Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Stabbey's General comments and criticism

I got pretty burned out from playing the beta so I did not get back into Original Sin until mid-September. I am still partway through my first playthrough. At this point I have only reached Sacred Stone and am level 14. Please do not post spoilers for anything past that, at least until after I mention reaching it.

This will sort-of act as a journal of my journey through the game. Not all of these are complaints, and there are lots of things I like which I do not always comment on, so do not take this as having an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards the game. I am having fun.

My party:
Sarienne the Shadowblade - In the beta I never played one, as I feared it would be spread too thin to be effective. I am glad to say that I was (somewhat) wrong. She is surprisingly versatile as a magic-using rogue. I am spread somewhat thin though. My primary stats are pretty low for a Rogue, and my armour rating is suffering because I am reluctant to ditch a set which is giving me good boosts to stats. But that is not such a big deal, as I have Become Air to resist physical damage, and Elemental Absorbtion for magic. In small fights, I can use my rogue abilities to backstab or CC enemies, and at times when things are more serious, I have a wide variety of buffs and debuffs at my disposal. I plan to get Sneak up to Rank 5 and Guerrilla at level 15 to improve her physical damage, which tends to lag behind her magic.

Keivan the Wizard - He is a fairly standard Fire + Earth wizard, but stronger on the Fire, and with some buffs. I gave him a couple points into Water to make him of some use against the undead fire enemies in Cyseal, but now I am more strongly focusing him towards Fire, and will get him to Rank 5 once I reach level 14.

Jahan - He is an Enchanter, of course, and I have focused on battlefield manipulation and healing. I gave him Witchcraft as a tertiary school, partly because debuffs fall under "battlefield control", and partly because my Shadowblade has Leech, and Jahan inflicting Bloodletting on her is a full heal on her turn. He is expanding more into Witchcraft to take advantage of other debuffs.

Madora - She is my tank and melee fighter. I expanded her Man-At-Arms to take advantage of Talents to boost her survivability, and extra points went into boosting her Armour Expertise, Bodybuilding, and Willpower. She is also the party repairer. She has max Two-Handed from items. I maxed out Man-At-Arms, after which I splurged on all the Warrior abilities I could find. She is gotten a couple +2 INT from her gear, and so I am spreading her into Fire. She already has a legendary ring granting her Flare, which came in handy in Hiberheim, but now my extra Wildfire and Explode skillbooks can work for her.


SKILLS

1) Skill penalties "Attribute Too Low".
(I already mentioned this on the twitch devline stream.) Some of the skills suffer penalties if an attribute is too low (and bonuses if it is above the range). But the penalty is just in the form of -X percent chance for the effect to trigger- (at least as far as I know so far). That is fine in many cases, when the major point of the ability is for the effect to trigger.

BUT there are some cases when the penalty/bonus could do something else. For example, the Fortify skill. It grants +65 armour, regardless of your Intelligence. The only question is if you will fumble casting it at low INT. This is a good case for the penalty (or bonus) modifying the AMOUNT of armour you gain. The spell always has a 100 percent chance to go off, but your Intelligence level determines how much armour the target gains. If you cast it at 5 INT, for example, the target only gains 46 armour. If you cast it with 13 INT, the target gains 81 armour.

Oath of Desecration could work that way as well. With a -30 percent penalty, it could grant only +35 percent damage, with a 25 percent bonus, it could increase the damage bonus to +62.5 percent. I am sure there are other skills too. I note that direct damage spells do not seem

For some cases where a skills main purpose is to inflict a status, the penalty could be [shorter range], [smaller radius], or possibly [Longer cooldown] (well maybe not this last one). Those all affect the utility of a spell, and let it be used without a pass/fail.

What does the penalty do for summons? As a test, I gave Madora the Spider summon, cast it a dozen times, and it did not fumble, even though it has a [30 percent penalty]. I have no idea what that means, since I compared it to my wizards spider and it had the same HP. Here is a thought. Maybe if there is say, a 30 percent penalty for summoning, that is an 30 percent chance that it the summoner will lose control and it will be hostile to everything around (allies, enemies, neutral NPCs).

The alternative would be just stat boosts/penalties to the summons. Forktong suggested that in that case, the summon should be scaled smaller for a penalty and larger for a boost (but not too large to make it too unwieldy to actually use).

2) "Remove Petrification" Spell.
What does Petrification do? Does something inflicted with it die if hit again? Has it got a very long or permanent duration? If not, then before getting Air Rank 5, I do not really have any motivation to spend a precious spell slot on a spell that only removes a minor nuisance of a status - especially one which rarely appears in the game. I have only seen one enemy that has inflicted it on me.

If Petrification was a more threatening status, AND more enemies used it, then a specialized skill might be more worthwhile. I've only found like a couple scrolls that have this effect anyway.


3) Immune to X buffs don't remove said status
I guess that these spells are intended to be preventative only, but it is kind-of annoying how "Immune to X" status buffs do not REMOVE said status effect. I guess that's for balance reasons though, so I'm not going to protest it too hard.

I guess my issue is that buffs have a very short duration, so I feel like I don't want to cast things too early, especially since there's no way to know what an enemy will do next or who they'll target.


4) Helping Hand's cooldown is too long
Helping Hand is a pretty situational spell, it clears Knocked Down and Burning, but the times when you DO need it, it is something you will probably need to use multiple times in quick succession. Why does it have a five turn cooldown? That seems is way too long. I think it should have a one or two turn cooldown at most.

At my current strength, it says it has a "30 percent boost", but what does that mean? The cooldown and AP cost is the same as it was at level 3, and it does not have a chance to fail. I would say reduce the cooldown on this spell to 1 or 2 turns, and up the AP cost to 4. That would make it a choice between attacking, or assisting a teammate.


5) Missing skill previews on dangerous skills
The Scoundrel's "Wind Up Toy" summon has a Detonate skill. It technically has a preview. Unfortunately, that is NOT helpful at all, because the preview only appears if you click the button, by which point it is too late because the bomb is going off anyway. The Explode skill has the same F***ING issue. And I use that word because it is a simple thing to fix.

There are many examples of radius-around-caster skills which require you to click twice. The Whirlwind/Dust Devil ones for example. The first time shows you the radius the skill will affect. The second time casts it. That is all those need. A preview to let you decide if they are far enough away to safely blow stuff up.

It does not make sense to have a ally-harmless skill like Whirlwind require a preview, but an ally-harmful skill like Explode does not. (And I do NOT mean you should remove the Whirlwind preview.)


6) Casting invisibility attracts attention
This is minor and a little nitpicky, but maybe the spell to cast invisibility should not scream like a banshee, alerting goblins for miles around. Just a thought.

I have Rank 4 or so Sneak, and while sneaking, I cast an Air: Invisibility spell. I think it probably should not attract the notice of goblins 20 meters away which have their backs turned! It is an invisibility spell, that is kind-of stupid!


7) Burn My Eyes should clear Blind
This seems like a good idea. It makes a rather specialized skill slightly more useful.

EDIT: Or alternatively, it could grant immunity to blind. Farsight could clear blind.



NEW SKILL IDEAS

Skill ranks, AP costs, cooldown times are guesstimates.


Water - Rising Tide - "A rising tide lifts all boats"
Hydrosophist 3-4 // AP: 8 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 5-7 turns.

This skill is centered on the caster, and heals everyone allied and enemy alike in a 10 meter radius for a large amount of health. Those with the Zombie talent will take damage from this. Possible animation, water surging from the ground all around, but animation is not needed.)

This skill's purpose is to provide a large emergency heal, with the downside that it will also assist the enemies as well. (Maybe make it a percentage-based heal so the enemies are healed for the same proportional amount?)


Witchcraft - Eye for an Eye "Blood begets blood."
Witchcraft: 2-3 // AP: 6 // Duration: 2 turns. // Cooldown: 4 turns.

This curse targets an enemy, and if it attacks the caster (or anyone on the player's team? It depends on if it's possible to know who the caster of the debuff is.) with a physical attack, they will take 2.5 times the amount of damage they dealt to the enemy. If this gets cast on one of your physical attackers, that'll throw a curve into your battle strategy.


Witchcraft - Spirit Link - "Share the pain" EDIT: Bad idea, never mind.
Witchcraft: 3-4 // AP: 8-9 // Duration: 2-3 turns. // Cooldown: 8-9 turns.

EDIT: I've realized that this skill is a bad idea, but I'm including it for completion's sake. This skill will leap from entity to entity. Any (physical-only, maybe?) damage taken by any linked entity will be spread equally among all entities. This can be cast on allies or enemies.

Example: A Source Hunter casts this on a member of their 4-man party. All 4 are close enough to be linked together. One of them takes a blow that would do 100 damage (before armour). All four each receive 25 damage (before armour).

Example 2: A Source Hunter casts this on a group of 7 angry imps. Madora lands a blow on one of them, doing 210 damage, but that is spread out to 30 on each imp.

Hmmm Looking even only at my thought experiment, it seems clear that it is incredibly powerful on the Source Hunters, but incredibly weak on enemies. Okay, well, never mind, I guess this is a bad idea.


Witchcraft - Sacrificial Gift - "Give of thyself freely."
Witchcraft: 4 // AP: 8 // Duration: Instant. // Cooldown: 4 turns (minimum).

The witch sacrifices 50% of their maximum health to heal a targeted ally for half that amount. If the witch is under 50% health when casting it, either they die, or are reduced to 1 health (either way is fine by me). If the witch is under 50% health, the target is only healed to 50% of the Witch's CURRENT HP.

