Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Review, suggestions, bug report, all at once

Note: I have played in german so I am not sure how things are called in english.

Divinety: Original Sin was the first game I had from Larian and I liked it so much that I decided to get the other games. I got the developers cut of Divivity2 from gog and I have finished the original game, now I am at the start from flames of vangeance.

I love this game. Its a huge world, there are many things to discover an it is lots of fun. The mind reading ability is great and also the prize for using it is a good idea.

I played a fighter with max points in dual wielding, life leech, bleed and the skill that increases your crit chance. I played on normal difficulty. Regarding offense, my char did so much damage that almost everything died with a few hits. The defense was weaker. Being attacked by many enemies at once was deadly in large parts of the game. But at the end of the game (I was lv 36) I was almost an immortal god.

The dragon part was easy most of the time. The flying fortresses were a piece of cake if you keep moving and use your homing fireball. The hardest fight in the entire game was the battle against the enemies that came after Zagan (the demon in the well). Zagan itself was easy, but then the cave collapses and you have to fight several enemies at once in a small space. It took me several tries till I survived.

comments:
- Equippment seems to be completely random indeed. I bought a mace from the skelleton in Lovis tower (lv 15) and I had it equipped until I found an epic sword (lv28) in a flying fortress. My other weapon was the hammer of the paladin in Bellegars lair of moralic choices (lv 24) and I kept it until the expansion. The prize and the quality of an item seem to have no relationship to its usefulness.

- It is nice that you see in green an red if an item is better than the equipped one. But the description of both items is such a wall of text that the green and red stat values are mostly covered by the text and hard to read.

- It is very hard to compare equipment because it has several base stats, some blue written stats and a different amount of charm and enchantment slots. I come along but many new players will surely be confused.

- Even though you can see tons of stats there are some things I would like to see: What is your crit chance and your crit damage multiplier? (This is done better in D:OS EE)

- My monster (the one you create from body parts) had tons of hit points, but his damage was pathetic (physical and magic damage in the 10s and 20s). It was a good meat shield but nothing else. I did not like that you cannot heal it and it does not regenerate HP. Most of the time I did not use it.

- Some people said this game is hard and old school. I don´t think so. You have a ? and ! over quest givers and a map and a quest log. Play realms of Arcadia if you want old school realism (you have no idea where to go and tons of things can kill you) or Gothic 1+2 or Risen 1 if you want a hard 3D real time combat (even a lone animal can be deadly in the beginning. But I admit that Gothic had a terrible combat system.)

suggestions:
- Please add a key ring to your future games.
- It is good that you have a special section in your inventory for quest items. Please do this in other games. (unless you want to be really old school and realistic)
- It is good that keys and quest items disappear after use. Please do this in your other games. In D:OS I had tons of keys and I did not know which ones I have used already.
- Until you have a key ring, please make it possible that you can drop keys in your chest (like you can in D:OS)

Bugs:
- When fighting general Raze, he ran away after some beating and I had to use the switches and kill him then. In my first try I did so much damage that he died from bleed damage while running away in a cut scene. I was unable to do anything or enter the menu so I had to press alt+tab and then close the window. This was the only bug that forced me to reload.

- In one of the flying fortresses (Keara?) you meet a ghost at the entrance. He joined me, I talked with her and body and soul merged. The skelleton did not do anything in the fight. When she died I got a reward for the quest, but the skelleton does not do anything and I cannot interact with it. It is just standing there.

- The merchant who sells drudanae (Nikolas?) has a ? over his head, even after I find the skelleton of the dragon. I got the herbs from his garden before solving the troll problem.

- Is it correct that enemies respawn in flames of vangeance? I got from lv 36 to 40 by finishing 1 quest and clearing 3 dungoens several times (basement of theatre, dungeon at the big market, unlocked dungeon at the place where you enter the town the first time when you arrive by airship. Enemies do not always respawn so I have no idea what causes this. I did not do a quest regarding these dungeons.

- In flames of vangeance one helmet was shown incorrectly. I got him from one of the generals of the flying fortresses via mind reading (Ulfgatrs helmet?) My new helmet looks fine.

One more thing:
While most jumping parts were fine, some were really frustrating.
Especially the ones above lave.

Now I have finished Flames of Vangeance.

