Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General PC Gamer names D:OSII 2017 Game of the Year!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! People love this game!

Well deserved honour.

It is a great feeling to have spent a whole evening with the wife on one battle.

The greatest joy was yesterday when we beat a bunch of level 15 dudes - us being level 13.

So glad we decided to back this.

More like "people is getting paid to give awesome reviews".

Yeah, feel very skeptic about the quality prowess of those critics, before all regarding combat.

Right, so all the major game reviewers who gave this game high ratings are either incompetent or just getting paid to do it.
Pay no attention to these skeptics here who go around the forums saying only negative things about the game.

It IS well deserved!

I agree it's well-deserved. It seems to have made quite an astonishing impact for a fairly small studio compared to the publishing behemoths out there.

it's definitely my game of the year

don't lose sight of what a terrific game this is because of the various bugs and issues. visuals, music, voice acting and dynamic combat all flow together wonderfully

congratulations larian and thanks for all the effort you put in

So you are qualified to judge?

"I never played this game that much"
Isn't that what you wrote? When was that? 4 days ago.

The fact that everyone just claps "OMG game of the year!!1" without hesitating just baffles me. The insane amount of flaws this game has makes me feel that it was released before schedule, and funny enough, not only all of them have been recopilated in a thread in the suggestion forum (conveniently avoided by the dev team and clapping seals), but also many were reported before launch, yet they landed anyways.

By ignoring all these flaws you're just saying to Larian "your game needs no attention", which is wrong. We need to voice our opinions about a game that not only we payed for, but also founded (another issue that I'm yet to understand... if the game has been basically free to develop, why has been launched with this many errors, and still charge for it? Greedy much?).

I can honestly say that this is the first time in my life that I play an RPG and leveling up feels like a chore. In other games, every single time I leveled was like "Hooray!", yet here is like "Ugh, shopping time...". I only have to spend those crappy two points in STR / INT / FIN, whatever gives me damage, and a point in the skill I use, that's it - most of the spells have been learned already like 10 levels ago, so there's nothing new to aim for. It's nothing but stacking numbers, there's no real strategy involved.
Then, it's like half hour of scavenging vendors in search for more armor points. The sense of progression is nonexistant, I actually feel weaker every time I level up, in a strangely similar way to Diablo III. The difference is that D3 is a game that I actually enjoy playing because it's made to be just a constant genocide of monsters that drop loot, here you're just crossing your fingers expecting Lucky Charm to proc. I haven't seen a single item that is worth preserving for more than one level, and that's just the most lame and anti-RPG feature I've ever seen.

I'm sorry, but allow me to doubt all those "reviewers" who weren't there when DOS1 came out, which, while flawed, was a truly magnificent experience, completed with the release of EE.

BowieFunes,

Thankfully, the professional game reviewers out there have a 'slightly' less superficial take on the game than you do. I can agree about the loot, but that is such a tiny aspect of what this game is as a whole. You completely ignore the excellent writing, story lines, interesting characters, variety of quests, fun combat system, choices, etc. I can't think of many (if any) other game I've played that triggers so many different emotions. You seem to define the game by one of its relatively small flaws like the loot, and you're missing the big picture.

DOS 1 was also great for its time because it was original, there was nothing else like it. But the story and characters in DOS 2 are so much more nuanced and multi-dimensional. In comparison, the DOS1 story now seems boring and predictable.

The fact that you're even comparing a turn-based, heavy story-driven RPG like DOS to a real-time button-masher like Diablo III, which has no story to speak of, means that this type of game just isn't for you my friend. It's like comparing a golf simulator to a racing game, just because both are called 'sports'. One is much more intelligent than the other.

The game has its flaws and certainly could have been released in a more 'finished' state, but that pails in comparison to its strengths. And I'm happy that real reviewers see this.

Great game!

I've been watching you/Kalrakh for a while, and I do think the game definitely deserves GOTY, but the game definitely also has a lot of flaws. I've come to realize the key difference between you and I (As well as I presume Kalrakh, Bowie, etc) when it comes to this game is an integral difference in how we play/perceive the game..
You play the game for the story, whilst I play for the tactical combat. I did enjoy the story but it's not why I'm here. Correct me if I am wrong in my assertion.

