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Divinity 2 is a piece of shit

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I love the art direction, the writing and the superb voice acting with regional British accents, the beautiful soundtrack, but there's so many things wrong with this game.

1. First of all, the game encourages save-reload. How so? All loot and quest rewards are randomized. Just like DivDiv it tries to imitate Diablo's item system. But the thing is Diablo had randomized loot because the loot was infinite, whereas in Div2 enemies don't respawn and dungeons never reset. Adding to the problem is the fact that everything is heavily randomized, i.e. the same chest can give you a heroic item or... a tomato on the next load. Even unique rewards have random stats, so it's pretty much mandatory to save before turning in a quest if you want a good item. Suffice to say, the only way to get really good items is by abusing the system with a lot of save-reloading.

2. The game has no level scaling. Yay? Nay! It has damage scaling instead. That is, the amount of damage you can do and receive is scaled to your level. You'll be barely able to scratch enemies 5 levels above you whereas you can strip naked in front of the enemies 5 levels below you and they'll still be doing 0 damage. Unless you've already played through the game at least once or follow a walkthrough you're in for a lot of difficulty spikes, because while the game is supposedly free roam you still have to follow a specific path that the designers had in mind.

3. This also means that the game has the worst form of grinding. You have to find every nook and cranny, kill all mobs and do all possible quests to be able to survive the next area. Don't like the flying fortresses? Too bad, no Hall of Echoes for you.

4. XP scaling. Again, the game encourages that you read a walkthrough. The XP that you gain from killing mobs is scaled to your level, if you're too high level you'll be getting very few XP, sometimes just 1XP per kill. On the other hand, if you're low level or the same level as the mobs, you'll be getting up to 2-3k XP per kill. This means that if don't do a specific area at a specific level, you'll miss out on a lot of XP. And this is a big problem, since the mobs don't respawn. Additionally, the XP you get from doing quests doesn't scale, so the game encourages you to not do the quests until you're absolutely sure you've killed all the mobs you could take on in the area.

Anyway, yeah. I've finally reached the Hall of Echoes with my second character at lvl 31, but I die there in a few seconds. The walkthroughs suggest that I should grind through the flying fortresses (5 or 6 huge but almost absolutely identical dungeons) until I'm about lvl 34 to survive the Hall of Echoes and finally see the infamous ending. How about no? Fuck you, Larian, and fuck your game.
 

Texas Red

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So the combat and the mechanics are shitty. You mentioned good writing. How are the quests? Are there diplomacy or non combat quests? How many of the quests are NPCs asking you to fight through 4 hour long dungeons?
 

Texas Red

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Clockwork Knight said:
Suffice to say, the only way to get really good items is by abusing the system with a lot of save-reloading.

But do you need those good items, or you can get by just fine with the occasional shit?

Or what happens if you set the difficulty to easy?
 
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Clockwork Knight said:
Suffice to say, the only way to get really good items is by abusing the system with a lot of save-reloading.
But do you need those good items, or you can get by just fine with the occasional shit?
The game's already pretty hard, and I think it's almost impossible to get e.g. a good bow without save-reloading.
Dark Individual said:
How are the quests?
The quests are generally good and have multiple solutions (with almost no hero-villain choices). While there are some non-combat oriented quests, most of of them still feature at least some combat, since it's an Action RPG after all.
 
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Runs fine on High on my laptop (T6600@2.20GHz/HD4650/3GB RAM). FPS drops to about 20 in a few HDR heavy places, but it's about 50-60 most of the time.
 

random_encounter

Educated
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Clockwork Knight said:
Suffice to say, the only way to get really good items is by abusing the system with a lot of save-reloading.

But do you need those good items, or you can get by just fine with the occasional shit?
I got through it with the occasional shit. There are also set items in the game (like Diablo sets), pieces of which seemed to appear in specific chests/encounters. By the end of the game, I had a pretty decent arsenal without abusing the save/load feature. If you absolutely want the best, though, I guess that's what you'll have to do.

