Just going threw the blogs at Lar.net and saw that the ending in the Enhanced Edition is going to be much grander. Even if only 5% of players actually finished the game.

Is there current stats some where to show how many people completed the game? I'm quite shocked at this considering how easy the bosses were.

You can get a rough idea based on Steam achievement stats.

Quite surprising how people spend so much money on a game and then not even get half way though it.

Some people may have bought the game and OWN it, but have not started it yet. Steam can't or doesn't tell the difference. You can't get far without getting the pyramids, and 56.8% of people have gotten those, so if you take THAT as the actual percentage of owners who have played at all, it's closer to 10% of people who started the game have finished the game.

There are also people like me who started on Steam due to early access and better support initially, then switched to GOG (where I finished the game) once GOG got its act together.

Well, I didn't finish it due to a system crash where I lost all my saves, and they announced EE before I finished my new walkthrough. So now I'm waiting for EE.

Why is it so hard to grasp this?

Unless my standards are that off, there is a simpler, third reason for it; it being that nearing its end, if not earlier, the game dragged while simultaneously becoming easier and easier (poor pacing, poorer balance).

Lack of a challenge can be a major detriment. Coupled with the odd bug or lack of a feature..there you go. Just because one bought it..does not mean anything in itself. One could have bought it and still lost interest halfway through.
Nothing that complicated

p.s. the first couple of Wizardry games? For over a decade, i had not finished them. At all, lol, any of them. If you've played them, you can probably understand why.

Most RPGs of this type have this same issue. That's it.
Original Sin might be a little lower lower for a variety of reasons but it's a pretty small difference.

WL2's number is about the same, as is Pillars.


I of course don't mean Larian shouldn't try to improve (read: burn down) the Phantom Forrest.

I liked D:OS a lot, but I never beat it. Partly because my save got corrupted for some reason, and also because the combat was trivial by that point. Mostly just because I hadn't got enough star stones by the time I got to the temple door and just was too lazy to find more. I heard the temple and the boss fight were pretty lame anyway, so I didn't feel compelled to frustrate myself just to complete the game. Almost all RPGs get tedious by the end.

I don't find that surprising at all, achievement stats don't take owned copies vs played copies into account. And many people probably played the game on GOG version too...

So generally speaking, I think the number is more like 10% to 20%

As for why.. well there could be plenty reasons. The start of the game is not very immersive, the characters not hugely interesting.. and the end game is very meh. And some of the puzzles are HUGELY frustrating.

There is not 1 singular reason I am sure, but every single annoying thing makes more people stop playing. And Cyseal.. is not a great start.

I would expect more like 25% completing the game, especially for how hard it gets in the middle. Also with youtube guide videos, there is little to prevent a person from completing a game. Growing up in the 90's you had to have a subscription to a game player magazine to get affordable guides on beating a game. Now those magazines just talk about upcoming games and reviews... no more multi-page lay out of side scrolling dungeons.

I'm surprised I beat it myself, but that's more due to playing beta 15+ times and starting over 3 times after release (at about 75% through the game) due to major patches and additional content only accessed through a new game.

And with the EE, it'll be time to jump right in all over again! I swear, I have got more of my moneys worth on this game than any other RPG I have played so far.

But at least I can say I beat it once so far. *phew*

I think this reasoning is flawed. Not everybody plays this game on Steam; that much is true. But why do you assume the people playing it on Steam are different from the people who do not? The Steam achievement says that 5% of the Steam-players have completed the game. It does not say anything of the people that do not play it on Steam, but why assume that they play it differently?

Let us assume that 50% of the players play it on Steam and 50% do not. To make your assumption true - using the completion rate of 10% - the number of non-Steam players that have to complete the game must be 15%. If the upper rate of 20% is to be true, the non-Steam player completion rate has to be 35%. This is a rather large difference of the two groups. Why do you assume they are so different?

I do not know how big the different groups are. How many play this game on Steam and how many do not. If for instance only 1% of the players play it on Steam and 99% of the players do not, the numbers provided by Steam cannot be trusted to apply for the entire gaming base. If the groups are almost equal or if the Steam group is the bigger group, I think the numbers provided by Steam are quite accurate. I cannot see why the behavior of the two groups should differ that much with regard to completing the game.