I loved DOS1 to death (Having beat it ~5 times) not for it's story, but for it's highly tactical combat and wonderful progression system (4 of those playthroughs were modded however).

I loathe playing DOS2 as the reason I play it is for the tactical combat and progression, but both of those areas the game.. Really rather sucks pretty bad. If you don't think so then I'd just like to point you to the various in depth articles on the subject posted close after the game's release. If I played the game only for the story then I'd probably just lower the difficulty. But that's not why I'm here and that's where the game has failed spectacularly in my eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree that the story is a major part of the game, but I'd just like to reiterate that it's not why I'm here to play the game.

You might make the argument that this means the game isn't the one for me, but it along with it's predecessor are among the very, very few games that occupy this space.

Instead of asking for the devs to fix it all I'm actively working on a mod to fix all of the issues I have with the game.

I agree with BlueFeuer, BowieFunes and Kalrakh. I already wrote a very thorough review of the faults (and positives) of this game, and kind of regret not throwing it into its own thread. So will do that tonight as well…

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=629044&page=3

The effort put into D:OS2 is way above the norm, which is generally why it invokes so many excitable responses. But people tend to be very forgiving about the obvious weaknesses. The writing is the weakest part of the game by far, and it’s kind of sad that the Larian can’t resource a decent writing team, when they can clearly afford the best artists, animators and devs in the industry.

The design, too, is quite weak, with only a few battles actually standing out as original or inventive. Mostly, it’s the same battle over and over, with just a reskin of the monsters/guards you fought before, who have the same AI and abilities/skills.

Apart from my review, I would like to start a final thread on ideas learned from Assassin’s Creed Origins, of all things – a largely risibly commercial experience that nonetheless trumps D:OS2 in many areas (in short, the levelling system is excellent, and solves the problem of inflated stats very elegantly and intelligently, but I’ll expand more on that later).

No game, film or book is ‘perfect’, but sometimes it’s rather depressing when the team behind the art is top heavy on talent in one area, and full of lightweightedness in other areas that should be of key importance.

You’ve got the money now, Larian. Maybe hire Aaron Sorkin for the next story. At least as an advisor. Clever game systems you’ve got. But Shakespeare you certainly are not.

LoL BlueFeuer,

at least BowieFunes is pretty consistent in his opinion that the game is crap, but you went all the way from "I do think the game definitely deserves GOTY" to "I loathe playing DOS2" and "the game has failed spectacularly".
How does one even respond to that... If you loathe playing DOS2, for whatever reason, then you can't possibly think it deserves GOTY. But then again I'm not a shrink, so... what do I know.

I don't think the game is crap. I'm not so naive as to not see why it got a well deserved GOTY; It did, overall, a very good job at what it set out to do. However, the areas of the game I'm most interested in also happen to be the poorest. There isn't a black and white either you love it or you hate it here.

I can loathe playing it and think it deserves GOTY at the same time, granted it's one of the few games that's interested me that was released in the last year.

I've liked this game, though I'm still on Joy Island.

Our group has especially liked this game because it's felt like a close approximation of tabletop RPGs (and the freedom thereof) in a video game setting. It's felt pleasantly original, and, despite being a sequel, it has so far built upon the first game (the initial, not the Enhanced Edition since I know too little of the EE to fairly comment) in notable ways like the Narrator, character tags, rebalanced skills, and 4-character limit.

Is it game of the year material? For our group, aye! The ability to screw around in ways reminiscent of tabletop D&D 3.5 has kept us engaged. We know the game has had certain problems with balance, but the game, for us, is still fun and that's mattered a lot.

This is exactly why don't trust reviews by random people on forums. This person should never attempt a career in professional game reviewing.

Everything about DOS2 was great except for the area I cared about most, but overall I think the game was better than any other game released in 2017.
There is no contradiction there.
If you can't understand as simple a concept as that then I don't know how else to tell you.

The main issues with this game: the combat and character progression are painfully obvious from the start, you don't really need to play to see that coming.

Also I am active in the forums since start of the EA and I was one of those, that pointed out, that the first take on attributes was even worse than the current one. I put over 90 hours in this game, mainly EA but never progressed far storywise so far, though just reading in the forum already proves that my fears are not only met but also beaten on a bad way.

actually combat is one of the most fun aspects of the game

This might be for you, but for me and my friend it is to much of a predictable puzzle.