He's right that you have to grind EVERYTHING in the game and literally depopulate entire zones before moving on. At one point in the game, you won't be able to visit a large portion of it again because of what happens which means any loose ends you missed out on there are gone forever. I kept mindreading everyone in case there was a quest that was hidden somewhere.

But forget to buy that awesome weapon from the old man vendor you found before everything went to shit? Too bad. On one hand, it makes sense with what the story demands and it does warn you when it's going to happen. On the other, the garbage scaling ensures that missing out on XP can hurt you.

Droog White Smile said:
Anyway, yeah. I've finally reached the Hall of Echoes with my second character at lvl 31, but I die there in a few seconds. The walkthroughs suggest that I should grind through the flying fortresses (5 or 6 huge but almost absolutely identical dungeons) until I'm about lvl 34 to survive the Hall of Echoes and finally see the infamous ending. How about no? Fuck you, Larian, and fuck your game.
Hall of Echoes wasn't so bad for me and I was about your level. The final fight, though? Fuck you, Larian.
 

VentilatorOfDoom

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Droog White Smile said:
1. First of all, the game encourages save-reload. How so? All loot and quest rewards are randomized. Just like DivDiv it tries to imitate Diablo's item system. But the thing is Diablo had randomized loot because the loot was infinite, whereas in Div2 enemies don't respawn and dungeons never reset. Adding to the problem is the fact that everything is heavily randomized, i.e. the same chest can give you a heroic item or... a tomato on the next load. Even unique rewards have random stats, so it's pretty much mandatory to save before turning in a quest if you want a good item. Suffice to say, the only way to get really good items is by abusing the system with a lot of save-reloading.

That's a bit of an exaggeration, a lot of the best equipment is not random.
The best weapon in the game for instance is the weapon Bellegar gives to you, whether you choose bow, 2hander or onehander doesn't matter, it's always the best of its kind.

Droog White Smile said:
2. The game has no level scaling. Yay? Nay! It has damage scaling instead. That is, the amount of damage you can do and receive is scaled to your level. You'll be barely able to scratch enemies 5 levels above you whereas you can strip naked in front of the enemies 5 levels below you and they'll still be doing 0 damage. Unless you've already played through the game at least once or follow a walkthrough you're in for a lot of difficulty spikes, because while the game is supposedly free roam you still have to follow a specific path that the designers had in mind.

Yes, that leads us to the question whether levelscaling is really such an evil thing, as some want us to believe. In Divinity 2 - supposedly pretty non-linear - you're forced to follow an exactly linear path through all areas - due to the fixed levels of the mobs. First you have to do the area with the lvl2 goblins, so that you're ready to take on that other area with the lvl4 goblins etc. On the other hand if there is no increasing level of enemies (the farther away from the starting village) it would just mean, that at some point all encounters would become easy and boring. So in my view a game as Div2 could profit from having level scaling, at least in certain boundaries, as in DA.

Droog White Smile said:
4. XP scaling. Again, the game encourages that you read a walkthrough. The XP that you gain from killing mobs is scaled to your level, if you're too high level you'll be getting very few XP, sometimes just 1XP per kill.
Yes but that doesn't matter, if you're too high level that only means you got massive XPs before. Example: I went to the first flying fortress at lvl23 (even before I was to the champions port) and all enemies there were lvl26/27. I got massive XP and emerged at lvl28. Later doing the rest of the Orobas fjords of course didn't net much XP on top of that.

Droog White Smile said:
Anyway, yeah. I've finally reached the Hall of Echoes with my second character at lvl 31, but I die there in a few seconds. The walkthroughs suggest that I should grind through the flying fortresses (5 or 6 huge but almost absolutely identical dungeons) until I'm about lvl 34 to survive the Hall of Echoes and finally see the infamous ending. How about no? Fuck you, Larian, and fuck your game.

You kids nowadays really lack stamina and willpower. If there's a challenge - eg you get killed in a fight - you have to overcome that challenge. It's a matter of principle. You're not a man if you don't do that.
 