Example 1: A Witch has 552/552 health. They cast this spell on an ally, and the witch loses 276 health, and the ally is healed for 138 heath. Both effects are instant.

Example 2: A Witch has 300/552 health. They cast this spell on an ally, and the witch loses 276 health - reducing them to 24 health - and the ally is healed for 138 heath. Both effects are instant.

Example 3: A Witch has 140/400 health. They cast this spell on an ally. But because the witch is under 200 health, the witch loses 139 health - reducing them to 1 health - and the ally is healed for only 70 heath. Both effects are instant.


Earth - Boulderdash - "Line 'em up and knock 'em down."
Earth: 3 // AP: 7 // Duration: Instant. // Cooldown: 7 turns.

This one was in the beta, but I think this was removed from the full game. I can understand why Boulder Drop took its place, but I still found some use for Boulderdash.


Earth - Skipping Stone - "It's easy, just give it a flick of your wrist."
Earth: 1 // AP: 4 // Duration: Instant. // Cooldown: 5 turns.


Yes, I still want this one in the game. A low-damage, low-level earth-damage spell that works like the Ranger's Ricochet, bouncing from enemy to enemy. This could be good in the enemy's hands as well.


Earth - Stalagmite - "Impale them with the fury of the earth".
Earth: 4 // AP: 9 // Duration: Instant. // Cooldown: 11 turns.

I still want this one too. A single-target, relatively high-damage spell. Could also be devastating in enemy hands.

If I remember right, the reasoning behind few Earth damage spells was because Earth gets buffs and summons, but I never found that a persuasive argument, because ALL schools get buffs of some kind, and most schools get a summon... which reminds me:


Man-At-Arms - Shadow Warrior - "It is said that a master warrior can fight with the speed of two people."
Man-At-Arms: 5 // AP: 8 // Duration: 5 Turns. // Cooldown: 8 turns.

This summoning skill creates a shadowy clone of the caster. They have the caster's stats, but probably reduced by 20% (or maybe more). They either have a selection of the same warrior skills that the caster has, or maybe a random selection of the warrior skills.

But not every school needs a summon.



TALENTS

8) More Talents are needed.
You can only get seven all game (2 to start, and 5 the rest of the game), and I'm still not really wowed by them. It should be a matter of making hard choices between which of the really GOOD Talents you want to take, instead of unenthusiastically taking some uninspiring one which is good enough.

Please see my thread on why some Talents are bad. (Demon and Ice King are terrible and have no business being Rank 5-requiring Talents)

Slippery Eel - This talent was mentioned long ago as something that let you evade attacks of opportunity. That seemed like a really useful one. Why isn't it in the game? It should require a base of Speed 8-9 to take, but no Ability requirements.

Crafting Rank 4-5 lets you take the Talent "Scavenger", which gives you a 33 percent chance to receive an extra drop from the crafting materials table upon a kill by someone with the perk, or upon opening a container. When it goes off you get an "Item Scavenged!" message like the "Lucky Find" one.
Scavenger Table:

75 percent chance to get a common crafting item.
15 percent chance to get a slightly less common and useful item
8 percent chance to get a rarer item.
2 percent chance to get a very rare and expensive crafting item.

That is a less than one percent chance to get a rare crafting item from a container, and it only works with a BASE of 4-5 points into that skill, +Crafting from items does not count.


9) Talents available below Rank 5 in School X
This is a untapped goldmine of potential opportunity for making good Talents. In terms of Skill requirement talents, the magic skill talents only work with rank 5, so if you want those elemental-school Talents, it's either max the skill or get nothing.

Rank 5 is a long way off from level 1, and it's a wasted opportunity to only have Talents for Rank 5.

There is certainly lots and lots of room for different talents you can use at lower levels. Plus, once you start adding in additional magic-skill-X-required talents, you can reshuffle some of them and put the better ones at the top.


10) Talents that grant Special Skills

Larian has very thoughtfully made an eight category of Skills that don't fit anything else: Special. A simple-but-effective idea is for Talents that grant some Special Skills if you have a base of X in a skill. So all of these will require you to take their respective Talents.

Examples:

Expert Marksman Rank 5's "Elemental Ranger" passive talent would be an ideal candidate for this: Instead of giving it a passive chance for a normal shot to add elemental damage to an enemy standing in an elemental surface, it instead grants you the skill Stance: Elemental Shot, which has a 100% chance for the normal shot to add elemental damage to an enemy standing in an elemental surface, BUT IT CAN BE TOGGLED ON AND OFF, so you can control the use of it, instead of unwillingly healing enemies standing in a surface they absorb.

Blacksmithing Rank 3 lets you take a Talent that grants you the Special skill "Armour Break". When cast on an enemy, this reduces their armour protection by 50 percent for 3 turns.

Armour Specialist Rank 4 lets you take a Talent that grants you the Special skill "Armourers Insight". When cast on an ally, this increases their armour protection by 40 percent for three turns.

Telekinesis Rank 3 lets you take a Talent that grants you the Special skill "Crush Windpipe", which does crushing damage with a chance to mute for 3 turns.

Telekinesis 5 lets you take a Talent that grants you the Special skill "Aneurysm", which does a large amount of crushing damage and sets Bleeding status. Anything without a brain, like Undead, mechanisms, and elementals are immune and take no damage. Admittedly that sounds like it could be a pain to code. It's just an example.

Loremaster Rank 5 lets you take a Talent that grants you the Special skill "Bore", an AoE sleep spell. (Sleep status just means the target misses a turn. Willpower saves.)



USER INTERFACE / LOG

11) I have to constantly re-sort my inventory
(I already mentioned this on the twitch devline stream.) The sort-by options are nice but a problem with the way they are implemented is that it is only a one-time sort I can sort by whatever, but as soon as I pick up something new, it is added to the bottom of the inventory, meaning I have to keep re-sorting every so often. It's often difficult to know what category an item is, so I end up usually defaulting to "All" and "Recently Added".

I suppose if you do that though, it means you could not manually arrange things how you want, so that is a trickier thing to solve.


12) "Secrets" section of journal should confirm if you have already found said secret.
The Secrets section has the appearance of a quest log. I think it should update to note that you have uncovered the treasure or whatever, if ONLY so you can rule out what you have already found. I tried buying stuff from the Keeper of Secrets, but for a lot of it, I have no idea if I have already found the secret it is referring to. If the log would tell me if I had found it, that would make me more interested in looking for the stuff I haven't found yet.



BALANCE

13) Encumbrance has no combat penalty
When you are encumbered, you are unable to run. Okay, but that has no combat effect. I have tried it. Encumbrance should give you a big movement penalty, At least -1.00 Movement. This will encourage better inventory management, and make the "Pack Mule" Talent more appealing.


14) Add penalty for damaged items
I did say at one point in the beta that Repair was too obnoxious before, but I think that now, damaged items are not quite obnoxious enough. Durability is pretty harmless/pointless on anything which can be repaired.

Since repairing items is so simple, and there is a brand new HUD indicator warning you about low durability, I would not mind if weapons with lower durability had a significant damage penalty, and armour a protection penalty.


15) Potions also lose effectiveness

The Devline thing talked about food sucking, but I think that is missing the whole scope of the problem. It is not just food sucking, but also potions. Item-based healing sucks because player health and the power of magical healing increases as your level does (plus magic healing is further boosted by stats and abilities). Item-based healing is only a fixed amount, which gets less and less useful as you continue.

There was talk about making food percentage based, but I am changing my view on that. Potions should heal for a percentage-based amount. That would keep them useful and justify their high purchase price. Small potions heal for 15 or 20 percent, Medium ones would heal for 30 or 40 percent, large ones would heal for 45 or 60 percent.

The downside is that would make very early-game healing tougher, because 52 health at levels 1-4 is a good chunk, but a percentage base would not be so good... but food based items with their fixed amounts would be better.

Hmmm... making potions percentage based would definitely be an issue in the early game. Perhaps the Source Hunters could start with provisions for healing?

Maybe food items could heal a fixed amount each turn for three turns, but you could not eat another food item until the first one is done?


27) Party Members stats are hidden without Loremaster.
For some reason, you need Loremaster to see party members stats when you Ctrl + hover. That is silly - ESPECIALLY FOR A CO-OP GAME.

You should always be able to see the Loremaster 5 equivalent of ALL your party members and summons stats when Ctrl + hovering over them, even with ZERO Loremaster. There is absolutely no reason to hide the information on your ALLIES, and it makes no sense to do so.

This could help in co-op games as well.

STORY / WORLD GENERAL

16) The Source Hunters are written as stupid
I get the normal "stupid protagonist" thing, which is used to explain the rules of the world to the player, but something which occurs quite frequently in dialogue is that the Source Hunters ask a question which is often phrased in a way to make them seem stupid - and this is no coincidence, because the person they're talking to tends to reply with "what are you, an idiot?"

In other words, even the writer knows that the question was a stupid question. My question is: so why couldn't the writer write that exchange in a way so that it doesn't seem like the player characters are mouth-breathing morons?

It's quite odd, and I don't really recall this dialogue problem happening quite this much in previous Divinity games.


STORY / WORLD CYSEAL

17) Poison gargoyles pools should spread constantly
A small thing, but the poison gargoyles in Cyseal should spread the poison slowly until it fills up the area again. Now you just clear it once and it only creates localized puddles. Also, the southernmost gargoyle does not produce a puddle.


