ((but maybe not if you already go out the west harbour gate). Did you see any of those warnings?

It could tell you about the companions if you ask NPC's for rumours. That's not in yet, but it it was, would it have helped (did you ask NPC's about rumours and such)?

Did you enter the tavern and see Madora walking around?

I was easily able to exit out of all the gates without any warnings coming up that I should have more party members. A guide mode would have been very helpful as there is a lot to take in with the game. The tutorial dungeon felt very lacking.

Some other things I've been meaning to ask.

So I picked up a few spells and when I clicked to drag a spell out of the hot key bar, I couldn't find where the spell book was to re-add the spell. I'm talking about a spell that I learned, not a scroll. When I click and dragged my scrolls out of the hot key bar into my backpack, they appeared there. When I did the same with a few spells, I couldn't find them again to re-add them.

For the Jake murder case, I'm also unable to find the dungeon entrance. Her journal talked about the one ugly monster that Arhu has which I assume was the one at the lighthouse, yet I cannot find the secret lab there. I also searched the beach where the level 7 orc's were and an area that had a really nasty undead dog. Is her lab in the areas where there are runes (fire, air, earth, water) on the top of pillars with levers to pull?) I tried the combination the grave said and nothing happened. There are two of those rooms and I just gave up on it after at least half an hour.

My characters are both level 5 at the moment. I'm really not in the mood to playing the game and looking for this Madora NPC... just had too much of a miserable experience last night and I'm actually mentally exhausted from it all.

Another problem I have is that when I switch between the guy and the girl, they kinda run around a bit (almost looks like dancing) which has set off some traps and such. Why the hell do they do this?

Lightning, I sympathise:

Ok, let's do this properly.


"Walk around monster bug". So when I go to attack, sometimes instead of attacking, my character will walk around the monster and then doesn't have any more action points (or what ever they are called).

Totally agree - the new graphical stuff has made targeting extremely finicky on certain mobs. I've reported it as a bug.

The game was played on as normal with the male fighting melee and the woman fighting with magic and summoning a wolf. I'm just frustrated with the whole combat portion of the game. I've never played a game (including Alpha/Beta) that had combat this unenjoyable.

Fighter + Witch = no healing. Availability of potions [drops, notably] has been severely nerfed in this beta build.

Whereas previously I had ~40+ odd potions on finishing an alpha run, this time I have used - approx 4 potions, and have 5 left total. Consider this a balancing / loot table issue.

The current drop rates of potions is, imo, not balanced and not helping new players

I was easily able to exit out of all the gates without any warnings coming up that I should have more party members. A guide mode would have been very helpful as there is a lot to take in with the game. The tutorial dungeon felt very lacking.

There are no warnings.

RGPs with persistent worlds / old skool sensibilities are "free form". i.e. If you're lacking, look around + search for help.

It's rather like the real world, in that manner...

So I picked up a few spells and when I clicked to drag a spell out of the hot key bar, I couldn't find where the spell book was to re-add the spell. I'm talking about a spell that I learned, not a scroll. When I click and dragged my scrolls out of the hot key bar into my backpack, they appeared there. When I did the same with a few spells, I couldn't find them again to re-add them.

This stumped me for a while: there's two small buttons under your character portraits (top left). One opens the skill screen, where you can drag / drop known skills / spells etc. You can also cycle through the 1-2-3 hotbars meaning that if you've learnt a skill / spell... it's on the hotbar already. But yes, you're 100% correct: takes a bit of poking to find this out.

For the Jake murder case, I'm also unable to find the dungeon entrance. Her journal talked about the one ugly monster that Arhu has which I assume was the one at the lighthouse, yet I cannot find the secret lab there. I also searched the beach where the level 7 orc's were and an area that had a really nasty undead dog. Is her lab in the areas where there are runes (fire, air, earth, water) on the top of pillars with levers to pull?) I tried the combination the grave said and nothing happened. There are two of those rooms and I just gave up on it after at least half an hour.

Again, you're being punished by growing up on the wrong kind of game.

This isn't WoW. You do not have to find that dungeon before you progress.

In fact, you really, really cannot.

Let's make an example:

You go to school. You're 13. The quest of school is to leave a happy, well adjusted human being with good grades to get into a decent University / trade&apprenticeship / job.


You. Do. Not. Attempt. This. At. 13.


There are no glowing golden quest markers. There is no right way. Your goal is X. Getting to goal X is half the game!


My characters are both level 5 at the moment. I'm really not in the mood to playing the game and looking for this Madora NPC... just had too much of a miserable experience last night and I'm actually mentally exhausted from it all.

Madora is in the inn.
Jahan is in the library [upper floor, council building].

Neither are very hard to find, if you talk to even 50% of the town NPCs.


What we are dealing here is a total lack of familiarity with real RPGs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62UTsRQ6qY



Another problem I have is that when I switch between the guy and the girl, they kinda run around a bit (almost looks like dancing) which has set off some traps and such. Why the hell do they do this?


Yeah, that's REALLY bugging me as well, and is new to this build. Needs a fix.


Some good points in there, mixed with an alien experience of never having played the old RPGs of lore. Stick with it, ask on the Global Chat channel & old players / testers will help you.


Chin up, RPGs get better. Once you can swim, you can enjoy the old skool stuff. And then... maybe... one day.... Roguelikes



p.s.


