Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Some bugs & suggestions

Hi Larian Dev Team,

I just wanted to bring up a few issues and ideas for you to consider based on my experience so far playing the beta version of Divinity: Original Sin. Be aware that I'm not purely here to complain, I like the game and I just want to bring up some ideas to improve it further. Without further delay, here we go:

Bugs:
1. Bad Character Movement - The biggest issue I have with the game currently is the very clunky character movement. If you select a character, move the camera away from them and click to move, about 10% of the time the camera will re-center on the character for no reason. The other 90% of the time the character will move to the location clicked. This doesn't seem to be caused by anything like movement obstructions, the camera just becomes confused and it feels really bad to the player having to move the camera all the way back to the same spot and click again just to move. Classic frustrating movement rubber-banding effect only with the camera instead of latency. If I click somewhere it should NOT move the camera, it should only move the character.

2. Gas doesn't always explode from fire - This issue can be a bit frustrating so hopefully it will be resolved in your next release. The easiest way I've found to reproduce this issue is to go to the basement of the Inn in the first town (with the refilling gas room). Go down the stairs with a level 1 wizard and cast the fire spell into the room. About 50% of the time I've found that the gas won't explode properly.

3. Default Multiplayer Setting - When a player creates a multiplayer new game, you should set the save file to automatically be a multiplayer game. It's weird that the host player needs to manually enter the settings menu to enable multiplayer after already playing that save file with another player the day before.

4. Invisibility Spell - I'm not 100% sure what the rogue's invisibility spell is called but it's the one they start with. The problem is that when casting it, it doesn't turn the character invisible at all... giant horns blare for some reason and nothing seems to happen to the character at all. Really strange.

Enhancements:
1. Character Assignment - The biggest feature that seems to be missing is that I can't decide (as host) who controls which characters. If I have 4 characters in my party I would expect to be able to assign 2 of them to my multiplayer co-op player and 2 to myself. I could live with having the two main characters always being controlled by the same player but the extra secondary characters should be assignable. Not having this feature in Beta seems like a major red flag and something that needs to be added quickly. This would be the #1 flaw that would prevent me from recommending this game to my friends since I wouldn't be able to play co-op with them in a balanced/fair way.

2. Inventory Switching - When a player is in an inventory screen and then they select a different character (via side portraits) the inventory screen should switch to the newly selected character's inventory. It's how most other RPG game GUI's operate and is what most players expect. It feels clunky to rely on the inventory screen's small arrows when I could just click the character's portrait.

3. Starting Area - The starting area really needs some help. The beach area is basically pointless since it contains no content and then it leads into the tutorial dungeon. The tutorial dungeon doesn't explain anything too useful, especially to players not familiar with strategy RPGs. A tutorial fight explaining action points. movement, and abilities would be a good addition. The sneak area is weird since typically sneaky rogues aren't going to be using fireballs so why try and force that mechanic at the bottom of the stairs with the scroll and oil? Why have the arrow crafting materials laying around but nothing explaining how to combine them? Lastly the tutorial dungeon definitely needs a boss at the end. It ends too abruptly and it doesn't feel like you're completing a dungeon. When you exit the dungeon something should happen too, it feels weird re-entering the world in this new random location without even a word of dialog.

4. Key Ring - My characters have too many keys! Please start players off with a keyring item that contains all of their collected keys. You could also add something that holds papers/books for the same reason.

5. Stolen Items & Black Market - Players really shouldn't be able to sell stolen goods as easily as they can right now. I can go into the first Inn, steal all of the painting upstairs, and then go sell them back to the Innkeeper for like 750 gold. It just feels really silly. Add a special Fence NPC to each town area that is willing to buy stolen items.

6. Dialog Combat Warnings - Due to the large amount of text-based dialog in the game you should expect a large majority of your players to skip dialog to get through it more quickly. However, this leads to situations where a player can anger the NPC by just speed clicking and then they suddenly find themselves in combat with no way out. I would suggest adding a safety net that would warn the player when they click a dialog option that leads into combat and allow them to cancel it.

7. Dialog Bonus Labels - When the main characters talk and gain free stats it would be nice to indicate to the player what their options will result in. Will option #1 result in Romantic or Bold? If you don't tell the player they're just going to quick save and load if they get the wrong stats, so save them the trouble.

8. Item Move Radius - When I'm moving an item like a box or barrel it would be nice to have a visual guide showing me how far I can move it. A transparent circle around my character would be enough. It just feels clunky having to move my mouse around until the arrow isn't red anymore - why not just highlight the available areas?

9. Why Does Everything One Shot Me? - The starting area, even after reaching the first town, really needs to be rebalanced. It seems like any enemy I fight with any class will one shot me. The orc shaman, the rogue guy in black, the crying orc outside of town, etc. They all can one-shot the player's starting characters and it feels bad. The starting area should be full of a bunch of level 1 monsters for me to beat up so I can learn how to control my characters without too much risk. Add a bunch of those little crabs back that I can kill. Maybe throw in a treasure chest that spawns the boss crab when I open it. Currently it feels like you just make some new sissy characters and are immediately thrown into battles with level 3-4 creatures that could wipe you out easily if they wanted to.

Anyways, those are some thoughts I've had playing through so far. Thanks for reading.

6. No. If someone doesn't want to read, this is really not the game for them. We shouldn't accomadate them.
9. See 6. It's intended people do quests in the town before going out.

Aside from that; good ideas!

1. Left clicking and holding will have the characters follow your mouse cursor, keeping the camera centred on the lead character. It sounds like sometimes you are either holding the mouse button down briefly, or the game thinks you are.


4. Walk in Shadows works for me (tried it on a rouge and shadowblade). When the (placeholder) yellow horn blowing effect is triggered your character should almost completely disappear, except for some subtle blue highlights on the character/equipment outlines.

Does the combat log say that '<CharacterName> is Invisible' when you use the skill?

Did you try verifying local files for the game?

How about changing your graphics settings / texture quality?


1. That is on the to-do list. The person who joins takes over the non-lead main character, so you can already determine that.

9. There are a couple people in town you can recruit, as well as combat in town. The safest gate to leave through is the one that isn't closed, in the north west. Before that, though, there is lots of stuff to do and loot in town.

1. Nah, it does that if you click somewhere you can't reach. Sometimes while you can though Indoor are most problematic here, think going from Inn to Major's house. Even with the doors open you first need to click outside, indoors does this.

Because there seemed to be a little confusion about Bug #1 I created a short video to demonstrate what I'm seeing. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwgEZg6sseg. This issue is probably the most annoying thing in the game currently for my play style so I hope this can help with future versions.

Thanks!

Revvix - I've posted about this exact same issue (very annoying!) in the "UI Wishlist" thread. Several other things on your list are already over there as well (inventory switching, key rings, etc.).

Hopefully Larian will fix these and other interface issues, allowing players to spend more time enjoying the game.

+1 for the keyring and make keys dissappear that have only one use

and a recipe book would be f*ing AWESOME because I want to make EVERYTHING