STORY / WORLD LUCULLA

18) Inconsistency: Main plot Advancement direction muddled
The pacing of Act 2 seems a bit odd. You arrive in Luculla forest at about level 9 or 10, and are immediately accosted by a fleeing Immaculate who tells you Silverglen has been taken over by his evil cult. Straight ahead, you see a trail of blood, which leads you to find the stranded blacksmith who needs to get to Silverglen. He says he needs the Immaculates help. That also points you to Silverglen.

In Silverglen, the game directs you towards joining the Immaculates. But after you pass your pop quiz, you are directed to an area with level 13-14 enemies (and an environmental penalty) and the guards suggest you wander elsewhere first. The game ACTUALLY seems to expect you to go in the opposite direction of Silverglen to advance, and you have to do almost an entire different map before continuing on with the Silverglen plot.

To me, it feels odd to be directed towards the "join the initiates" questline at the start of Luculla, and then have to stop almost before you start.


19) Inconsistency: "An A-mount of Healing Magic" quest solution has a flaw
By the way, after learning that the Immaculates use Blood stones to heal, I tried to use the one I got from the Black Cove to heal the blacksmiths mount by clicking "Use" when standing right next to the mount, but it just healed the Source Hunters and seemed to do nothing for the mount.

This is the kind of in-world thinking that sounds like it should work as a solution, but it does not.

It took me a while to figure out that you can only use it by having a blood stone in the inventory of someone talking to the mount.

The annoying thing is that it is used in the exact same manner as the "Use" button on it in the inventory: It drops to the ground at the Source Hunter's feet, and heals the entire Source Hunter party and Alfie. The problem is that it doesn't make any sense - it only heals Alfie if used through dialogue with him.

Suggestion: If you attempt to use a blood stone when standing within 10 meters or so of the mount, it should produce the exact same result as talking to the mount through dialogue (including the dual dialogue debate).



20) Inconsistency: Are the Source Hunters recognized or not?

It also seems wildly inconsistent whether the Immaculates recognize you as a Source Hunter or not. The one who meets you at the start of Luculla, and the one guarding the way to the White Witch know you are Source Hunters, but generally, the rest do not seem to notice. I am pretty sure Loki would not be keen on having Source Hunters join the ranks, but he does not recognize the party as Source Hunters, nor do the Immaculates in Hiberheim. The inconsistency is confusing and distracting.


21) Inconsistency: Schrodingers Orcs
In Luculla, you can come across Garkulda and another orc, facing away from you. There appear to be no other orcs in the area. If you are spotted, though, and Garkulda shouts a warning, orcs appear all around suddenly. If you kill Garkulda before she can shout - and I will give Larian credit for thinking logically, and not having the shout be scripted even if she is stunned or knocked down - those other orcs do not exist and never have.

That is wrong. Those orcs should always be there, but sleeping, like the goblins are later on. This will make their appearance less of a trap for the player, because they can see the orcs, it will let the player plan ahead for how they want to approach the combat, and those orcs will still be there even if you kill Garkulda (air quotes) 'silently', instead of never existing.


22) Useful invisibility spell!
Hooray, the invisibility spell, when properly timed, can be used to sneak past goblins. Plus the goblins have some "I thought I just saw something nah it was nothing" dialogue for if you almost get caught. I managed to make it to the end without a fight. This is good stuff. Not a complaint!


23) Alternate path to mines blocked?
One peculiarity was that there was a spiked barricade partway along, which led to a trap-filled corridor. It seems like that was supposed to be an alternate way to reach the mine, instead of fighting/sneaking past all the goblins but there is no way to open it. Perhaps I have missed something. Right now, it looks like all that is in there is a random treasure chest.

EDIT: Oh, I see, I guess you can use fire/explosives to destroy them? That seemed a little loud on a stealth mission. Still though, it seems odd to have that barricaded instead of letting the player just freely be able to choose which way to go.

EDIT 2: Oh, it collapses from just a couple blows from anything. I guess that's fine.


STORY / WORLD HIBERHEIM

24) Inconsistency: Immaculates guarding the Forge attack on sight
In Hiberheim, you can encounter parties of Immaculates. If you pass a conversation check, you can be on friendly terms with them and trade. However in the northern part, before the entrance to the forge, there is a large party of Immaculates who immediately go hostile on sight. It does not feel consistent. I think they should challenge you verbally first even if they then fight you regardless of what you say. It feels inconsistent to be able to talk to all these other ones, and suddenly these ones attack immediately.


25) Alternate routes to enter prison don't exist?
This one may just be my imagination, I have not reloaded to try different approaches.

I talked to several people into Hiberheim and asked about how to get into the prison. Various people suggested like three or four ways I could do so. (A hidden hatch near a skull, jumping across gaps, getting a key from an Immaculate, joining the Conduit is guards).

But it seemed that there was only ONE into the prison. Only the hatch went to the prison. Jumping the gaps led to a backdoor to the castle, but not into the prison. I am not sure if I was looking in the right spot for the other two. NOTE: I should check and see if there is a key, but I do not think it is possible to become one of the Conduits guards.


26) Idea: Magic Monster Identifying Lenses

Not a complaint so much as a note and a suggestion: Some bosses essentially require 5 points into Loremaster so you can spot their weaknesses.

The Guardian is one - it has a 90 percent or higher resistance to everything. King Boreas is another one. It is got 150 elemental resistance to everything, and significant resistances to everything but crushing damage.

You can only see how screwed you are if you have 5 Loremaster. Okay that is not hard, because even I did it, but here is a thought.

Those magnifying glasses that let you ID things? You only need one to ID every item you find forever, but what if they had a second use use them on a monster and the glass is consumed, but it identifies all their stats for everyone in the party. (Maybe it inflicts an infinite-duration "identified" status effect?) It identifies only that one specific enemy, though, not all enemies, not other enemies in the fight, not other enemies of the same type"



28) Boreas fight - destroying statues doesn't have a big enough effect
Boreas is healed by all elemental damage unless you destroy the statue things in his room. If you have any mages in your party (basically guaranteed), destroying them is essentially required. It's a LONG process, traipsing from one corner of the room to another and to another, but for all that time you need to take, you don't seem to get nearly enough benefit from it.

I noticed that Boreas can still create room-filling elemental surfaces even if you destroy the elemental statue. I think that is kinda lame. If you destroy the fire, air, and earth statues, it should remove his ability to create fire, lightning, and poison surfaces. Ice is his domain, and so it is fine if he can still create ice surfaces even if the water statue is gone (destroying it is useless anyway because he is still healed by water).

I don't think he should be totally nerfed: He has the staff containing the other spirits, so he still should be able to summon elementals/shards of any type. I just think that there should be more of a benefit for taking out the statues.



STORY / WORLD LUCULLA MINES

29) Mandatory stealth section overly punishing
I like sneaking around. I like sneaky FPS's, I like sneaking in RPG's, I'm a sneaky guy. I liked sneaking past the goblins to reach the mine in D:OS. But I think the mine section is flawed.

My first encounter with the Death Knights happened as I walked about three feet north of the prison and was suddenly in combat with an Invulnerable enemy. So how is that supposed to work?

I tried releasing the goblin prisoners, but that did not distract it, instead the prisoners ignored it, the death knight ignored them, and all of them chased us as well.

Boy I am glad that I did not have the "Courageous" talent, because then I would have a dead party member there for ages. Getting caught in combat by a death knight is basically a mandatory reload, although I suppose that doesn't matter much, since by now people should have learned to save often.

But I am not a fan of the Death Knight mandatory stealth section, mostly because they can see so far that characters without Sneak are screwed over. The Death Knights have huge sight radii. It is almost a full screen long at maximum zoom-out. There is a zero percent chance that that ALL of your characters have high Sneak, never mind high sneak AND Speedcreeper. By the time you see them coming, it is practically too late to turn around. There is not enough warning. This section is a lot of trial and error, and repetitive trial and error.

You can move your non-sneakers one at a time around, but that can take a long time. The only real way to move characters around is to send your sole Sneak guy ahead to move barrels and blow open cave-ins, and find the waypoints so the non-sneaky characters can move past safely.


30) Mikan the Magically Dead Miner
While I get the story reason behind why it happened, I did NOT give Mikan the hiding miner bad advice the path back was full of goblins that I left alive. Going that way was suicide. It is also kinda bullshit that he died, because I only left him alone for the time it took to talk to the goblins and walk back. Nothing went past me from deeper into the mine, so what exactly killed him? Am I supposed to believe that I chose wrong, and if I had told him to run, he would live?


31) Not enough warning that fast-travel does not work in the mines
The Rift Travel button should flash RED (in the way it flashes green when you unlock a new area in the shelter plane) once you enter the mines to warn you about the travel limitation. Fun fact, the game actually assumes you know about the travel limitation when you talk to the imp in the goblin's cell, even though it was news to me.



STORY / WORLD LUCULLA NORTH

I have only just arrived here recently so I have little to say yet. I think I'm done here for now though, and so next time I'll start exploring the High Plains.


32) Luculla North nicely designed
I really like the design of this part. It is all lush and green, a very pretty forest. It is quiet and peaceful with no enemies around and all around you see human corpses lying. So near to the Immaculates village, this paints an excellent picture. This is storytelling through the environment and it works wonderfully.


