Divinity: Original Sin 2 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[anus_pounder]

So apparently the next EA patch that was due yesterday is now delayed for a bit? What was this patch gonna add? Undead and dorf premade - i.e. never touch - origins?

You'd never touch a character whose origin was written by MCA?

Hnnggg, tempting. I'll go half and half. I'll grab them as a party member.

 

[Zanzoken]

I will probably try out a couple different races but honestly wouldn't have given a shit if they had just stayed with humans.

 

[imweasel]

What was this patch gonna add?

Mostly just bug fixes and missing assets I believe. Pretty much uninteresting for anybody that has already finished early access.

 

[Seethe]

I will probably try out a couple different races but honestly wouldn't have given a shit if they had just stayed with humans.

The lizards are cool tbh. I like the racial tensions between the races, it's cool to roleplay around that.

 

[anus_pounder]

Its a pity the female lizards don't look like the princess in Dragon Commander. She was p. cute. :3

Also, 700MB patch hit.

 

[Infinitron]

UPDATE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2/posts/1712732

“Welcome to Fort Joy,” the trader growls. “Lookin’ for something to ease the pain?”

You look down at the table before you, covered in miscellaneous odds and ends. You spot a healing potion, a level three club, and a gleaming red apple.
You already have a backpack full of healing potions, and your level two Damoclean Dagger is pretty good, so you don’t need to swap weapons yet, but that apple looks pretty tasty.
You pull out your purse. “How much for the fruit?”
“Welcome to Fort Joy?” asks the trader.
“Wait, wha-”
“Lookin’ for something to ease the pain!”
“Yeah, I’m just wondering how much it is for-”
“Welcome. To Fort Joy.”
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding. The dialog’s busted!”
“Lookin’ for someth-”
“I want -- To buy -- This -- Apple.”
“Welcome to Fort-”

You roll your eyes - this is a waste of time! You reach out and grab the apple. But as you do, the world seems to flicker - just for a moment. Looking around, you notice that broken barrels are suddenly mended and misplaced items are back in their rightful places. And that dwarf that kept climbing and falling down the ladder is standing up and dusting himself off.

You feel something clamp down hard on your arm. Looking over, you see the trader gripping your sleeve - the almost-stolen apple in your hand. He picks up the club, pulls you close and growls-

Welcome to Kickstarter Update #30!

It’s been a busy few weeks for us (because of course it has), but we’ve been hard at work prepping for the first patch, which is going out - well, right now. Of course that’s not all we’ve been doing, but we’ll let Swen explain why it’s been an especially hectic time at Larian HQ.



Patchnotes
Of course, the big news is that we’ve released our first patch for Divinity: Original Sin 2. This patch is based off weeks of feedback and brings a raft of bug fixes both big and small.

The patch will be automatically applied by Steam, so you don’t have to do anything, but be warned: your saved games will no longer work with the new version of the game.

DO NOT PANIC, if you were in the middle of a game and don’t want to start over, you can switch back to the previous version of the game by:

1) Opening your Steam Library, right clicking Divinity: Original Sin 2, and selecting ‘Properties’.

2) In the properties window, click the “BETAS” tab.

3) Click the drop-down arrow and choose the branch ea_version_1 - For saves with version 2.0.165.341

4) Click ‘Close’.

Once you’ve done this, Steam will not update your version, so you will be able to load your old savegames, and keep on playing!

Of course, for the majority that upgrade, you'll get the benefit of over 130 changes in this patch, from major bug fixes to minor tweaks. If you want to know every last detail of what's changed, please click here to see the full breakdown.




Early Access: By the Numbers
As well as your feedback on the forums, many of you have also sent us your statistics every time you ended a game of Divinity: Original Sin 2. It's been an education, and really has made a great read.

For example, when you face off against Alexandar at the end of Act 1, on average you'll be wearing 2.2 pieces of armour, juggling 7 weapons (and 3.98 grenades), and will have over 60 items in your backpack, so ... basically, you're a bunch of violent, egomaniacal hoarders. Just our sort of people!

It’s also been a real insight to see where you’re putting your skill points when you’re creating and leveling up your characters. Such as...

But this isn't just for pretty infographics: we can't make a polished, well-balanced game without information like this, so our thanks again to everyone who’s sent us data.

Igromir
As Swen mentioned, we were at at Igromir in Moscow earlier this month, where we got to show off Divinity: Original Sin 2 to our Russian fans.

