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Divinity Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

Iznaliu

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I'm just bummed that EE didn't increase the viability of hybrids, you just don't get enough stat points to make it work I feel.

Hybrids are always really hard to balance in party-based games, as you can specialise in different stuff across different party members, ruining one of the main points of them, and specialists usually get access to abilities that hybrids will never get. Some games counteract this by making it easy to get double the XP for hybrids, making them OP.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Designing a hard difficulty mode is clearly... hard. Tactician mode is, for the most part, pretty good -- the elemental wards, tougher enemies, and especially the more varied tactics (grenades, nastier spells, what have you) do make things more challenging in an interesting way.

But god damnit if they haven't fallen into the "more is better" trap. So many of the fights rely on more enemies spawning in, or a boss or other doohickey with a mountain of hitpoints that takes ages to whittle down. This is true for the "Classic" mode as well. For example:

The Joined-In-Flames fight. Both the boss and the idol have a shitload of hit points. So for example it's not feasible to go for the idol first. Instead, it turns into a grindy battle of attrition where I CC the minions while taking out the boss, then keep CCing the minions as my damager(s) gradually whittle down the boss. It took a long time but really wasn't all that challenging after I had the boss taken care of; it was just doing the same thing for several rounds.

On the other hand there are some really good ones, which are much better in Tactician. For example:

That first wolf fight in Hiberheim. With an extra ice elemental with the fragments, it got pretty tense. It was a great example of a carefully made "lesser" fight -- it threw curve balls at you while being pretty short, it set the scene, and it wasn't so hard I had to use expendables, but was hard enough that I had to think about every move.

I just wish it relied a little less on the hitpoint-mountain boss. Those boss fights do tend to drag on a bit.

Overall though, I don't find Tactician all that much harder than Classic, partly because I'm killing more things and tend to be slightly ahead of the level curve. For example I rarely need to use consumables. And I am warming up to the fighty types -- Rage and crafted weapons and armour makes all the difference, and now my knight is doing some serious damage. That teleport is really handy too.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
...

There are some really cheesy ones too though. I didn't play this far in Classic mode so I don't know how it's different, but in Tactician mode...

Hiberheim, next to the skull structure. Chest. Loot it, and start moving. The game materialises a pack of wolves and a shaman, giving them initiative. They kill one of my guys and freeze two others in the opening, and my poor lonely survivor doesn't last long against them in the second. I had to cheese it: summoned an undead decapitator and immediately started moving; he attracted some of the aggro and I only had one guy frozen. After that it was a tough-ish but relatively normal encounter. I hate it when games do this -- i.e. spring insta-kill encounters on you that you can only beat with "meta" knowledge (e.g. pre-buffing or summoning before the encounter starts, because you know it will).

Oh, and by the way -- is there a way through the room in the prison with the four sentinel statues where the floor turns to lava when you step on it, /without/ using Teleport + abuse of rift travel to the waypoint shrine in the next room? It was simple enough with two characters who had Teleport but I'm wondering what I would've done without it.
 

Iznaliu

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There are some really cheesy ones too though. I didn't play this far in Classic mode so I don't know how it's different, but in Tactician mode...

I don't remember anything like this in Classic, but it's been a while so I may be wrong.
 

Roguey

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I definitely remember a Hiberheim ambush in Original Recipe.

Ambushes are perfectly fine in moderation, given how regularly you can ambush opponents. I wouldn't know if the EE goes overboard. :M
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Is it me, or does this game suffer from an inverted difficulty curve?

I'm on level 12 and apart from that one annoying ambush, haven't had a single genuinely challenging fight since... Pontius Pirate I suppose; all the other bosses in Cyseal were pretty easy, and so far so has everything on the next couple of maps. I have had to try some of the boss battles twice to know their defences and vulnerabilities, but I've taken them down on the second try with nary a scratch. Does difficulty spike again later?
 

Roguey

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You have go gimp yourself to keep the challenge up just like most RPGs.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Another example of a bad fight -- these are thankfully fairly rare; overall the encounter design in this game is really good:

Hiberheim Guardian. Ton of hit points, very high defences, does nothing particularly interesting. Shrugged off Curse and Soulsap, but easy to Stun. Fight consisted of stun-locking him and whittling down his HP with Knight and Bairdotr. That took a while and was really fucking boring.

Edit: BTW I like the way they structured this part of the game: you arrive in Luculla, then wander off to Hiberheim, then come back. That's nicer than lawnmowing areas 1-2-3. Of course I'd prefer a more open structure anyway, but if you have to have a linear story, this is a nice way to do it.
 
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Roguey

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Too bad they received a lot of negative feedback for that (people didn't know where to go, complained about the insurmountable difficulty spike). :M
 

Raghar

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22,499
Too bad they received a lot of negative feedback for that (people didn't know where to go, complained about the insurmountable difficulty spike). :M
They should place a sign. Guardian guarding irrelevant treasure, castle is the other way.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Hey, another good fight.

Garkulda Nightbringer. Not hard to win at this point, but a little tricky to win without taking a casualty -- those orcs pack a serious punch and if they gang up on one of you... ouch. Really liked the rhythm of it -- I can sneak up on them, but then a whole bunch emerges from the bushes to put the hurt on.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Ugh I hate it when fighty RPGs have a mandatory sneaking sequence. :headdesk:

(I suppose some people like it, but still.)
 