33) "Oh, you're a Source Hunter in our Blood Cult, huh?"
Do Immaculates not care about Source Hunters at all? A prisoner from Hunters Edge in the Sacred Stone jail recognized us as Source Hunters, but that was the only one. It is really strange to be recognized by some people and others in this blood cult do not.


34) Where the hell is Bellegar?
I freed him from his prison mid-Cyseal, and I have not seen him since. I thought there were supposed to be six encounters or so? It feels overdue.

Pretty good post and suggestions.

Have to ask,
"Witchcraft Eye for an Eye"
If someone takes 2.5 times the damage as result of attacking the one who used the spell... shouldnt it be called "Both eyes and an ear for an eye" then?

How about a version that makes damage taken equal to amount given, only the player has the same effect applied if he attacks that particular enemy? So you both get cursed and damage each other for same amounts of damage with each hit. :P

Otherwise i would also love to see much more smaller skills and spells with various smaller effects that would fill up every level.

Also, I think i have a pretty good solution for those narrative and quest directions issues in Lucilla forest just after the start of it, but thats going to go up through the dev line.

I'm just throwing suggestions out there, names and actual attributes are up to whoever decides if they should go in. The reason why I suggested "Eye for an Eye" do 2.5 times damage is that enemies health pools tend to be much larger than player's health pools, but I suppose it doesn't matter, taking the same amount of damage as they deal out is still damage that wouldn't be happening without the curse.

The idea that the witch would also take damage if they attack the one who is cursed is interesting, but that would not be great for melee-class characters who would otherwise use it. I don't think it needs such a downside.

I just thought of two more ideas!

Convection - "Heat into energy."
Requires Pyromaniac 3 or 5 (maybe it's that powerful).

If you are Warm or Burning at the start of your turn, all currently active cooldowns are decreased by one turn. This includes skills which only have a one-turn cooldown, meaning that you can cast that skill repeatedly for as long as you have AP.


Storm Surge - "Channel the fury of the Storm."
Requires Aerothurge 5.

When Wet, air-elemental damage is increased by 33%. This is possibly incompatible with Lightning Rod.

You know I wouldn't mind a different type of talent system where your talents are assigned based on the skills and level of skills you have chosen. I.e, your talents are a composite of your skills. Once your combination of skills reach the appropraite level the talent is unlocked and assigned.

That actually seems more like how Traits work - or at least how they were conjectured as working back when the Kickstarter days were going on. But since Larian decided to go for trait pairs, it's not possible to do any Traits which aren't paired.

I certainly wouldn't mind if Talents and Skills had a combination system, so you could use, for example, Phoenix Dive with either rank 3 in Pyromancer, OR rank 3 in Warrior. Or if you couldn't learn the Flamenado skill without Rank 3 in BOTH Pyromanecr AND Aerothurge. But that sort of stuff seems more like it'll have to be in the next game, not D:OS.

I was... joking.

Eye for an eye expression is more or less explicitly referring for reciprocal same amounts of retribution... so saying it would cause 2.5 amounts of damage... translated back would mean... ? more eyes and peckers, noses, ears - haha?

humor, yahwoll?

The version of the curse is also meant to be a funny, tongue in cheek and a sarcastic skill, (which would almost fit general Larian style, btw)

STORY / WORLD CYSEAL

35) Tutorial Dungeon hurts early-game pacing.

Frankly, Cyseal is a bit too boring at the beginning it takes a little too long to get going. In large part, I blame this on the tutorial dungeon. The tutorial dungeon takes a while to do, and the things you get from it are valuable enough to make it impractical to skip. I mentioned this issue back in the beta, but I had forgotten about it until seeing this post. I had thought maybe it was just me, because I had played the beta so many times.

I think the pacing would have been much better if the tutorial level was entirely optional and separate from the original game, with nothing carrying over to the actual game. (I suggested a Source Hunter Academy training course). That would make it easy to skip on subsequent playthroughs.

This cannot be changed in Original Sin of course, but it is something you should strongly think about for future games. Tutorial levels integrated into the game should be kept short (Farglow), or else they should be kept separate.



STORY / WORLD HIBERHEIM

36) Wishing Well puzzle is well done.

Not a criticism, a compliment! This is a really well-done puzzle. There are three sub-puzzles. The first is the ridiculously resistant puzzle boss, which can be easily defeated

The second is the trap with the floor buttons, which punishes you for activating any of them, but can be defused with high enough perception. The third is the actual puzzle. That's a rather clever one, which requires you to pay attention. The only misstep is that the directions given are reversed. When they say "something triggered to the right" they actually mean "left" and vice versa. More importantly, there are only those two hints, and the game lets you figure it out from there.



STORY / WORLD LUCULLA NORTH

37) Cave of Portals puzzle is well done.
This one is also pretty good. It does seem to require Pet Pal to solve, but the first hint is so vague that it's almost unhelpful. But I followed the directions even though it seemed like I was just going in circles, and got it on the first try. Very clever and subtle. The only complaint is that the big reward is just one of three low level skillbooks, one of which I already got ages ago.



BALANCE

38) IDEA: "Burn My Eyes" High Int bonus.

Burn My Eyes should grant an extra point of Perception for every +10% bonus you have in the skill (from high INT).


39) Resurrection Scrolls AP cost slightly too high
Resurrection scrolls are frustrating. Dead characters do not get XP, so you are encouraged to hold off on killing enemies with a man down. This on its own is fine.

The problem is that Resurrection scrolls both cost 10 AP to cast, AND they only restore a pathetic 20% HP. That combination is annoying because you need to have some party members wait a turn or two to get enough AP, AND they need to delay their turn through an entire round of enemy attacks, AND you need to heal up the wounded member immediately or else they'll just die again. If the situation has deteriorated enough that someone died, delaying a move through an entire enemy turn will likely kill or nearly kill someone else.

Recommendation: It's the high AP cost that is bothering me. Lower the AP cost to 6-8. It's still substantial, and will consume virtually all the AP of a non-Glass Cannon's turn, but it's more reachable.

If you think that would make it too easy for Glass Cannons, then perhaps Glass Cannon needs looking at, if it is so overwhelming and powerful that the game is by default balanced around the assumption that the players have it.



New Talent Ideas

Bloodlust
If you do damage equivalent to 40% of YOUR maximum health in one turn, gain 1-2 recovery AP on your next turn only.
Requires: Man-At-Arms 3

Frenzy
Upon getting a kill, your Movement is doubled for the remainder of your current turn. (If you use the last of your AP to get the kill, ending your turn, this does nothing.)

Breakdancer
While inflicted with the Downed status, you have a 75% chance to dodge any single-target physical attacks or spells. This does not affect area-effect attacks or spells. (Okay, not a really great talent, I admit, but worth it for the name alone.)

Hypothermic
+25% to saving throws versus Burning.
-25% to saving throws versus Frozen.

Hyperthermic
+25% to saving throws versus Frozen.
-25% to saving throws versus Burning.

Carrot-eater
Increases your sight range (and therefore extends your radius of a chance to hit with ranged attacks) by 33%.
Requires: Maybe this optionally requires Expert Marksman 3+?

Herbalist You know how to get the most efficient use out of your ingredients.
20 percent chance that plants/fungi will not be consumed when crafting an item.

Drunken Master
+15% Damage and +15% Chance to hit for normal attacks made while under the 'Drunk' status. -10% Damage and -10% chance to hit for normal attacks made while NOT drunk.

STORY / WORLD - LUCULLA HIGH PLAINS


40) Maradino's Study Ambush Too Obvious
Maradinos study. The fact that you can see the level and red outline and red markers on the map kinda seems to spoil the surprise about the ambush there. Try and avoid the interface blatantly giving things away like that. - At ;east, that was my first though. Upon seeing that it was supposed to be obvious to lure you into a false sense of security makes this well done.


41) Maradino not afraid of Spiders
You can find a journal in which Maradino expresses a phobia of spiders. In the battle I tried to exploit that by summoning a Spider, but he ignored it. He should have had a chance to be Feared when attacked by the Spider.


42) Maradino takes too long to summon his allies
He doesn't do anything but summon ghostly allies for four or five turns. That's more than enough time for a player who's trying to use CC on him. Maybe he should summon two per turn?



GAMEPLAY

43) Pixel Hunting not great gameplay.

I will give some examples


1) The Immaculates Initiation Temple. The first time I played it, I was playing ahead to see if I was really expected to be a certain level before going there, so I went at level 11. There is a room with the weighted plates. That puzzle was clever, it took a while to figure out, track down the items and work out which went where.

The second time I came back much later at like level 13, when I was supposed to. This time I knew what weights went where, but I absolutely could not figure out how to get to one of them. It was aggravating. I eventually consulted a walkthrough and learned that there was a tiny button I needed to press. On the first time, I was paying attention to the screen the button was on, but the second time, I was probably moving my characters around on different screens, and I did not see or remember about the damn button when it first appeared, and afterwards when I was trying to find out what to do, it was so tiny that I missed it.


2) Another case is to get into Boreas treasure room. I beat him, saw the force field and could not see any way to get in. I explored some more and solved the puzzle near the wishing well, which gave a Royal Guard Talisman. That, I guessed, would be the key to getting in. It was not.

The actual key to getting in was to click on a non-descript statue that looks like background detail unless you mouse over it, AND you need to have memorized the name of the Earth Elemental who appears once for thirty seconds at the forge who knows how many ages ago.

What?!

Neither part of that is intuitive. Having to get the Royal Guard Talisman to enter the vault makes much, much, more sense than the stupid way you need to do to get in currently.


