Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[Alienman]

Some minor spoilers below!

I'm at chapter 2 I think, just got the ship. And I just can't be bothered with this game anymore. The first one was pretty good, and I guess it was mostly because I was playing with a friend, and the combat was actually interesting in that one. Since my co-op partner ditched the game I re-rolled for single-player and the game doesn't click with me at all. Many have said the exploration is fun and makes up for the other not so good parts, but I find it pretty mundane since the world has this MMO/World of Warcraft theme-park style design to it. At least so far. I was hoping this would hold me over until the lord and savior of RPGs ELEX is released but every time I think of starting it up I just get this sense of feeling of work/grind.

Another thing... man the combat is a mess. I don't only mean the armor system here, the visuals also. There is so much stuff going on in each encounter it becomes a clusterfuck of colors - like a Pollack painting or something. Every fight turns into a sea of fire for some reason.

 

[Tigranes]

Honestly, I think adding Cursed was the harmful kind of complexity: it destroys the intuitive grasp of elemental combinations, rendering the battlefield less a playground and more a clusterfuck. It also means visually they have to have two ways of representing everything, so their solution is to have black penises crawling over the entire map.

On whether later game is worth it, I'd say, the game lasts as long as you enjoy the combat (the pinnacle being reached already around level 8), and you like wandering around a theme park world finding talking chickens and other oddities. I did, and I also speeded past Nameless Isle & Arx when it got long in the tooth.

(Which is exactly the case also with DOS1, and honestly, Divine Divinity & Ego Draconis too. None of those games had a story worth reading tons of dialogue or grinding through the late game for, none of these games had a coherently built world where you got invested in the factions as intelligent actors, and the combat/character mechanics doesn't have anything new to show you after the first Act.)

It's basically DOS1 + a couple of major step backs (I'd say armour system & decline of Ultima-style world reactivity) + a few minor steps forward, but essentially more of the same.

 

[Malpercio]

Made to Arx, the game is getting a bit laggy. I wonder much you of the story you can change.

Spoiler

Alexander still died for me (Killed by blondie)

The game feels morel linear and it feels like the story offers less stuff than DOS1, despite the reactivity. How much can you actually change?


Also, the NPC that set the Lyric-suit like dude was a single merchant that mentioned her wife? Wew.

 

[Tigranes]

I can't even remember DOS1 story. The endgame does offer a Big Choice, but one of the choices were so retarded that I couldn't bring myself to try it, so I don't even know if it's fake.

Spoiler

OK so uh if I just spent months risking my neck to become the DIVINE fighting off these fuckers trying to kill me and being bwahaha evil at every turn and now that I'm there they sit me down and go hey buddy actually we're the good guys and we're going to achieve WORLD PEACE all you gotta do is give up your soul basically and all the while there's a masked dude next to them going MWAHAHAHAHA well sure as fuck I'm gonna trust you guys eh

 

[unfairlight]

33 hours in and just mastered the source and I really don't think I want to bother. I'm constantly underleveled and combat became too hard for me so I think I'll just turn it down to easy to breeze past the story and get it over with. I really don't like this game enough to keep going, yet I don't dislike it enough to just quit either.
Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait for ELEX, Greedfall and Kingdom Come now since this game disappointed me.

 

[Sjukob]

This game

Spoiler

 

[Tigranes]

Have 'oo seen my dad, middle aged wabbit

 

[Jimmious]

I'm constantly underleveled and combat became too hard for me so I think I'll just turn it down to easy to breeze past the story and get it over with.

Git gud scrub

 

[Infinitron]

SA review:

What Can You Do In Divinity: Original Sin 2?

You can heal skeleton party members by teleporting them into poison barrels. After a refreshing bath in green goop their bones will look ten years younger.

You can interact with pretty much every object in the world, no matter how fantastical or mundane. Inspect forks and forged paintings to get detailed descriptions. Find hidden stashes by levitating or burning heavy crates. Pick up everything that isn't nailed down and cram it in your pockets.

You can open up your inventory and gasp. A thousand keys? Three thousand books? Enough body parts to make twenty entire elves? Time to sell some junk.

You can talk to an NPC with one character to distract them while another party member sneaks up from behind and picks their pockets. You can feel a twinge of shame if the distracting character uses this opportunity to flirt with the NPC.

You can talk to all sorts of animals (if you have the right skill) to uncover quests, secrets, and unexpectedly touching side stories. Keep a red ball handy in case you run into a despondent dog.

You can begin a tough fight by using magic to make an enemy boss and a caged prisoner swap locations. While you mop up the most annoying underlings, the boss spends several rounds bashing at his cage's locked door.

You can spend hours perfecting your custom character, play one hour, then change your mind and restart.

You can select which instrument will take the lead in musical cues throughout your adventures. There are four to select from: The Oud and three incorrect instruments.

You can quicksave. To be fair you can do this in a lot of games. In Divinity: Original Sin 2, though, you'll find yourself quicksaving every few steps just in case one of your party members politely asks to chime in during a conversation with an important NPC then murders said NPC.

You can be a compulsive hoarder. Does an item in your inventory seem vaguely interesting? Maybe it's valuable. Maybe it's a rare item for a crafting recipe you haven't unlocked. Might as well keep it!

If someone in a quest chain is a jerk, you can resolve the quest peacefully then return and get additional XP by dropping them into a lake of fire created by your archer's explosive arrows.

You can equip a wand in one hand and a shield in the other hand. With the wand you can throw magic and with the shield you can throw the whole dang shield like Captain America, ricocheting off the faces of several bad guys.

