Divinity: Original Sin Beta Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

I know i'm (too) late, but i have a suggestion:
The one thing i detest about larian random item 'philosophy' is how thematic super armors (the armor sets) get 'obsolete' in the end game (which is about when you get a full set anyway, since they're handplaced).

If there was a smithing ability to upgrade them beyond what D2 does (it allows you to upgrade 'enchantments' but not normal damage or 'charms' - in fact, all the charm slots used are fixed forever), this 'super smith' ability would allow you to take a 'superior' quality item that is somehow similar (still a bow with the same kind of magic etc) and cannabilize it to upgrade some 'unbalanced' part of the weapon at a terrible cost (like a skill point or something).
Just using this to replace/add armor set charms (add to them would be nice too i guess) or 'bump' damage/armor (the primary stats) would be tremendous (or you could make the opposite somehow, which would be easier programming: transfer the item set abilities to 'another' weapon of the same kind, dunno how the game-world justification of that would work).

The real fix is no random equipment items :3 but i know that won't happen.

 

After playing D2 some more i realized that the frustration in the post above comes from the god of balancing.

There is this awesome bow given early in the game, but to make it reach it's full potential you have to use the one 'crappy' armour set that increases critical hit chance and there are no individal critical hit enhancing items which can replace that set bonus - the crit stat bonus is restricted to only rings (max 5) and weapons. If it had 3 enchantment slots it could be offset with one critical hit enchant (at no cost for the 2 dmg enchants) and use something else. But obviously this is on purpose.

I don't know. I know people swear by balance in single player games for some reason, but in this case it's like i'm Charlie Brown getting the ball taken away from me whatever i try. The end result is that obviously, you're going through most of the game with a single armour set for a build until the non-interesting stats are annoying enough that you're forced to change it (or at least enough parts that the bonus you want is good enough).

 

I'm not playing any more of this until its out but I'm sure you can just mod the shit you don't like out of it
Single player balance is for suckers

 

Unfortunately, in D2 you actually can't. Its packer format is some fucked custom built thing and moreover, that interacts with securerom for some shit reason (larian forums actually removes posts asking for a packer/unpacker because 'it causes bugs', at least for the non-gog version).
D:OS should be better at this, since they have to support some primary form of modding anyway.

Even without cheating, the takeaway wisdom i took from this little experience:
1 ) armour sets are not as bad as they look since they're balanced so that their main stat is never higher on other equipment (on aggregate), and you get new handplaced pieces for most of the game increasing that bonus (until the expansion that is derp).
2 ) not as bad; until the armour non-primary stats get too weak. Then your build might get annoying. Any attempt to side-step this by trying to get a larger bonus from the RNG random loot god will be dealt mercilessly by the devs. Armour sets main stats are Not To Be Equalled.

which leads me to the conclusion: just what is the rng system good for except causing PTSD in a balanced game? Loot is 95% of the time useless for your build, and when it isn't, well, it's never as good for the primary stat. On the other hand, it's 70% useful for your non-primary set stats, but you shouldn't use it. Might as well stop looking.

resuming: fuck balance

 

DRM was removed from DKS and was never in the Developer's Cut release.

I played a ranger on nightmare in DKS and had no problems, almost exclusively using unique bows once the first was available. The only set bow I used was the mining guild set, which did last awhile, but the entire thing got replaced once I could equip the Bow of Orabas. I certainly used Butcher if there was a third enchantment slot on a bow (IMO normal and magical damage being much more important than a critical hit bonus), but didn't worry much about critical hits. BTW rings can have +7 Critical Chance bonus.

 

I found a extremely OP bow as soon as i started the expansion on a vendor

 

That is why i always love flat leveling systems, no health gain per level, skills that are useful but not "i need to do it for rest of the game".
I hate armor,health, dps bloat, it doesn't make you feel more powerful at all.