3) The Temple near Sacred Stone
I went in there a couple times and it dead-ended at a pit where the stairs were gone. I looked around but couldn't see anything I missed. I looked again a second time later. It turns out that I needed to light the braziers. Okay, those are larger than a pixel, but it's not something that we do very often in the game. By this time, I am used to seeing the Braziers only as decorations, not as important items.

4) The basement of the Temple near Sacred Stone
That damn 4th button.


44) Teleport/Freefall spell BADLY CODED

The teleport spell has been in the game in its current form since the alpha. That form looks rather like a slapdash "just to get a basic teleport working" alpha version. It does not work in an intuitive way that a PROPER teleport should. (I know I mentioned this a couple of times during the alpha/beta.)


It can only teleport objects that are in a direct walking line of sight from the target. This means if an enemy is in the way, you cannot teleport the target behind the enemy. The code only seems to check "is it possible to walk there". It also only uses the target's line-of-sight as the center of the radius. This has the odd effect of a max range teleport being able to move the target 15 m past the casters normal max limit.

A proper teleport SHOULD NOT CARE IF YOU CAN WALK DIRECTLY THERE. It should care "is the destination an acceptable landing site", and maybe "can the CASTER (not the TARGET) see the destination" - although you can cast a lot of direct spells on targets the caster can't see.

It is just weird that the one casting the spell doesn't have to see where the target lands, but the one BEING teleported DOES.



STORY / WORLD - GENERAL


45) Maradino's Fate

Really? The Great Maradino was killed by a Troll? A Troll. Trolls, whose king cannot count past eight? Kinda underwhelming for all the fuss raised about him.


46) BUG/INCONSISTENCY: Zixzax's warning gives directions in the wrong place

At a certain point, you will wander into an area where Zixzax will pop in and give you a warning about an invasion, and tell you about three possible paths you need to take to reach the source.

The problem is that there are three possible locations you get this warning: in the north of Luculla, in the Dark Forest by the Sacred Stone bridge, and the Dark Forest by the Goblin Village bridge AND THE DIRECTIONS ARE THE SAME FOR EACH.

They cannot all possibly be right. That is just confusing. I THINK it is supposed to be only referring to the spot in Luculla forest, but if that is the case then Zixzax should not be giving the same directions if you enter the Dark Forest! Fix this!


47) The Wishing Brother

The "wish" you get for 1500 gold is ridiculously crappy. It is three magic items, MAYBE a rare or two are mixed in. In order to finish that quest at all, you need to have beaten King Boreas, AND get into his treasure room. By that time you should be swimming in rares and more than a few legendaries. If you're not going to offer a choice, A BETTER reward would be 2 Ability points for each party member.

Sure they'll probably sell for more than 1500, but that's not the whole point. It's a quest you solved for a wishing well, it should give something better or more unique than a random chest.

Oh for...

I'm adding another example to item 43.

43) Pixel Hunting not great gameplay.

3) The Temple near Sacred Stone
I went in there a couple times and it dead-ended at a pit where the stairs were gone. I looked around but couldn't see anything I missed. I looked again a second time later. It turns out that I needed to light the braziers. Okay, those are larger than a pixel, but it's not something that we do very often in the game. By this time, I am used to seeing the Braziers only as decorations, not as important items.

I'm not saying this has to be changed, I'm just saying that after all this time of Braziers apparently just being decoration, that's all that I saw them as by that point.

EDIT: But SCREW the stupid 3-button puzzle afterwards. It is not providing me with ANY feedback as to what it is doing.

I just had a fight where my party got half-bunched up into a small room, with walls blocking the way. Jahan could cast Blind on enemies who he could not actually see, but he could not Featherfall-teleport anyone inside the room to outside it.

***

That's not why I posted this though: I just found a document I made during the beta with some more ideas. Granted, a bunch probably suck, but here they are anyway.


NEW SKILL IDEAS

Skill ranks, AP costs, cooldown times are guesstimates.



Man-At-Arms - War Cry - "The call of battle pounds in your ears."
Man-At-Arms: 3 // AP: 8 // Duration: 3 Turns. // Cooldown: 6 turns.
This boosts the damage of all units in a 7 meter radius around the caster (possibly including enemies?) - by 20%.


Man-At-Arms - Martyr - "The suffering of others becomes your own instead."
Man-At-Arms: 2 // AP: 3 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 5 turns.
Remove all negative status effects from a target ally and apply them to yourself. The remaining duration is passed along as well.


Man-At-Arms - Tackle - "Take the enemy down no matter what."
Man-At-Arms: 4 // AP: 6 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 9 turns.
A 150% chance of knockdown on both the touch-range target and the warrior. The caster only has 1 turn Downed, the target has 3 turns Downed.


Expert Marksman - Piercing Shot - "Punch your way through."
Expert Marksman: 3 // AP: 7 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 4 turns.
Shoot an arrow that passes straight through multiple enemies. Has a -40% damage penalty.


Expert Marksman - Seeking Shot - "No one can elude your aim."
Expert Marksman: 5 // AP: 6 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 7 turns.
This has a 100% chance to hit - it can even hit foes behind walls if another party member has vision on them.


Expert Marksman - Salved Shot - "Reach out and heal someone."
Expert Marksman: 2 // AP: 6 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 15 turns.
Targets a party member, and heals them with an arrow for a moderate amount of HP. Cannot target enemies. Will hurt party members with the Zombie talent.


Aerothurge - Wind Blade - "The wind cuts like a knife."
Aerothurge: 3 // AP: 7 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 6 turns.
An air-elemental attack which hits enemies in a thin, narrow arc in front. Not a cone-shaped attack, more like a crescent-shaped attack.


Aerothurge - Gust of Wind - "Blow them away."
Aerothurge: 2 // AP: 4 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 5 turns.
Disperses gas/smoke/steam in a 5 meter radius around the target. Possible 10% chance of a knockdown for 1 turn.


Geomancer - Earth Wall - "Build your walls of mud and dirt."
Geomancer: 3 // AP: 9 // Duration: 3 turns. // Cooldown: 8 turns.
Draw a barrier of dirt to block movement and attacks. Does some Earth-type damage with a chanee to petrify any enemies in the path of the barrier when it is cast.


Pyrokinetic - Inferno - "Breathe out the fire, breathe in the ashes."
Pyrokinetic: 5 // AP: 10 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 9 turns.
The caster emits a cone-shaped burst of flames in a short area in front of the target. Leaves a burning area.


Pyrokinetic - Firewall - "Raise a little hell."
Pyrokinetic: 4 // AP: 7 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 7 turns.
Raise a wall of fire that does not impede projectiles or spells, but will set anyone who stands in, or passes through it alight.


Pyrokinetic - Cauterize Wounds - "Fire is the best medicine."
Pyrokinetic: 2 // AP: 4 // Duration: 6 turns// Cooldown: 4 turns.
Cures bleeding on a target, and sets immune to bleeding for the duration (6 turns), but does some fire damage to the target.


Witchcraft - Hex Protection - "Shield thy soul."
Witchcraft: 2 // AP: 5 // Duration: 3 Turns // Cooldown: 6 Turns.
Boost an ally's Willpower by 2 for 3 turns.


Special - Empower - "True leaders inspire greatness in others."
LEADERSHIP: 5 // AP: 4 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 6 turns.
Share all positive status effects with a targeted ally. The remaining duration is passed along as well. Requires: This Talent-granted skill requires 5 points into Leadership to take the associated Talent.


Special - Swap Places - "If you value your life, be somewhere else."
INTELLIGENCE: 9 // AP: 3 // Duration: Instant // Cooldown: 9 turns.
Switch places with any other entity on the battlefield. Requires: This Talent-granted skill requires 9 points in Intelligence to take the associated Talent.




NEW TALENT IDEAS

Appraiser - Grants you an extra point into Barter, and one into Loremaster (similar to Scientist.)

Bloodthirst - (Credit: Mr. C) While standing in blood you get a +5% bonus to damage or +3-5% Critical hit chance. Incompatible with Leech and Elemental Affinity.

Medic - Your healing (and possibly buffs) are now 25% more effective (and/or last an extra turn). However, your offensive magic and damage are 25% less effective.

Summoner's Friend - Your summons gain a 25% boost to their health, and their chance to hit is increased by 15%

Trained Ears - When in sneak mode, you can see the outlines of enemies in your hearing range which aren't in your line of sight. This lets you know which way they're facing to let you sneak around. Requirements: Sneak 1, Perception 8

A lot of good ideas and criticism here. I actually like Spirit Link a lot, but it would just have to be balanced right. Instead of bouncing like richochet, it could be a circle that selects enemies. Don't think that every ability has to be balanced for both NPCs and players to use. There are plenty of abilities that NPCs don't use. And enemies usually have different versions of skills than the players even if they are both named same thing.

Eye for an Eye and Sacrificial Gift are good too, but of course they would have to be carefully balanced. I also like Martyr for Man-At-Arms, and I think Swap Places could be a good MaA, Aerothurge or possibly rogue skill instead of some generic talent spell. Empower could be a great talent skill though. Haste, Oath of Desecration, and a food buff (and even more) could be transferred over to an ally, and that would be quite powerful. Maybe overpowered, definitely would have to be tested a lot.

Seeking Shot and Piercing shot are cool, but I'm not sure if Expert Marskman needs a heal. What might be cool is a unique (cross)bow that does no damage but applies a random buff to an ally you target.