I know this is a bit of a derail, but the "scientist" inside me had to speak up

Isn't this the story of most games?

The biggest reason I feel is there are more games to play all the time.

I'm a fan of cheaper shorter games for this very reason. As much as I love some games, there is a point with many where my ADHD kicks in, the mechanics become boring and I wane.

I also would take it with some concern, as some didn't finish for reasons above or others, bottom line is they didn't finish it and that will stick with them. I feel a lot of second games in a series, with large sales drops reflects this. The customer didn't finish first game, so why but the 2nd?

Things like Blackguards and Grimrock, the follow ups where scary in drop off.

That's ok and you are probably right, in the end it would just be more depressing if it really were only 5% the thing though, is that if a steam profile is set to private, achieved achievement stats do not count into the global, but the ownership count still counts into the global, hence why I don't think achievement stats are 100% correct. Someone who played offline is never counted in those numbers either, something you could do with D:OS...

So yep, we are basically guessing and 5% or 10%.. it would be depressing all the same considering how many backers this had. ;p I know quite a few people that stopped played for the above mentioned reasons too.. so yeah

Easily explained by several patches requiring a restart of the game. I have not finished the game but I have been through Cyseal around 5 times and I absolutely HATE it.


Slow leveling,

a ridiculous amount of abilities you HAVE to invest into to make combat fun (weapon, tenebrium, willpower, body building, armourer and marksman, man-at-arms or etc..., a mage has it even worse.) One character getting stunned can lead to NO CHANCE in the fight which makes combat too much about the RNG.

NO direction where to go next, I am level 13 now and no idea where I could go next without getting killed by enemies of a higher level than me.

Imagine how we alpha/beta backers feel, for us even on release it was already the x th time to play through Cyseal. And that city does not get better the more you play it...

Yeah, I'd imagine that it's quite possible to get 'Cysealed out', kind of like I had. I played through the beta entirely with a team that I really liked, and then I had to start over for the new game and just couldn't get a team that I liked like the old team that I had, now I'm just waiting to re-play with the new version of the game now that it's been a significant amount of time that I've last played.

I can't speak for anyone buy myself, but I didn't bother to finish the game for a very simple reason.

Larian: "Hey, everyone, we'll be patching in new companions later, so look forward to it!"
Larian: "Hey, everyone, we'll be doing a huge content patch this spring, look forward to it!"
Larian: "Hey, everyone, we're doing a total revamp of the game, so look forward to it!"

It's hard to muster the will to finish the game when there's ALWAYS a major improvement coming "sometime" in the future.

hah, yeah I guess I really was 'Cysealed out' had to force myself to push through (And thankfully I had no major bugs at least..) and this is also why I didn't play the game again after beating it once.

I hope the EE doesn't "Enhance" Cyseal.. because one thing that city doesn't need is more content. This would be the first time *ever* I as gamer thought to myself "this needs stripping" ... and not even really removing things, but rather just moving things OUT of the city, into huts in the wilderness, into smaller encounters on the road etc...

Just to cut up the immense "wall of text" that you hit when you are in Cyseal and quest there, for the needed level ups and monies to get skill-books.. oh well. Even knowing the dialogs doesn't really make that any less.. easier.

Agreed and not only them. It's cool they do this, but it does make some want to wait.

Yeah. I really want you to play the game but actively force myself not to so I can play it in its most perfect state. To revise my littany to be more accurate:

Larian: "Hey, backers, we'll be patching in some music soon, so look forward to it!"
Latian: "Hey, backers, we're going to move from alpha to beta soon, so look forward to it!"
Larian: "Hey, backers, we're releasing the game soon, so look forward to it!"
Larian: "Hey, everyone, we'll be patching in new companions later, so look forward to it!"
Larian: "Hey, everyone, we'll be doing a huge content patch this spring, look forward to it!"
Larian: "Hey, everyone, we're doing a total revamp of the game, so look forward to it!"

