Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Divine Divinity vs Beyond Divinity

We're an international voluntary team of gamers here, Maggie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> - some gamers made wonderful avas and host them (I sent you 2 of those links) - others make beautiful maps, so helping becomes easier - some specialize on giving tech help, are very excellent combat tactic cracks etc. => so, those sharing knowledge create the content of this board.

When I started on the old forum, I knew nothing => not to link, let alone this whole webspace business - I only knew how to research. Patient gamers taught me every little thing (and I really mean, every nitty gritty little detail), provided me with programs, answered my questions etc. So, I merely pass on this knowledge, as a thank you for all these teachers putting a great effort in educating me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> (hoping, they will teach me more)
Kiya

Kyia-

I am glad you had such wonderful teachers and that you are able and willing to pass on what you have learned. I still wait for some sites to answer me and sometimes wait for weeks. I wonder why they have a forum if they are not going to answer. I love most of the forums and get so much information. The Dungeon Siege one is just great and I have learned a lot, just as I hope to learn alot from this one. I will probabley have many, many questions.
Thanks again personally from me, it means a lot when someone is willing to use their time on me to help.

Have a wonderful Day.

Maggie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> [color:"red"] [/color]

and to come back to the topic yes you'll enjoy devine devinity and it's fairly easy to finish (if you don't get the bug and just keep roaming the Rivelon country side for hours and hours and hours) If you start as a warrior it's easy if you go mage invest in firebal in the beginning. The rest is just enjoying the ride.

BTW is there a devine 2 comming? coool If it'll be the fusion of devine and beyond it can only be awsome.

xd

hello-

I downloaded one patch for Divine Divinity, hope it is the correct one. I would hate to wander for days and days and days, that is what I sometimes do. But since I enjoy my gaming so much, I just shut it down for a day or so and then recharge my batteries, at 57 I seem to be doing that alot. Thanks about all, I really appreciate the time you took.

Maggie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> [color:"red"] [/color]

Yep <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Don't expect it before Q4 2005 though.

Hi maggie! Welcome to the forums. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> I think our 'batteries' came from the same lot since we're about the same age (give or take a few). <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> But shutting down gaming is not an option for me since I'm helplessly addicted to all RPGs, PC, Playstation and XBOX. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shhh.gif" alt="" />

To answer your 'difficulty' question, I think you're going to find Divine Divinity challenging in the beginning, but as your character gets stronger and you get used to the interface and gameplay, it becomes an extremely enjoyable game.

I seem to have a M.O. when it comes to any kind of RPG when I first begin any game. It takes me a while to get used to its interface. So, it's very rare for me to stay with the first character I create. Usually by the third restart, I've got a good handle on the gameplay. That's what happened when I began playing Divine Divinity.

Also, in addition to Kiya, you can always send me private message should you have questions or get stuck. I'll do the best I can to help you.


Faralas <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" /> By the way, I love your avatar (picture). It's pretty.

DD didn't come with your copy of BD? odd.

speaking of broken skills, when do they plan on fixing the lockpick skill?

Hello-

No it did not and it was not used, so I do not know why it happened.
Guess I am up a creek for awhile.

Thanks

Maggie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> [color:"red"] [/color]

bummer. well i hope you enjoy anyway. both are fun.

welcome <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

More than a while. I'm beginning to get a sense that Larian has no intention of rebalancing the badly skewed skills system. They're patching for bugs, but the things that both players and reviewers have pointed out--like broken lockpicking, overwhelming pickpocketing, the split between one-handed blades and one-handed-blade-with-shield skills, the way melee improves because of the skill but archery has to depend upon your character's attributes, the lack of skill points which leaves no room for mistakes or just experimentation--remain untouched. I'm frankly disappointed. I expected better from the developers of Divine Divinity.

You may be all very disappointed with <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> but I love it and all Larian games. No matter what I will always stick with there games. So I think you should all spend more time enjoying the game then dissin it. Or if you can't think of anything else, mail Larian and give them some helpful tips for there next game.

