Divinity: Original Sin 2: Larian doesn't know what 'original' means

You can change difficulty without restarting, can't you?

Anyway, I think I'm coming to the end of Driftwood. I've explored everywhere and am just clearing out Bloodmoon Island. I got around to finishing off the Driftmoon Arena, which was a bit of an anti-climax--to qualify to fight the champion you have to fight four guys blindfolded, which is a bit of a challenge, but then the champion (who isn't significantly tougher than any one of those four guys) challenges you alone? I'm not sure she even managed to get an attack in before she died!

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Originally Posted by factotum

You can change difficulty without restarting, can't you?

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You'd think so, but no. Really strange design decision there.

At least you can't change from Tactician to something else.

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Originally Posted by factotum

Wow. I just had the most intense battle of the game in the Blackpits in Driftwood. For anyone who's also done that, it's the one with all the Oil and Fire Voidlings. Just trying to damage the enemy while not moving (due to the entire screen being on fire!) required a lot of tactical thought, and the Hydrosophist skill that regenerates magic armour for everyone was utterly invaluable.

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This one is a treat. You already beat it, but for anyone else having problems...

There's actually a raised bluff away from the gallows derrick thing. What you can do to make the fight not-quite-so-impossible is send one guy up into the gallows to trigger the fight starting, then you teleport the NPC away over to that Bluff (you should be able to reach it with your added range) - then you follow him with a self-teleport ability like Phoenix Dive. Make sure the majority of your party is already positioned on top of the bluff.

Let the Magisters fight off the slimes, and pick off the slimes one by one as the majority of them have to travel all the way around the gallows derrick thing to reach you.

I'm playing on Tactician mode, so trying to do this battle the "intended" way of huddling up on top of the gallows holding your ground against an onslaught of enemies was pretty much impossible.

I don't think I would have wanted that fight to be any harder than it was, glad I'm in Classic Mode! Oh, Anteros, I checked--the game will allow you to switch freely between Explorer and Classic mode, but if you start on Tactician you can't change it.

Anyway, hit level 17 and have left Driftwood now, on to the Nameless Isle!

I just did that battle (normal difficulty), it was pretty great! Lately, the various parts of the system have started coming together for me, and the game has become extremely fun.

But now I'm stuck at the Eternal tomb boss. :smallfrown: I'll have to teleport back to Driftwood and take care of a few more sidequests...

Yeah I restarted on classic and it's much more enjoyable. Tactician is doable but not fun (to me). Every fight turns into a long drawn out battle of attrition. With classic I'm getting to actually enjoy the combat system instead of cheesing every fight with kiting or summons. Or abusing the AI.

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Originally Posted by Cozzer

But now I'm stuck at the Eternal tomb boss. :smallfrown: I'll have to teleport back to Driftwood and take care of a few more sidequests...

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That one is hard--I first tried it with a level 13 party and got roflstomped; her and her dogs may only be level 14 but they don't mess around. I came back with a level 15 party, started off with a Chain Lightning of my own to match hers, and things went a lot better that time (although Fane still died, because the dogs seemed to find his bones delicious and kept concentrating their attacks on him).

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Originally Posted by Anteros

Don't you find that this breaks the difficulty curve of the game? I know the game practically encourages you to do it, but it just feels too cheap to me. I want to win games like this with my strategic builds and tactics, not because I can cheese the system into infinite resources.

Is anyone else playing on tactician? So far I'm feeling like the only actual added tactical aspect is that enemies have 2 or 3 times more health and armor than on normal. It is admittedly more difficult, but it's the type of difficulty where fights just take more rounds as you whittle the enemies down rather than the fun kind where the enemy is actually smarter. I'm considering a restart. Not because it's too hard, but simply because the play style it seems to require is fairly boring and repetitive.

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I dunno, I find that on Tactician enemies tend to do a lot less dumb ****. I'm playing 4p with a group on Tactician and Lone Wolf (Fane+Lohse) game on Classic on my own. In the former, enemies tend to combo abilities well and try not to waste moves.

In the latter I had one enemy spend four rounds meandering about and casting stuff like Favourable Winds and Blinding Radiance on themselves...which they let run out before approaching either of my party.

This game is very easy to rage at.