We had a fantastic response, with a line that looped around the booth.

It was a great chance to introduce the game to a new audience, but we still had plenty of experienced Divinity players there to keep an eye on us.

Naturally, Dallis was on-hand to make sure security was up to scratch.

And to top it all off, we won Best RPG of the Show!

Working for the Man
Speaking of Russia, if you ever felt the urge to move to Saint Petersburg, then we have good news! We’ve just put up a slew of new job listings up for our Russian office, so check out our jobs page if you want to work with an award-winning RPG studio. (And if your Russian isn't all that great, there are still positions available in Quebec and Dublin too.)

In Closing...
And that’s about it for this update! We’ll have another patch coming soon, and almost certainly another update with it. Until then, we'll keep on hammering at Act 2 and cooking up more surprises. We can’t reveal much right now, but I think it’s safe to say you’re going to love[CENSORED] when we launch it in [CENSORED]. It’ll let you [VERY CENSORED] and you’ll be able to [HOLY CRAP, SO CENSORED] too. But until then, please keep letting us know what’s going wrong (and what’s going right) in our feedback section of the forums.

Happy adventures, folks!

Shout Outs



First up, there’s Dungeon Builder: An Isometric Map Maker for Role Players. You won’t be surprised to hear that we’re big fans of tabletop roleplaying games at Larian, so we’ve seen plenty of badly sketched-out rooms and maps in our time. Dungeon Builder wants to make it much easier for your Game Master to prep their games by creating gorgeous, clear isometric maps for your campaign.




And then we have Gamers for Good’s Undertale Charity Fanart Book. Created by the Undertale fanart community, the proceeds from this book will go to help those struggling with mental health issues via the charities Anxiety Gaming, Child’s Play, and Take This. It sounds like a really great cause, and looks like a really great book, so if you’re interested please docheck it out.




Finally, we have Wasteland 3. So, what do we need to tell you about Wasteland 3? Absolutely nothing, because you’re all well-informed gamers with your ears to the ground when it comes to the latest RPGs. You know Wasteland 3 - you’re probably already backers! But just in case you want to watch the pitch video one more time: here you go.

 

[CyberWhale]

Jesus fucking God that is one of the most boring offices I have ever seen. How about putting some shit on those dull white walls?

 

[anus_pounder]

Wait wait wait. Is this game set AFTER or BEFORE the first game?

 

[Infinitron]

Wait wait wait. Is this game set AFTER or BEFORE the first game?

Not only does it take place after Original Sin 1, it takes place after Divine Divinity.

 

[Lacrymas]

Are we going to get it on GOG this century? Didn't watch the video update, so I don't know if he said anything about that in there.

 

[Jinn]

Jesus fucking God that is one of the most boring offices I have ever seen. How about putting some shit on those dull white walls?

Pretty sure they're more concerned with setting up their desks so they can work and waiting for the threat of a roof collapsing on them to pass before putting up their dragon posters. Also, it looks like there is a ton of other renovation going on, so most of those people will probably be moving their desks again. Besides that, I would love to work in a classy-ass building like that. Those tall ceilings my dudes.

 

[anus_pounder]

Wait wait wait. Is this game set AFTER or BEFORE the first game?

Not only does it take place after Original Sin 1, it takes place after Divine Divinity.

Source? Not that I don't believe you, but if the official website's claim that this takes place a thousand years after OS1 is to be taken literally, OS2 is still 200 and something years behind DD.

Anyway, glad to learn about the time skip. Hopefully we might even see a game set after Divinity II in our lifetime.

EDIT: Sorry, was going by this timeline here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin/posts/452503

 

[Infinitron]

Wait wait wait. Is this game set AFTER or BEFORE the first game?

Not only does it take place after Original Sin 1, it takes place after Divine Divinity.

Source? Not that I don't believe you, but if the official website's claim that this takes place a thousand years after OS1 is to be taken literally, OS2 is still 200 and something years behind DD.

Anyway, glad to learn about the time skip. Hopefully we might even see a game set after Divinity II in our lifetime.

EDIT: Sorry, was going by this timeline here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin/posts/452503

First result, last page: https://www.google.com/search?q="DO...rome..69i57.2223j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Zanzoken]

 

[LESS T_T]

Are we going to get it on GOG this century?

