Interview Divinity: Original Sin 2 likely to receive additional content, but not an Enhanced Edition

[Infinitron]

Tags: Divinity: Original Sin 2; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has continued to be a smashing success. Last weekend it reached a record of over 93,000 concurrent players (which is higher than The Witcher 3) and as of Monday it's confirmed to have sold over 600,000 copies. So things couldn't be better for Larian, but what do they plan to do with the game now? While the mainstream English language press scratches its balls, the French gaming website War Legend has asked Swen that question in a new interview. Here's the relevant part, courtesy of Google Translate:

"I see myself making good extra content" for Divinity: Original Sin 2

Original Sin, although part of the divinity universe initiated with Divine Divinity in 2002, is a new narrative arc. We asked the founder of Larian Studios whether he planned to stay on this one or to return to those of the old games. He dodges with a laugh: "that's a question about the next stuff so I can not answer! You will do what you want, on our side, it is done!

On the other hand, in terms of the future of Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian Studios does not consider Enhanced Edition because they do not see - and rightly so - what they could bring to the game through it. It's already about patches and updates, obviously. On the other hand, it says: "I see myself making good extra content, but we'll see, now we see that the game is successful, so there is probably a market for. And reassure yourself, in good passionate developer, Swen Vincke does not pay your face:

When I say added content, it's not: "you can play with a yellow dress" or something like that. If we do something, it's going to be a new content in terms of adventure, it's not going to be a little trick. This way of throwing small pieces [to the public] and selling them, as a creator does not inspire me much, so I do not want to waste my time with. We only have one life and I prefer to do things that I can be proud of in terms of career and development.

Vincke can not be more specific about a possible additional content, for nothing has been decided at the moment, "we still have to see what we can do, everything is possible, but we have to decide. We obviously have something in mind, but we'll see ... "

As for the other plans for the future, Swen Vincke replied that he had for the moment the "brain more or less empty" after this long and intense period of work. He does not know if Kickstarter is now a mandatory box on the big development chart for Larian, but as far as Divinity: Original Sin 2 is concerned, he laughs when we tell him that the inventory is the only real negative point of our test and promises that there is already a list of improvements to be made pending.​

I'm not sure if everybody would agree about the lack of need for an Enhanced Edition, but maybe the game's mechanics could receive major updates alongside the release of expansions, like Pillars of Eternity did. Larian are a much bigger company now than they were after the release of the first game, so the development of new content for Original Sin 2 while they work on their next game makes more sense.

 

[Daedalos]

Game is already 70-80 hour game, it doesnt need more content, it needs to IMPROVE the experience of those 70-80 hours.. A.K.A quality of life changes, balances and general mechanics imrprovements.

Get on it, Swen

 

[Eyestabber]

NICE, more faggot porn! \o/

 

[Tigranes]

NICE, more faggot porn! \o/

No, no, he said no to the yellow dress DLC

 

[HanoverF]

They want people to buy now, not wait for the enhanced edition. What are they going to say? There might not be one, but it's not like you're going to talk about it while the game just launched.

Swen Vincke does not pay your face

I knew there was a reason I didn't like Swen. Why won't you pay my face, Swen?

 

[baud]

Swen Vincke does not pay your face

I knew there was a reason I didn't like Swen. Why won't you pay my face, Swen?

It's a French expression. It just mean making fun of you.

Since I had 2 min, I've edited the translation a little:

Spoiler

"I can imagine myself making extra content" for Divinity: Original Sin 2

Original Sin, although part of the divinity universe initiated with Divine Divinity in 2002, is a new narrative arc. We asked the founder of Larian Studios whether he planned to stay on this one or to return to the arc of the old games. He dodges with a laugh: "that's a question about the next stuff so I can't answer!" You will think what you want about it, but we've already made our mind about it!

In terms of the future of Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian Studios does not consider Enhanced Edition because they do not see - and rightly so - what they could bring to the game through it. It will be first about patches and updates, obviously. On the other hand, Swen says: "I can imagine myself making extra content, the game is successful, so we know there is probably a market." And reassure yourself, as a passionate developer, Swen Vincke is not making fun of you.

"When I say added content, it's not: "you can play with a yellow dress" or something like that. If we do something, it's going to be a new content in terms of adventure, it's not going to be a small thing. This way of throwing small pieces [to the public] and selling them, as a creator does not inspire me much, so I don't want to waste my time with it. We only have one life and I prefer to do things that I can be proud of in terms of career and development."

Vincke can not be more specific about possible additional content, for nothing has been decided at the moment, "We still have to see what we can do, everything is possible, but we have to take a decision. We obviously have something in mind, but you'll see ... "

As for the other plans for the future, Swen Vincke replied that he had for the moment the "brain more or less empty" after this long and intense period of work. He does not know if Kickstarter is now a mandatory box on the big development chart for Larian, but as far as Divinity: Original Sin 2 is concerned, he laughs when we tell him that the inventory is the only real negative point of our test and promises that there is already a list of improvements to be made.