Spoiler: Graveyard near Driftwood

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So there's the area in the graveyard with the heroes' tombs that prompts a fight as soon as you check the fourth tomb. Now, outs bad enough that there's a surprise fight against enemies over my level. But this fight with it's BS auto-rezzing of enemies to ridiculous levels... It's literally a case of, "Get party-wiped, load save from hopefully not too far back, play again except with magic future knowledge." It adds up to fights being oftentimes more frustrating than fun unless you massivelly outpower the encounter in which case it's boring. I never feel like I'm playing smart unless I'm cheesing, and that feels more like I found an exploit than good game design.

On a less touchy sunject, how are people distributing stats? I've been splitting between a character's damage stat, Wits, and occasional Memory, but that means I'm neglecting Constitution. How important is it to have a high damage stat? It feels like even with the pumping I've done, I'm only barely managing to stay relevant in fights where just twi or three attacks can kill or severely harm you.

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Originally Posted by Sholos

This game is very easy to rage at.

Spoiler: Graveyard near Driftwood

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So there's the area in the graveyard with the heroes' tombs that prompts a fight as soon as you check the fourth tomb. Now, outs bad enough that there's a surprise fight against enemies over my level. But this fight with it's BS auto-rezzing of enemies to ridiculous levels... It's literally a case of, "Get party-wiped, load save from hopefully not too far back, play again except with magic future knowledge." It adds up to fights being oftentimes more frustrating than fun unless you massivelly outpower the encounter in which case it's boring. I never feel like I'm playing smart unless I'm cheesing, and that feels more like I found an exploit than good game design.

On a less touchy sunject, how are people distributing stats? I've been splitting between a character's damage stat, Wits, and occasional Memory, but that means I'm neglecting Constitution. How important is it to have a high damage stat? It feels like even with the pumping I've done, I'm only barely managing to stay relevant in fights where just twi or three attacks can kill or severely harm you.

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It depends a little bit on the party comp, but ill usually put both points into my damage/armor stat. If I'm using a shield, ill split between the damage stat and con, because shields need con to equip, and on my rogue I do the same, but for wits instead of con. I only really drop points in memory once I start running out of spellbook space. If I'm not using a shield, I ignore con entirely. The armor stats from gear are just so much more important to survivability because they block status effects. If I run out of armor and start taking HP damage, that character is going to get CC's to uselessness anyway.

If I'm playing, say, a battlemage that uses melee and magic abilities, ill split between both damage stats.

I've actually been concentrating on Con and my main damage stats, with occasional points into Memory. I've barely been touching Wits--I think the 2 points I put into Ifan's Wit when I went from level 17 to 18 were the first ones I'd put in there.

Survivability is pretty darned good, though, he's got over 4000 hit points at this level!

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Originally Posted by factotum

I've actually been concentrating on Con and my main damage stats, with occasional points into Memory. I've barely been touching Wits--I think the 2 points I put into Ifan's Wit when I went from level 17 to 18 were the first ones I'd put in there.

Survivability is pretty darned good, though, he's got over 4000 hit points at this level!

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Wits are important. There are quite a few quests you cant finish without sufficient wits to locate hidden objects like switches and levers that let you physically advance.

I've not found a problem with that so far, and I'm halfway through the Nameless Isle. There are generally other methods to get past doors--for instance, a dungeon-style door (e.g. the ones made of crossed iron bars) will usually allow you to teleport someone to the other side. Or you can often just destroy the door (using your bow/crossbow to avoid taking weapon damage).

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Originally Posted by factotum

I've not found a problem with that so far, and I'm halfway through the Nameless Isle. There are generally other methods to get past doors--for instance, a dungeon-style door (e.g. the ones made of crossed iron bars) will usually allow you to teleport someone to the other side. Or you can often just destroy the door (using your bow/crossbow to avoid taking weapon damage).

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ooof. Well, not to spoil anything for you, but

Spoiler: Spoilz ahoy!

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You actually left behind a rather powerful artifact when you did that. And did you just not bring Tarquin with you again? The necromancer is a fount of plot exposition, not to mention a good vendor, but you need a good wits score to finish the quest that brings him back on the boat.

Tarquin is on the boat just fine? Oh, and I did miss creating his artifact in Driftwood, but not because of low wit, because I simply forgot to finish the quest before leaving the place and it doesn't give you any options to continue it when you reach the Isle.

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Originally Posted by Sholos

This game is very easy to rage at.

