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

[Sholos]

One criticism I have of this game is that some of the fights almost seem to require future knowledge to be doable.

Spoiler: End of first act fight

Show

I'm stuck on the Alexander fight with a friend. The gheist is capable of one-shotting most of us and I've no idea how you're supposed to deal with being attacked by the worn as well. The fight is blatantly unfair and not really fun.

[factotum]

This whole time I assumed I would customize each character in the party, but there is actually no way to get the NPCs who join up with you to be anything but a preset class.

That doesn't matter, because you still get to pick all the stat and skill allocations for the character once they're recruited, so you can twist their "preset" into anything you like. Plus there's the magic mirror the Hellbug mentions.

One criticism I have of this game is that some of the fights almost seem to require future knowledge to be doable.

Spoiler

Show

Bear in mind that the magisters and the worm are hostile to each other--if you can arrange things so that your nastiest opponents are attacking the worm, not you, it makes the battle a lot easier. It does involve a bit of luck to get that to happen, though, that much is true.

[Nadevoc]

I haven't hit the fight you reference yet, but I really enjoy the difficulty of fights. A lot of times, you have to adapt your tactics to fit a hard fight. Sometimes you hit a fight and realize that you should probably go do something else until you get a level or two and come back. Things like scrolls and potions feel like a valuable, necessary tool to ration as opposed to most games where it seems you're always saving them for a hard fight that never actually comes.

[factotum]

Yeah, there have been a few fights where I've either reloaded or hit the Flee button to grind up a level or two before trying again.

[Cazero]

And then there are fights where you want to protect NPCs from their own stupidity. I'm talking about "running around in the fire to get a potshot throwing knife on the front of a different target than the one you could already shoot from the safety of the forcefield on blessed water" stupid. I had to reload that fight so many times.

[Keltest]

And then there are fights where you want to protect NPCs from their own stupidity. I'm talking about "running around in the fire to get a potshot throwing knife on the front of a different target than the one you could already shoot from the safety of the forcefield on blessed water" stupid. I had to reload that fight so many times.

Is that the one on the oil fields? I hated that fight.

[Cazero]

Is that the one on the oil fields? I hated that fight.

Yes. Yes it is.
Also, necroflames everywhere makes my computer laggy.

[factotum]

Well, I messed up:

Spoiler

Show

I had such a swine of a time defeating Mordus that, when I spoke to him afterward, I just killed him straight away--forgetting that he's one of the guys you're supposed to get extra Source training from. Let's hope that doesn't bite me in the butt later on!

[Keltest]

Well, I messed up:

Spoiler

Show

I had such a swine of a time defeating Mordus that, when I spoke to him afterward, I just killed him straight away--forgetting that he's one of the guys you're supposed to get extra Source training from. Let's hope that doesn't bite me in the butt later on!

Off hand I can think of about five others who can teach you, with varying degrees of moral offense along the way.

Spoiler: A list, off hand.

Show

Theres Mordus, obviously, but theres also Hannag the lizard. You need to beat up magisters fighting her, then go do that annoying fight on the oil platform. Theres a demon hunter who is needed for Lohse's quest; he wants you to kill a Demon on Bloodmoon Island. That demon can also teach you, in exchange for killing some Black Ring goons on the same Island. Freeing Saheila from the Lone Wolves results in her teaching you more Source. I believe the Lone Wolf Assassin in the graveyard can also teach you, but I was already maxed out when I ran into him, and he bit the dust. I think theres a couple others as well that I didn't run into or didn't finish their quests enough to know for sure.

[Anteros]

I'm having trouble getting into this game. I legitimately enjoy the combat sections. I'm playing on hard, and it's refreshing to have a tactical game that actually challenges you and rewards you for creative thinking.

That said, the talking parts are just leaving me completely disinterested. I normally enjoy these types of games too, so I don't know what the problem is. Part of it is probably that the character you're playing feels like it lacks personality since your dialogue options are all *Tell him to do this* instead of actual dialogue. Very lazy writing.

That can't be the whole problem though. I'm going to keep playing and see if it picks up for me.

[factotum]

Are you playing a pre-rolled character or a custom one, Anteros? I've not noticed that with Ifan's dialogue, and don't forget you often get different dialogue options depending which character you use to initiate the conversation.

I've got a question about Source. Does anyone else find the Source abilities a bit, well, meh? Every other ability in the game just has a cooldown before it can be used again, whereas Source abilities require a rare material that is only found in certain rare locations...so IMHO the Source abilities ought to be a lot more swingy and powerful than they are. Lohse's ability (to send enemies mad and make them attack each other) seems good on the surface, until you find it's blocked by magic armour and thus it's generally useless for what you'd want to use it for, e.g. taking a couple of enemies out of the way at the beginning of the battle to make things easier. Ifan's wolf seems cool, but I've specced him as a Summoner and his fully-buffed Incarnate is just as powerful while having a lot more tactical options. Are there more powerful abilities you get later in the game that are actually worth the effort of using?

