Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion So why play Divinity ?

For anyone who has played any Divinity game in the past and is looking forward to the new one, why exactly do you like it ?

Or, if you only want to play the new one, what are you hoping for ?

Also, do you recomment any of the older Divinity titles ?

Keep in mind that the old divinity and divinity: original sin are very different things.

Divinity 2 lets you turn into a dragon and is the successor to Drakan we never got.

At this point I don't know what to expect from this new Divinity, so I need to learn more.

My hope is that they learn from BG3 and create a stronger Divinity game as a result.

As to what could be exciting about Divinity vs BG4 = I didn't think Larianisms gelled well with D&D5, while Divinity's Original Sins were designed from the ground up around Larian's ideals for a cRPG - little RPG, externalizing status effects into interactable surfaces and utilizing battlefield more. At this point, I am curious to learn what system will Larian craft for this new Divinity. I expect some big changes from Sin series - I am just not sure what they could be. I could come up with my preferences, but that would be wishful thinking at this point.

In my book, Larian is getting better with each turn based cRPG they make, so I hope this new Divinity will be on another level once again.

I would play a successor to that, too. Right away. But that’s not what I expect Divinity to be.

But for Divinity:

- They don’t pull any punches.
- Romance (yes, I hope so -- BG3 was a massive improvement over what I’ve seen in my first 30 hours of D:OS2 now).
- Hard decisions (and save spamming …).
- A game I can get lost in -- and then find that I actually already played later parts of the story just because I loved exploring (but still have a gripping story).
- Get emotionally invested in the characters.
- A story that incorporates my decisions.

Why yes, having characters that one gets emotionally invested in is the ideal. Unfortunately most games dont have those.

The worst example to me is TES. I mostly just played Morrowind. Oh sure, this character is a Paladin. But he's actually evil. And this is a Necromancer. Hey, he's actually quite nice. Everyone was sort of neutral in that game, everyone was dispassionately grey. Additionally you had no group, so that was even more impersonal and boring.

The game that made me most emotionally invested was Baldurs Gate 2. Namely Imoen, Aerie, and Keldron. To a lesser degree also others, like Minsc and Jaheira. Aerie also has the by far best romance I encountered in any game. Viconia would probably be fun, too, but having an evil character in the party is a true PITA. I did like the evil characters though, they have all been really funny.

Charaters in BG1+2 that have been evil have been really evil, and characters that have been good have been really good, and even the neutral characters had a clear personality.

Despite the fact I didnt liked them much, BG3 actually still has the second best game romance I ever encountered. The "romance" in Knights of the Old Republic was just seven dialogues. I mean I always did it anyway, but it was very superficial compared to Aerie. The "romance" in Neverwinter Nights 2 was one dialogue at the very end. Like ... wtf ?

A story that provides variance definitely provides replayability, so I'm certainly all for that.

I'm really looking forward to adventure in a world where my actions have consequences, and I can stand up to evil and beat it flat (3 most satisfying moments in BG3: )

It's not just about beating difficult encounters: It's about standing up to the bad guys when you could have just walked away (and they even try to bribe or induce you into doing so).

Personally, for introduction to divinity games, I recommend playing a Divine Divinity (Divinity : Sword of lies). It is a classic game, big world, a lot of fun quests and good story.

Divinity : Original Sin 2 is an obvious choice, best game in divinity series so far. If Larian would restore all cut content/characters for it in some patch, I will say it a perfect game. After all, if CD Projekt Red is making a DLC for 11 year old The Witcher game, while making a new one, which also is increasing hype for it, why Larian can't do the same?

The question is most likely not if they can or cant, but if they want to.

A thing I really like about Larian is that they don't do DLCs.

Well, I cant say I like DLCs. Those are basically just money making schemes.

But call them actual Addons, thats real expansions with a substantial amount of additional content, at least about half of what the original game offers, and both Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 got one, and they've been great.

Not that people know this anymore, since with the EEs they are now included into the base games.

I wouldnt mind if Larian one day gave us such a real Addon to BG3, too.

Alternatively, I wouldnt mind stuff like Storm of Zehir for Neverwinter NIghts 2. That was basically a separate game, you started with a new character, with less story, but with a variant on what the game was about, so it was a lot more crafting and trading focused.

I find that DLCs are hard to make compelling.

Like, when they're just a small addition to the end of a game, it can feel kind of forced and shallow. Especially when they introduce skills and equipment that have to be direct powercreep in order to make them desirable for characters that have just gone through an entire game worth of optimisation and gearing up... (Which can also get even worse when this extra powerful stuff can be accessed mid-way through the game then after you finish the DLC and go back to the base game the balance is all out of whack as you're a walking god compared to what everything is scale for)

While larger things can feel like they could have just made a new game instead, fleshing out the content that little bit more and using the opportunity to rework and polish any features that stood out (Or integrate new ideas that arose).

Even more so if said DLC happens to be a brand new campaign anyway, meaning it has no reason to be attached to the base game besides reusing the assets to make it (Not that this really stops you making a new game. Take Spellforce 3 for example, each "DLC" is its own stand alone game with a stand alone campaign and bunch of features. But if you own them all, you can access them all together and play custom games with features from all of them)

I've honestly never been excited about a DLC as a result. Even though I've played some that were enjoyable, the announcement of DLC just isn't interesting. I'd often rather get a new game instead.

For example, Grim Dawn is getting a big expansion next month, with as much new content as 40% of the current game (Which is Base Game + 2 other large expansions). But even this just pales in comparison to the announced Grim Dawn 2 game which is just inherently more interesting due to the larger scope of new features and content it can provide (Compared to the expansion for the first game where it's going to be bogged down by all the flaws of the first game... I.e. All the issues derived from it being a modified version of Titan Quest's engine)