Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Questions and Impressions of D2:DKS

First, wow, I'm surprised this slipped under my radar for so long. I never saw the original, expansion, or remastered version at a local store (or any adverts either). I just happened to see this hidden gem on my suggested list on Stardock's Impulse, read the description, downloaded the demo, and then bought the game the next night (thanks Stardock).

I have some questions and some comments from my limited play so far (only lvl 10 - just saw the dragon vision). The only thing I ask is please NO SPOILERS. I like my first play through to be without guides, preconceived notions instilled from players further along than me, etc. Second play through I'll see what I missed to 'get everything'. I'm sure some/all of my questions and comments have been made before, but I'm hesitant to use the search feature since the game has been out for this long (spoilers tend to trickle in post as 'common knowledge' after enough time passes).

Questions:

1) Without specifics or names, are there any missable zones? As in an area is destroyed or inaccessible after event X, or can all zones be (re)visited at any point? So far the urge to explore has been greater than to move the story along. However I don't want to rush the plot as it thickens if it can cause me to miss out on some content.

2) In exploring everything before continuing the main story, I've already become overpowered at just level 10. I am playing as a ranger and at the start I had to kite mobs, actively dodge, and be careful when approaching groups or be killed. Now that I'm out of places to explore and continued the plot line, I can one shot most mobs and use scattershot to take out a group. If this is temporary, then great! I like seeing an advantage in power from exploring instead of rushing to the finish line. If it is a case of once you are ahead of the curve, the rest of the game is trivial, then I'm greatly disappointed. I'm hoping the mobs get harder when I go to the tower mentioned just after the vision (my save game is just after the vision and conversation with the wizard).

3) Are chest subject to a RNG? I'm assuming this is true as I opened a chest once, subsequently died, loaded my save and got different items. If so, great, this adds to the replayability as it won't be as predictable. The only thought that arises from this, are their some items that can only be gained from one chest but are subject to this RNG?

4) Is there a way to hide the helmet graphic? There were not a plethora of options in picking your avatar, but still the bare face is more aesthetic than all the helms I've found thus far.

Things I like:

• Side Quest / Exploration - This has been the biggest boon to this game so far and I've only scratched the surface I'm sure. I really hate when games have a RPG tag but are so scripted that, even if not a straight line, is still a line from A to B. The distraction of exploration coupled with hidden passages has hooked me.

• Dodge / Jump / Climb - These were all welcome additions. It always irked me when I could have the power to summon a wall of flame to decimate an entire army, but can't climb over a 1 foot tall rock due to game mechanics. The ability to dodge projectiles adds some skill to combat instead of just button mashing.

Things I did not like:

• Shiny keys - At first it annoyed me and I couldn't figure out why. Now I think the reason it bothers me is nothing else in the game is made to be so obvious. There are no shiny markers for quest locations/items, hidden passage buttons/levers don't have particle effects, some chest blend with the surroundings or are behind doors, etc. So why are keys special? It just cheapens it some as it is near impossible to not see the particle effect even from a distance.

• Shadows - I'm not going to post PC specs as I'm not trying to impress anyone, let's just say it is modern and above the recommended specs. If I turn everything to max (advanced box checked), I get consistent stutters. If I take the same settings and reduce just the shadows down one notch to High, the game runs flawlessly even with lots of moving characters on the screen. I don't notice a big difference between the two settings visually, so not sure why it is hiccuping?

• Decisions don't mean much - Maybe I got spoiled with the gravity of decision making in Dragon Age, but it seems picking sides (so far) doesn't have much effect other than a shop owner raising or lowering their prices. In fairness, I haven't gone that far into the game so maybe their are more important decisions ahead of me.

All in all, I think I've found an unexpected great game to keep me busy for awhile. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

1) Yes. The main one will be somewhat obvious in-game. Explore everything, feel free to put the main plot on the backburner.

2) You will reach new areas and have your ass handed to you. Probably. Unless you're just that good/have the difficultly too low. Crank up the difficulty if you're too powerful. My experience was levels 1-9 I was weak and scared, levels 10-18 I was like "I am a god!" after that it evened out.

3) Yes. But there are some handplaced set items AFAIK.

4) No.

I wonder how many players missed this game just because there is't enought Advertising. I hope Larian will put more time in marketing of div 3 so more players will have chance to buy and play this wonderful rpg.