You can be gay as hell, awkward as hell, and a wonderful combination of the two. You can kiss anyone you want right on their lips even if you don't have any lips at all.

You can give your frail party members a talent called Stench. This makes them smell terrible, which drives enemies away. In my middle school experience a bad smell actually attracts hostility so expect this to get patched out soon.

You can bend nails with a hammer to create lockpicks. Or steal lockpicks from a merchant. Or use your undead party member's skeletal finger as a lockpick with infinite uses. Or you could just buy some lockpicks. I guess.

You can lose yourself in a sprawling RPG with all the exploration, humor, strategy, sidequests, and interlocking mechanics you could possibly want.

Divinity: Original Sin 2
Larian, Obsidian, and Harebrained Schemes are in a competition to spoil fans of PC RPGs and the only loser is my free time. 10/10

 

[Roguey]

Haha no inXile in that final list.

 

[Daedalos]

Random game journo giving fail game a 10/10, what's new?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

So Mods are fixing it. Much more than the incompetent LBGTQ SJWs hired at Larian.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157299447

Resist status based on % phy/magic armor left.

 

[Jimmious]

So Mods are fixing it. Much more than the incompetent LBGTQ SJWs hired at Larian.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157299447

Resist status based on % phy/magic armor left.

Exactly what I wanted, but I'd rather let some people test it first (Really wondering if the AI will cope with this change)

 

[Sjukob]

That's hardly even a bandaid . To fix DOS2 armor and status effects design you have to tweak skills and the system itself , like rework certain abilities to ignore armor completely and balance them around that , include more ways to replenish armor so it becomes an actual mechanic and not just a second HP bar , reduce damage output in general , because it's absolutely out of control and characters without armor are as good as dead . I've never liked percentage chance for something to work , DOS2 armor system is step in the right direction , although it doesn't mean it's good in it's current form .

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

That's hardly even a bandaid . To fix DOS2 armor and status effects design you have to tweak skills and the system itself , like rework certain abilities to ignore armor completely and balance them around that , include more ways to replenish armor so it becomes an actual mechanic and not just a second HP bar , reduce damage output in general , because it's absolutely out of control and characters without armor are as good as dead . I've never liked percentage chance for something to work , DOS2 armor system is step in the right direction , although it doesn't mean it's good in it's current form .

Mods will Fix it, eventually.

 

[Malpercio]

33 hours in and just mastered the source and I really don't think I want to bother. I'm constantly underleveled and combat became too hard for me so I think I'll just turn it down to easy to breeze past the story and get it over with. I really don't like this game enough to keep going, yet I don't dislike it enough to just quit either.
Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait for ELEX, Greedfall and Kingdom Come now since this game disappointed me.

We need a git gud button.

 

[Black]

So Mods are fixing it. Much more than the incompetent LBGTQ SJWs hired at Larian.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157299447

Resist status based on % phy/magic armor left.

Larian games are entering the "mods will fix it" category.

 

[Grunker]

Wow, that's pretty much exactly what I wanted. Too far into this playthrough to switch, but would definetely do it in the future. Also tagging Darth Roxor

It won't fix the system (it needs built-in support in the character system and attributes that affect the saving throws), but it's a strict upgrade as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Black]

Why would you tag Darth Roxor?

 

[Grunker]

Because he might like da mod?

 

[unfairlight]

33 hours in and just mastered the source and I really don't think I want to bother. I'm constantly underleveled and combat became too hard for me so I think I'll just turn it down to easy to breeze past the story and get it over with. I really don't like this game enough to keep going, yet I don't dislike it enough to just quit either.
Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait for ELEX, Greedfall and Kingdom Come now since this game disappointed me.

We need a git gud button.

Admittedly, but I hardly play turn based RPGs. I really fucked myself over at Fort Joy because I completed very few quests and wanted to GTFO from there as fast as possible because it was boring as fuck.

 

[Vibalist]

Now all we need is a mod for turn order, and the combat system might make its way back.

 

[Malpercio]

That's hardly even a bandaid . To fix DOS2 armor and status effects design you have to tweak skills and the system itself , like rework certain abilities to ignore armor completely and balance them around that , include more ways to replenish armor so it becomes an actual mechanic and not just a second HP bar , reduce damage output in general , because it's absolutely out of control and characters without armor are as good as dead . I've never liked percentage chance for something to work , DOS2 armor system is step in the right direction , although it doesn't mean it's good in it's current form .

There are a lot of ways to replenish armors, though. Like waaaay to many after a certain point. You can also abuse potions.

The system is not perfect, but you people are crazy if you think shit is Bethesda-tier broken.

So Mods are fixing it. Much more than the incompetent LBGTQ SJWs hired at Larian.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157299447

Resist status based on % phy/magic armor left.

... why would the writers have anything to do with the battle system? Did the "gameplay" staff even change from DOS1?

 

[AwesomeButton]

That's hardly even a bandaid . To fix DOS2 armor and status effects design you have to tweak skills and the system itself , like rework certain abilities to ignore armor completely and balance them around that , include more ways to replenish armor so it becomes an actual mechanic and not just a second HP bar , reduce damage output in general , because it's absolutely out of control and characters without armor are as good as dead . I've never liked percentage chance for something to work , DOS2 armor system is step in the right direction , although it doesn't mean it's good in it's current form .

About the same as I thought. Mods can't fix the issues in this game, sadly.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/divinity-original-sin-ii

95% Metascore