[VexingFool]

Some source abilities are good some are bad. Ifan's is generally considered weak but Fane's is considered very strong. The custom character source power Dome of Protection is pretty good. Several of the high level skills require source and are quite good.

You can leave a teleporter pyramid near a source point and popback to recharge real quick, you can also recharge source via Purge.

[Nadevoc]

I'm having trouble getting into this game. I legitimately enjoy the combat sections. I'm playing on hard, and it's refreshing to have a tactical game that actually challenges you and rewards you for creative thinking.

That said, the talking parts are just leaving me completely disinterested. I normally enjoy these types of games too, so I don't know what the problem is. Part of it is probably that the character you're playing feels like it lacks personality since your dialogue options are all *Tell him to do this* instead of actual dialogue. Very lazy writing.

That can't be the whole problem though. I'm going to keep playing and see if it picks up for me.

Yeah, that was a weird choice with the dialogue I think - especially since it's not consistent. Sometimes it's an actual response, and other times it's "*Tell him that's a bad idea*". I'm guessing the idea is that it lets you fill in your character's dialogue yourself, which I can understand; there are games where basically every dialogue choice I go "No, that wording/phrasing/whatever is freaking terrible. I don't want to say that."

Overall, though, I'm enjoying the lore. The Origin character I'm playing (Lohse) seems to have a pretty cool story, and I like how basically every lizard reacts specially to the Red Prince (who my friend is playing).

I've got a question about Source. Does anyone else find the Source abilities a bit, well, meh? Every other ability in the game just has a cooldown before it can be used again, whereas Source abilities require a rare material that is only found in certain rare locations...so IMHO the Source abilities ought to be a lot more swingy and powerful than they are. Lohse's ability (to send enemies mad and make them attack each other) seems good on the surface, until you find it's blocked by magic armour and thus it's generally useless for what you'd want to use it for, e.g. taking a couple of enemies out of the way at the beginning of the battle to make things easier. Ifan's wolf seems cool, but I've specced him as a Summoner and his fully-buffed Incarnate is just as powerful while having a lot more tactical options. Are there more powerful abilities you get later in the game that are actually worth the effort of using?

I was super excited to finally get a chance to use my Source ability (Maddening Song), and then it was just blocked by magic armor on every target. Felt SUPER underwhelming (especially since our builds tend not to burn through magic armor). Gotta agree that it felt awful lame for a special ability that uses a rare resource.

One thing that's unclear to me (might have just missed a tooltip). How exactly does armor work when it comes to blocking status effects? Is it guaranteed to block if you still have some left, with the chance dropping significantly one your armor is depleted?

[factotum]

One thing that's unclear to me (might have just missed a tooltip). How exactly does armor work when it comes to blocking status effects? Is it guaranteed to block if you still have some left, with the chance dropping significantly one your armor is depleted?

From what I've seen, the armour blocks 100% if it's up and then not at all when it's not--so you can hit a guy who has 1 magic armour left with a fireball and he won't immediately catch fire, because he had armour when the fire damage was applied. Could be wrong on that, though.

[Nadevoc]

From what I've seen, the armour blocks 100% if it's up and then not at all when it's not--so you can hit a guy who has 1 magic armour left with a fireball and he won't immediately catch fire, because he had armour when the fire damage was applied. Could be wrong on that, though.

I've definitely seen armor block effects when their armor's completely depleted, and people get afflicted with Burning by the same attack that strips the last of their magic armor. So I think it's more complex than that, but I haven't managed to find details anywhere

[warty goblin]

I've definitely seen armor block effects when their armor's completely depleted, and people get afflicted with Burning by the same attack that strips the last of their magic armor. So I think it's more complex than that, but I haven't managed to find details anywhere

I suspect it has something to do with surfaces, so a person with remaining Magic Armor will resist getting set on fire by the fireball, the ground becomes a fire surface, and they then catch fire from that.

(If you want to remove magic armor, just give a character a pair of wands, preferably in a combo like poison+fire or (I'd guess, haven't tried it) water + electric. My main can rip through about sixty magic armor with a double attack, which usually means that target is poisoned and on fire on top of a flaming surface)

[Keltest]

If an attack removes the remaining armor and it has an effect attached to it, then it will apply that effect. The way it seems to be is it applies the damage and then checks for remaining armor.

Anyway, source becomes significantly easier to get once you get off the Island, as you gain an ability that lets you turn corpses into source points and even suck them away from other characters (though its blocked by magic armor). You can upgrade your source capacity to hold up to 3 points. You can get Source Vampirism (like Purge on the wands, only shorter range) once you have at least 2 points.