 

[Bohrain]

Something like a smaller separate campaign could be cool. Way easier to implement too since you don't have to go through to hassle of hiring all the same voice actors like you'd have to do if you added something to the existing story mode.

 

[Fenix]

Great to hear that.
If someone hopes that system with shelds will be cancelled in EE - suck it!

 

[Immortal]

Great to hear that.
If someone hopes that system with shelds will be cancelled in EE - suck it!

Mods will fix it.
I'd rather they add content that a 30 something NEET in his basement can't.. (Like polished voice acted expansion pack or additional dungeons)

Let the player base do the balancing / polish of the existing content with mods.
Larian has already proved they have no clue how to balance loot or combat.

 

[Roguey]

95 metacritic score, 94% Steam score, why mess with nigh-perfection?

 

[Iznaliu]

Larian has already proved they have no clue how to balance loot or combat.

I could see them toning down the stat inflation, as it has caused universal complaints.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

While I'm loving this sequel a lot (and I mean A LOT) what's a bit baffling to me is how its weakest points are imported directly from the previous one (which I liked as well) and have been hardly addressed at all.

First, randomized itemization still detracts from the experience and it's STILL a huge failure point in terms of balance (hard to predict median values when things can swing so wildly).
What Larian failed to understand is that adding a certain number of hand-placed items is hardly relevant if they don't stand out and they are drowned in a sea of randomized ones.

Second, stat inflation is way too steep. Once again, for all the shit D&D gets for being an "obsolete ruleset", that's an area where it stands head and shoulders above most systems designed specifically for videogames: the stat range between the ordinary newbie weapon and the ultimate one is meaningful but fairly limited and secondary abilities are what makes the most difference. This is brilliant because one good item can stay good for a large part of the game and you can have several "more or less equivalent" ones to swap at your need, rather than constantly replacing everything at every single level up (which, game economy aside, can become fairly tedious when you need to dress up an entire party).

 

[Rev]

While I'm loving this sequel a lot (and I mean A LOT) what's a bit baffling to me is how its weakest points are imported directly from the previous one (which I liked as well) and have been hardly addressed at all.

First, randomized itemization still detracts from the experience and it's STILL a huge failure point in terms of balance (hard to predict median values when things can swing so wildly).
What Larian failed to understand is that adding a certain number of hand-placed items is hardly relevant if they don't stand out and they are drowned in a sea of randomized ones.

Second, stat inflation is way too steep. Once again, for all the shit D&D gets for being an "obsolete ruleset", that's an area where it stands head and shoulders above most systems designed specifically for videogames: the stat range between the ordinary newbie weapon and the ultimate one is meaningful but fairly limited and secondary abilities are what makes the most difference. This is brilliant because one good item can stay good for a large part of the game and you can have several "more or less equivalent" ones to swap at your need, rather than constantly replacing everything at every single level up (which, game economy aside, can become fairly tedious when you need to dress up an entire party).

Yeah, itemization continues to suck, there's no way to deny it. You collect an object and after some hours you level up two or three times and it becomes shit, even if it's a legendary or unique piece, since even common items will deal much more damage if they are just a few level higher. Now compare that with BG2 (but even PoE is way better in this, even if it is not as good as BG2), in which you could find some nice items early in the game and carry them on with you for a long time, eventually switching to something else when facing some enemies instead of others or stuff like that.
Anyway, there's little do about it. People already pointed that out to Swen many times but it seems he's a fan of this approach, so I wouldn't count on big changes in the future sadly.

 

[Urthor]

Instead of expansions and extra content I'd like they to actually finish making Act 4 not shipping a buggy mess plzthxty

 

[Drowed]

Well, they can actually finish making Act 4 and balance the game, AND make an expansion. Why not both?

 

[Tavernking]

I am the greatest contributor on this site and nobody has bought this game for me yet.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Goral]

Nothing surprising.

That's not certain - the first game didn't get one, after all. I can think of reasons why an expansion would be more likely this time, but you can't be sure.

It seems pretty certain to me. First game didn't get one because the reception while very, very good wasn't nearly as good as this one and they were going the CD Projekt Red approach (make the first game as good as possible, then release EE to show how reliable you are and go for the expansion the next game). PoE got expansions, Tyranny as well and I can bet that Larian will too, especially now. Also, they have Gamemaster mode now so they can sell scenarios.

Codex review when? And by whom?

 

[flabbyjack]

Codex reviews are notoriously late.

I hope Larian is working on not becoming victims of their own success.

Also -- take the kash (for trash DLCs), you dummies.

 

[catfood]

just add native linux support ok

Codex reviews are notoriously late.]

the grimoire one wasnt

Silly, Maxie. Linux isn't for games.

 

[Quantomas]

Metacritic has nearly ten reviews that give D:OS2 a flawless score. From what I have seen from the game so far, it is well deserved.