Glad you like the games, Nightmare. I like them too. And welcome to the forums. This is the "suggestion" forum and IMO, the appropriate place to give Larian feedback. The majority of the posts in this particular forum contain constructive criticism. I think Fable's latest post is well-thought out and reflects relevant issues that concern some of us [the players]. Both DD and <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> attracts a wide age group and not everyone is a gifted communicator or has the ability to keep their frustration in check. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Faralas <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />

Actually, Nightmare, if you'd bothered attending this forum before, you would have discovered that I'd been a relatively strong supporter of the game since it first appeared in the US. I've acknowleged both its good points and its failings, and my remarks upon the latter aren't out of line with those that many other players and some reviewers have noted. You may think I should "spend more time enjoying the game then dissin it," but I think you should spend more time reading the background of remarks here, before you jump in and make assumptions that are palpably inaccurate. Feel free to read back over the last 60 days if you want my positive take on things, my more optimistic assessment of the state-of-the-game, and my 100+ posts in the Help area to assist newbie players. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Had you bothered to check earlier posts, you would realize that Larian has made some claims on these boards--such as stating that they would deal with the balance issues in order to get a higher rating, promised in an IGN review (if and when they accomplished this). Nothing's been done on that front, despite the words. I think it's fairly apparent after two months on the market that while the patches will deal bugs, they won't fix or balance the skills. If Larian can't even be bothered to separate out skill points from monster hit points (so that we can have more skill points without finding monsters too easy), then they're hardly going to take on the more time-consuming task of realigning the skills themselves.

I'm glad you enjoy Beyond Divinity that much. Only give some thought, next time you post on the subject, to the fact that the views of others may go beyond simply black and white, and may have put a fair amount of thought into the game before posting.

About that one-handed skill and the with-shield skill, I wonder why so many people are angry by it.

I mean like... With the one-handed skill, you get proficient with one weapon in one hand ( the PURE one-handed weapons blacks out the shield slot in the inventory like everybody knows I suppose ).
With the with-shield skill you can fight with a shield and a weapon in each hand.

The with-shield skill MAY look better, because you can block hits and you get more armor, but it decreases your attack speed and accuracy, and by what I heard, they are no really good shields in this game ( that's what I heard, i'm playing with a ''tank'' character with shield and have yet to find a ''special'' shield ).
With the one-handed skill, you cannot block and have less armor, but you do not lose additional speed and accuracy. And I stumbled on pretty nice one-handed weapons that cannot be equipped with a shield.

Personally I prefer with a shield because it gives me that ''paladin-that-protects-people'' feeling.

But from what I see they are no big differences between those two skills. Each skill has its good and bad points. I also think the one-handed weapon do more damage than one-handed weapon with shields, and less than two-handed-weapons ( between the two )

And, I heard that Beyond Divinity is not the first game having this separation one-handed skill / with-shield thing.

But I agree with the skills, they should begin to concentrate on that. Altough quite a lot got fixed I think.

I think it's because one-handed skill automatically implies one-handed-with-shield in all CRPGs up to this time--literally. I can't think of a previous game that has separated them out, and I've been playing CRPGs since the early 1980s.

So I took the skill, and equipped a shield because it provided me with a higher armor rating. I slogged through plenty of combat situations that were incredibly hard, despite putting as many as 5 points in this skill just to make those battles easier. Damn, I figured, those enemies must be very tough, even on this level of difficulty...!

Only later, after getting to my first battlefield, did I discover that the reason those battles were so infernally difficult was because I'd equipped a shield, literally nullifying my skill and all the points I'd dropped into it. And now, since (like every other player) I wanted to equip a shield, I was going to have to pay to get those points removed, and buy the skill with shield use.