Some of your skills seem kind of redundant with other schools, like Dirt Wall. Not only is this a balance issue, but reskinned spells just aren't very exciting. Schools should be unique and have their limitations, not access to everything.

I'm almost contradicting myself now, but I'd like to see some knockback skills for MaA or possibly Marskman. I think they would work fine logistically if you selected an enemy and then had a narrow cone that you could knock them back to, like a very limited teleport. It's not really a reskin of teleport, though, because they depend on your angle that you're facing the enemy (e.g., you probably wouldn't want to knock an enemy right next to your glass cannon mage.)

Finally, just got to reiterate to Larian one thing you said above: PIXEL-HUNTS ARE NOT GOOD PUZZLES, and especially if they are mandatory. Maybe one or two optional (not even quest-marked) pixel hunts with very minor rewards. Something to reward people who are paying attention to little details, but not requiring them to do so.

Larian why Stabbey is not working with you?There is really good sugestions!
I`m glad that Stabbey is back!

15) Potions also lose effectiveness

Update: I am now level 16 in the Dark Forest. Potions are now essentially worthless. You need to down two Large ones (6 AP) just to get into the "maybe you will not die immediately" zone.


39) Resurrection Scrolls AP cost slightly too high

Update: Now that I am level 16, I got the Resurrect Spell. Which brings me to:


48) Very Long Cooldown on Resurrect SPELL is pointless.

The spell is just as effective as the scrolls are - 20 percent HP Recovery for a whopping 10 AP, but the spell has a 27 turn cooldown. At 6 seconds per turn, that is almost 3 real-time minutes.

What is the point of that?

No, really. By this time, you should have plenty of Resurrection scrolls or the ability to buy them. Why would I bother with the spell except out of combat?

I tested and compared the scroll and spell on my Shadowmage (11 INT) and Jahan (17 INT).

Jahan with 6 points into INT more than my Shadowmage had a whopping three whole turns knocked off of the cooldown, but that's all that changed.

In all cases, Madora (who had a max of 1453 HP) was restored to 291 HP after death. The high INT from Jahan made no difference to the effectiveness of the spell, and apparently 11 INT is high enough to avoid a penalty.

There has to be a reason why the player would want to use the spell over the scroll, and there is none. Normally, spells are preferred because scrolls are unreliable to come by, and the cost can add up if you cast a spell a lot. Scrolls are also useful for casting a spell before you have the levels to put it in your spellbook. None of that is the case for Resurrect. These scrolls are fairly plentiful and you are guaranteed to find some shops that stock them. Plus, if you are playing correctly, you should not need to use them too often. Resurrect spellbooks also appear late in the game. You cannot learn it until level 16.

If the Resurrect Spell is going to cost the same 10 AP and restore the same 20 percent health as the scroll, it does not need such an insane cooldown.

It makes no sense at all - The presence of scrolls make the cooldown irrelevant. The same stats and the long cooldown makes the spell not worth the gold and spell slot.

Use that gold and buy a bunch more Resurrect scrolls instead. With no cooldown, they are the better option.

Suggestion: Lower the cooldown - preferably to 1-3 turns at most. There is no reason why it should be higher. It serves no purpose except to force people to use scrolls instead if they need to.


49) To be clear about my thoughts on Resurrect

This post is redundant, but I want to be unambiguous about what my complaint is.

When you are dead, you get no XP. This encourages you to resurrect dead party members as soon as possible. When you are resurrected, you are restored to only 20 percent of your maximum health.

I am okay with those.

Being resurrected to 20 percent is practically speaking, little different than being resurrected with 1 HP, in that if an enemy targets you with that little health, you will almost certainly die. Yes, you can teleport the resurrectee, but that is of little help, because they do not go very far. Ranged enemies and casters will happily take down your revived comrade. Melee enemies can also usually close the distance and still get a swing off.

So you need to delay the turn of the one casting Resurrect so that they will go last (and maybe also delay the turn of someone who can heal. This means that at least one character will need to survive an entire round of enemy attacks, meaning they might be in bad shape by the end.

I can deal with that. That is okay.

The hassle comes from needing 10 AP to Resurrect. I am level 16 and none of my characters get 10 AP per turn, the fastest ones get 8 AP. I efficiently use almost all my AP per turn, and when someone dies, I almost never have enough reserve AP saved up. This means that I need to spend a turn delaying so I can get enough, while trying not to kill anything.

I feel that the game has enough incentive to resurrect immediately, with an XP penalty for dead characters, and simply being a person down on the field. Having both a very low health restored AND a hefty AP cost as well, is too much. Even if the health restored stays the same, I think it would be better if the AP cost for resurrect was reduced to 7 or 8.

If you do not want to lower the AP cost, you could alternatively increase the health returned to 40 percent so that they can withstand an attack or two.


50) SUGGESTION: Display potential Resurrectees portrait in turn order

If you have selected a party member for resurrection during combat, that party member's portrait should appear in the turn order, so you know EXACTLY who will move when, letting you decide if you want to resurrect the person or cancel. Right now resurrecting in combat is blind guesswork, because you do not know who will move before your Resurrectee. If it is an enemy, you just wasted all that effort because they are now dead.


51) Enemies not using enough status effects

Maybe it is because I am playing on Normal for my first run, but there are a lot of status effects that I am NOT seeing. I have cleared Cyseal, Luculla, and Hiberheim and am starting the Dark Forest. I am level 16 and approaching the end-game

Where are the enemies who use Mute and Charm? The problem I think is that Mute and Charm are Ranger-exclusive skills, and enemy rangers tend to use special arrows instead. Why should I pick the Volumable Mage Talent when I have literally NEVER, EVER encountered anything which casts Silence? I have seen Charm maybe three times or so, and that has been from Charming Arrows.

Petrify? The Statues by the Cyseal church. That is it.

Knocked Down is also not that common, but since there is no way to clear that except Helping Hand, I suppose that is not too bad. I have seen it much more than the others.

Enemies also do not seem to use enough POSITIVE status effects on themselves. What about enemies who cast a damage buff on themselves, changing who is a high-priority target?


52) Earth Resistance is still WORTHLESS

I told Larian about this in the beta repeatedly. There are 6 resistance categories: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Poison, and Tenebrium. The two that see the least amount of use are Tenebrium and Earth, and I think I just have not gotten far enough for the former to become a big deal.

Earth Resistance is definitely worthless, though. The reason is simple: Practically nothing at all does Earth-type damage.

On a few rare occasions, there is an enemy with Earthquake, or Boulder Bash, or an Earth Elemental, but those are very few and far between, and the only other damage source is from Earth-damage Staff of Magus attacks. There are no Earth-damage arrows, and basically no Earth-damage spells. Earth Resistance may as well not even be in the game for all the use it has. I have been giving suggestions for earth-damage spells since the beta, and suggesting that the enemies should get them as well.


53) Suggestion: Mass-X Spells

Can we (and enemies!) get some positive Mass X spells?

Hydrosophist - Mass Minor Heal
Hydrosophist: 3 // AP: 6-7 // Duration: 3 Turns // Cooldown: ? turns.
Requires: Level 10. The mass version of Minor Heal. It applies Minor Heal to all allies within a 10m radius of the target. Slightly longer cooldown time, same duration, but with a cost of +2-3 AP compared to the single-target version.

Hydrosophist - Mass Strong Regenerate
Hydrosophist: 4 // AP: 7-8 // Duration: 2 Turns // Cooldown: ? turns.
Requires: Level 13. The mass version of Strong Regenerate. It applies Strong Regenerate to all allies within a 10m radius of the target. Longer cooldown time, same duration, but with a cost of +3-4 AP compared to the single-target version.

Geomancer - Mass Fortify
Geomancer: 4 // AP: 8-10 // Duration: 3 turns. // Cooldown: ? turns.
Requires: Level 16. The mass version of Fortify. It applies Fortify to all allies within a 10m radius of the target. Longer cooldown time, same duration, but with a cost of +2-4 AP compared to the single-target version. You could possibly reduce the amount of armour it gives compared to the single-target version.

Witchcraft - Mass Oath of Desecration -
Witchcraft: 3-4 // AP: 9 // Duration: 3 Turns // Cooldown: ? turns.
Requires: Level 13-16. The mass version of Oath of Desecration. It applies Oath of Desecration to all allies within a 10m radius of the target. Longer cooldown time, same duration, but with a cost of +6 AP compared to the single-target version. (This one might be too powerful but you could reduce the buff, so maybe it only gives a +25% damage boost. You could also give enemies Oath of Desecration and this one as well.)

Mass Helping hand, Mass Cleansing Water, Mass Purifying Flame, the list of possibilities goes on. Increase the AP costs and cooldowns, maybe lower the power, and boost the level required to learn the mass version, and you get more tactical options for relatively little development cost compared to a new skill. And don't forget: Enemies could also use these.


54) The Mud Huntresses exceptionally difficult

See this thread for details.

EDIT: Update - I killed the Mud Huntresses, by sacrificing a party member and locking them down with crowd control constantly. It still wasn't exactly easy, it just let me stay ahead of the damage enough. I guess this probably doesn't need much changing.

STORY/WORLD - HUNTERS EDGE

56) I like Hunters Edge.
The premise, the setting: Trying to decide how best to manipulate and use the Immaculates and Orcs, and deceive them, trying to get them to turn on each other so that they start to battle each other, wiping each other out. That whole section is a great idea and a lot of fun.