Yes for me it was playing with friend, he didnt get time, than i got alone through cyseal again, than waiting for patch, now waiting for ee.

The problem with Cyseal is that Larian wanted it to start out as more of a detective type game. Your to go interrogating NPCs and finding clues. The players wanted to jump into a game full of combat and action. Monsters were too tough until you gained the 2 levels doing the Cyseal quests and found gear.

The game starts off even stating the reason why your to go to Cyseal is to discover why Jake was killed. You really have no business to go outside of Cyseal until you finish that quest. Though what "we" wanted to do was something far different.

In Divinity: Sword of Lies, you only spend a small amount of time in Aleroth. By "Facing all the dragons to the north" you can start killing stuff instantly. Find it is very hard, go into Aleroth to kill all the bunnies to heal, then go back into the dungeon. VERY short time in Aleroth compared to Cyseal and that is where Larian falls short.

How I'd re-do it would be several encounters with zombies and skeletons arising out of the ground in a few areas to help the local military kill them off. This would happen while investigating the death of Jake.

I know what the ADHD does to gamers, I used to have it really bad when I was in middle-school until I matured and overcame a lot of the issues. Though when I get bored or tired, it becomes a tough battle to stay focused. On my first play through, I missed the whole Hiberheim portion and went on to the immaculate trials.

Normally a Larian game would have forgiven this until I'd eventrually resolve the quest later on. Here I found that if you don't do quests in order, you end up with severe combat imbalance. Such as if enemies are one or two levels above you, your warrior and rangers cannot hit them, hit chance was 30% of lower for me. Though mages can take them out without problems as long as rangers and warriors became "cannon fodder".

I'm still going to grade Larian on this issue as I would expect many players to make the same mistake I did. If combat remains this messed up, less players will complete the game. As for walkthrew, I am a gamer that thinks they fall into two categories.

1.) Last resort. Totally clueless in how to continue playing and just stuck without direction.
2.) Finished the game's main campaign, though want to fully complete it and find out what was missed.

I figured out how to get to Hiberheim after getting fully stuck and saw this was a quest that I just passed by and revisited it. At that point I had done so much combat that it really didn't bother me there was no more fighting and felt more as a refreshing break. Plus smashing up those monsters I fought them and did more experimentation with abilities I wasn't actively using.

I'll continue reading your post, but to comment on this. This is what you get when you don't put quest markers/directions in games. First you have a player base that is now accustomed to that, but beyond that, with no path to go here or go there other than gaining hints from dialog, you have wanderers getting into places they rather not be. So do you want to challenge them, for them to confuse that as frustration? Xulima, has done the same thing with no direction arrows and had similar type responses in forums, the staunch defender of figure it out yourselfers vs man I'm struggling with this gamers... IMO if you are trying to maximize audience have a toggle for directions, there are plenty of people that want direction and don't feel the game is being given away because of that and honestly sometimes I feel like and nut and sometimes I don't... and that sometimes I want some direction, I want to play faster from time to time.

There was a recent SteamSpy article going over analytics of games, well written, in 2014 the number of games released skyrocketed. What this tells me is more people will want to get in and then out to the next game faster than ever. So being stuck figuring it out for enough will be a chance they put the game down.

The problem with that is they won't be there for the sequel. Say there are 4 groups of D:OS gamers. Loved it. Like it. Ok. Didn't Like. For a first release you got all those players, D:OS 2 you get the loves, some likes a few Ok's and no Didn't Likes. Looking at hours played and % Finished I think is also important to figure out if a sequel can really be a success. Some games I really liked have done nothing on part 2, to me that tells me a lot of people were curious the first go around, but weren't all that bowled over for buying into the franchise a second time.

The no true quest markers/compass issue is even worse when you consider that making a save, and coming back next weekend to finish the game, strands you with zero relevant information in a situation where you have no idea where to go anymore. It's how I completely missed the entire ice world until I was level 16 as I got stuck with the mushrooms and simply wandered on (and who hides an entire map area without any clear hint anyway?).

