Divinity Original Sin 2 is out

[civvver]

I never played the original. Does anyone have it? Care to do a little review on the old one or the new one?

I have heard it compared to old school rpgs with turn based tactical combat based on d&d. Ouch. That sounds overwhelming to me. I tried to get into neverwinter nights 2 and just couldn't do it. I didn't know how to build my hero to do damage or how to move (what are these strikes of opportunity killing all my guys?) So I'm trying to figure out if this game will appeal to me or not. I loved dragon age origins, da2 was ok, but those are very rpg lite.

 

[sherbz]

IMO, and there will be a lot of people who will contradict me im sure, Divinity is the sort of game you have to invest a lot of time in. Its certainly not pick up and play. I personally didnt have the patience for it. If i was younger and had more time, i migth have done. But it just seemed a little too daunting and deep for me, so i switched off. That said, what i did see of it, i thought it was very well made. So if you have the time and inclination, you would probably have a blast. Its just i found it a bit too hardcore for my tastes. In RPGs story comes first for me. And i prefer it if the game does it right from the off. And i got the impression you had to dig for the gold that divinity has to offer. I might go back it some day. But as i have so many other competing titles i decided to shelve it.

 

[civvver]

Yikes. I'll probably feel the same way then. Thanks for the headsup.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It's not that complicated and really worth a try. The combat system is among the best I've ever seen in an RPG, far better than the old real-time with pause stuff, and a lot of it is really intuitive, like using a rain spell to put out the fuses on living bombs, using a combination of fire and rain to create fog that protects from ranged attacks, using cold spells on the puddles to create a slippery surface or using lighting on a puddle if multiple enemies are standing in it.
It's hard enough that you need those tricks, but they all make sense.
The skill system has a few pitfalls, but you don't need a perfect character and have to be daft to build a really crappy one.

The reviews for the sequel are extremely good so far, but I currently don't have the time to spare between XCOM2, Witcher 3 and the banalities of life like work, so I'll hold off for now.

 

[sherbz]

It's not that complicated and really worth a try. The combat system is among the best I've ever seen in an RPG, far better than the old real-time with pause stuff, and a lot of it is really intuitive, like using a rain spell to put out the fuses on living bombs, using a combination of fire and rain to create fog that protects from ranged attacks, using cold spells on the puddles to create a slippery surface or using lighting on a puddle if multiple enemies are standing in it.
It's hard enough that you need those tricks, but they all make sense.
The skill system has a few pitfalls, but you don't need a perfect character and have to be daft to build a really crappy one.

The reviews for the sequel are extremely good so far, but I currently don't have the time to spare between XCOM2, Witcher 3 and the banalities of life like work, so I'll hold off for now.

Dont get me wrong, i do actually think it is a good game (from what ive played). Its just i think it requires more effort than most others. Sort of akin to Europa Universallis for me (another game i would probably like if i could be bothered to learn how to play it). Its also more focussed on the combat mechanics. Which are better than many other RPGs, but if you prefer story over combat or game mechanics, then its not quite as fun.

 

[Ajidica]

I really enjoyed Divinity OS 1 as the combat was a nice change from standard RPG combat with the focus on elemental/environmental effects. I'm not very good at hardcore games but once you got past level 4 I never really felt it was unfairly hard (apart from the stupid desert spiders) or difficult to understand. The environmental/elemental interactions are all pretty obvious to figure out, with a few interesting ones such as poison being flammable and being able to put down an electric stun on blood. Although the story was nothing to write home about the characters in the Enhanced Edition were pretty good, notably the southern-accent paladin Madora and Jahan.

I picked up Divinity 2 yesterday and I'm enjoying it so far. The additional races/character variation is nice, which was a weakness of the first game. Combat feels a bit more lethal but that could just be the early level and my party is squishier than I usually run in games. Also, it could just be they overloaded the first area but there is definitely a natural non-linear path, I've already identified four ways to accomplish the first 'task'.