The game is great, but some things could be improved:

- I disliked that enemies respawn. The penalty for mind reading is gone and you can become super powerful in short time (I was lv 48 before starting the dragon fight)
- The game throws skillbooks at you like there is no tomorrow. Up to 3 books for a quest is insane. I could max out every skill I need and even more than that.
- I continued playing from Ego Draconis with my char. There I had items equipped on my dragon. In the dragon battle you start naked and your equipment is in you inventory. I died several times before I saw this. (This was also the first time I realized that I can use potions as dragon).
(note to myself: I did not check if my skill points are distributed as dragon in this battle)
- Your equipment is also super powerful. After buying some equipment in FoV, I had max vit, str, int and defenses. The unique weapons and armors you can buy in shops are so much more powerful than anything you may find as random items.
- As dual wielder with max dual wielding, life leech, bleed and +crit, you are an immortal god (especially in conbination with items that give health regeneration)
- As written before I want to know my crit chance and crit multiplier. I also want to know my total health and mana regeneration rate.
- It is good in D:OS EE, that random items are fixed when you enter the map for the first time. Save scumming for loot was never neccessary in the game, but I did do it when I got something bad. Pressing quick save and quick load is just too easy. Please continue what you did in D:OS EE.

- Bug: In the german version when you reach where the ghost in your head is resting and you meet Bellegar, one sentence that describes the gate is spoken in english. Otherwise The voice acting was just great.
- I did not find any other bug in FoV. You did a really good job.


I will continue my "reverse gaming". My first Larian game was D:OS, now I played D2, in the future I will play DD and later maybe Ultima7.

After some thinking I realized that the whole FoV as human is a giant plot hole.
When Bellegar guards the tomb, why didn`t he give Zandalor his device when Zandalor created the shield around the city. Why do I have to run around the whole town, solving lots of puzzles and beating lots of monsters (including the ones Bellegar summons) only to find Bellegar in front of the tomb to give me the bomb?

Why not this:
- Damian attacks city
- Zandalor creates shield
- Bellegar sees that the shield around the tomb is gone, he goes to Zandalor and says:
"My dear buddy mage, I am in quite a rage.
I´m giving you this nuke. Lets make those bad guys puke."
- We do the zeppelin attack
- The end

I found the creature most effective with a mage head. I rarely would have healed it even if that were an option. In combat it rarely died, especially after a couple upgrades, and very rarely in a single encounter if it went in at full health (happened once, that I recall, playing on nightmare). Just by unsummoning it when I wasn't going to be in a combat situation for a while (or to get it out of the way) and re-summoning before the next encounter was more than sufficient.

In FoV opponents in some underground locations do respawn after some time (generally not areas you need to go through multiple times, though you can clear them and get a quest later and need to go back). In some areas above ground opponents respawn until you complete a related quest.

At the end of the game, at level 47 (playing an archer on nightmare), I had 145 unused stat points (none distributed since level 15), and 87 unused skill points.

Bellegar being proactively helpful at the start of the add-on would have made for a much shorter add-on. That's why powerful mage NPCs don't really do anything in RPGs.

You did really a great job regarding map, character and quest design and the game had lots of very funny moments.

But if you can beat the game on the hardest difficulty by not spending any points after lv 15 (and finishing it on lv 47), something should be done about game balancing.

It seems to be normal that many RPGs start hard and getting easier as you get stronger. But your example sounds extreme.
Another bad example is Pillars of Eternity, where they had the bad idea to put the first expansion in the middle of the original game without changing the original game. So either the expansion or the second half of the game are extremely easy, depending on what you do first.

One of the few examples for good difficulty balance was "Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky" (first and second chapter). You need much less exp to gain a level, but the exp you get for a monster is dependent on your level (like D2) up to the point were you get only 1 exp per enemy. So getting 1 or 2 more levels before the next boss can make things easier, but more will become almost useless grinding. While normal enemies get much easier as you stay in the area, most bosses gave you a good challenge by the time you get there. But this is a JRPG, so it is much more linear than you open world approach (Though the world and characters there feels much more alive and "realistic" than many other RPGs, including many western RPGs. My favourite is Oliver, the perverted bard.)

