Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Feedback on after patch experience

So my friend and i have played through act 1 right after the first release, and we gave it another go after the bigger patches inbetween, to see how it changed, so some thoughts on that:

The beginner ice shard spell:
It may have been very strong in our first playthrough, so i can understand the nerf... but i think this nerf bat was swung way too hard. It needs more action points to cast, has a longer cooldown, has only 3 projectiles, has a way larger area those projectiles hit.. and the slipping on ice is way more rare than it used to be.
So this spell was affected by 5 different changes/nerfs.. and now feels totally useless.
I agree it was too strong at first... but now it is way too weak!


We really like how the main attributes work now, also that you get a memory slot every 2 levels. Thats way better than this old system, where you barely had any points to spare, as all was needed just to stay "up par" with the enemies.

It feels like the game got a lot harder. In our first playthrough, we have been quite challeneged, and had to do quite a few of the fights several times till it worked out.
Now we seem to get slaughtered without even a glimpse of being able to win in more fights than we would want to admit.
It does feel like the enemies got a lot more armor/magic armor now, and it is harder to get through it, to do any sort of damage. While the enemies often just 1 or 2 hit our characters.
For example those fire slugs, in our first game, we killed them... in this second game.. we sneaked past, as basically as single one of them can erradicate your party, as their fire attack 1 or 2 hits your guys.

The general feeling i have out of it is, that those guys hit as if they were higher levels.. like we are 3.. and they feel like level 10. We barely scratch their defenses, and they obliterate us with 1-3 hits.

We may not be the most advanced super perfect strategists and players, but we got along before. Now it feels like this game was made for super pros, and us casuals got left behind. It is hard to describe, but after restarting a fight countless times, with different ideas, tactics, and not even seeing a hint of being able to succeed, this has moved up to a point were i would say "unplayable once you enter the actual prison, unless you are a stretegic genius".

It feels like they are totally overgeared, or we are absolutely undergeared. Yet we did everything we could, scrounched up the money and gear we could.. i don't think we could have prepared any better. I am not sure how to fully put this into words or describe that, especially as it was not only one fight, but from this point most fights we got into. From our first play through i do remember some fights that we had to redo, try a different strategy, but then won..

So while we finished our first play through, we are more or less stuck on our second, and that quite early on top of it. We will for sure keep trying and experimenting more, but while i really really liked our first go at it, i am somewhat frustrated about the second go so far. What is even more frustrating is, that i cannot really put in words what i feel is wrong, so it may help with the balancing. I just see that we cannot even get through the armor of the enemies, while a single guy of them, kills one guy of us in just 1 single round.. many fights end after just 2-3 rounds with us being totally obliterated, with them barely having a scratch. As mentioned, it does feel like you step as a level 1 into the hands of a level 10. So either they have way too much armor/hitpoints... they do way too much damage.... or we have way too less armor, and way too less damage.

For example the fight with the guy who has those 3 flesh golems... on our first playthrough, those golems needed 2-3 rounds to even get out of their cage. This playthrough, they got out of the cage in the first round, and in some cases even attacked one of our guys, and right away killed them with a single strike. So those guys seem to do waaaaaaay more damage than they did in our first go.

So after tons of retrying and reloading, we managed to get through two more fights. In one a nicely placed barrel blew up all the enemies at once.

The other fight we took advantage of the multiplayer game behaviour, i don't think it was supposed to work that way, we still almost died (from that one single guy that was left over.... ridiculous), but made it.

After that, all the other fights were manageable. Maybe cause of the new stuff and level we gained through those two fights. All of a sudden, the game and fights were super fun again, and reminded me more at our first go at divinity.

Our casters felt somewhat useless though, as it appears that things are so much longer on cooldown now. You have rounds where you can only shoot your staff once, and then not do anything else, as everything is on cooldown. Maybe that gets better with higher levels and more different spells.

