Please make the keeper of secret books restock

[Rae]

I could write a long nerd essay on the topic, but I'll keep it simple. A lot of the changes to rebalance the game removed gameplay decisions from the player. As a developer, Larian should consider that different players garner fun from their game in different ways. Personally, my friend and I simply did not find playing through the original Divinity Original Sin fun the intended way, and we fell to breaking the combat system in half. Doing this with a friend and turning it into a competition of us vs the game is how we enjoyed a game we would have normally regretted buying. Along the way we found hilarious glitches, inexcusable bugs, and many many problems with the original game that would have normally turned us off, but were simply amusing since we had ceased to take it seriously.

EE came out, and the combat system has been rebalanced, choices have been removed, sneaking and backstabbing is nearly useless now, skillbooks on the Keeper don't restock, spells have been shifted around between schools (and in some instances still show the old school on their tooltips) and the only thing given to us in return are wands and grenades. These types of games often gain replayability through an open combat system, yet Enhanced Edition only seems to have closed it off more. In our original playthrough we played with a shadowblade that focused on backstabbing and a rogue that used sneaking guerilla bonus with a bow with Madora and Jahan to fill out our roster. In the current state, we could probably repeat the same roster, but everything about our playstyle has been nerfed so incredibly hard it would be a chore to get through the first chapter, and even then we're still not having fun with it. We put off playing it whenever we can, just because our preferred method of play has been all but removed.

Consider giving some choices back to the player and let them enjoy the games how they wish to and not how you want them to.

[Ssenkrad_II]

Wow, just found this, and wow... Thank you for posting, few of us have and we have all been attacked for doing so...

I played as a back stab assassin and my wife was a bow magic user and we also used Jahan and Madora- same problem when hitting the EE!

The EE isn't a normal "increase" or "add on" or "expansion" as you yourself described, they took MUCH MORE out of the game then they put back into it, making it a "different game" not a "vast improvement and addition" that it really needed... Over a dozen skills are now gone and some builds are all but destroyed, some of the most beloved voice acting was also removed (the new male voices are ALL now terrible) and replaced with either worse voice acting or around the same, and the list goes on...

I don't know if selling the books would fix the problems but it is yet another thing that has been taken OUT of the game that really didn't need to be... I wouldn't care if they sold unlimited numbers of the skill/att books, but at a large price. It is one of many things that have been removed and not replaced with anything else meaningful or fun, I do hope they listen and bring some stuff back!

[guntoting_lawbreaker]

Me and my wife agree completely. Everything has been nerfed to oblivion. The enemies all have insane amounts of action points. The enemies are dropping crap white items. The chests all have crap white items. The enemies can shoot through black smoke and objects that we can't shoot through. The game was fun before and now it's just a cheap chore to play.

[Ssenkrad_II]

^^Shooting through smoke is VERY ****** annoying! Does happen now and didn't before- I think an attempt to help nerf "midnight oil" as that would basically blind people so that they would have to rush you (because they couldn't see through the smoke and thus couldn't shoot through it)

Not only are a lot of iterms dropping white and worthless, have you noticed that the SAME EXACT ITEMS are dropping? We could go an entire playthrough of the original and not find two exact items but in EE we are finding doubles all the time- like they got rid of random loot and made the loot more standardized?

The other thing I didn't mention and you didn't as well was the addition of a million and a half traps; also making it less fun and more of a chore.

[guntoting_lawbreaker]

True man the traps are ridiculous. Fortunately the wife is addicted to perception, but I agree it sucks. Especially that part getting down to headless Nick.

And you are right about the same items dropping. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but it always seems like it is the opposite of the items our characters would use. Were playing a warrior and a wizard lone wolf, so it is constant crossbows and daggers.

Right before we saved and quit for the day earlier, I was standing right by this ai archer in black smoke, he literally shot all the way through it to hit my wife, of course sho couldn't shoot back, but when I tried to hit him right beside me it said I couldn't see him. I don't know what they were thinking letting the ai cheat, but I do know it blows.

We played 300 hours of the original version, and loved every minute of it, but most of these changes are beyond all comprehension. And what is up with the voices? The voice acting was freaking awesome and now it is ear bleeding bad.

I don't want to rip on them too bad though because it is such an awesome game. Hopefully they'll just patch the cheating ai, and crap items were getting. I feel sorry for the people who can't get the original though. It was far superior.

[jamesc70]

I can see why they removed the Teller of Secrets restocking. First, merchants restock at like 1300 every day, in addition to when you level up. So you could leave your PC on, go out for a few hours, come back and buy another set of stat and skill books (repeat until the game is easily beaten).

Second, having them restock is like having a free Lone Wolf trait without the restriction of followers. If you get the Teller at level 10, and only buy the books on level up, that is 60 skill points (level 22 is easily reached). So you get 12*5 +27 = 87 skill points (5 start, 22 from levelling, rest from books), compared to a lone wolf which gets 44 + 5 + 5 = 74 (44 from leveling, 5 to start and 5 from one book).

Plus, there are other places to get those books like the chest in the Homestead, and pre-EE with Lucky Charm I've found them in chests in the world (haven't tried LC in the EE yet).

The great thing about this game is that it is hard. I'm so sick of easy games where you never die if you have half a clue on the game mechanics. Being able to buy those books over and over removes any difficulty, and it removes choices and makes having a Wizard with 3 magic skils at 5 and the other two at 4 easy.

Why not play on easy instead?

[Dr.Fumetastic]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

Why not play on easy instead?

Because easy doesn't fix lacking build variety, weird AI behaviour, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ drops, bad voice acting nor the insanely annoying amount of traps. It's that simple.

[Rae]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

The great thing about this game is that it is hard. I'm so sick of easy games where you never die if you have half a clue on the game mechanics. Being able to buy those books over and over removes any difficulty, and it removes choices and makes having a Wizard with 3 magic skils at 5 and the other two at 4 easy.

Why not play on easy instead?

You're missing the point. My friend and I don't find this game enjoyable to play normally. Breaking it was how we had fun. Playing it on easy would make it so there's no reason to even play a game we found too easy on the current hardest difficulty. We wanted to play EE to give it a chance, just to see what they'd fixed, but so far nothing has been improved, everything we've seen is a downgrade. So, we decided to fall back to our previous tactic which now isn't available, even though it was a decision that we, as players, consciously made not something we stumbled upon. The developers, by nerfing everything they thought was too powerful, removed choices from the players.

Again, I could write a lot on the topic, but the best example I can think of is from Pillars of Eternity. Chanters in Pillars of Eternity are hilariously overpowered, yet everyone that I've talked to about the game never said this was a bad thing. On the contrary, they all described how it made it fun because they enjoyed that. If you found them cheap, you could simply not use them, or you could have fun using them to destroy everything. It became very clear very quickly how powerful they were and you were given the choice to use them or not. The choice was in the player's hands and many players replayed the game both with and without them.

[Ssenkrad_II]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

I can see why they removed the Teller of Secrets restocking. First, merchants restock at like 1300 every day, in addition to when you level up. So you could leave your PC on, go out for a few hours, come back and buy another set of stat and skill books (repeat until the game is easily beaten).

Problem is then with the econ of the game, not with the purchasing- what you are saying here is that you have unlimited money and can thus buy enough books to make the game pointless. Thus the point is that there is too much money in the game and not enough things to buy with it; econ problem, not a balance problem. Dragon Age Origins if you added the option to buy skills books forever (errrr, happened) it didn't break the game because you didn't have enough money and/or there were other great things to get WITH the money! Econ problem, 100% !

Originally posted by Dr.Fumetastic:

Originally posted by jamesc70:

Why not play on easy instead?

Because easy doesn't fix lacking build variety, weird AI behaviour, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ drops, bad voice acting nor the insanely annoying amount of traps. It's that simple.

100% spot on. I really enjoy the NEW voiced lines (ie. "ice blast!") but can't for the life of me understand changing old voiced lines that were already done, let alone ones that were some of the best voiced lines this entire game had- "The sights, the sounds, the chaos!" or "death comes creeping for you, Victoria!", both of which are ear bleeding bad now...

[jamesc70]

Pillars of Eternity was terrible; not sure if that's a good choice to make your argument. You could even charm boss monsters in that game.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416955858

The last third of that game I didn't even bother looting anything unless I needed an item for a door or something. If that is the kind of thing you like, why not play it?

[Ssenkrad_II]

^^ I did not like PoE at all... I feel that Icewind Dale I-II and BG I-II are better games. Edit: I would also add that they HAVE nerf'd almost everything into oblivion in PoE as well, including the chanters, which is a huge part of why I hate the game. Stop taking away options and claiming balance, you end up killing your own games!

I also however feel like the DOS;EE is not a straight up improvement or expansion like I did for games such as XCOM; Enemy Within; I feel like it is a "different game", and a game that I like LESS than the original.

Walking through Best Buy the other day I couldn't help but feel the cold confirmation of why the "difference" took place, as I glanced over the shiny new DOS;EE XBOX one game selling for over 60$...

Larian Studio's gets a +1 in Pragmatic and +1 in Materialistic for their work on the EE.

[Rae]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

Pillars of Eternity was terrible; not sure if that's a good choice to make your argument. You could even charm boss monsters in that game.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416955858

The last third of that game I didn't even bother looting anything unless I needed an item for a door or something. If that is the kind of thing you like, why not play it?

And the boss of Hiberheim's AI was so bad you could make him kill himself due to one of the gamebreaking bugs I spoke about in the first post, what exactly is your point? Pillars of Eternity might not be a game that you personally liked, but was widely received as a great game in the genre. It's different from Divinity, but that's not the point. The point is that it had an open ended combat system which leads to more replayability than the current EE system.

[jamesc70]

Sorry, I can't take you seriously if you think Pillars' gameplay offers so much replayability versus Divinity. I've played through D:EE three times now, and could barely make myself finish Pillars once and never want to play it again.

Let's agree to disagree.

I won't agree with 'widely received as a great game though'... you are stretching the truth far too thin on that one. Widely received as a sub-par BG I'll agree with though.

[Ssenkrad_II]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

[PoE was] Widely received as a sub-par BG I'll agree with though.

Correct, most people I know feel Icewind Dale I-II and BG II were better in every sense... PoE will be forgotten in a few years and never revisited.