Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Lost, Early Game

Hi There!

Despite having played a fair number of RPG's in my years my favourite ever being Baldurs Gate II, I find myself lost in this game in the early stages, unable to proceed because I am not sure what or where to go next. Everywhere I go I seem hopelessly under powered and equipped and I am really struggling to work out what to do next to progress the missions I seem to have no trouble accumulating, but not dispatching. Example is how to proceed on how to find the killer of the politician, or the cat whos mate isn't showing enough affection etc... The clues don't seem to give a strong enough indication of what to do next... I don't want to resort to a walkthrough. Is there to get a firmer idea of the next step in a mission?

Often, if you don't know what to do you should just ignore the mission and keep exploring and then come back later. Thing often become clearer over time.

The game is designed like this. For instance the mission with cat in love cannot be solved until much later - and if you find out what to do it will become clear at that time.

After exploring the town you should move the western beach and the to the areas north west of town.

My tactic when unsure where to go next has always been: explore everything, try to not miss any little secret and talk to everyone, eventually I'll run across the hints I need to proceed. The biggest pain had to be investigating Jake's murder because the quest is a mess and you don't get any real hints outside of: investigate. So just trying to follow up on the leads you do have can be a huge pain. The The cat's collar you should find through exploration eventually. The biggest thing is always to try to find your way into every door, if something is locked you probably need to get in for some quest or another.

With Jake's murder I always found that going around and exhausting conversation options with every named NPC is a great idea.

Talk to everyone / everything. Go everywhere . Do anything / everything .

Thanks. I keep worrying if I move along, I'll fail missions which I hate doing.

Levelling up is proving to take a LONG time, at this stage I think it will be weeks before I am strong enough to fight anything other than rats.

Save a lot. (This is a recommendation from the dev. themselves )

You know you can run away from fights, right?

Fighting enemies more than 2 level higher is really a challenge, so do it only for the sport. Otherwise, you can fight em later. And most probably, you are not suppose to be there. But you can always sneak around.

And yes, leveling up takes a long time comparatively to other games. It's designed to be so.

BTW, the first 3 level up can be done without any fights in town.

Inside the walls of Cyseal, you should able to make some little quests, which will give you some XP. Don't go out until you reach level 3, have a party of four characters (unless you have chosen Lone Wolf talent) and buy or "acquire" some decent equipment.

As a general rule: if you see a group of foes with level greater than yours, turn back. If the foes has the same level as you but the group is very large (more than six), or simply, if you try different strategies and always get killed, turn back and try another route.

If there's no routes left, perhaps you are missing something, such a little button or a hidden hatch. Open every chest, barrel and box. Speak to everybody, al least to the guys that have a name. Pick the talent Pet Pal and speak to animals. Talk to every rat: many of them will tell you useful clues. Press ALT often (to see objects), specially after a battle, and very specially if there were bosses in the battle.

thanks very useful. I'll see what happens over the next few days and report back.

I went out the doors that said level 10 or whatever and managed to take out a few 1-2 person groups which gave me lots of points, but more adventuring took me to LARGE groups of powerful people and I of course died as I expected to. I've explored the left side the map fairly comprehensively until I got a light house mission and there were way too many of them so I went back to town to try and win more stuff there.

Is there an irc chat for this game by chance any one know?

On your way in there is a low level dungeon that you can walk by quite easily.

The entrance is a very large round door. Come back with a party of four (assuming you didn't take the Lone Wolf trait) and you should have no problem handling it.

I echo what has been said by the previous posters. Talk to everyone and explore every nook and cranny.


EDIT: I just thought of another spot you should visit. Find a shovel and every grave in the graveyard. The exception being the one the women is crying in front of of.
You should get a decent amount of experience between these two places.

EDIT: 2: Also, remember the old axiom. If at first you don't succeed try try again.

Actually, there are some nice quest in the Cyseal area. There are at least two somewhat easy quests in the Cyseal market. (the place behind or next to the barracks). Also, there's a seller there which sells potions there. In the kitchen - at all places - if you go upstairs you get to see the quartermaster. You can also easily go out a little to find a person who is lost. Go to the inn to recruit your first npc/companion and upstairs in the Legionnaires Quarters to talk to the daughter of the guy downstairs. Here you can recruit your other npc/companion.

As others have said, go to the beach again. When your find wayport portals be sure to activate them.
If you go to Evelyn's house, there's a nice quest there. (hint: be sure to pick a certain stone, you'll need it later...) Move to the beach area - try going into the warehouse - a quest there should be somewhere in there. And then try go out west from the beach....

Mayor's quarters, but otherwise yeah.

That is so weird.
BG2 has like 20x more quests and zones than D:OS yet you get lost in this one :P

BG2 has a clear direction. The game actually tells you to get to the Nashkell mines. Your mentor tells you that there is a town (Beregost) where you can go as well. In this game, there is no such direction. And I find that it is the game's strength as well as its weakness.

thats bg1 you're referring to about the nashkell mines, anyway, bg2 didnt got you lost but this does? :O i found this way easier than bg 2 and I played it bg2 recently ( solo granted but still ...)
Only worry about quests that really seem urgent as in the right then , those you can usually fail , rest can be delayed quite a bit , or they can get updated with other related quests when you reach a certain point...

Maybe your troubles stem from an unproper build of character? don't spread too thin on the skills, attributes, remember to save points for the level 2 ( need 2 skill points) ,3 ,4 etc if you don't have a mage in the build of your 2 characters you might feel it hard at the beggining , specially since higher level mobs give you a dent in your hit chance, , use a bow/elemental arrows they dont cost you skill investment if you need a quick environmental control...

Hybrid builds are usually very usefull with only 8 int and a point in most mage schools for buff spells (since they always get a 100% success if they are skill level 4 or under ). Later on you might need the int to equip a good sarong anyway but investment is not that necesarry... go crafting section and see what you can craft with the stuff from the traders and get some rings, amulets ,belts asap

The spider summon from geomancer is pretty good from the start of the game to the end and it's not hard to aquire ...

( MINI-SPOILER 2 extra companions you can get from talkin around in cyseal ...The summon is per character limited so 4 members = 4 summons if you are having so much trouble)


STEAL STUFF and dont get caught, go sneak mode (even if you dont have any point in it) and to decrease gettin caught and to reload so often , get another character into chat mode with the npc's that have their view oriented at the prize you wanna get

Save, reload before you enter the barter menu on the skillbooks traders till they have the skill books you want...(give a search on the wikia to see what kind of skills you can learn if you dont want to keep it a surprise and to better build yourself towards what you want)>>> remember this only applies each time you level up, if you see the barter then save , the inventory wont refresh, you have to level up again or advance on the main story( or leave your pc on for a night , it worked for me hehehe...)

There are plenty of tools to play this game in various ways, you can shoot yourself in the foot to make it harder but not impossible , good luck and have fun experimenting different strategies/builds

(MINI-SPOILER you can respec your main characters later in the game)