Spoiler: Graveyard near Driftwood

Show

So there's the area in the graveyard with the heroes' tombs that prompts a fight as soon as you check the fourth tomb. Now, outs bad enough that there's a surprise fight against enemies over my level. But this fight with it's BS auto-rezzing of enemies to ridiculous levels... It's literally a case of, "Get party-wiped, load save from hopefully not too far back, play again except with magic future knowledge." It adds up to fights being oftentimes more frustrating than fun unless you massivelly outpower the encounter in which case it's boring. I never feel like I'm playing smart unless I'm cheesing, and that feels more like I found an exploit than good game design.

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Pretty much my exact complaint as well with the tactician mode. I feel like I'm exploiting the system and future knowledge of fights to win fights rather than using clever tactics. It's a bit better on normal, but not completely.

It doesn't help that the system is so very easy to break that things that would seem like legitimate tactics in other games (summoning, kiting enemies, etc) feel like exploits. The fights just always feel lopsided. Either I use the overpowered strategies and blow throw with no difficulty, or I give the computer a straight fight and I'm at a huge disadvantage.

So...

Spoiler: Huge act 2 spoilers

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Arbitrarily and permanently killing half my party members just because they weren't with me for one fight is a...strange decision. I like that the game is bold enough to kill a party member. I don't like that it's completely arbitrary with nothing I can do to avoid or change it. I definitely don't like that a huge portion of the character's plots are now inaccessible to me without a replay. Especially since that's the only parts of the plot I actually care about. The main plot is a snooze.

Seeing how the different characters would play out their plot lines was the main thing driving me to keep playing, and there's no way I care enough to go through twice. I honestly might just drop the game entirely now. It's a shame it's too late for a refund.

I might just shelve it and keep an eye out for a mod that changes this.

Spoiler

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They do kind of show up again, but not until the end of chapter 5 (Nameless Isle). Wouldn't it have been an absolute pain to keep swapping out party members so you could do all their quests anyway? Especially since you often don't *know* what the next stage of their quest is until you meet someone and they say, "I must speak to this person now!".

On an unrelated note, got a weird bug in Arx--not long after I arrived the entire map is suddenly revealed to me? You can even see that all the indoor and underground areas are separate sections around the edge of the main map, because they're all visible too!

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Originally Posted by factotum

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They do kind of show up again, but not until the end of chapter 5 (Nameless Isle). Wouldn't it have been an absolute pain to keep swapping out party members so you could do all their quests anyway? Especially since you often don't *know* what the next stage of their quest is until you meet someone and they say, "I must speak to this person now!".

On an unrelated note, got a weird bug in Arx--not long after I arrived the entire map is suddenly revealed to me? You can even see that all the indoor and underground areas are separate sections around the edge of the main map, because they're all visible too!

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Every other CRPG that has ever existed has managed to do it, so I don't think it's that big of a pain. It's one of the main draws of these types of games.

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Originally Posted by Anteros

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Every other CRPG that has ever existed has managed to do it, so I don't think it's that big of a pain. It's one of the main draws of these types of games.

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It would probably be mechanically possible, but given that you need to convince your party members that they like you enough to let you be Divine, I can understand why they wanted to keep it restrained to just a few people in your party to focus on.

Additionally, most of the time my companions told me what to look for next, if not exactly where to look for it. It was less clear in Arx, but by that point most of the companion's personal quests started to intertwine with the main quest enough that I was completing them incidentally.

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It doesn't have to be written that way though. That's an intentional design decision that was made. Like I said, virtually every other CRPG in existence avoids that problem by writing proper companion plot-lines with clear story hooks.

This game is full of some very lazy writing. Like the way characters suddenly lose all personality when you're controlling them because they were too lazy to write unique dialogue. This is just another particularly egregious example of it.

In a lot of ways this game is a severe regression from the first.

I want to like this game. I really do. I love CRPGs and I love tactical games. I keep giving it more chances despite the fact that it frustrates me every time I boot it up. I get that they're a small studio, but these aren't engine limitations or things that happened because they ran out of money. It's intentional design choices.

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Originally Posted by Anteros

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It doesn't have to be written that way though. That's an intentional design decision that was made. Like I said, virtually every other CRPG in existence avoids that problem by writing proper companion plot-lines with clear story hooks.

This game is full of some very lazy writing. Like the way characters suddenly lose all personality when you're controlling them because they were too lazy to write unique dialogue. This is just another particularly egregious example of it.

In a lot of ways this game is a severe regression from the first.

I want to like this game. I really do. I love CRPGs and I love tactical games. I keep giving it more chances despite the fact that it frustrates me every time I boot it up. I get that they're a small studio, but these aren't engine limitations or things that happened because they ran out of money. It's intentional design choices.