I had a rather different experience. My wife and I downloaded the demo, played the tutorial area, and were underwhelmed. We then played Fallout 3 (she had missed it), New Vegas, Mount&Blade: Warband, and as we were looking for Drakensang: River of Time info, we came across someone praising The Dragon Knight Saga. So we gave it another try, and were very happy we did.

Now I am going for my second playthrough.

It depends what do you mean by "zones". if you're talking about entire location (like Broken Valley) - then no, there is no such. Small dungeons - yes.
Game is pretty linear.


Archer is a cheat-class in the game ;P


Yes, in 99% cases it's RNG.


As I said a;ready - game is pretty linear. There is no real choices.

Tuidjy, I'm personally curious what you thought was boring about the demo and where your interest peaked when you revisited the game. Yes, this is something Larian would usually ask, but your response piqued my interest.



I believe these were a compromise. Many secrets are not nearly as obvious. If the keys were very well hidden as they are in the earliest quests they would drastically impede progress for players that are not used to unassisted problem solving.



Forking narratives are very time consuming to implement. If you ever read Choose Your Own Adventure series of gamebooks you quickly realize the amount of pages necessary to implement a relatively short story. Larian's use of framed stories to allow you to dig into smaller sub-stories through minor choices and quests is a great compromise for a smaller team.

I'm starting to believe you are right...

I did have a momentary increase in difficulty when I hit the first tower, but since then I haven't had the need to even eat a cheap piece of food (with the exception of a certain bunny - tho that became, jump, run, turn, shoot, repeat). Later a section said I should run unless I want to make my enemies job easy (hinting the area was way above my level), yet I cleared it out without any issue. Though I'm a fraction from level 15 now and still haven't gone to the other tower - for some reason I like the banter of the voice in my head complaining with every quest that I'm wasting time. The highest level mob I've found in the wild is level 11, so might not just be Ranger in this case (tho any range attack is obviously stronger in this setting).



I see where this can come in. When I saw that the world was open for me to explore early on I had hoped it would be more unassisted. Maybe age is distorting perception, but it seemed I had to think more in the classics. The console trend seems to be the faster you have to mash buttons = harder (Demon Souls was a welcome exception), and graphics > story. The game is still fun, I just sigh a little every time I see a key sparkling under a barrel in the distance.



I've read many choose your own adventure books as a kid! In part, I think that has influenced my desire for choice over linear progression. While bigger arcs like found in Dragon Age (and it's DLC save game loads) or Heavy Rain are great, I still think a smaller company can find a better middle ground than one NPC will have a choice of two greetings depending on your action. At least it is not as bad as some of the older games that would offer a choice but if you chose wrong it would just ask the question again (Nintendo was bad with this - Dragon Warrior comes to mind - Will you help? No. Will you help? No. Will you help? Yes. Quest starts. :p).

If you don't have the team for massive arcs, you can still have quest that have prerequisites to activate where you can only chose one of the actions. You can keep a hidden value that goes up or down by your moral choice that effects the way NPCs interact or comment as you walk by. You could also have a unique quest for each class type (to unlock the way of x skill maybe?). Etc., etc. Where I find having choice matters is in the replay value. I played through DA 4 complete times not because one element of the game was so great, but because I wanted to see the story from different origins, race choice, class choice, party makeup and reaction to events, decisions, etc. Replayed Heavy Rain a few times too so I could see the results of different actions. I think if I replay Divinity, it will be once to get things I missed or experience combat as something other than a ranger (but twice is probably it's limit before archive).

I am enjoying the game and happy I found it, so this is all constructive criticism - not bashing. It seems the games we enjoy the most we become the most critical of. If the game sucked, I wouldn't even of bothered making an account.

I agree with Trilarian about moral choices, it's always better to have a free choice.

There are certain quests that can be failed due to player decision. And there are a couple exclusive quests for players that choose a certain path. But you have to realize that those decision can only apply to that specific quest. If that quest decision impacted multiple quests or NPCs the game would have to fork or players would be left out of multiple hours of game time. There are a couple NPCs that won't speak, are rude and up charge you, or do not become vendors depending on your choices. Even making all NPCs or a large group of them respond differently requires that they dub more hours per dialog. Keep in mind, the characters in D2 appear more round because they all have at least a couple of lines that are randomly spoken.