Roguey

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D:OS's stealth mechanics are pretty well done (they put more effort into it than Obsidian did with PoE) of course they'd force you to engage with it at least once.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
D:OS's stealth mechanics are pretty well done (they put more effort into it than Obsidian did with PoE) of course they'd force you to engage with it at least once.

Imma just bypass it by spamming invisibility though.
 

SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
DivOS is a game with so many cool mechanics that interlock and so many possibilities to solve problems that crafty players will find it too easy (cause there are so many possible solutions to situations) and casuals will find it too hard (cause they can't figure out this stuff).

Somehow PJ in his blogging manages to do both at the same time; complaining about shit in one post without apparently considering the most obvious solutions - melee guys have no mobility (yeah they do, if you build chars appropriately), Braccus Rex nukes me (fire a charming arrow up his ass and have him work for you?), shamans freeze me (you have put no points into willpower/bodybuilding have you?) - and then complaining about easy difficulty in the next post. I don't get it.

Aren't you supposed to be some kind of grognardian mechanics genius? I'm a a scrub and could figure most this shit out.
 
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Prime Junta

Guest
DivOS is a game with so many cool mechanics that interlock and so many possibilities to solve problems that crafty players will find it too easy (cause there are so many possible solutions to situations) and casuals will find it too hard (cause they can't figure out this stuff).

This is why we have difficulty modes.

The problem with RPGs with even moderately complex mechanics is that the higher the level, the bigger the difference between a bad player and a good player. How successful you are is something like (party build) * (equipment) * (abilities) * (tactics). The problem is that poor players will generally have low coefficients in all of these, whereas good ones will have high ones -- which means the spread grows fast as you level up.

That's why hard mode should ramp up the difficulty faster than easy mode. D:OS doesn't do this: Tactician is a notch above Classic, but the difference stays the same. It would have been better if they had had them start at the same level and then had Tactician ramp up faster. It's a common design mistake with RPGs, but still.

Somehow PJ in his blogging manages to do both at the same time; complaining about shit in one post without apparently considering the most obvious solutions - melee guys have no mobility (yeah they do, if you build chars appropriately), Braccus Rex nukes me (fire a charming arrow up his ass and have him work for you?), shamans freeze me (you have put no points into willpower/bodybuilding have you?) - and then complaining about easy difficulty in the next post. I don't get it.

It's called "learning the game" bro. I'm just blogging this as I go.

And yeah, now that I've played a bit further and have come across mobility- and dexterity-enhancing items and given my knight Thunder Jump and Teleportation, I concede that I was wrong about that. Melee characters have plenty of mobility.

In re willpower/bodybuilding, nah. This game isn't fun or effective by going with defence; the trick is to CC them before they CC you, and putting your skill points into offensive abilities instead has a bigger payoff.

As to Braccus Rex, my complaint is that the encounter starts direct from dialogue, and Braccus drops the nuke as his first move. If you pre-buff, your buffs will also run down during the dialogue. Yes I figured out how to beat the encounter without taking a casualty, but it requires cheesy metagaming which I dislike out of general principle -- i.e. stacking buffs before going into dialogue, then 1-1-1-1-1:ing through it as fast as possible so they're still up when he drops the nuke. Again, that fight wasn't hard at all, the only complication was that I took a casualty in the first round (and promptly resurrected her with a scroll.) I didn't try Charming him before going into dialogue; I have used that tactic elsewhere and would certainly have done it had I had any trouble with the encounter. (Would that even work in Tactician mode? He has an invulnerability aura until you nuke those crystals.)

The early game is pretty hard in Tactician mode, but the game loses its challenge fairly early, for me around level 8-9 or so. It took me several tries to beat Pontius Pirate and a few tries to figure out the best way to beat Joined-In-Flame. The first encounter when you exit Cyseal is pretty hard because those immune-to-everything-stun-on-hit zombies teleport in halfway through. The lighthouse fight was pretty hard. However once I hit level 8 or so it started to get progressively easier; at this point the challenges are no longer about beating the fights, they're about beating the fights without taking a casualty, or beating the fights without using consumables, or any of a number of other self-imposed restrictions. As hard modes go this is kinda lame TBH, and not /all/ RPGs are like this.

Aren't you supposed to be some kind of grognardian mechanics genius?

Uh... no? I don't think I've ever characterised myself as a grog, or a genius. I am a bit of a systemsfag though.

(This butthurt is kinda delicious though. Maybe I should write a D:OS - EE review...)
 
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SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
Fair enough, I can't really comment on tactician mode since I was playing classic, which I probably should not have. In classic, the charming worked but as a result, the dialogue never got triggered which was a little odd with regard to following the story. The game got a bit easy midway through but there were still some fights mid to late game that gave me a game over on first try but it was always fun to adjust strategy and try again.

Edit: Eh, what an annoying ninja edit, at least mark it if you change your post so considerably, so I don't look like a dumbass.

wrt to offense/defense, I disagree and I think this is part of the reason why you fail, even though thats admittely easy to say since I am playing on the lower difficulty. In any case, I built Madora mostly as a tank (supported by summons) and the mages dish out status effects while my ranger dishes out most of the damage. I don't think going for pure damage is effective in a game where you have an incredible amount of possibilities to disable your enemies and then take them down methodically.

wrt to butthurt, I don't mind justifiable criticism but almost all your complaints on the last few pages where not the games fault but rather you being a scrub "learning the game" and not using the huge toolbox the game gives you to the best of your abilities, hence the numerous replies where people not only offered one but usually several possible mechanical solutions to your "criticisms". Think of that as butthurt, if you will.
 
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