[factotum]

(If you want to remove magic armor, just give a character a pair of wands, preferably in a combo like poison+fire or (I'd guess, haven't tried it) water + electric. My main can rip through about sixty magic armor with a double attack, which usually means that target is poisoned and on fire on top of a flaming surface)

You find 60 magic to be a powerful attack? Guessing you've not met the level 12 voidwoken with getting on for 1200 magic armour, in that case! I've found the only way to deal with those is to restrict my casters to buffing, healing, and any physical attacks they might have (e.g. Teleportation), while Red Prince and Ifan go to town on the much weaker physical armour.

[warty goblin]

You find 60 magic to be a powerful attack? Guessing you've not met the level 12 voidwoken with getting on for 1200 magic armour, in that case! I've found the only way to deal with those is to restrict my casters to buffing, healing, and any physical attacks they might have (e.g. Teleportation), while Red Prince and Ifan go to town on the much weaker physical armour.

That would be because I'm level 3 or 4.

[factotum]

Oh, believe me, what works well at level 4 doesn't tend to work so well at level 12. You'll have better wands, and your higher Intelligence will mean you're doing more damage, but even so I wouldn't expect you to top 120 damage with a regular attack, and against the aforementioned guys with 1200 magic armour they barely notice it--and that's assuming they haven't hit you with an Atrophy that makes you unable to use weapons of any kind. You need to rely a lot more heavily on your abilities to deal damage at the higher levels.

[Rising Phoenix]

Love the world, love the characters, but golly inventory management and ability learning is clunky.

And I never seem to have enough gold to by the things I need. I either don't have good abilities or my equipment sucks.

[VexingFool]

And I never seem to have enough gold to by the things I need. I either don't have good abilities or my equipment sucks.

If you want to buy a lot of books/gear from a particular vendor increase your reputation with them to 100 with your highest Bartering skill character. You can do this by giving/bribing them 100gp or the equal amount of your junk items. Don't trade your high value items until you have increased the rep and are using your best bartering character (I like Ifan he has a bartering of 3 when you get him). This pays off if you are going to buy 2+ high cost items from them. Some vendors take a bit more gold to increase their rep and the amount scales with higher level vendors but it is still worth it.

Afterwards you can steal back your bribe plus any other loot with your highest Thievery skill character if you want.

[factotum]

And I never seem to have enough gold to by the things I need. I either don't have good abilities or my equipment sucks.

Even low-level abilities can do a decent amount of damage if your skills and stats are set up right. The basic Hail Storm skill Lohse has is only a level 1 ability, but it deals well over 100 damage at level 12 due to her high Intelligence and Hydrosophist skill. So, don't sweat it so much over the abilities, you should concentrate on getting the better equipment because you'll live longer and thus naturally do more damage.

[Cozzer]

I just got to Driftwood and I'm loving this game!
Some fights can get pretty frustrating, but for now I could always get past them by changing my approach, being more liberal with single-use items or just doing a few other quests first.

[Rising Phoenix]

Thanks for the tips peeps...

I am now swimming in cash as the game just throws high level items left right and centre at this stage...

I am in the second act, but golly it's taking forever to do all the things i want to do...I mean I could just leave stuff for a second playthrough...

Hmm, what level is a good level to leave driftwood at? I am currently level 14...but there some

Spoiler

Show

level 16 mobs running about

Should I wait till I am higher level?

[Keltest]

Thanks for the tips peeps...

I am now swimming in cash as the game just throws high level items left right and centre at this stage...

I am in the second act, but golly it's taking forever to do all the things i want to do...I mean I could just leave stuff for a second playthrough...

Hmm, what level is a good level to leave driftwood at? I am currently level 14...but there some

Spoiler

Show

level 16 mobs running about

Should I wait till I am higher level?

If you leave at 14, you can probably handle the Island, but frankly I would explore everything there is to do anyway. I've discovered that the game has a bit of an annoying habit of just assuming that you discovered any plot hooks if you stumble into the middle part of a quest that you never got the beginning for.

[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.

[Keltest]

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.

yeah, hydro mages rule that fight no question.

[factotum]

Just cheesed a later fight by using crates to block the ladders leading up to the wooden platform I was standing on--the bad guys who had teleport-like abilities could still get up there, of course, but the rest had to stay below and eat my high damage due to height advantage!

[Anteros]

If you want to buy a lot of books/gear from a particular vendor increase your reputation with them to 100 with your highest Bartering skill character. You can do this by giving/bribing them 100gp or the equal amount of your junk items. Don't trade your high value items until you have increased the rep and are using your best bartering character (I like Ifan he has a bartering of 3 when you get him). This pays off if you are going to buy 2+ high cost items from them. Some vendors take a bit more gold to increase their rep and the amount scales with higher level vendors but it is still worth it.

Afterwards you can steal back your bribe plus any other loot with your highest Thievery skill character if you want.

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.