I think that having the right gear is so much more important now. Finding it in the beginning time can be quite hard. We went back and forth several times to sell everything we had, to get a few more new items from merchants, that then made the difference. But it is not a good game flow if you are traveling back and forth all the time, but it is what helped us finally. We were unable to progress by just going forward through the game levels. This is what got us into the unbeatable situation.. with the money and gear we had, we could not go on. You would get the money in the next area, but then you need to go back to invest it first, before tackling the fights in the area you just got the money from.
Maybe make some starter gear or more money items available earlier, so that you can get decked out before moving into the new area. It for sure sucks to first collect everything you can in a new area, avoiding fights, heading back to the camp and vendor to buy stuff, to then go do the fights you tried avoiding.
This is what worked for us after a lot of trying and dying. We progressed and things go nicely now, but it was tremedously frustrating at first, as we had the impression "this is the next fight, we just moved up to it, it is supposed to be beatable with what we have now, as this is the progress we just made".

I also miss the ability from the first divinity: original sin, to just travel to any waypoint from whereever you are.. this made some needed shopping trips also way easier, than having to travel and walk back and forth so much.

Having played the latest patch for a while, I can agree with most of your observations. Primarily the matter with the difficulty at the start. I had my usual party of 4, all on level 2, and was completely unable to beat some level 3 guards- In fact, with how much armor they had, I barely managed to kill one before my party was brutally murdered. And that wasn't the only encounter where I had severe troubles.

In my opinion, the game feels forced now when it comes to acquiring xp. Before, I was at a certain point in Fort Joy and had the option of going here, there, to that encounter... And it would be was challenging, but not too difficult.
Now, I found myself reeling back more than once and started hunting for xp and gold, desperately trying to get a level up/better equipment. Like the game was forcing me along a path and punished me for straying with encounters that were too difficult for me to handle. I highly doubt that's the intention.

Speaking of xp... I'm fairly certain it is currently bugged, as xp is not shared properly between party members. I noticed this in the holding cells, when I used Teleport to bring Red Prince into a cell that was blocked off. Even though I saw the '700 xp' text pop up above each character, only Red Prince leveled up and the others did not seem to get any xp at all.
Those are my main concerns for the time being. At least for now, I feel it's a better idea to wait for these issues to be adressed before I play more.

I was just about to post about that. Me and my friend can only play once per week. So it took some while for us to realize it. But my friend is actually 10000 XP points ahead of me now! (My friend usually does all the talking and turning in quests, as they host the game).

So something seems definately be bugged about the experience distribution among the group members now. Definately something that needs to be looked into... as once release, some more friends of mine will get it, and we want to do a 4 player round.

Agreed about xp distribution: 2 of my party members levelled up while the other 2 are like 100 to 200++ behind.

Also, I don't like how the fights suddenly got very difficult while the ones where Sebille was, were very easy. The balance is very out-of-whack and some of the skills barely do anything! Worse, there's too much dependency on armour and all the characters have got no natural armour at all! I'm not going to reload just to get the chance to win a fight: if the combat is about tactics, then let us be rewarded for planning/observations/skill usage and not complete trial and error.

I do find it interesting that at the low levels you are REALLY punished for fighting an enemy even a single level above you. I've had upsets mind you...

Then once you start reaching level 5-6 you can start kicking the butt off of enemies at a higher level than you.

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I do agree with the assessment that the early levels are kind of too hard... If only because... well... Level 1-2 isn't supposed to be the most difficult part of the entire game...

Mind you it isn't all THAT hard... and it shouldn't be too easy and heck it doesn't need to be easy at all.

HECK I don't even mind being starved for decent equipment. That is great and thematic.

If they had just 1 or 2 encounters you could tackle at level 1 without being an evil person... It would fit quite well.

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I do disagree that the guards are too hard...

They kind of work very well at what they are meant to convey. If they were weaker then the prison would be WAAAY more incompetent then it already is.

Btw, skills are fairly weak.

But grenades are too overpowered. Also I managed to beat the corroded frogs battle by miraculously, having them attack 2 to 3 of my lvl 1 characters so the damage spread out(instead of 1 getting hit). Then I used ranged attacks(lizard breath: archer, mage, etc.) and then I could've only won the battle by using grenades and stun spells. Sadly, I missed the stun arrows in the carton before entering the area.