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Dialogue

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The unique parts of the Dialogues come via the tags. The named tags are the personality based ones. While clearly not completely different for each person, I think its a good compromise between trying to write out entirely unique dialog for each character. I think that's why most of the dialogue choices are more statements about what you're saying rather than exact words.

Companion quests

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I'm pretty sure the intent was so you couldn't do them all in one playthrough to give the game replayability. I'd say its about as limiting as BG2 trying to keep good and evil characters in the same party. You could certainly manage to do all their quests but it's pretty convoluted to do so and stay in character

Just got the game (decided not to wait for a sale). Something I felt overwhelmed me with OS1 was character creation. I don't want to look up skill guides, but at the same time I don't want to make characters who, well, actually don't work well together. Like putting down water, turning it to steam, and then realizing my archer can't hit that guy.

Just...trying to look for build traps, ya know?

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Originally Posted by huttj509

Just got the game (decided not to wait for a sale). Something I felt overwhelmed me with OS1 was character creation. I don't want to look up skill guides, but at the same time I don't want to make characters who, well, actually don't work well together. Like putting down water, turning it to steam, and then realizing my archer can't hit that guy.

Just...trying to look for build traps, ya know?

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OS 2 is way more forgiving since you can respec whenever you like once you get through the first act.

I've also found that most abilities synergize well together. The main thing you want to watch out for is since Magic and Physical damage chip away at different sets of armor, it's usually better to either have every character in your party able to do at least some of both or specialize HARD into doing only one type across the board.

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Originally Posted by Rynjin

OS 2 is way more forgiving since you can respec whenever you like once you get through the first act.

I've also found that most abilities synergize well together. The main thing you want to watch out for is since Magic and Physical damage chip away at different sets of armor, it's usually better to either have every character in your party able to do at least some of both or specialize HARD into doing only one type across the board.

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Personally, I favor the latter. Rogues with Scoundrel and tanks with Warfare do respectable physical damage, while Pyrokinetic and Aerotheurge are both good spell damage lines.

Geomancer and Hydrosophist make good partner skills for Pyro and Aero respectively mages because they create complimentary surfaces, and can regenerate physical and magic armor (and HP for hydro) on allies to boot.

I'm playing a Lone Wolf game (Fane and Lohse, the dynamic duo) as my first solo game (I keep trying to play with friends but we never get past Fort Joy since you have to start a new game for every combination of new people you want to play with), and at level 7 I'm enjoying having two characters that can do a bit of both. Fane is specced into Warfare/Necromancy/Geomancy/Polymorph while Lohse is Hydro/Aero/Summoning/Huntsman (with a smattering of Pyro) and it works really well with her cracking most of the magic armor and Fane using Medusa Head, or both cracking the physical armor and applying debuffs from stuff like Battle Stomp and Crippling Shot.

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Originally Posted by Rynjin

The main thing you want to watch out for is since Magic and Physical damage chip away at different sets of armor, it's usually better to either have every character in your party able to do at least some of both or specialize HARD into doing only one type across the board.

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I disagree there--I think the best combo is to have two heavy physical hitters and two heavy magic hitters. In most fights where you're facing multiple enemies, some of the enemies will be relatively weak on physical armour and some will be weak to magic, so it makes those fights easier if two of your guys can concentrate on the ones who are weak to physical while the other two concentrate on the weak to magic ones.

Trying to produce a single character who does both magical and physical damage is near impossible unless you make everyone a Summoner, IMHO--you have to put as many of your attribute points as possible into whatever attribute makes your attacks stronger, and for physical attackers that means Strength or Finesse, while magic attackers need to pump Intelligence.

Well, there are a few magic spells (Necromancer or Geomancer, as far as I've seen) that target physical armor, so your Int mage can become decent at doing both types of damage, though it will never be his speciality. I haven't found a way to make warriors good at damaging magic armor, but I have two physical damage dealers and they can just focus on the same enemy and wear him down even if he has lots of physical armor.

Pickpocketing seems to be either "steal and book it out of dodge multiple screens away, preferably while having someone talking to the victim" or "don't bother." Is this an accurate assessment?

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Originally Posted by huttj509

Pickpocketing seems to be either "steal and book it out of dodge multiple screens away, preferably while having someone talking to the victim" or "don't bother." Is this an accurate assessment?

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I haven't failed a persuade check yet to talk my way out of being confronted after stealing.