 

[Lacrymas]

Cool, I guess. I don't know why everything takes so long on GOG.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like they're testing GOG build on Steam: https://steamdb.info/app/435150/history/



Also: http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=593861#Post593861

Let's talk about durability

So - we keep on having discussions about durability and figured we'd throw it in the group and see what comes up.

We're open to try to remove it (and thus also the entire repairing mechanic) to see what it gives but before we do that we want to find something different that makes bashing open wooden doors & chests with weapons not the default option. The design is such that any way of opening a locked door or chest that doesn't involve the key has some type of cost.

If you bash open a wooden chest, you know you'll pay with durability. The cost here is that eventually that'll cause you to have to consume a repair hammer which has a gold value.

Obviously, you can choose to burn a chest (wooden objects have high resistances against other types of elemental damage), but then you have the risk that's what is inside will start burning. And if you burn a door, that takes time. Which, with the new reactivity mechanics, increases the risk that your crime will be discovered. Here the risk of discovery or loss is the cost.

And then there is lock picking. There the cost is that of the lock pick and the need to invest points in thievery.

We've got a couple of ideas but we'd be curious to hear what you guys think.

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey bait!

 

[Lacrymas]

Ugh, durability is so pointless in single player games, it only "works" in MMOs and only as a money sink. NWN2 made it so there's a chance an item would be broken if you bash open a chest, Swordflight makes it so that some chests can't be bashed and can only be lock-picked (which is maybe the lesser of all evils). I don't think any of this is an elegant solution. Maybe remove bashing altogether and hide keys for all chests? That doesn't make lockpicking not useless though, but it's always a waste of points if you can bash things. Meaningful skill checks is obviously the go-to solution, also have some zones that are only accessible with lock-picking and has some unique thief gear, maybe a unique thief quest. That all depends if they are willing to put in the effort, but nobody has ever said that making games is easy. This all comes down to the extraneous nature of pick-pocketing/lock-picking in non-single-pc/non-stealth games, they are different/alien skillsets to what you actually need in this type of game (i.e. party-based) since you can't force players to bring rogues to lock-pick doors that are needed to progress.

 

[Roguey]

Repair hammers as a consumable resource is an incline from D:OS where repairing really was just busywork.

In D:OS I just fireballed everything though. The "you might get discovered" deal is really only an issue in civilized areas, where I simply just don't. It's not even worth it unless there's great handplaced loot to be had, and we know Swen's thoughts about that (detracts from item fever).

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, that doesn't just introduce more MMO mechanics into a single player game (sarcasm). It's a ridiculous solution to an imaginary problem they made, it's not even much of a solution, it's still just busywork but you'd have to go buy more hammers each time you run out (or just buy enough for the whole game if you can) which introduces even more busywork. Not to mention that durability exists even outside bashing chests and doors (I think?), so that affects all players regardless if they have lock-picking or not, so it reinforces the idea that lock-picking is useless since you are already going to be repairing your gear, so you might as well bash everything and take some other, more useful, skill. This is what happens when you don't think through your design decisions or try to "experiment" so you can fix things that aren't broken. This doesn't come into play only if they make repair hammers incredibly expensive (compared to the money you can get) and have to be used very frequently if you bash things; that introduces another problem though and people would just prefer not to bash chests since the costs of bashing is greater than the value in the chest (unless it isn't and we are still back to being pointless). Would that make lock-picking viable? Maybe? It will be viable only if the game is hard enough and resource management vicious enough to make not wasting money very important. That won't happen obviously, because the game is relatively mainstream and nobody has the balls to do it.

 

[SniperHF]

Not to mention you can just keep a few of the random crap items you get that are only worth 1 gold and use them to bash stuff.

 

[vmar]

Durability was one of the more annoying things in DOS for me, I'd be happy if they just removed it. I remember certain longer fights where my scoundrel would have to repair 1 or both of her daggers multiple times, even if I repaired them before starting combat. This doesn't add anything to the game, it's just tiresome having to open inventory>right click>repair occasionally. This was mainly an issue playing with 2 Lone Wolves, where the scoundrel was doing the majority of the damage and attacking more often than my other char which would cause her weapons to wear down more often than normal.

 

[Zanzoken]

How about this -- if you want to steal shit out chests, put points in lockpicking.

Not every problem needs to be solvable by all characters. That is shitty casualfag design.

 

[Roguey]

How about this -- if you want to steal shit out chests, put points in lockpicking.

That's out of the question. Swen likes his Ultima-inspired pseudo-simulation.