The amount of gameplay hours is what makes D2 great. So let's make is a little poll... What would you rather have: more hours? more impactful decisions?

IMHO, the developers thought the former was a key priority. But if you do not, let them know.

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EDIT: I'll comment on the class specific quest. If I remember correct its something that has been brought up before but it's an element that wasn't implemented. Maybe you'll see it in future games.

Well the thing is DKS never struck me as a game focused on branching outcomes in the first place. Sure, some quests can be failed and done in different ways with different repercussions but ultimately DKS is a hack & slash RPG. IMO what the devs should really focus on is making the combat more engaging, the skills more diverse, the dragon sequences (and even the non-dragon ones) more epic and improve the loot system.

Can't I have both? I understand that this game was meant to be a glorified hack n slash with RPG elements (modern Diablo if you will) without forcing the user to really consider in depth choices that alter that session of the game. However, a simple internal moral/faction/etc. counter could be implemented easy without huge story arcs. You tend to help the guards more than the merchants and:



I think in my particular case it is a matter of how I came to this game. I played Mass Effect. Dragon Age, Heavy Rain, Dragon Age DLC to prep for DA2, Mass Effect 2, then Divinity II. So the last few months I've become accustomed to decisions making huge impacts. Anyway, now that I have been playing this game for awhile now I really don't miss it that much - just stuck out initially. The action, story, endless giddiness of a gold chest, etc. has replaces my loss of in depth decision making.

Some notes on the Dragon:


I really did like that I could do some things out of order and be temp overpowered as my reward. However, the way that XP is shifted by level forces you to really follow the script or you end up where you are 10+ levels higher than your foes and only getting 1-10xp a kill. The flip of that is if you are skilled with using your terrain you can get over 3k a kill in an area you shouldn't be.


Sorry if I'm coming off harsh, I really do LOVE the game - the graphical glitch of the towers is what set me off in making this post. All in all it is a solid game and I DO plan a second play through after I finish this one and the expansion. So far I've held true to ONLY ranger tree skills and bow and arrow the whole way. It is kind of lame that as a Ranger I'm wearing heavy plate mail, but I never saw any leather type armor that even remotely had decent stats.

So since I stayed pure, my second play through will be a warrior/mage hybrid do I can try it all. I would go pure mage, but I'm assuming from the loot I've seen thus far there are no staves or robes except for one NPC who taunts me...

Thanks again Larian for a great game. Don't take me rants to heart to deeply, it is just a side effect of me spending so many hours enjoying your creation.

If it helps any on the technical side:

Can't I have both?

Larian doesn't quite have the same resources as BioWare.
Keeping the existing length and adding main plot branches would be nice, but personally I'd rather see the cut areas put back in than alternate plotlines. There was a swamp that got removed during development (screenshot 588KB), and an area containing elves and dwarves (possibly even the same map as the swamp), and FoV started out with a Broken Valley type area, which was cut as finishing it would have delayed the release by the better part of a year.
In Beyond Divinity there was a point during development where Larian considered dramatically restricting the main character's speech options simply due to the costs associated with localization.


I understand that this game was meant to be a glorified hack n slash with RPG elements

No, no it wasn't. Now, come here so I can slap you...


without forcing the user to really consider in depth choices that alter that session of the game.

Actually one of the early design goals was to have significant choices (see the old topic Moral dilemma's in RPGs, for example). In the side quests that didn't come across in practice as well as it could have, and of course a non-branching main plot can not reflect the consequences of earlier choices.

About your spoiler:
If there are guards or bandits around you can get help with that fight.
The guards at the front gate of the village in Broken Valley alter their speech several times in response to your actions (killing a demon and returning the claw brings praise, while summoning the creature creeps out one of them, etc).


However, a simple internal moral/faction/etc. counter could be implemented easy without huge story arcs.

That's true, but there is an argument for not doing something if you are not able to do it right. There was a reputation system in Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity that influenced the default reaction of NPCs and trade prices. As long as your reputation didn't get too low, though (ie attacking friendly NPCs), it didn't have a huge impact on the game. It was nice in DD that guards would tell you to move along, etc, until your reputation improved, but when prioritizing features I wouldn't necessarily put that on the 'must have' list.

EDIT => Moved this to the Technical forum.