Now if you have flat system, uniques, equipment feel much more important in end game even if they are found just at the begging of the game. If you have 10 health, amulet of health +2 (which gives you additional 2 hit points) is as important at start of the game as at the end of game and suddenly you don't remember riding dungeon for worthless shit you won't use in few more hours but artifact you love.

Naturally above is resolved. If you will find amazing gear with flat system it should stay that way for the rest of the game.

Naturally flat system requires tactical combat which is something most developers don't know about beside "you take skill with highest DPS and you kill mob with XXX health"

 

The luck stat? is actually very useful, i think it might be related to what loot you find in random containers, i kept finding amazing items while the character commented something along the lines of "how lucky".

 

bioware did better with smaller budgets too, so did bethesda and a lot of other game companies or movie directors. the thing with budgets is that the bigger they are, the easier it becomes to fuck up.

 

Although I'd say that it depends a bit on what you spend it on.
If most of the spending goes into graphics, VO and cutscenes, then yes.
If, theoretically, devs could use the budget to increase depth and size of the gameworld, or the number of quests, I'm not so sure.

 

have you played kingdoms of amalur? it's a great example of how to fuck up your game by increasing size of the gameworld and number of quests... plus look at the things larian spent dos money on: graphical overhaul and voice acting... bigbudgets are the devil, i tells ya.

 

Bigger budgets mean the games need to sell more to become profitable, so they are made to appeal to a wider audience, because the core RPG market is not that large.

Basically, big budgets is what almost killed RPGs after 2000.

Fortunately, I don't think Larian will need $40 million to create their RPG That Will Trump Them All. Assuming D:OS budget is around $6-8 million, that huge game could need twice as much (so $12-15 million). They might get that much, it all depends on how well D:OS sells and how willing Larian's investors will be to continue cooperation (or maybe some new ones will appear). Selling one million copies should be enough, I think, especially that both Dragon Commander and Original Sin are self-published, so it is reasnobale to count they get will get $10 per copy on average (including discount sales etc.)

 

Seriously ? Where did you get that from ?

Also, as much as I would like that to happen, I seriously doubt that Larian is going to sell 1.000.000 copies of D:OS... Apparently, I'm really ignorant about video games sales figures. Is it possible they might sell that much at release, though ?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HevrTza0Nxg#t=1m8s plus sven's comment that recording voice acting began when they announced the release date. granted, it's not the only thing they worked on after the kickstarter, but i wonder if it isn't the most resource consuming.

 

Yeah well most people expect voice acting these days. Just an hour ago some clown posted in a forum how he bought Shadowrun Returns, and shelved it because he had to read stuff.

 

Don't you mean Shadowrun?

 

I guess those areas were always going to get some graphical polish compared to pre-alpha and I would be surprised if D:OS suddenly turned into a fully voiced game. I mean, you kinda have to have those things if you want the people who gave you money to be able to tell at first sight that the game has "evolved"... Also, if you want to sell your baby to more people than a couple of turn-based fans and Ultima veterans...
I really don't think they wasted most of their ressources on those things.

 

Limited voice acting was supposed to be in the game from the start, I think, and I would not have it any other way.

It's only full VA which spikes the game's cost as well as limiting writing options.

1 million sales at release would be a huge success, but I doubt that is possible with such limited marketing.

 

Yeah, i would already be /very/ pleased if they get half of that at release.

 

So is this worth buying yet or should I wait? I usually don't blaze through games so I'm sure full release would happen before I finish the first 2 acts. Any suggestions?

 

It will literally be out a month and one week from now. That's a short wait.

 

Only the first act is in the game right now, they probably won't add another one, and the beta saved games won't be compatible with the full version. You may as well wait, unless you're set on giving the developers feedback or just trying out the game systems before release.

 

Does anyone have any idea if the price is going to stay at the $39.99 price tag? Or should I grab it when its cheap?

 

The price will remain the same on release.
There should be an announcement soon about the collector's edition, as well.

 

Cool, thanks all for the quick responses.