Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Feedback on game for the latest patch

A bit of context:
I've played a few months ago on hard until Silverglen because I had read of feedbacks saying the game was too easy from that point on. That's why I waited until this patch.

I then played (still on hard) from my old save to the end with Jahan, Madora, a fire witch and a ranger. Here's what I thought of the game.

The story: nothing amazing but it worked. I did appreciate the humor from time to time though. I wasn't paying much attention to the story though so I don't have much to say about it.

The puzzles:
1) I really disliked the puzzles where you had to find the hidden lever or whatever. I think it's a pretty cheap way of making a puzzle and not fun at all for the players.
2) I loved the puzzle where you had the clues that you had to piece together or where thinking was required (room of portals, mage's puzzle with the morphing cat/rat/dog). You should have done more of those, especially when it was important to the progression of the story.

The fights:
I didn't really try to min/max that much until the final fight where I used a bit of the crafting (adding elemental damage, improving my crossbow, etc...)
Most of the fights before the ones on the garden were fun and challenging, you had to actually think about what you were going to do. I don't know how they were before the patch but it was pretty nice when I played. I would have liked more diversity for fighters skills on the later levels. Moreover, the ranger's skills don't seem to use the weapon directly and can't miss, I think they should be more like the warrior.

The last boss fights however were disappointing. I did them when I was lvl21 and fixed Leandra's soulforge.
The first problem was that the Trife went down too easily. I think it was due to the fact that he had low resists against my crossbow (water+physical) that I had just boosted before the fight. With 1K+ (2K+ on crits). Even though I targeted his summons with my ranger first, he died within 3 turns.

The second problem was the fight with the dragon, he was too sensitive to chill/freeze and died within 4 turns.
What happened:
1st turn my ranger use luck, haste and kill a summon with a critical (33% chance), my other characters use buffs/summons.
2nd turn I kill all but one summon that is knocked down by Madora. Jahan chills the dragon.
3rd turn, my ranger removes almost 5K hp from the dragon with 2 criticals and then the boss gets frozen by the hail attack from Jahan.
Start of 4th turn, my ranger finishes off the still frozen dragon and the fight ends with my other 3 characters still available to do some damage (even though their damage was negligible compared to the ranger).

The problem was that the dragon was too sensitive to crowd control, didn't have enough hp and/or resists, the summons didn't have unsummons like the death knights and the dragon targeted the summons first. His damage didn't matter since he never hit any of my characters. He didn't have enough summons to threaten me either.

To sum it up, the game was very good and my only grips were:
- the puzzle where you have to find small objects and the like
- the final fights were too easy, the main problem was that the bosses themselves were too easy to handle or they didn't have enough summons to distract my ranger.

I love all kind of puzzles ... and I love a diversity of puzzles ... .

I like the puzzles.

I like the combat more!

I think the end-boss fight is good ( it wasnt easy until I played it the second time through when I had much better characters and knew the game far more, Astarte just keeps getting her useless ass killed in my first playthrough wish I could just leave her at homestead, easy is better than impossible anyway) but I would have liked a dungeon to get to the actual fight, a real monster crawl so I can get hip-deep-in-diced-beast!

I love food. My favorite kind of food is the edible kind!

***

I liked the puzzles in Original Sin that were actually puzzles. Hunting for tiny switches works well in FPS games like Thief, and sometimes works in third-person games like Divinity 2, but hunting for tiny switches does not work all that well in an isometric game. They're also not really puzzles. I got stuck several times because there were tiny switches I needed to find.


I didn't exploit status effects for the end-boss, but I still found it somewhat unsatisfying. It spent most of its time attacking an important NPC, and not actually engaging my characters. That forced me to spend a lot of time babysitting the NPC. Once I could spare someone to attract the boss's attention, it did have a couple flashy attacks, but by that time, it was almost dead from repeated backstabs + stealth.


Felix, I felt there was more than enough dungeon with the enemy encampment in front of the Source Temple. Actually I didn't care to slog through that, and just used sneak to get past. I was pretty tired of the combat by then.

I may do that myself next time. I kinda enjoyed it the previous couple of times I've got to the end stages, but it's a fine line between it being fun and just being a bit of a chore. There's certainly enough combat in that section where the prospect of having to wade through it again feels like it's looming over me a bit.

Roger that, about chores in gaming, the unkillable death-knights in the mines really bring me down, so I can see something wearing thin, the spiders in the desert also bug me a bit, they have way too many action points and that submerging in the ground on the other side of the world and then emerging to attack and then dissapear again is just the game "cheating", its crap.

I also really hate the Guardian-Shambling Oak in Hiberheim,an hour to kill the bloody thing! That encounter has to be the least satisfying in the whole game, its not challenging its mind-numbing!

I never thought I would be too critical of tactical problems but, after reading what you have posted yes there are the occasional instances that are not fun. try to get it all so I can get my characters as high level as possible so far I have never exceeded 23rd level, I may have to depopulate all of Cyseal, there is a few people there I wouldnt mind killing, but I have not since I dont want an entire town to turn on me, I always kill everything in Sacred Stone.

I never sneak anywhere, steal anything or backstab at all, seems that would leave quite a bit of experience on the table unless you assassinate everything after sneaking up on it, actually I may have to try that with a different party build, could be a slice. I am only just starting my fourth playthrough, my first time through was a training game, my second and third with the benefit of experience went much better, nothing can match experience. Also since the latest patch seems to have fixed my crashing issues I actually get to play a lot more, making it a lot less tedious and repetitive.

I also hated the unkillable death knights, but after a while I quite enjoyed the stealth component. They seem to have reduced the number of them too, which makes life a bit less frustrating. They're also not a long-term worry, happily.

The spiders are annoying, though as I've discovered a few times in this game, coming back later makes them rather less so. Sigh, rather bad memories of other games where I've tried to take on certain challenges too early: one that particularly sticks in my mind was that spectral dog early on in The Witcher. I was about ready to throw my PC out of the window before finally deciding to go and do some other quests instead.

The shambling oak... has another solution. That's rather less irksome. There are some people nearby who are worth talking to; or looting, if they're not feeling very friendly.

Yeah I have the technique for the DK's now but it still would be better to just be able to kill them, not as dramatic and wouldnt drive the story as much so I see why thats off the table. LOL


Trying to avoid a spoiler Vometia, on the shambling oak...I think I know what you mean but there is the nasty unforeseen effects from that item? or maybe I am missing something...wouldnt surprise me in the least...I have looted it by accident and immediately regretted it. I could be doing the other quest in the wrong order!

Yeah I got the spiders early on my first playthrough, and while annoying I took em out at 12th level. But it was unpleasant and nerve-wracking so I have learned to go after them around 14th level. I also freaking hate spiders ( any kind of arachnid and almost all bugs in RL) my time living in tents has not endeared them to me, at least they are not giant camel spiders!

Yes. Bairdotr can handle tenebrium from the start, if she is in your party, before the others have a chance to learn that ability. IIRC using that item doesn't give experience, though.

Thanks didnt know. I have used Bairdotr but usually give her up for Wolgraff who is a better rogue and can learn to be as good an archer as Bairdotr. I havent needed Madora since I play a Knight and havent needed Jahan also since my second char is a wizard.

Havent done BOTH characters as Lone wolves yet but may soon.

If you haven't yet done Brandon's quest (the one where all party members can learn to safely handle tenebrium), you can use a handy star stone to rid yourself of the annoying effects of the item in question. After you've got rid of it, of course! I find that by that sort of point in the game I generally have one or two going spare.