Do not, under any circumstance, play old games like System Shock. Well, do. But they were mean.

But you left through the west Harbour gate first, yes? I think that there may be an issue that if you go through there, then the game doesn't give you warnings for the other Cyseal gates. I should confirm that.




There's an icon beneath your portrait on the left hand side which will bring up the skills menu. K is the hotkey.




That's the wrong place. The lighthouse horror has nothing to do with Arhu.




That's a purely optional area.




Madora is not hard to find. If you did the murder investigation you had to have passed her at least once.




They just added formations, so they're switching positions for that reason.


***

I too have noticed that health potions drop very rarely if at all now.

It seems. It also seems Larian took the worst of the old school features, forgot 15 years of evolution, and added some pretty graphics and a bunch of bugs.
I spend 15 to 20 minutes of my fucking real life looking for a weapon vendor in the damn town:
Went to the market, asked and checked every NPC around, that is, opened their shop button. Found nothing. Went to the Legion camp area, did the same. Went to the harbor, checked there (talking to everybody every times, opening the damn stores). Out of ideas, I asked on the global, and some guy indicated me to the emporium. Fine, why not. Just give some fricking info about it, either through discussion with NPC, or directly through marking the map for the main common knowledge buildings and areas. What a stupid experience it was. Sets you in the wrong mood really, because this is not fun, and an ubber waste of time.
Why would you look for companions in the first place. Aren't you source hunters, supposed to rock the place ? You are not supposed to be looking for companions that are better than you.


At least, all that shop openinig around made me find a guys (I don't recall well, it was a magic seller or user, maybe the kind of priest in the inn) that sells 10's of health potions. Of course, thelyron hardly sells these. Sigh.
Edit: thelyron the healer sells no Healing potion. Francis the whatever in the inn sells 141 minor Healing potions in my actual game.
Yeah, "old school" my ass. So much frustration in this game.

Crom, who are you quoting? None of you quotes are from this thread. Is this just you ranting and spamming? Larian listens and always fixes bugs in their games.

Stabby, thanks for the info. I'll play the game again when the next update comes out, my mind is made up and I've had it with the current version. When they do an update, do I have to uninstall the game or does steam automatically download and install the new files?

Ignore the residence troll... his opinion just flocks around to whatever makes Larian look worst, even if he contradicts himself...

Am I the only person who started this game (and pretty much any other) by clicking every single icon on the HUD to see their functionality? Of which the skillbook was one of the first?

The gates do mention you being unprepared (but you can overrule it if you want). The beach gate doesn't, but I think the lvl 7 orc who talks to you is there as subtle hint... "this is a lvl 7 area" still allowing you access to various loots found on the corpses there.

Monsters getting a lot of attacks is usually the response of skipping turns (either due to bugs or you stunning them). If they finally get their turn, they have a lot of AP to burn. Enemies attacking every round don't have these saved up points.

And yes, as people stated, this is an old-school RPG. Like Baldur's Gate (II) no-one is going to point out they're companions. Talk to everyone, explore the entire city. Do quests. Don't go storming out to find monsters to kill... there's a lot of stuff to find. In the city alone you can probably level up, and find some extreme improvements to your gear compared to what you carry.
I don't quite get why everyone seems to storm out gates? (Please tell me why)

Steamuser, like two or three posts above yours.
Just me ranting and spamming. Problem is some stuff I write is right, and would find easy solutions, even if some people around don't like it.


Some clues:
- Cyseal is still boring
- You want to explore the open world because it sounds appealing.
- You are supposed to save the world or the Time or whatever, and it doesn't sound very much a concern in Cyseal ?
- Maybe the fact that Cyseal is under siege is not clear enough, and would be clearer if the gates where closed until some point in the story / level / whatever ?

OP has ~560 posts, and basically just admitted he's put me on ignore.

He's also either a) trolling or b) so clueless to what a RPG is that he cannot enjoy D:OS.


*shrug*





The Alpha - Beta has been consistent in that all Steam titles are required to auto-patch (if user hasn't disabled the option) and Larian has been releasing notes to each auto-patch as they happen. Saves from prior builds have been disabled in this build. i.e. on opening Steam the current D:OS build will auto-patch.

[edited: user still has myspace page, might not be a troll but "technically challenged"]

Sorry SteamUser...

Not sure how I missed reading your post. It was at 2a.m. or something when I posting. I saw it now and feel like an idiot lol! Also I haven't used the myspace page in years and just don't have time in real life to mess around, I've got Facebook now but really don't use it often. Got 2-3 hours a night to do something and I'm often outside instead of at the computer.

To be honest, the last RPG that I had time to play was Ego Draconus and DKS. Got Skyrim still in the box and the same with Dragon Commander

Because it's challenging to fight against the 3 lvl5 zombies in hard mode with lvl3 characters

Two handed sword + heavy armor witch and frost/air witch. I died several times but I did it

I cannot agree more. I also love fighting foes who are a few levels higher than my characters. It is such a feeling of achievement to win the fight against the over powered enemies!

Yeah but now I am stuck, because all mobs are lvl7+ and they are by 4-6.
Ok, I haven't done any quest in the town, and I haven't hire Madora yet

yep couldn't agree more with that