In addition, this is where the openness and flexibility of the game really works because you have a village full of targets that you are encouraged to set up and destroy in creative ways. Oh, this is going to be fun.


57) Rat King oddly resistant
The fight is not a hard one, but the Rat King is a lot more resistant than you'd expect from a rodent. 96 armour, 60 percent resistance to slashing and piercing makes only Crushing good against it. The gripe I have is that it is immune (100 resistance) to all elemental damage. That seems a little excessive and meant only to draw the fight out. If you want to make the fight last longer, I have a recommendation.

I don't see a need to have the rat king completely immune to elemental damage.

Recommendation: Instead of the cats, why not bring in a ton of weak rats? It is the rat king, so why is his only backup a pair of ghostly cats? The rats should die easily, and don't hit for much damage, but there are a LOT of them, and the rat king brings in more every few turns. They also give 0 or very little XP.



BALANCE

58) Poison damage rarely seems like a great choice
I've had Loremaster 5 for a while, and I am at Hunters Edge now, and consistently through every area in the game, Poison has been a poor choice for damage-dealing. The Earth spells that deal damage are split, with almost none doing earth-type damage, and the rest doing poison-damage. Neither is great Earth for lack of spells, Poison for lack of weaknesses.

It is rare to see an enemy with negative poison resistance. Hell, it is rare to see an enemy with even ZERO poison resistance. Almost all the time enemies have at least some resistance to poison, at best it is low, but equal to another damage type. There's rarely any particular reason to use it compared to something else. My fire mage for instance doesn't recall encountering an enemy that is strong against fire, but vulnerable to poison.

The other use for poison is to combo to make fire, but often, fire can create fire by itself very well often anyway.


59) Leech Trait should also grant Immune to Bleeding
That is the easiest way to fix the oddity where if a character with Leech is hit with Bleeding, they heal to full from their own blood. If they're immune to bleeding, that can't be exploited and all Bloodletting will do is hit them for some slashing damage.



USER INTERFACE

60) For the love of god, please invert skill bar arrows
PLEASE. There are 5 skill bars. If I have skill bar 1 selected, and I press up, I expect to go upwards from one, to TWO. Instead I go to 5. If I have skill bar 1 selected and I press down, I expect to wrap around and go to 5. Instead I go to 2.

I didn't mention it earlier because I thought maybe I would get used to it, but I have been playing the full version for what is coming close to 100 hours and I am STILL constantly getting this confused, ALL THE TIME. Up should make the numbers go up!





EDIT: Update - I killed the Mud Huntresses, by sacrificing a party member and locking them down with crowd control constantly. It still wasn't exactly easy, it just let me stay ahead of the damage enough. I guess this probably doesn't need much changing.

I am now done with Hunter's Edge and am level 17, moving into the Phantom Forest towards the end-game.

STORY/WORLD - HIGH PLAINS

61) Note: Spider Queen almost feels like a missing quest
You can meet a confused caravan driver in the high plains who said that the Spider queen enchanted his mind. You can also meet some spider cultists around eggs who are under her spell. There is also a spider queen. Unfortunately, killing her does nothing for them. It does not NEED to do anything for them, but the caravan drivers words put the suggestion that killing the spider queen might help them.


62) Fredericks quest is self-limiting
The problem with this quest, dealing with the half-dead Immaculate pushed off a cliff, is that half the dilemma is dependent on you healing Frederick with a blood stone but if you do that, he will immediately attack you for breaking a star stone. Unless you fail to convince him to spare the imp, in which case he will declare you have to die, and them run off and ignore any attacks on himself (and breaking your game as you enter combat but he never takes his turn).

It seems a bit of a waste to so easily trigger combat with Frederick.


INTERFACE

63) Quest Log occasionally misses the point
I get that Larian wants players to explore, and that is fine. But the quest log sometimes misses the point of a quest log. The problem is that important information is conveyed in dialogue ONLY and not added to the quest log. For example,

• The Rat King (Hunters Edge)
  
  If you kill a rat, the rest run away, so you need to use poisoned cheese to bring out the rat king. Talk with the rat king and he'll tell you where to find him again. Then he vanishes and is never seen again. If you go find him right away while you remember the dialogue, that works. If you put the game down for a while, though and come back, and forget the dialogue, the quest log tells you NOTHING about where to find the Rat King again.
  
  Why the f*** not? That is not going to spoil the exploration experience for anyone, this is information the game has already given you AND EXPECTS YOU TO HAVE. It should be in the log.
• The Trail of Blood stones (Hunters Edge)
  I passed a conversation check with the one-horned orc, who admitted that he stole the human s blood stones and dropped the guard's body down a hole, but that wasn't added to any quest log. Why not?!
• This comes up in the main quest from time to time as well.
• The Barrier around the white witch's cabin. (Luculla South)
  
  Oddly enough, if you SUCCEED in solving the mushroom riddles, you get a WORSE hint than if you FAIL. If you pass, all the mushroom says is [some wizard wanted to make the barrier go away]. That is IT. Nothing else. From that, though, you get a quest log entry that says "Maradino might have stashed a barrier-removal spell somewhere around the forest".
  
  First, that doesn't follow from what was actually said. Second, it's not helpful.
  
  If you fail the riddles and have to take extra steps, and threaten the fungi, then they cough up something along the lines of "I think maybe it was hidden between the two troll-guarded bridges". That IS helpful information, but it does not make it into your quest log!
• Zandalor's house (Hunters Edge)
  You need to get into Zandalor's house. I learned how through dialogue with [Mother]. I had my camera at the wrong angle so I did not see the portal. I left the house feeling a little uncertain about where to go, but a few minutes later, I forgot exactly what she said, so I checked the official quest log and it said nothing about what to do. So then I went back to the dialogue log and re-read the passage and that had the information that should have been included in the quest log.

If the game gives you important quest-related information in dialogue, it should go into your journal. Period. You have explored through dialogue and earned that information. The game should keep it in an important place, not fluttering away in a dialogue log that will be gone fairly quickly.

Delivering important information in dialogue only might work, except the game does not keep dialogue logs for long.


64) Shelter Plane progress and Main quest progress should be different quests
Right now, both of those are lumped into "A Source Hunters Journey". I think it would be better if the Shelter Plane progress was its own quest log, it just seems to clutter up the already-long main quest one. There could be a bit of overlap where applicable.



65) Vampiric Touch Tooltip is inaccurate.
It says it does 5 vitality damage. That is wrong, thankfully, but it should be adjusted, because it gives an inaccurate representation of what the skill does.


66) Idea: Loremaster rank ?? should show enemy Willpower and Bodybuilding
Maybe a high rank of loremaster should show what willpower and bodybuilding stat an enemy has. A lot of the time, that is the determining factor if an ability is worth using on the enemy. Not really that important, just a thought. I suppose it's not needed either


67) BUG: Attack of Opportunity range is different from preview DISPLAYED range
This has gotten me a few times. I click to move carefully so I do not trigger an attack of opportunity, ACCORDING TO THE DISPLAY in game. But the enemy performs an AoO anyway because the actual range is different than the display range.


68) BUG: The AP cost display does NOT take into account penalties from [skill too low]
That's a major oversight with the AP cost display and needs to be fixed.


69) BUG: AP cost displays only display correctly for Skillbar 1
If you change skillbars, the AP display does not take into account that and only shows the AP cost for the skills on bar one. I definitely reported this one during the beta. It still is not fixed six months later?



STORY / WORLD - HUNTERS EDGE

70) Knights Tomb grating could use clarification

I followed a blood trail to a grate. The text when clicking on it said it might be possible to squeeze through, but that would mean a very long fall. That made me think that maybe I was supposed to try to use an item on it.

I tried some things: I tried dropping a teleporter stone onto the grate. That did not work. Feather Fall did not work. I spent about 30 minutes trying to find some rope, and when I found some, using THAT on the grate did not work.

It turned out that you are not supposed to get in that way, so the grate text should probably be clearer that you can't actually get in at all.


71) Knights Tomb massive overkilling jerks are kinda a dick move
I think you need to enter that place to start the orc-cultist war. However, that is gated by several things. First, you need to get the dictionary from Zandalors house. Not hard, though, since by that time you should be paying attention. Secondly, you need to solve the puzzle to open the gate. Also not hard and a reasonable puzzle. Fifth, you need decent perception to find the safe path across the floor. Reasonable enough.

Third, though, you need the character who has the dictionary in the lead if they are a step behind, you automatically go to combat. Fourth, you need to pass a charisma check so he will not try to kill you immediately. Going to combat there is an automatic failure state.

The reason is that the bad guys there can one-shot you by having a minimum damage set several thousand above what you could possibly have. You cannot actually KNOW THAT ahead of time unless you have Loremaster 4 (which admittedly is not hard). This section is of course doable and not that hard, it is just having a situation that so easily can fall into combat with guys who can one-shot you is kinda dickish.


72) Hunters Edge Bartender does not react once all hostiles are cleared.
He apparently is too far gone to notice that there is no one left alive in town?

Also, during the middle of the big damn dramatic confrontation between Jahrl and Grutilda, he ran out to serve Grutilda some alcohol, and she interrupted herself mid-speech to comment on the alcohols quality before getting back on script. The bartender should be scripted to stop running around once Jaharlç—´ script to call her out is triggered.


GAMEPLAY

73) New [Follow the leaders footsteps exactly] formation please
There are lots of trapped areas. The game could really benefit from a formation that has the party follow in exactly the footsteps of the leader. (Knights Tomb, *cough*)


74) Invisibility should not be removed by taking damage from Burning or poison statuses
Show some mercy. Invisibility is typically used to save a character who is near death.