Skills are fairly weak on their own. Very few stand out as exceptions but there is one rule...

You NEED to step up.

Flame to Poison, Poison to flame, Oil to Flame, Flame to Oil

Water to Electricity, Poison to Water.

Chains + Armor, Decaying Touch + Healing.

Teleport + Battering Ram, Haste + Backstab.

The bigger issue right now is that some skills do not have strong combinations...

Water + Poison/Electricity is a huge scattershot that will backfire often. Though I will say it is a strong combination (electricity does full damage along the path)

Bows pretty much combo off of nothing, have no CC, and aren't too special damage wise. Their "Penetration" attack allows them to help, but for the most part Bows are ALL about the raw damage.
-HOWEVER! First Aid + Decaying Touch is the most powerful combination in the game... It is a boss slayer.
--As well special ammo (while too valuable a selling asset early on) is a game changer indeed.

Fire + Water, Air + Earth, Air + Fire, Necromancy + Fire: Are all unsupported combinations currently.

Earth and Necromancy are the only things that combo off of physical skills currently.

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Ultimately as I said... You NEED to combo.

I will say... Contamination and the fire version of it? Decent early game, but drop them.

Oh no, I already understand about combos.

Well, I should've elaborated that maybe the combos are also too powerful and that they need to balance single skill-usage so that new players will get an idea that "oh! so if I combine these, it'll be even better." And not give them the impression the game is extremely difficult and only for seasoned players.

Damage of spells is quite ridiculous, same goes for 2-handed weapons.

The start is really tough, mainly because you get hardly any items, so you have hardly any protection and damage. Your damage depends even more on finding good weapons so far, because the damage of spells got extremly nerfed. My mage needs so attack several times with wands, just to get the magic armor down, even mit int at about 18.

Yes, I must agree on the difficulty of combat at early levels (1-3). This is my 5th time playing on the Classic Mode, and it is significantly more unforgiving. I like a good challenge, however, it's not really a challenge when the Houndmaster and his lackeys kill your whole party before you can whittle down their defenses. That, in my opinion, is the major issue. I'm highly critical of this new armor/magic armor system. I've tried to take advantage of grenades and scrolls, but this armor system just blocks any status effects. The secondary issue is that the NPCs are stacked with defenses from the their equipment, which they rarely even drop. Meanwhile my crew has to get by with whatever gear we can scrape together. I understand that's a theme for early levels, but it's not balanced to throw all-star enemies at a rag-tag band of underdogs. My next step is to compare the new Classic difficulty to Explorer, in hopes that the later is better balanced.

For some reason, DOS 1 uses linear progress.
In last patch, they highlighted that progress is now even more steep.
This designer's idea has such a result.
Level one receives about 20% power progress to level 2
Level two recevies about 18% power progress to level 3
and so on.
so on the level 20 you get about 1% power progress.
Becouse of linear progress, your gain is still the same amount.
Why designer follow this weird idea is mystery.
Unfortunately, result is that low level adventurer could easily meet OP opponent. Even one level is big chunk. That is design flaw. I am not sure if they want to make it more natural. Like change progress exponential. So difference of power between levels would be similar whole game.

Same wierd selection is number of xp. Lowes possible chunk of xp I have seen was 150xp. Why ? Why not 1 xp ? Why do I need 145781234 xp for 18level ? Natural numbers are infinite and today PC can handle even more, but how a brain of average player process such a message? ... well, my brain just stuck on 3rd number of a long integer.

I think they have prepared a lot creatures already, changing this system to more acceptable is very expensive idea.... . :-/

I find it curious that so man people complain about the last patch. I play on classic as well and I don't see much differenece between the last 2 patches in therms of difficulty.
Sure there are some hard fights like the group of magister in the prision-cells or the voidwoken deep dweller. But those were hard before and just still are.

Now what I DID notice is that fights take significant longer then they did in earlier patches. Getting rid of magic and physical armor takes so much time and regulary puts all my skills on CD. Simply for the fact that I don't do any real damage or CC if their armor is still up.
That is quite stupid and combat did get a little more boring because of this decision.

People are just trying to help.