Oh, something that needs to be in every party based RPG from now on is the ability to change the class of your party members when you recruit them. For example, one of the characters you can recruit, Ifan, is naturally an archer but I needed a tanky two-hander so upon recruiting him had him change his initial class to a knight. This way I get to make the party match my character combat-wise and I can choose the characters I like.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

When I was following the development of Original SIn 2 I was concerned it's centered toomuch on multiplayer and companions a in single player would be less developed than in the first one.
So, how are the characters ?
Better or worse than in the first game ?
Would I miss out if I play alone and/or make a custom character ?


Edit: So, I spontaniously bought it and have been playing for over half an hour. And by playing I mean getting stuck on character creation, unable to decide between Fane, Sebille and a custom character.
Already makes a pretty good slav representation impression for having Tambura as an instrument choice.

 

[Akka]

Characters are MUCH better than the ones in the first game. Like, much. The writing itself is considerably better and strike a better balance between funny and serious (the first one was a bit overtly silly IMO, though the main story was pretty dark).

You do lose a bit making a custom char, because each predetermined char has his own story that he's following on top of the main one, but then you can not play them all at the same time so if you really want to see all the story in depth you'll have to play them all
(it's still pretty much sidequests, so it's not a big loss, and I'm still playing a custom character anyway)

As I said in another thread, the main criticism I do is that the fights are quite overwhelming (at least in the beginning) and the number/items inflation is just stupid. Save for that, it's really good.

I never played the original. Does anyone have it? Care to do a little review on the old one or the new one?

I have heard it compared to old school rpgs with turn based tactical combat based on d&d. Ouch. That sounds overwhelming to me. I tried to get into neverwinter nights 2 and just couldn't do it. I didn't know how to build my hero to do damage or how to move (what are these strikes of opportunity killing all my guys?) So I'm trying to figure out if this game will appeal to me or not. I loved dragon age origins, da2 was ok, but those are very rpg lite.

Both OS are HEAVY on the roleplay side (OS1 has even a very interesting twist, where you create two main character and you can roleplay BOTH, even arguing between themselves). They are also TRUE RPG, that is you're not just chosing the tone of your answers, but your acts and answers can actually have consequences - it's much closer to Fallout than Dragon Age in this aspect.
They are really old-school, in a good way (no handholding, no infodump, you feel clever when you find an answer and you slowly discover the world). Haven't tried the EE of OS1 (supposedly they improved the writing and the characters), but even in the non-EE state it was already a classic.

They also are HEAVY on the tactical fighting, and really challenging (like, plain HARD). Of course half the braggarts on Internet will claim they found the normal ("classic") mode "so easy they could finish it asleep" and the hard ("tactician") mode barely challenging, but either they're clearly not representative of the average gamer, and/or they're, well, braggarts trying posture.
If you found NWN2 too hard, just go with easy ("Explorer") mode from the get-go.
And both game happily accept mods, it's rather trivial to make your characters overpowered if you want it (though the fighting system IS really interesting).

 

[civvver]

Tactical is ok but nvn2 didn't really explain a lot of the mechanics. I couldn't figure out what stats gave me more dmg, or how to get more hits etc. It's like it assumed you knew d&d rule set. The manual was loooong, like 100 pages in a pdf.

Like I've played final fantasy tactics and that's fine, though that's pretty lite tactics as well I guess. But tactical combat is not immediately a turn off, I just want it to be intuitive.

 

[tesb]

my biggest issue with it's predecessor was the last third of the game, where the quality in quests/world-building as well as the story took a vicious u-turn. so i probably wait a bit to see how this one is going.

 

[Akka]

Yeah, I knew the ADD 3.5 system in and out (I like to read RPG manuals as a hobby ) so NWN2 felt just like home.
OS system is very explanatory (there is tooltip on everything), but it's pretty deep so if you really want to get the intricacies it requires a lot of time and research - hence why it might be better to just start in "easy mode" to skip the need to read everything. IIRC you can switch between easy and medium at will, so if you feel more at home after a while you can switch up.

 

[Fippy]

Yup it's a demanding game, i like that it makes you think all the time basically but that will not be for everybody.
Choices and more choices

That being said, i consider it A+ eye candy as well (more than the first game, which was also very good on graphics) and overall it's a very high quality experience made by rpg pros.
I do hope that the final third will be better this time, as menioned, but obv cannot talk about that yet. It's true, Div1 really lost it there.

 

[Disgustipated]

I do plan on buying this one tomorrow. Although truth be told, I only played the first one once (standard edition not the enhanced edition). It didn't seem to have a lot of replayability. And it suffered from the same problems Witcher 3 and Inquisition had. Far too long. Who wants to replay a 100+ hour game? If the story had been better, perhaps I would have, or if you could do more variation in the story, but you couldn't in the first OS game. Although Witcher 3 is still the worst in replayability due to little variation in the main character.

I'm hearing the story is better this time around. Also you guys should check out the game master mode. It looks really cool and similar to what Neverwinter Nights offered in terms of dungeon master abilities. This one doesn't look like the maps will be as detailed as NWN user created content, but it looks far smoother. Check out Quil18's 3 youtube videos on this (the first video covers the game master mode). As always, youtube is the place to go if you aren't sure about buying a game. I find it far more useful than "reviews" which are often biased because the game developer allowed the reviewers early access and other perks (I'm looking at you Angry Joe, though I do often check out Angry Joe's reviews). Just don't watch too many videos to spoil the whole thing.

As for NWN 2, I found it an excellent game for it's time, but I admit I didn't have the patience to replay it a 3rd time a couple years ago. Newer games have spoiled me, and it's hard to play the old school stuff where I had to cast buffing spells before every major battle. It got tedious casting spells before many battles, I just ran out of patience. But for the mid to later 00's, it was a pretty cool game.

I should warn you all about the difficulty of Original Sin (and OS2 looks to be even tougher). Even on "normal", it's quite difficult. I found myself really struggling until I looked up crafting (rather than try to find books for recipes), because the problem was my equipment wasn't keeping up with the enemy level otherwise, and it was damn near impossible. With crafted equipment, my stuff was equal to the enemy level which made things better. Crafting was a must in the first game because you can't find or buy enough equipment to match enemy level. I'm actually considering lowering the difficulty level to the easiest level when I play OS2 so I have less reloads and can get through the game faster. But we'll see. I'll start off in normal mode, and see how it goes. But I won't hesitate to lower the difficulty level if I get frustrated. There's only so much challenge I want in a game. I don't want a cake walk, but I get tired of reloading often as well.

 

[Disgustipated]

A lot of choices in the beginning. I really prefer custom characters, but I figured I'd try the premade characters. I went with Ifan Ben-Mezd. I changed his appearance and chose the preset class that gives air and water spells. And went with the Pet Pal talent.

I found out the hard way deathfog kills you instantly. Hence the name deathfog.

Only negative so far is the lack of manual. I still have no clue how the armor system works. And I'm still not sure what stats to raise.

Another negative that the first OS game had was the problem of fighting enemies higher than my level. I have 4 level 2 characters trying to fight 5 level 3 characters, and they are so much more powerful than me. I suppose you have to do things in a certain order, I'll have to put this battle off for a later time, or do the "evil" choice.

edit: another negative is the auto follow on the camera keeps "breaking". Perhaps it's something I'm doing. I find I have to constantly readjust the camera in order to see everything. And too bad you can't lower the camera anble as well. And then when I move the camera doesn't follow like it should. Quite an annoying bug.

 

[Akka]

edit: another negative is the auto follow on the camera keeps "breaking". Perhaps it's something I'm doing. I find I have to constantly readjust the camera in order to see everything. And too bad you can't lower the camera anble as well. And then when I move the camera doesn't follow like it should. Quite an annoying bug.

The manual is downloadable from GOG if you bought it there.
As for the system, it's been dumbed down massively from DOS1, so it's pretty straightforward : armour acts as an additional health bar against physical or magical attack and, the most important point : as long as you still have armour, you are protected from the secondary effect that the type of armour resist (typically : physical armour protect against physical CC, bleeding, knockdown, etc. and magical armour does the same for magical CC and so on).

Due to the mangled initiative system (it does NOT work as you would think it does, it's round robin between your team and the enemy's team), typically you dump everything in the relevant damage stat, and once it's full you dump everything in Wit to get the critical bonus.
If you wish to expand on your spells, you can dib a bit in memory, if you think you're too fragile you can spend a few points in Const.

I strongly recommand using the mod which reduces the stat inflation, too.

 

[Disgustipated]

I did lower difficulty in that arena battle. Although I was very close to beating it on normal. I just didn't feel like repeated tries. After I took 2 enemies down, I put the difficulty back up. The big problem with that battle is that enemy spellcaster seems to have at least 5 spells/skills if not 6 while I'm still at 4. Skill books are expensive and I can't exactly afford much, plus there aren't many available. I was getting p'd off how many spells they were throwing at me. My wizard only had 3, and my main character only had 4 (1 which was rain which isn't particularly useful and the other was a healing spell).

Yeah I figured the armor out, it's not a tough concept. It's annoying though having 2 of my party members deal magical damage and 2 deal physical damage. So far my mages seem to really do most of my damage. My physical damage guys get beat up pretty good by the time they are about to penetrate physical armor. So splitting damage isn't the most effective method. But I still feel it's important to focus fire. I honestly don't even remember the system in DOS1 despite playing it all the way through.

I got through the battle in the dungeon without lowering difficulty level, but lost 2 guys and had to burn 2 resurrection scrolls. I've been spoiled by games that have the "unconscious" mechanic. I can't exactly afford all these scrolls.

I'm not sure what you mean by initiative, it seems to work. My rogue gets first attack no matter what (although honestly I'd rather my mage have first shot). I've been putting points into intelligence and memory for my 2 mages, dexterity and wits for my rogue, and strength constitution for my fighter. I'm not sure how much memory I need, I already have so many slots I can't use because I can't afford spell books or none are really available.

Overall a pretty good game, and it's hooked me more than the original did in the early game. I did have a manual for the steam version, but there really wasn't anything in it other than a table at the end showing what the keys do, and a description of the 6 premade characters.

I do have the option of going into the main keep, but the game seems to be warning me against that. I guess I'll pass for now.

 

[Disgustipated]

So far, so good, but I seriously wish they had a difficulty level in between easy and classic. Easy is too easy, and classic can be a little too tough at times. Maybe it will get a little easier as the game progresses, we'll see. They get insane armor even just on classic. I'm seeing enemies with 100 armour already (at level 5). My fighter has nowhere near that.

edit: okay I take part of that back, just checked my fighter, and he has 91 physical armour, but I just recently upgraded a couple pieces of gear. Still it's a shock trying to take down 100 armour, the enemy seems to drain my armour in 1 hit, and it takes me a lot to get 100 armour down. But my rogue has a little better weapons now, but still not magical. I'm using kitchen knives now (level 4) instead of the level 2 shivs.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It definitely gets easier when you get some more skills and have actual options in combat. I'm now level 11 in Act 2 and it's still challenging but nowhere near as frustrating as the first few hours can be. Having summons and some support skills like Haste helps a lot.

 

[Disgustipated]

you may not be able to attack children in this game, but you can attack bear cubs. Not sure if this thing has a quest, he's just sad his mum died. I figure it's just better to kill him.

 

[Disgustipated]

Thank you pathfinding for running me right next to a shrieker.

edit: and later the cat dies. Oh well, not reloading that one.