There were balancing changes in DKS to address some difficulty spikes in the original release, and other changes made the game easier overall. That's why the nightmare difficulty level was added, and it didn't help that rangers are quite effective in the game. I had played a warrior in D2:ED, so was familiar with the game and most of the mechanics to start with (I was hired after the release of DKS, before the Developer's Cut).
There were still some people who found the easier difficulties too hard.

my thoughts about difficulty: (I played on normal difficulty and I have the Developers Cut from gog)
- As human it was Ok until lv 15, from there on I felt like a god

difficulty spikes were:
- The killer rabbit (I was lv 25 or higher when beating it)
- When I started the human part of the flying fortresses (They were above my own level than, it went much easier fast)
- Any place where there are many enemies at once (but luring them around the corner is so simple)
- The battle as dragon in Zagans cave after the cave collapses (the only fight were I had to retry several times in ED)
- The fight where you have to defend the airship as dragon in FoV. (The only battle where time is a critical factor and it is easy to lose direction when you constantly move sidewards in a full 3D environment to avoid being hit.) This was the only fight I had to retry in FoV.

something about myself:
- I have played tons of RPGs and I am good in creating chars and strategies, but I am bad in action games. My reaction speed is pathetic so I prefer turn based things, but as long as you can pause the game any time it is OK.
- I do not cheat (not using codes, console commands or changing files), but I use every advantage the game gives to me (In case of D2 a good character build, collecting and spending all stat/skill points you can get, enchanting equipment, buying the best equipment you can get, . . .)
- When I play a game the first time I do it on normal difficulty because I assume that is the way the game is intended to play.
Edit: - And I am a completeonist. I try to find everything myself the first time. Then I read a guide and I try to find everything when I play it again.

OK, I played the game again and today I finished the original game until the expansion starts.
This time I played as mage with maxed out fireball and magic missles.
In the first few levels I needed to wait sometimes until my MP recover, later I could just spam my spells all the time without caring about anything. Most of the time it was easier as mage than as fighter. Stay away from the enemy, move sidewarts and spam spells. The only problem where some auto hit attacks of enemies.
There was only one battle where I had to retry some times. When fighting Raze, in the scene where he runs to those chambers more enemies spawn. When the scene ended I was surrounded by them and they smashed me because I could not escape. I finally beat him by running and jumping like crazy, use these levers and then continue jumping and running while spamming spells.

The way the game gives you exp leads to very strange behaviour. I finished the game with lv38 using the following method:
- Kill all enemies without finishing any quest.
- Use mind read as early as possible.
- When I killed all enemies I could, I continued the main quest so I could reach more enemies.
- I also killed all enemies in the fjords (at least those I could reach, this was lots of swimming) before finishing the dragon tower
- When I was ready to enter the throne room of the dragon tower, then I finished all quests in the valley.
- I killed all enemies in the fjord without finishing quests.
- I killed all enemies in the flying fortresses without destroying any buildings.
- Then I destroyed all buildings.
- Then I finished all quests which gave me lv38.

None of this is neccessary to finish the game, but the game encourages you to play this insane way, at least if you are a min maxer.
The game has very short loading times so I did save scumming when opening a chest or killing a boss. Its not nessesary, but the game makes it so easy to do it. I like that the content of all containers gets fixed when you load the map in D:OS.
The items you find are completely random. So most of it is useless and I changed the equipment very rarely over the game.
It feels very strange that +magic damage of weapons are added to your spells. I was dual wielding weapons with +int and +magic damage and enchanted them with +magic damage.

I didn't find it 'insane' to put off finishing quests I didn't need to do yet if there were places left to explore. I kind of mindread first, but wasn't particularly stick about that, and finished the D2:ED section of DKS at level 37.5.

Well, I got some ideas about how "normal" people behave.
- "Normal" people go to the starting town, start a quest to kill some rats in the basement, kill the rats, tell the NPC that you killed them and then you continue to a dungeon full of demons.
- "Insane" people talk to the NPC, kill the rats, then they kill all the demons in the world and just before killing the big bad boss they return to the NPC and tell him the rats are dead.

Maybe we should define the parameter "meta gamyness" of a game. In a role playing game you role play a) a character who plays a role in the game world and b) a computer gamer who wants to optimize the power of his char. The difference between a and b is the "meta gamyness". I would call D2 a game with medium meta gamyness. Trying to optimize your char can lead to different play style, but it is possible to finish the game while playing "normally" without problems.
There are other games where the difference between playing an effective char and role playing your char is much bigger. I think Final Fantasy2 had the worst leveling system I ever played. Second worst would be games with level scaling where you should try to keep your level as low as possible to avoid overpowered enemies ( like Oblivion, I still remember epic battles with goblins after beating lots of demons).