It should generally take 1-3 character turns to strip the armor off any creature in the game (3 if your stripping the armor off a boss's strong armor). Anymore and you are either seriously underleveled or aren't using your characters to their fullest.

As well normal attacks and the weapon skill should supplement your skill use if possible.

Some skills you shouldn't even attempt to plink off of armor OR should be saved for more convenient times.

Normal mages CANNOT afford to be specialists. There simply isn't enough high power skills to go around within single schools, AND memory is absolutely important for that... At LEAST if you aren't going double wand.

In fact Cross Classing is the way to go now. Even if you don't invest in other attributes... A Fossil strike, fortitude, fireball, magic armor... will still be nice. People underestimate how much damage these do even at the base level.

Sure 1-3 turns PER enemy! And since large groups of enemies are quite common. Even 5 skills per character can be spent soon, if you use several per turn to strip them out of their armor.
And IMHO various AOE spells/effects are much less useful with that much armor currently.

That and the last patch lowered general damage (skills or weapons) no matter which one quite a bit. That means it takes even longer since armor did not change accordingly.

Flat out stop using Contamination and Conflagration (or whatever the fire version is called). They do poor damage and instead rely on hitting many enemies over single. The only time they do decent damage is on enemies who have lost their armors (at which point... there are better choices)
-Mind you, they aren't THAT bad... their main advantage is that they recharge fast... They just have low priority. There are few skills I'd slot before that.

If you want everything out of AoE Fossil Strike and Fireball for the earth + Fire combinations. Typically that will strip magic armor off just about any enemy pretty much immediately... with Magic Poison Arrow.

This definitely can and will start to take down multiple enemies.

Water + Air are a bit trickier... If Fire + Earth are the big damage dealers... Then Water + Air are the big CC. Those skills you usually want to keep in reserve until magic armor is stripped.

Hail of Ice, because it doesn't freeze anymore, is a great skill to dish out on enemies who are not currently engaging anyone. It does a lot of damage and leaves them open to slipping.

Of course you can also go double wand which essentially gives a mage a high magic damage attack. I personally prefer Wand and Shield and to instead make my magic base wide (all four elements)

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Mind you remember that you are talking about the first game. Think back, when did the first game REALLY start having AoE?

Level 10.

When does this game start REALLY having AoE? Level 4

As well, what was the MAJORITY of damage done in the first game at least until level 10?: Environment effects

So now you have fights that are won not through mass CC-Spam and Environment flooding and you are seriously noticing the slow down now that enemies don't walk through fire and die instantly.

I am always curious why people cross-class only mages with other mages. Are there only mages in the game? Is it not possible to cross-class Berserk vs Duelist ?

It is because the stat mentality is hard to break, in fact if my friend didn't invest in magic anyway I wouldn't have noticed.

Sure he did 25% less damage than me, but that was still a good hit when we needed it along with some much needed CC (Necromancy is severely under-estimated... Chains and Decay are deadly).

While Mage with Mage gets the full stat benefit.

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Now why the physical skills aren't combined more often is a bit more simple... They are MOSTLY incompatible without the proper weapon.

Most Marksmen skills don't work (Only two, the teleport and First Aid)... Scoundrel relies on knives for two or more of them.

While Warrior doesn't NEED a compatible weapon, a lot of the skills are outright damage dealers. Though his berserk skill is incompatible with backstab (the main source of Scoundrel damage).

Marksmen has the most compatibility issues pretty much period... at least currently.

While Warrior/Warfare has the least but is a very up close and personal skillset.

I would say level 8 started to give you mass AOE but you have a point that it was much later compared to this game.

Maybe it it just my imagination but it just feels so much slower compared to last time and patch. Unfortunately I DO like the armor-system compared to bodybuiling/willpower in OS 1 so I fail to suggest any solutions for now.

I guess I'll wait until summoning and polymorph are implemented and give advise after that, since both will be highly used in my character planning for OS 2.

Thanks!

Oh i see. That is clear, would you explain me how Necromancy applyes cross skill of life leaching on the Ice-spell of healing school? It sounds to me like shooting twohander swords.