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VentilatorOfDoom said:
That's a bit of an exaggeration, a lot of the best equipment is not random.
The best weapon in the game for instance is the weapon Bellegar gives to you, whether you choose bow, 2hander or onehander doesn't matter, it's always the best of its kind.
This is simply not true. The Ultimate Good/Evil weapons are pretty weak, and I personally had a much better bow at the time. The walkthroughs also say that you'll probably have a better weapon by the time you find his cave.

Also speaking of non-random equipment, I've just completed Stone's and Raze's fortresses, and the both equipment sets (Archmage/Hunter) are garbage. Even fully enchanted they still pale in comparison to my custom equipment. I'm wearing p. cool looking Heavy Nightbringer armor (what the Black Ring generals have), with two unique (red) pieces from Bha'al, each with 3 enchantment slots. My Ranged/Magic resistances are already at 60, even though I haven't used any charms yet.

BTW, the best bow in the game is the one you get for collecting all bounties in the Fjords. The stats are random, but I was able to get a pretty sick bow that allows me to do 121-262 (273-589 with Way of the Ranger activated) of normal damage + 50-118 of magical.

VentilatorOfDoom said:
You kids nowadays really lack stamina and willpower. If there's a challenge - eg you get killed in a fight - you have to overcome that challenge. It's a matter of principle. You're not a man if you don't do that.
Well, I've done two of the fortresses now, and I'm lvl 33. Guess it's time to try the Hall of Echoes again.
 

Raghar

Arcane
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Droog White Smile said:
2. The game has no level scaling. Yay? Nay! It has damage scaling instead. That is, the amount of damage you can do and receive is scaled to your level.
To stats or to level?

3. This also means that the game has the worst form of grinding. You have to find every nook and cranny, kill all mobs and do all possible quests to be able to survive the next area.

4. XP scaling. Again, the game encourages that you read a walkthrough. The XP that you gain from killing mobs is scaled to your level, if you're too high level you'll be getting very few XP, sometimes just 1XP per kill. On the other hand, if you're low level or the same level as the mobs, you'll be getting up to 2-3k XP per kill.
It's the same as in previous game.
 
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BEAT IT. Finally. YES. YES. YES.

At lvl 33 the Mind Eaters didn't pose any challenge, so I got through the dragon part on my first try. The arena was easy as well. The final battle, however... One of the bosses could kill me in 1 (one) hit. But I just jumped and rolled around and first killed the minions with Explosive Arrows and then the two bosses with Magic Blast (these two spells are very overpowered).

The ending wasn't that bad actually,
you get to see the PC from DivDiv and he's probably going to play a huge role in the upcoming Expansion Pack.

Raghar said:
Droog White Smile said:
2. The game has no level scaling. Yay? Nay! It has damage scaling instead. That is, the amount of damage you can do and receive is scaled to your level.
To stats or to level?
Level.
 

Turisas

Arch Devil
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I stopped playing after I got the dragon form. That was just bullshit - if you have to limit it so much, maybe it wasn't such a good idea in the first place?

The parts before that were 'ok', but nowhere near as enjoyable as the first Divinity (BD was gay so it doesn't count at all).
 

VentilatorOfDoom

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Droog White Smile said:
This is simply not true. The Ultimate Good/Evil weapons are pretty weak, and I personally had a much better bow at the time. The walkthroughs also say that you'll probably have a better weapon by the time you find his cave.
Really? I never found a better 2hander in my first run, and in the 2nd run I chose the bow which was marginally better than the one you get for the bounties. Not much better, but still a bit better. At least in my game. Maybe that's random too?
The best armor I got was the all-rounder armor that you can loot from bosses (if you mindread them) .
 

Ermm

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Haven't played this myself yet but by watching video of this I think that Divinity 2 design would better suit to isometric game.
 

Shannow

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This is the worst thread since Drog leftstopped posting.