And yep, the SteamSpy article is likely going to cause some awakening with developers. Kickstarter success does not translate to sequel sales. Apparently

Quest markers only work if you have quests designed to be solved in one way and run through in a linear fashion. If the game is designed without an explicit quest structure, and multiple ways to do things, it isn't quite as good of a fit.

A better journal could help with things like getting back into the game after a break, though.

But a better journal would also need some kind of way to at least show where we have to go. (If we have to go somewhere, for a quest) I would already be happy just by having a floating ! above an area or something which is only for that quest we have "active" in the journal as active quest.

You are of course right that fancy quest markers can not work for a game where.. everything is possible. But general ones, specific to the active quest, that at least show in what area a button is, where we have to next and what is relevant to that quest. Such stuff would be nice. (Also for inventory items -> quest items should (optionally!) say for what quest they are ,p)

Such little things of ease of use features would have prevented me from stomping through level 16 enemies as level 12 party of 3. Was very challenging... ;P Explosive barrels ftw. I think I used up any explosive barrel In the entire cysael area I could find for my eplody traps in the forest...

Ugh, no, quest markers are one step away from MMO "go here, do that, we don't even bother typing directions or stuff" quests... just compare Baldur's Gate II to Dragon Age, deterioration in progress. Got worse each DA sequel too...

IMO the expansion to Divinity II was a major improvement over the base game... going around town, questing, having a plot... much more interesting than ploughing through out-door area over and over for... what? Moving on to point B most of the times... exiting, eh?

Baldur's Gate had the same effect, in both I and II the cities are *the* most interesting thing in the game. As soon as II progressed into a linear "move through areas X,Y,Z to continue" it becomes a chore, and I pretty much always drop it at that point since Athkatla and it's side-areas are just superior.

Also, as stated before; you have to take into account a lot of Steam-copies aren't used. For example several games have 'boot the game' achievements which you pretty much get as soon as you start, and often it's around 40% achieved too. Lifting up that 5% by quite a bunch to more real statistics.

That is what the game has right now "no written directions" in the journal.

If someone tells me I should talk to someone else they would describe the whereabouts or point the finger and say "They live in that house over there" which is nothing else but a marker.

The description of the "Your homeplane is under attack" is "There is a rift somewhere near by".

I am very happy that they are giving the ending a proper treatment even if only for ~6%.....which is very sad....what's wrong with people? I like to think that GOG gamers are much better than Steam gamers and that the game completion rate is much higher but I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully with full Galaxy support along with PSN stats and achievements implemented we'll see that over 90% of the gamers on GOG/PS4 do the right thing and finish this game.

I didn't finish because I ran into a bug that didn't allow me to progress my story. The winter king or whatever his name was had his loot fall under the ground when I killed him. Then I spent 2 days combing through the entire game only to finally fold and consult a guide. Little did I know the loot that fell through stopped me from using the elemental forge and freeing the witch which left me stranded.

I cleared all the other areas and side quests where possible. The only leads I had afterwards were killing a mother and her child for a possible lead on the wizard( had to kill people I didn't want to for bugged quests before. Refused to do it this time.) and trying to make sense of the orckish puzzle which no doubt wasn't solvable without progressing the story. Needless to say getting like 90% done and then being told to start from scratch with the possibility to get bugged out of the story again didn't appeal to me.

The enhanced edition looks neat though. Maybe I can trust a full play through when it comes out.

You do not need to free the White Witch to complete the game. You would miss some of the story in the homestead without her, but she doesn't need to be free (or alive).

Did Alt identify the loot but not let you to pick it up? The Save Game Editor might allow you to replace it (which may or may not work with the elemental forge).

Well I don't know what I had left then to move the story along seeing as the homestead was basically complete aside from 2 rooms and the wizards whereabouts/ork puzzle seemed to be unsolvable. I couldn't ALT the loot from under the ground either. It's been so long now it's not worth editing.

I know in my case I gave up trying to play it on my old comp, and while I've had a swishy new comp since December I've been playing other games (and had about 1.5 months of playing nothing at all). I'm just at the fight with Bracius under the church after roughly 60 hours but not really happy with my character setups. I'm far enough in that I don't want to restart (till EE) but not far enough in that I can respec the characters.