Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Environmental Effects; Do they last too long?

Hello all, I have been waiting for DOS 2 for over a year, and I decided to dive into early access this weekend to finally satisfy the burning itch! Having sunk 100+ hours into the original, I was mad with excitement to jump in. I really love the new combat system, and I think the resource management is (somehow!) much leaner and meaner than the original. However, in some situations I've found that environmental effects can be more debilitating than in the original. Most notably, the cave where you fight the poison/electric frogs. Static water does not go away after a few turns like in the original, and I found it quite time-consuming to get rid of the static while in a fight, or even when fights are over.

In the frog battle specifically, I repeated it multiple times to see what all I could do with the environmental effects. On one occasion, I forced the static frog to follow my party all the way to the entrance of the cave. In doing this, the frog left a trail of static surfaces, all of which remained active through the entire fight (somewhere between 15-20 rounds). Because of this, the poison frogs would not follow the static frog, and after killing the static frog, I was able to pass 6 full rounds without doing anything (and the static surfaces still remained active). I was surprised that the static didn't resolve itself quickly as in the original, so eventually I was forced to flee instead of finish the fight (You'd be an idiot to try to fight your way through static clouds/water).

I like the fact that controlling the environment is still a big factor, but it seems that more emphasis has been placed on the length of these effects, which is a bit concerning. When your party is cornered by static water, and you have no fire at your disposal, what are you to do? In the original, you could wait it out.

What are your opinions about this?

People being bad at managing electrified blood and water often comes up on this forum.
Just learn how the different elements interact and how to lay out the battlefield to your advantage.

Oh that's not at all the problem. I didn't have issues defeating the enemies themselves (I did beat DOS 1 after all). I'm just saying that in certain niche instances, the environmental effects can force the player's hand in a way that feels less satisfying than the first game.

I should mention that I beat this section of the game. I purposefully tested multiple scenarios to see what could happen. Thanks for the meaningful reply!

I actually have seen that and specifically the water or static cloud they seem to remain indefinitely unless they are triggered a number of times.

However in the case of the frogs I bet that the environmental effect are cursed and therefore more potent and eternal. But you can bless them to remove the curse.
It adds another layer to the environmental hazards which I find pretty deadly and rather cool.

All your character will be able to cast bless so I am fine with this.

I actually did not know this! Is there some indication for a curse that I may have missed?

If you mouse over it should say Cursed xxx or Necro fire is a cursed fire. It has a specific name and usually additional or stronger effect. Cursed blood has decay for example.

If also looks like it has thorns everywhere.

Cursed fire doesn't go out with rain etc.
Cursed/blessed adds a whole new dynamic.

Actually no cursed environmental effect are removed by normal means they need to be blessed to be turned as normal hazard or have a specific skill that says it removes it.

Rain on cursed fire creates steam without extinguishing the fire.
It's actually quite practical to create massive kill zones of necrofire + electricity.

I think the problem is the fact that there is no time limit on some of these things. In my last play through, I spread cursed fire all the way from the cursed pigs to the fight with the Voidwoken Deepdweller and his skeletal minions. And I burned them all... well, not alive, because they aren't alive. But they died to the cursed fire, which I was leisurely able to spread using my pyrokinetic/geomancer to the fighting ground before even beginning the fight.

After I received Bless, I was able to create huge fields of forever-lasting Holy Fire across the area I started, which pretty much gave my party complete immunity to fire the entire game, since I can start every fight out in Holy Fire. Or, if I felt like it, I could start out in Blessed Poison, or Oil, or a combination.

The fact that these surfaces don't have a turn/time limit not only makes the battles a bit annoying sometimes, its pretty abusable by the player too.

Super fun though.

I don't think this is fair to say. I'm intimate with beating games like this on their highest difficulty and had no trouble with tactician in OS. In divinity OS 2 I feel like surfaces are too large and last too long. This isn't a feeling of 'surfaces are making the game too hard' (because honestly, they work more in your favor against the enemy) but instead it's that I just don't like how surfaces are always the focal point of every battle.

I feel like surfaces should be a creative niche where you find opportunities to make use of the environment. Instead, you can create them and then explode them five times over until the entire battlefield is just an elemental clusterfuck. Then you have to spend the rest of the battle playing around them and it just doesn't feel fun. It also looks ugly.

Agreed. In DOS1 I needed multiple characters with Rain because it would evaporate.
In DOS2, I can cover an entire map in water and it never evaporates.

Yeah, they made somethings ever lasting a 1 or 2 patches ago. ^^

some things lasting forever is a -good- thing, IMO. Why would water evaporate after three turns? Why would poison vanish if it's just laying there in a puddle on the groudn? Etc etc.

electricity lasting forever on a puddle makes no sense though... eventually the electricity would run out with no source.

also fire... fire would eventually burn out

and ice would eventually melt (it does not right now)

electricity DOES run out, fire DOES burn out. Ice not melting makes sense because that's an eventuality and in order to freeze in the open like it does in these warm climates it'd have to be extremely cold (Thus take a long time to melt) and even then I'm fairly certain I HAVE seen ice melt on its own.