(And Divinity2 is a boring h&s that has much more severe probblems than what Drog is going on about.)
 

Monocause

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Aug 15, 2008
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Just finished Divinity 2 and I loved it. One of the best hack&slash games I've ever touched, liked it much, much more than the first installment. Can't wait for the expansion.

@Drog:

1.The game doesn't *encourage* save-reload abuse. I finished without doing it a single time, you don't need to cheat to get decent equipment. Sure, you can abuse it. On the other hand, pretty much every game out there has a mechanic which you can abuse.

2. If you choose proper skills you will be able (with a lot of leaping, jumping, healing etc.) slay enemies 5 levels above you and reap the huge XP reward. I did it once or twice.

3. So? I did three fortresses out of four. They are a bit boring, I admit. Consider these 20-30 minutes you'll spend on doing some of the fortresses a small price to pay for the incredible lack of tedium pretty much whole game provides. Seriously, I was never bored. The dungeons were proper in size, enemies were almost always challenging, the quests were well written and did a marvellous job in keeping the world colourful and interesting.

4. There're four flying fortresses. Skip the hardest one, do Stone's, Raze's and Kali's. You can survive the hall of echoes at lvl 33.

My opinion is that the game is very good. To anyone wondering - don't listen to Drog's bullshit and give it a spin. Torrent it if unsure, I was elated with the game enough to purchase it.
 
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Monocause said:
Just finished Divinity 2 and I loved it. One of the best hack&slash games I've ever touched, liked it much, much more than the first installment.
Jesus Fuckin' Christ.
 

DraQ

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Monocause said:
Just finished Divinity 2 and I loved it. One of the best hack&slash games I've ever touched

(...)

1.The game doesn't *encourage* save-reload abuse. I finished without doing it a single time, you don't need to cheat to get decent equipment. Sure, you can abuse it. On the other hand, pretty much every game out there has a mechanic which you can abuse.

2. If you choose proper skills you will be able (with a lot of leaping, jumping, healing etc.) slay enemies 5 levels above you and reap the huge XP reward. I did it once or twice.

3. So? I did three fortresses out of four. They are a bit boring, I admit. Consider these 20-30 minutes you'll spend on doing some of the fortresses a small price to pay for the incredible lack of tedium pretty much whole game provides. Seriously, I was never bored. The dungeons were proper in size, enemies were almost always challenging, the quests were well written and did a marvellous job in keeping the world colourful and interesting.

4. There're four flying fortresses. Skip the hardest one, do Stone's, Raze's and Kali's. You can survive the hall of echoes at lvl 33.

This.

The game's combination of humour, atmosphere, distance to itself, awesome music and art direction (plus not being an actual cRPG) reminds me of Anachronox.

While the game isn't quite in Anox's league, nor is it similar in any particular isolated aspect, this mental association alone should be a recommendation enough.

It's a fun, fun game and someone capable of stating how a game has awesome writing, art direction, VOs and writing, music, then proceeding to explain how is it shit is a gigantic faggot - I like games for what they are good at, provided they actually are good at something, and try to focus on the good stuff if there is enough of it to make an otherwise flawed game a worthwhile experience.

I wile take an awesome but horribly flawed game over a mediocre, but polished one at any time - a rough gem always beats a polished turd in the eyes of everyone, but a complete moron.

Come to think of it, doesn't
the art direction, the writing and the superb voice acting (...), the beautiful soundtrack, but there's so many things wrong with this game.
happens to perfectly describe PST we all know and love?

Oh, sure, it's a whole different animal than Div2, being a proper cRPG and having actual depth where Div2 has lulz, but the description is uncannily similar.
 
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DraQ said:
It's a fun, fun game and someone capable of stating how a game has awesome writing, art direction, VOs and writing, music, then proceeding to explain how is it shit is a gigantic faggot
FFS are you fuckin' dumb or what? If a game has shitty gameplay then it's a piece of shit, period. Graphics and music/voice work are just eye/ear candy, they don't make a game.
 

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