Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General To update or not to update? That is the question.

Hello and thanks for reading.

So, I recently wrote a post about how D:OS was great fun early on, but how my party became overpowered (around the time I departed Cyseal) and the game correspondingly went downhill.

I hemmed and hawed about how to potentially gimp my party, but, ultimately, I elected to go with the simpler seeming solution of the Source Difficulty mod. That way, I figured I wouldn't have to worry whether I was building my characters "too well" and would face a serious challenge regardless.

Now the patch has released. And while it doesn't include another difficulty level, it does include "balancing."

So, the question is, Do I update to this patch and go back to my old party in the hope that whatever balancing was done will be enough to inject the necessary challenge into the game...or do I stick with my current game and Source Difficulty?

Complicating matters some is that my D:OS is on Steam. And Steam has made it frustratingly (and unnecessarily, in my opinion) difficult to stick with an older version of a game. Steam offers no option to not auto-update. The closest option will delay updating until you launch the game with Steam online...then it will update. You have no choice in the matter at that point. The only option then is to take Steam offline every time I want to play D:OS. From a multiplayer perspective, I'm sure this is a good feature. From a modded game perspective, it's a pain in the rear.

(Correction: I just learned that taking Steam offline will not stop the auto-update process. Possibly disabling one's internet connection altogether will, but I'm not sure that Steam will allow the game to start without updating, even with no working internet. In short, I could just be screwed in terms of the Source Difficulty game I've recently sunk a good number of hours into.)

Now, I'm assuming that my current version of Source Difficulty will break when I install the new patch. Perhaps it won't, but it seems a safe assumption.

Still, I'm very happy with how my Source Difficulty game has gone thus far. And I just can't handle the many hours of doing the in-Cyseal-no-combat starting quests again. But I do have the option of loading the patch and playing with one of my unmodded saves that I've preserved.

Thoughts?

- Geezer

If you don't care about Steam achievements and don't mind using LAN or Direct Connection for co-op, you can copy the install folder of the game somewhere other than the Steam install path, and play that version of the game by starting directly from the executable.

That's a great fix, since I play solo. Wasn't aware you could do that (obviously). Thanks very much, Raze.

And if you have any insights on whether the "balancing" in this patch makes the game more difficult, I'm very interested to hear them. Though I believe in my other thread you said that increased difficulty options are planned for a later patch of an indeterminate date.

Thanks!

- Geezer

Raze,

I just applied your method and it works exactly as you described -- copied the folder and it loaded up with saves, the mod, etc. intact. (That was easy.) Thanks again.

- Geezer

I didn't play enough of the beta patch to get a good feel for the changes (most of which were after Cyseal). The little feedback I saw was mixed on whether it was harder or easier. I have not tried the Source Difficulty mod, but I'd guess this update wouldn't replace it in terms of the challenge.

The goal of the recent changes was to balance some of the mechanics of combat, rather than the difficulty. The actual harder difficulty mode will include changes to enemy composition and tactics, etc.


If you wish you can try out the updated version and switch back to the copied previous version. You would run into an issue with the latest version's change to the playerprofiles.lsb file, though, due to the added support for Steam cloud. The new version will overwrite the file (most people not having multiple versions of the game) and just save the active profile name (scanning the PlayerProfiles folder to get the list of profiles on startup, rather than getting them from a list in the file). Older versions of the game will not understand the file format, and prompt you to create a new profile on startup.
Do not create a new profile using a name of an existing profile - the game will overwrite the folder, wiping out any saves in the profile.

It would be easiest to make a copy of the playerprofiles.lsb file (in ..\Documents\Larian Studios\Divinity original Sin\PlayerProfiles ), and restore that after playing the updated Steam version. Otherwise you can create a new unique profile in the old version, and then copy/move your saves from the existing profile to the new one.

Yes, I see the .lsb file in my save games. If I want to try that, renaming my current PlayerProfiles folder to "OLDPlayerProfile" or the like and creating a new empty folder for the updated Steam version is easy enough. Then, as you say, I can always restore my current PlayerProfiles folder for when I return to my existing game.

Many thanks for helping all of us out here on the forums.

- Geezer

Yes, you could just switch PlayerProfiles folders, as well. Make a backup of the playerprofiles.lsb file, anyway, in case you forget, though (I did a couple times switching back and forth between the GOG and Steam versions... though presumably you will not be going back and forth frequently, just either continuing your existing game in the old version, or checking out the changes in the new one).