75) Enemies should not be able to f***ing shoot arrows through smoke.
If WE cannot do it, they should not be able to either. It is irritating. EDIT: I guess we can by using manual aim so never mind this one?

But we CAN shoot through smoke, by holding down ctrl (default). It takes manual aiming, but a player can do it, so I personally find it fair that the AI can do it too. All you need to know is where to aim.

Okay, fair enough, I rescind that complaint. I'm not actually running a ranger in my current party, just a couple mages.

If there are any other things I've gotten confused or mistaken about, feel free to point those out as well.

Comments on my playstyle

After reading a few posts about people saying the game is too easy, even on Hard, I began wondering why I was finding it fairly challenging on Normal. I have since finished the game (and it did get much easier towards the end.)

Thinking about it, it turns out that without consciously thinking about it, I have basically been ignoring all the most powerful game mechanics.

I have not used Glass Cannon or Zombie on any characters. I did use the Leech + Bloodletting combo on my Shadowblade for a while, but stopped as the cooldown on the normal heal went to 1 turn, and the Shadowblade stopped getting hurt as much.

I have not been overdosing on crowd control skills, I mostly focused on nuking people. I am using them, but maybe not as much as other people. I have had Jahan forever, but have not ever used Rain + Blitzbolt to create an AoE stun, or Rain + Chilling Wind to Freeze. I do not think I exactly FORGOT about those, but I just avoided them because I got tired of accidentally stunning my own party members who were trying to hit the enemy, and I did not have a lot of attacks at the time that would hit frozen enemies without unfreezing them or doing low damage.

One semi-exploit I have been using is the books from the Teller of Secrets, but I did not discover her until I was level 12/13, after Hiberheim. They could possibly use a price increase, but otherwise, they do not seem TOO unbalanced to me. I am still not maxing out all character stats. Maybe only make those available in her list starting at level 10 (so there is no longer a point to racing to her at level 1). Level 10 is about when you are done with Cyseal and can get 5 Star Stones by then.

I ended up using most on my Shadowblade, who as a hybrid, seemed weak stat-wise. That was before the Weresheep armour, though. I actually had to end up spending a point or two into CON at the end to hold all her AP.


I completely ignored crafting. Completely. This is not exactly the interfaces fault. I usually ignore crafting in games anyway. Still, though, the crafting system and inventory management in D:OS leaves a lot to be desired if you want to actually use it. I did not win me over to trying it. I did not make any huge weapons through crafting or blacksmithing, I stuck to store-bought and drops. I never used Rubies to enhance resistances in gear.

Combat began to wear out its welcome around the Phantom Forest area. I began to use sneaking to avoid as much as I can. I did go back later to kill them for the XP, though. I tried fighting Death Knights once. There was a group of three of them, and combat started but a group of 3 on their patrol came up from the back, meaning that there were still two death knights invulnerable for 3 turns. They did a huge amount of damage, so fighting while surrounded was not happening.

I left the huge annoying mass of Immaculates, demons, and death knights in front of the Source Temple completely alone, and just used sneak, invisibility, and the pyramid stone to get the group to the entrance.

I have mentioned a couple places where I was confused by puzzles. Some of that is righteous annoyance at pixel hunting, other stuff is just stupidity. For instance

I tried an unorthodox way to get into the Temple of Death. I put my almost-dead party on the platform and had a source Hunter blow himself up, killing everyone. Then I pulled the lever to send the corpses away. My surviving Source Hunters plan was then to go to the Knights Tomb in Hunters Edge, where I had left a Star Stone hidden in a coffin. The idea was that maybe if I touched it, they would resurrect, and then I could use the teleport stone to reach the corpse. It did not work because the Knights Tomb is a map transition to elsewhere.

Amazingly, I missed the obvious hole in my logic: why not just teleport directly to the corpse without needing to get the star stone? And the even simpler one: Why not just plant a teleport stone on an existing corpse without anyone dying?

So sometimes I am just dumb.


Final Party Stats

My final party stats, taken just before the boss encounter. I am only including abilities that reached Rank 3 or higher to save space.

Sarienne - Shadowblade
VIT: 1274 || AP: Max =15 / Start = 14 / Turn = 12
MOV: 5.56 m/AP || INIT: 20 || DAM = 129-190 (516-760 for Guerrilla Backstabs)

STR = 5 || DEX = 13 + 5 = 18 || INT = 13 + 1 = 14
CON = 7 + 1 = 8 || SPD = 8 + 7 = 15 || PER = 5 + 5 = 10
(21 points before gear, minus 5 from char creation = 16)

Resistances:
F = 0 || W = 45 || E = 25
A = 40 || T = 25 || P = 65

Abilities:
Rank 5
Scoundrel - only obtained for Headstrong, I could have settled for Rank 3.
Witchcraft
Sneaking [6] = 4 (+ 1 + 1)

Rank 4
Aerothurge

Rank 3
Single-Handed = 1 (+ 2)
Lucky Charm = 2 (+ 1)

Talents: Backstabber, Guerrilla, Headstrong, Light Stepper, Leech, Speedcreeper, Swiftfooted

She was using three pieces of Weresheep armour for its amazing stat boosts, and her weapon was the unique Snakebite. I did not really find anything better, because it did a lot of damage and had good stat boosts, and it was powerful enough that I did not feel like my damage was falling behind.

She maxed Witchcraft and Scoundrel (but only that one for the Talent), got Sneak up to 5 via a Trait for Guerrilla, and got Air to 3.

My stats were not quite as unbalanced before I put on three pieces of Weresheep armour. I actually had to put points into CON at that point so I could hold enough turn AP probably one of the first times that has happened to someone who DID NOT have Glass Cannon.

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Keivan - Wizard
VIT: 1151 || AP: Max = 16 / Start = 10 / Turn = 8
MOV: 2.68 m/AP || INIT: 13

STR = 5 || DEX = 5 || INT = 14 + 7 + 1 = 22
CON = 7 + 2 = 9 || SPD = 9 || PER = 6 + 1 = 7
(16 points before gear, minus 5 from char creation = 11)

Resistances:
F = 70 || W = 0 || E = 35
A = 25 || T = 30 || P = 30

Abilities:
Rank 5
Willpower = 3 (+ 1 + 1)
Geomancer
Pyrokinetic
Loremaster = 3 (+ 2)

Rank 3
Bodybuilding = 2 (+ 1)
Hydrosophist
Sneaking = 2 (+ 1)

Talents: Bigger and Better, Elemental Affinity, Far Out Man, Know It All, Pet Pal, What a Rush, 1 Unspent

Gear was not particularly relevant for him. I build him as Fire/Earth with some Water. Fire and Earth were maxed, Water was at 3. Spare points went into Loremaster and Willpower. He was mostly a nuker, doing heavy damage, but later on, against enemies with high magic, he buffed and healed.

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Madora - Fighter
VIT: 2084 || AP: Max = 19 / Start = 9 / Turn = 9
MOV: 2.84 || INIT: 13 || DAM = 287-463

STR = 13 + 3 = 16 || DEX = 5 + 1 = 6 || INT = 5 + 1 + 2 = 8
CON = 8 + 4 = 12 || SPD = 9 + 1 = 11 || PER = 5 - 1 = 4
(16 points before gear, minus 5 from char creation = 11)

Resistances:
F = 80 || W = 80 || E = 50
A = 80 || T = 35 || P = 70

Abilities:
Rank 5
Two-Handed = 3 (+ 2)
Bodybuilding [7] = 5 (+ 2) - for Stand your Ground
Willpower [6] = 3 (+ 3)
Man-At- Arms = 5

Rank 4
Tenebrium = 3 + 1

Talents: Comeback Kid, Opportunist, Picture of Health, Stand Your Ground, Thick Skin, Weather the Storm, What a Rush

A pretty standard 2H fighter. I maxed her Man at Arms, her Bodybuilding, and her Willpower, with some into 2H and Tenebrium. I experimentally put a point into Fire, but she did not make much use out of it. She also was the party repairer with a single point in Blacksmithing.

I ended up mostly ignoring her special skills, which tended to fail against enemy saves later on, and just had her beat things up with normal attacks. This wasn稚 the smartest way to play, but it worked well enough.

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Jahan - Enchanter/Witch
VIT: 1212 || AP: Max = 16 / Start = 10 / Turn = 9
MOV: 2.72 m/AP || INIT: 13

STR = 5 || DEX = 5 || INT = 13 + 2 + 5 + 1 = 21
CON = 8 + 1 = 9 || SPD = 9 + 2 = 11 || PER = 6 - 2 + 2 = 6
(16 points before gear, minus 5 from char creation = 11)

Resistances:
F = 0 || W = 45 || E = 45
A = 40 || T = 0 || P = 50

Abilities:
Rank 5
Bodybuilding [7] = 4 (+ 3)
Willpower = 4 (+ 1) - I did not bother with 5 as Voluble Mage was not worth it.
Hydrosophist

Rank 4
Aerothurge
Witchcraft

Talents: Bigger and Better, Elemental Affinity, Far Out Man, Know It All, Morning Person, Scientist, 1 Unspent

Jahan was an Air/Water/Witchcraft wizard. I only got him to 4 in air and witchcraft, and 5 into Willpower. I used him mostly for control and inflicting blind and some other statuses, not really so much stun or freeze, though, despite his starting skill set.