Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback My First Impressions

Yeah, but it's a terrible system nonetheless. Adding customizable hotbars is nothing out of this world, and will allow for more complex builds, at least for me. Right now I try to get the least possible amount of skills because scrolling is extremely annoying.

Welp, I got to lvl12 and I'm getting really irritated by this game. Every fight in Driftwood is nothing but a gear check in which enemies just oneshot me and I'll have to reload in order to make another trip to the store and upgrade my stuff. It's beyond boring and tedious.

I'm really losing my interest in DOS2, I think I'll just give it a break until a patch comes out and fix all this nonsense. Upgrades should come from monsters, not from random vendors around the world, but so far I only face shadow insects which drops legs and gems, rarely ever getting any useful stuff from them. Barrels give more with the Lucky Charm talent, it makes zero sense.

I swear it seems that a completely different team from DOS1 made this one. What the hell happened?

I remembered wandering around the south/south east section of the map when I just got to the island, and my dudes were level 9. After a brief trip through the graveyard, we went out and got jumped by assassins (since you already mentioned running into these guys, this shouldn't be a spoiler). They were level 12. You can guess what happened next. Saying they mopped the floor with my team would probably be an understatement. The guy who went first, he totally wiped us out within his turn.

I was bitter, yes. I had to reload and avoided them while swallowing my pride. But I swore I would come back and get my revenge. I was a bit worried whether I could get strong enough to overcome such odds within 3 levels.

Those backstabbing snakes were my goal for a while. After 3 levels, I came back as promised. After a really good fight, I put them back in their place. It was a tough, but good, fight.

But anyway, my point is, I feel your pain. The game could get trying at times, since running into a fight beyond your level, getting wiped out and having to reload is not such a rare thing. And the Reaper's Coast is a dangerous area. However, the fact is that depending on your progress route and strategies, the outcomes can vary widely. In my playthrough, level 12 was basically the milestone beyond which the game never really got out of control anymore. If I happened to run into a bad fight, it would be just a matter of adjusting my tactics.

Granted, I never minded the whole "item hunting" thing. I think it was because, while I might have to spend half an hour to hunt for a few good items for my team, it always felt so good and worth it, that it never really bothered me. Any good items I managed to get my hands on would always prove their worth in future fights. It was like that until the end of the game. You could say I'm one of the lucky few who manage to adapt to the system.

Having to hunt for items in shops frequently to keep up with enemies, especially on Tactician, is an issue that has been discussed over a lot. Even though I wasn't particularly bothered by it, as I said, I would still like to see an overhaul of this aspect in a future patch or the enhanced edition - if we have one.

You know, I have no issues in finding a though fight and having to return later to get my revenge - in fact, I love that, is the mark of a good RPG. The thing is, I feel like the progress of my characters is decided only by my skills with the traders and not by my conquests and experience.
I clearly remember, in DOS1, getting a 1-handed club from the Keeper of the Lighthouse that was amazing for my tank (because tanks actually worked there) and I had it for many, many levels. There's nothing like that in DOS2, because as soon you get a good item, you'll be replacing it the following level, if not sooner. Having to constantly scroll through endless lists of items from vendors is not fun at all, and probably the most anti-RPG feature I've seen in a very long time. Amazing items should come with a great story behind, yet I can't remember where I got each one of mine, probably from Kurt the Apple Pie Vendor. That's friggin' epic, uh?

I have to say that this strange way of playing the game has sucked out any will of keep going. I can't even force myself to load it again because I know that, as soon I finish the next fight, I'll be stuck again against extremely buffed enemies and I'll be shopping endlessly.

Fort Joy was cool, flawed but eventually fun. As soon you get out, the game just goes downhill, and it makes me very sad.

If you're willing to play with mods, then there has been a mod called "Reduced Number Bloat" created by someone on here a while back. It handles stat scaling in a way so that HP and armor values of everyone don't go up as fast and basically you won't have to replace gears so often. Depending on your option it might get rid of item hunting almost completely. From others' feedback, I get the impression the mod does a really neat job.

Here it is if you want to try it:
DOS2 - Reduced Number Bloat

On a side note, I have been investing heavily into Lucky Charm to see if it is a viable solution for economics in this game. So far, it's somewhat hit & miss. You get a lot of nice equipment but:

+ most of the time it's lower level than your currently level. I guess you get n-level gear depending on the area you are currently exploring.
+ It's pretty RNG, although not as bad as it may seem.

So in the end I keep trading a lot. Browsing through endless inventories/shops is annoying and very time consuming.

PS - Why stores don't have an option to SORT gear BY LEVEL?

Because trading was one of many flaws of the first game, they did not even bother to try to improve.

* WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS INCOMING *

Well, after making a great effort to shop my way to the end and hitting my head against a wall in order to upgrade runes and inserting them in my items, I finally managed to beat the game. I must say, the final fight was rather dissapointing. Let me explain...
The first time I chose to give away my source and fought Braccus for the first time, with everyone as my allies. As soon the fight started, my party was, like pretty much every other encounter in the game, all stacked together, and got decimated by the insane amount of AoE - almost all of them ended up disabled somehow, and it only got worst with every turn. Reload, try again...
This time, just to check it out, I chose the other option, the one to reject their offer. So I fought them and actually owned their party quite easily; I almost had Lucian killed when Braccus went all crazy and phase 2 started just the same, but this time my all companions were almost dead so you can guess how it ended.

Reload, try again...

So, knowing that regardless of my decision the fight would've ended the same, I picked Lucian and co as my allies. While the fight was hard, Lucian focused on Braccus and took him all by himself while I was cleaning up the place of the rest of the baddies. When Rex fell the fight was over and I was all like "WTF just happened?". I never scored a hit neither on him nor the kraken. The Doctor battle was far, far more challenging, although I would say the first encounter against Alexander was the harder fight for me.

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So anyways, I think I've covered most of my takings on the game. Here's another post of mine where I cover the NPC part of it...



By the end of the game everyone acted like before, as if sudden amnesia attacked their minds when arriving Arx. The journal is hilarious: it's so bugged that I can't believe it actually passed testing. After saying goodbye to the Red Prince and admitting that was an honour to fight alongside each other, the journal recorded that "he fought me for Divinity". Yeah... what the hell...
There are many, many more examples like that, but I'm sure most of you found them already. Not to mention, every time I reloaded the game, the journal just went ape shit and stacked all lines into one, making it impossible to read until I reopened it a couple of times.

Anyways, I still had a final question about the epilogue: as I said before, Sebille was my romantic interest, but it doesn't say anything regarding that relationship. Regardless of the outcome of the game, it always said that she "wandered the world". I've read somewhere that there are some bugs with the epilogue (in DOS2? impossibru!), so I wanted to know if there is actually a different story about "us" in there.

And while I'm here, I would like to adress Malady. She's probably one of the worst characters I've seen in a long, long time. She's a walking deux ex machina, existing only to fix things with powers that are never explained and make zero sense. Even in the ending where I sacrifice my source and turn into a silent monk she somehows manages to solve everything. I was actually expecting that to be the "sad but honourable" ending, yet it ended as pretty much the best of all.
And speaking of bad designed characters, what the hell happened to Arhu? In DOS1:EE he chose to be a cat forever, did he changed his mind? Why is he such a whimp here? Literally the only time he shows up is to die.
Oh, and Braccus Rex, really? It was the most Scooby Doo ending I've seen in a game. I was actually expecting him to twirl his mustache and said "I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling Godwokens!". Awful, awful antagonist, and totally uncalled for.

Aaaand a last thing: while the music of the game is bland at best, the song that Lohse sings after killing the Doctor simply blew my fucking mind. I almost cried while listening to it. Probably the best part of the game for me.

I'm not kidding.

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Looking forward to the Enhanced Edition so I can play the game again with Fane, who seems to be a vital piece in the whole story. My character talked him only one time, yet at the ending we were like pals for some reason - even after fighting me in the Acadamy and insulting me for betraying him.
I have to admit, I had no clue WTF he was talking about, and I still don't.

Anyone has any insights regarding this part? Thanks!

Well, this.

As far as I read, it seems not be the only unsatisfying ending. The story in general starts of nice but gets more and more lacking.

Just my 2c as far as the narrative/story-- I think narrative designers and writers are often in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation when it comes to marrying a generous amount of player choice with airtight plots and character arcs, and I think there is actually something of a proportional relationship between the amount of choices and available solutions a game has and the likelihood of odd plot holes and weaknesses developing along the way. And if designers want to prevent or fill those holes, that usually means limiting options and/or consequence from the player, which also risks aggravating people. I don't think any game will ever get it completely right for every person, but that's OK.

So for a game like DOS2 that goes HAM on player choice, I give it a lot of latitude in the other direction of story. It makes my head hurt thinking about the work cut out for those involved with the story elements, and I'm still kind of amazed they managed to corral it all into something coherent, much less into something thoughtful. And then make characters - who I thought were actually pretty consistent in how they respond to your decisions and their attitudes toward you - AND also fill the world with quests and letters and books and all kinds of shit like that. Whew.

But yeah, I was kinda bummed I didn't get to gallivant off with Ifan there at the end. Sigh.

TL;DR- I consider my belief suspended when necessary

BTW I thought the fought you for/did not fight you for Divinity entry refers to what happens on the Nameless Isle? I could just be misrememberatin'...

While I do agree with your statement, take for example Baldur's Gate II: if you have a romance with Aerie and give up your divine seat, her epilogue is different, reflecting the fact that she's having your son. Why not do that in DOS2? Is just a simple text at the end which ties a lot of lose ends.

I'm replaying the game right now but I don't keep my hopes high. Every single problem I commented here (and found in many other, much more complete threads) are still present in the game. If it weren't for the loading screen I wouldn't even know it's a new version of the game; so far I haven't found a single different feature and I'm finishing Act 2.