Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Is normal hard? Or is it just me?

Oh look! the guy who was going to tell all his friends not to buy the game and was going to complain to steam for a refund or something is still around ...

Anyways, there is no niche builds nor min maxers here, just use your brain.

I'm really not sure what you are talking about, I'm a very casual gamer and my wife is even more so.
We are having a blast and not having any of the difficulty issues you seem to be having. We are playing Normal difficulty. But then we only played to like lvl 10 so far.
There have really only been 2-3 people complaining on difficulty so I doubt it's the majority opinion.
As long as you use surfaces etc you should be fine.... otherwise options, game -> easy may help

You may have to zero in on your character concept a little more to give yourself an easier time. My first try at blood knight went horribly because of poor talent choice, starting skills and trying to balance 4 stats. Now that I have specialized into a 2 2 1 stat setup, got the right starting talents, and picked better starting skills I have covered half the combat in almost double the time. I am almost right where I was before I rerolled with no big complications.

I think this game demands more optimizations then it lets on in the beginning. I was having a lot of fun role playing my characters and reading all the text and lore throughout but the combat kind of hindered the concept. My advice is to pick a solid 3 stat ratio for every 5 points you get, pick 4 solid abilities to invest in, pick 2 good talents for your concept, and pick the best starter combat abilities not the ones you'll want for later.

For example melee power stance is nice but it doesn't seem to add much damage early on and the -hit chance will often lead to losing a fight badly. Oath of desecration is a big buff but you can't use it often, and you probably won't have the ap to throw around to waste a turn on it as well. This is of course from the experience my class but the main point is be practical to survive then build what you want later.

Another big tip is wherever there is a bed you can sleep to get free hp. If you can survive a fight without pots do so as beds are plentiful.

May I present my solution for weak DDs

My little big Cleric-Tank creation...



Well why I didnt post the DDs (actually 2 Mages including Jahan), because I think it makes no difference, my next playthrough will definitly be with a ranger as DD. But the keyword here is to have a good Tank to go with (besides the DD of wwhat kind ever). Someone have to deal with the incoming damage of course.

Summons.

You don't really need a tank in this game.

A tank is a guy who'll charge in, get everyone to focus him and still smack a few people about while doing so... a tank is just another form of crowd control.

The most important thing in D:OS is definitely control, similar to chess you can have equal resources in a fight, but it's up to you how you use them to get control.

Knights - Get Man-at-arms to 5 and weather the storm, this will reduce incoming elemental damage considerably. If your knight can charge across a minefield and still be over half health, you're doing great. (especially if the charge successfully knocks em down!)

Marksmen - ranged silence/charm, super arrows for the right situation (setting up a nice stun cloud over water is always fun, as is simply shooting the oil barrel with a fire arrow).

Scoundrel - charm/stun/knockdown/blind/bleed/weaken/infect/decapitate, all in a days work for rogues. Cheap attacks, cheap CC (often you can get 2 off in a single round) plus a deployment spell. And remember, scoundrels can be marksmen in the same build!

Mages - Mages offer a lot of versatility and it's all about picking a couple of schools to combine to make your mage awesome.
Pyro - DPS, more dps and pretty much nothing but dps right? Well, only if you ignore the fact fire mages can haste anyone (wildfire on a frozen guy = no more frozen too remember) plus a nice summon to block the enemy archers.
Aero - Teleport, obviously. Great stunning capability to CC the board. Also gets a way to clean the board up if needed. And a summon
Hydro - healing, which everyone loves, plus CC and dps with ice shards. On top of this... RAIN! because rain makes stunning and freezing much easier. And a nice summon with CC.
Geo - Poison, defense and a few summons.
Witchcraft - I've yet to test this out, if someone wants to let me know the benefit of this.

Put your party together with CC in mind first, damage second, and you'll go far.

I see a lot of "unplayable" complaints on this board and I'm starting to really hate that word.

You can't load a saved game/it's crashing/you aren't receiving visual feedback when you do something in the game = you have a legitimate "unplayable" complaint

You can't immerse yourself because you dislike how a particular trait/item/story line is handled = game is playable, you just don't like it

You don't dominate over everything in the game/you can't just wade in a group of enemies and slaughter everything in sight = game is playable, you just don't like it not fitting into how you approach enemies

It's egocentric to equate you not liking something to the entire system being non-functional because chances are, someone else out in the world do like it and well.

Sadly, the game isn't made specifically for *you* to be happy, its made for the enjoyment of many people on this planet.

Most gamers these days are raised with the idea that if you see an enemy, you can kill it.

Sometimes however, you have to skip a certain area and come back later when you're less inadequate.

Absolutely hilarious. Quoted this, just in case it disappears later.

There's not been a single bad preview or review of this game so far and the Metacritic user rating so far is 9.3, which is the highest of any PC game released so far this year, probably any game released in the last 5 years actually.