Why do it that way? Why force players to buy a skill early in the game that no one in their right minds would invest in, given that a far better one exists? The only thing I can figure is because it's a cheap method of getting players to spend cash erasing their skills, so they have less gold available for items and other skills. In short, it's a money soak, and an irritating one. I don't mind money soaks if I feel like I'm getting something for my cash. But in this case, I feel a bit cheated by the arrangement of skills, forcing you to learn something that will prove largely useless as you advance. (This also applies to magic skills, since the really good ones don't show up until Act 2. By contrast, as much as I detest AD&D, their system does provide some level 1 and level 2 spells which remain very effective even after your character soars in power and experience.) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, in the beginning, I quite enjoyed fighting with one weapon, it was quite effective, with some potions...

I wanted to get a shield too, but for background purposes... I plan to ''test'' the one-handed skill on one of my characters once I finish the game, so I can see what one-handed skill can do in the long run.

But... I think this one-handed skill and whit shield skill was not such a bad idea...

Well, you HAVE to pay for the with-shield skill of course. In this case, to pay less, it's better to continue with the one-handed skill, and once you can buy the with-shield skill from the punished soldier doing the dishes in the citadel ( only cost 900 gold pieces for with-shield slashing-crushing-piercing skill, it's cheaper than in the battlefields ) then you can unlearn the one-handed skill.

That's what I did. It cost like 4000 gold pieces to unleran the skill of both characters. But to buy the skills I wanted it only took like 1300 gold pieces.

Well it can be frustrating if you don't know in the beginning that wearing a shield while being specialised in the one-handed skill disables the points you put in that skill ( many people didn't notice it like me ), but personnaly, for me it's not that bad.

I'm talking for myself of course, I don't want to put my opinion in other people's throat ( did I get this sentence right? )

But I can't help me think that separating One-handed and With-shield added a bit of ... realism in the game...

I mean... train yourself in the use of a sword during a week, and then, wear a heavy shield on you're other arm, and then try to fight like that... You'll be off balance pretty soon I suppose <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

In the other way, train yourself in the use of a sword AND shield, and then try fighting WITHOUT the shield... I think you'll feel yourself a bit... ''unprotected'' <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

To force myself NOT to write a page-long post, I'll have to admit I was pretty confused by this skill-separation in the beginning also, but I got used to it.
Of course not everybody thinks like me, and I'm a weirdo anyway <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />

Hi-

From what I had heard of the game, I had expected more and am dissappointed. Not sure if I will keep it or just pass it on. You would figure these companies would not release with so many bugs or problems.

Maggie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

hi-

Have you ever tried to email some of these companies? Some make it impossible for you. Try to email Microsoft, that is a joke, you look for hours on their site and get no where and how many of these companies would listen to our problems or do they send emails saying we made a mistake, that is the norm.

Maggie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/down.gif" alt="" />

By Ghaleor:


By fable:


I can't say that I'm 'angry' about the added 'with-shield' skill but probably more perplexed. And it's for the very reason fable mentioned. Up until now in every CRPG I've played, one-handed fighting implied 'with a shield'. I guess the question is: why the change? Is it because it can be done? Or for another reason?

I have noticed a trend among the newer CRPGs where characters can become more specialized in their chosen field. I.e., Morrowind goes to almost an extreme with their alchemist. The alchemist can use a pestal and mortar, a retort, an alembic or calcinator and there are loads of ingredients from which you can choose to mix potions. I.e., herbs, minerals, plants, animal by-products, etc. And I found that I could get lost in the many choices I had if I wanted to become a Secret-master alchemist. Not that alchemy has anything to do with warrior skills, but this does go to show that developers seem to be aiming for more versatility and diversity in character creation.

Some players may find it fun, others might find it confusing and some may just not care. Personally, the more choices I have, the better I like the game.

I've been playing BD using my hero as a Wizard and the DK as a survivor which has made for an interesting game thus far. Next time around I would like to try playing one a warrior and the other a survivor or mage.

This time around I decided not to spend any skillpoints on the 'with shield' skill and from Ghaleor's post, I think I made a wise choice. I don't think I would have made it through the first Act since I'm not much of a 'hack 'n slasher' (I'm gettin' old and the eye-hand coordination ain't what it used to be. LOL) Maybe next time around I'll have one character specialize in one-handed/with shield.

Interesting discussion.


Faralas <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />