Hello,
My wife and I picked this game up from Steam back on the 18th. To date we've managed to put about 20 hours total in to playing Co-op over a couple different games.
The game is rough, as one would expect of an Alpha release. That said, we are both impressed with it so far. Its not been too painful to get a co-op game going.
Below is much longer than I expected post of our experience and feedback.
- Character creation:
It would be nice if the second person joining the game would get a screen similar to the host.
We've found that when my wife is making the character she wants...it will interfere with what I'm doing as the games host. She applies her class and points and when I'm done and click finish I get an error saying all points must be spent. If I look at her character I see double the amount of points allocated to that character.
To get around this I have to switch her characters class out and back. Then the error goes away when I click finish. When we are loaded on to the beach her character has the class and stats she picked.
- Henchmen:
Allow Henchmen to be controlled by either Hero...not just the games host.
Henchmen in Divinity OS are better than some other games I've played. Most likely due to the turn based combat making it easier to control them through micro management. That said we had two henchmen(women) in our party. So my wife would get a little bored while I controlled 3 characters plus summons and she only had one character to fight with. It would be nice if henchmen could be controlled be either Hero and not just the host.
Not sure if that is the plan, but we tried to link them to my the other hero with no luck. We tried letting my wife talk to the Henchman to see if they would join her, but they instead linked to the Hosts hero instead. We tried to drop them off at the Homestead and let the other hero invite them back in to the part. Nothing worked.
Hopefully this will just be something that is corrected in later releases. The FAQ seems to state that each hero can hire a henchmen anyway.
- Melee vs Range vs Caster:
Melee is weak, Range is only a little stronger, Casters are insane.
I know this is an Alpha, so I'm sure the balancing will come. Its just rough being a Melee fan to the point where you refuse to play anything else.
Our first play through was with a Warrior (Me) and a Ranger (Wife). For what ever reason the two guards on the bridge near the start wouldn't let us by. So we ended up attacking them to get past. It was a blood bath the first 3-4 tries. Eventually while I played punching bag my wife barely killed them with her Ranger using every possible advantage we could think of.
Later we restarted the game to make some different choices on character abilities/talents etc. This time she picked a Mage and I stuck with my Warrior. We agro'd the guards again and she two shot one of them. I think I did my usual 3-6 dmg a hit, but she did all the heavy lifting.
Please, for the love of all that is holy...please give Melee some love next release. The second play through I figured out where to buy additional skills to flesh out my Warrior. I'm liking what I see for abilities, but it saddens me when I hit for 6-12 when my weapon damage is 42-159. The same goes for Rangers, they appear to be more effective than Warriors, but not nearly effective enough right now.
- Crafting:
Good job on the crafting, looking forward to a less buggy version so I can craft and not crash to desktop.
I love the ability to randomly make something cool by combining items I'm looting. Was fun to use a dagger and branch and get a spear that was an upgrade. Or combine a branch and some nails for an improved 1 handed blunt weapon. I was sad to find out that combining too many items in a row appears to cause a crash to desktop. Otherwise I would have experimented a lot more.
- Ability Indicators:
Looking forward to seeing what Larian uses for range indicators, Area of Effect coverage etc.
Through trial and error we've figured out the range and spread of most of our abilities now. Not to say I didn't kill myself, my Henchman or my wife a few times figuring it out. Still, sometimes it seems like the effect goes nuts. It will go a lot farther than I expect, or not nearly far enough.
Wondering if thats due to the environment. If there is a lot of water around where I'm using a freezing spell. Does that spell travel a lot farther? That thought just popped in to my head actually. If so...thats pretty frigging awesome
I'd love to see something similar to what MMO's use for area of effect. An outline of the area that will be impacted, or a clear indicator on the mouse cursor for range. Again, its an Alpha release so I'm sure that stuff in on the long "todo" list somewhere.
- Weapons:
Need more options for weapon damage types and styles.
I'm sure this will be addressed as they add more content to the game. Just wanted to point out that in the early game (after the crabs/orcs) you go against a lot of Zombies and Skeletons. Which is fine...provided you have options for different damage types.
I use 2 Handed weapons and what I had access to was Axes and 2 Handed Swords. Both are slashing damage. Later on I was able to craft a Spear for Piercing damage. I'm not sure if there are any 2 Handed Crushing weapons. All the ones I saw were 1 Handers.
I hope to see some nice big 2 Handed Hammers and Maces down the road. Or the ability to Dual Wield weapons would be great as well. Both suit my play style better than Sword and Board.
There was also a lack of crossbows in the earlier game. Bows were all over the place, but it wasn't until later that we started seeing some Crossbows drop.
- In game Music:
Not to hurt anyones feelings at Larian, but I really hope most of the music is a place holder.
There are some good parts where the music seems to fit, then there is some music that plays and makes you think WTF?! It makes sense, but I never really put much thought in to how important music is to a game...until now.
It really does take you out of the experience...just as much as a crash to desktop IMO There are times I have actually muted my PC so the pain would stop.
- Bugs/Issues:
While a bit frustrating at times, the game has been mostly playable and we've progressed to what I'm assuming is the end of this releases content. Which makes me a bit sad as I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. Along the way we've come across and tried to report as many of the issues as possible. Here are a list of issues we've hit.
* Others can't join coop game - Not sure what causes this issue, or what really fixes it. We've rebooted, restarted the game, tried inviting, or joining. Used different save games etc. Eventually it just appears to want to work. Of the 20ish hours we've played. We've only had this issue twice that I can think of.
* Craft/combine items 2-3 times in a row and you crash to desktop. We are in the habit of saving before and after a combine now. Learned the hard way to not do too much inventory management or crafting without a good save.
* Can't leave Henchmen at the Homestead. I've only tried twice, so maybe it was just being picky. I talked to the Henchman and told them to leave the party. Then went to Waypoint back to town and it kept saying that I can't waypoint when in a dialog. The only way we could resolve this was to go get the henchman again and then all was well.
* Vanishing weapons. Playing a Warrior this one was brutal at times. It only happened twice to me (on two different games) and once to my wife (first game). I've read some of the feedback from others, and I'll have to pay more attention to what weapons are poofing on game load. I KNOW that the Axe/Bow in Esmeralda's house definately vanished on me. Lucky for my Warrior, he was doing crappy damage most of the time so it didn't hurt to be knocked down 20 max dmg with a replacement 2 handed Axe
* Lighthouse quest crash. We got to a main quest plot in the pirate cove. Go to tell the female ghost about her husbands involvement with her dead, click end on the dialog...crash to desktop. No matter which way we lead the dialog leading up to that point.
I think that was the major ones, we had some other random crashes that I can't think of. Or times that we had to kill the game because it was stuck loading.
- Final thoughts:
Both my wife and I are pleased with the direction of Divinity - Original Sin. Its got some solid bones and there aren't too many complaints with the game that won't be addressed as they work out the kinks and start fleshing out the content.