It's not that some of its game systems couldn't be implemented better, but D:OS2 gets so many things right that it restores your faith that devs actually could take advantage of the progress made in the underlying tech during the last decades. Compared to D:OS2 PoE looks like a set piece, a game produced to spec. It is clear now that Larian used an open development process that allowed for experimentation and adapting to user feedback throughout the entire development. Add to it that Larian had the guts to ramp up the effort and put additional money into the development to match their expanding vision, the result stands tall and deservedly well above the competition. It is nearly incredible that they managed to add a truly competent game master mode on top of the single player and coop experience.

The game itself feels big. It's not only the seemless world that you could explore without loading times. The range of game systems, skills, items and encounters offers you so many options to interact with the world and play the game the way you want that you will come back again and again for more.

For veterans, playing on tactician difficulty is a must. There has been criticism that the armour system channels you down either a fully blown magical party development path or going entirely for physical damage. In practice, I haven't felt that limitation (mostly playing with three party members developed for magic power and a rogue) because in battle you can easily have your party members pick different marks without feeling penalized as for example in PoE or most D&D games. It is also helped by the fact that you can switch out weapons in combat with only spending In general D:OS2 doesn't force you down the tank, DPS and healer route but allows for more viable party builds. The battles are much more open than in D&D because opponents can mostly always reach all your party members. That this works out in the game is owed to quality encounter design. Every battle (the prolog tutorial exempted) has enemies that put you into a tight spot and which are smartly positioned. Mostly always, if you are defeated, you will discover that the environment allows you to approach a battle more smartly by taking advantage of height and obstacles and how to employ these in elemental combat warfare.

Some fans feared that the story might be gimmicky, which turned out to be unfounded. The story is as serious as PoE's and features even similar themes. But where PoE's story felt forced on you, D:OS2 casts you into a living and breathing world that gives you choices. If you want you can avoid engaging emotionally with the main conflict and simply pursue your goal.

What Larian achieved here can only be understood if you look at the bigger picture, and Sven Vincke's leadership features big here. The core vision for the game was already present in the first Divinity, the idea to have a fantasy RPG in which you can do a wide variety of things that add to each other. D:OS2 is the fulfillment of this vision, with systemic gameplay, combat and storytelling at its best. Larian had the same problems with publishers as a lot of other independent studios. It is important to realize that Sven Vincke recognized this and made the right call for the company to build up a reserve until they could co-finance their games and become more independent of publishers. This was a slow road to success that required patience but ultimately enabled Larian to develop D:OS2 on its own terms and adapt the development process as they saw fit. Given all the systems implemented and the sheer amount of features that made it into the game and the quality of how these turned out, it is only logical to assume that Sven's leadership, vision and competence made the difference here. That goes from the writing, D:OS2 had at least 8 writers, over the environmental sound and score to the voice acting. A good number of reviewers called the writing, music and voice acting stellar or attributed similar superlatives.

The result is that each 100,000 units sold earn Larian some $3M which is an astounding success for a singleplayer indie RPG. Publishers take note. And Obsidian should too if they want to break the vicious cycle of having to hire out on cutthroat terms.

If I could ask for one improvement: make the quest markers on the map optional.

 

[Infinitron]

^Wish I had the slurp rating.

 

[thesheeep]

Well, after playing some more and now being level 13, the armor system becomes more bearable later on, on Tactician.
You just have to learn to focus on one armor type. In fact, physical/magical mixed parties are MUCH worse than focused ones, even against one-sided enemies, which are pretty rare.

Still, the damage some enemies dish out is beyond ridiculous (some can kill a character in a single turn), as is their HP/armor sponginess - thankfully there is already a mod out there lowering the damaga/hp/armor bonuses enemies get on Tactician.
And the start of the game is just beyond frustrating as all above is still true, but you simply do not yet have enough tools available to you to deal with most situations and have to rely on extreme cheese (and luck).

If they reduce sponginess of enemies on Tactician and turn down the chapter 1 difficulty somewhat, the experience would be improved a lot.

Of course, the best thing would be to just return to the old system and scrap that armor nonsense altogether, but that's just not going to happen.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

just add native linux support ok

It's rock solid under Wine other than book text not appearing. Hopefully that'll be fixed in the next release of Wine. Doesn't look like a driver or Mesa issue as Nvidia race traitors are reporting the same problem.

 

[Grotesque]

I've been playing this game and I have a blast. (lvl 13) On tactician difficulty of course and really had to use my brain in many instances.

The shit part with item management UI from the first game remains but what I like also is the fact that there are real money sinks in the game and item vendors are not just for decor like in the other games. To be successful in combat you have to constantly buy gear/potions/skillbooks because the loot is with random stats and the best items are those in synergy with your build.
I wonder if the "unique" tagged items are not with random stats.

So of course the game will feel hard if you don't invest in gear and especially skillbooks.
Also the best skills are those that force the enemy to skip a turn and player mobility on the battlefield.
Also attacking a party even with 1 level more than you would spell certain doom for you but the game always gives you the possibility to be overleveled or at least at the same level.

You just need to be thorough in exploration unlike like other shit games that bloats you with XP and makes combat a breeze (eg Pillars of Eternity)


I hope they will note tone down the difficulty in the next patch they will release next week