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#620181 23/09/17 11:35 PM
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First of all, disclaimer - these are all just my thoughts and opinions. Also this post focuses on mechanics and gameplay design not story - please keep that in mind

Game starts very strong. Almost everything clicks. Map has good layout. Fort Joy Ghetto is design is such a way that no matter where you go you will probably be fine. After Fort Joy in the swamps difficulty scales also quite nice - further east you go the more difficult encounter you will face. Gear and enemy scaling is not an issue. New initative mechanic is not a problem because of usually approximately equal number of enemies to PCs.

And then Act 2 happens and everything breaks. If you dont know where to go you will have a very bad time trying to find out. Gear starts scaling massively and do enemies which makes combat a lot more grindy. Everything is cursed and source is hard to come-by so your stuck either in cursed fire/blood or going back to the Meister cellar for refills almost every fight, till you'll have 3 max SP. With every level up lack of balance of some skill trees(eg summoning)starts to get really noticeable and slowly mindset of 'damage is all that matters' sets in. There is also that feeling of being cheated a little bit by AI because of how many actions it can perform, how sometimes you magically lose turn or their bloated stats. Act 3 is pretty much all of the same but turned up to 11.

Overall I expected it to be better, especially in the combat department. For me DOS1 was one of these RPGs that were all about mechanics not so much about story. With DOS2 I really enjoyed the story and wanted to get more of it but mechanics were and are mediocre compared to DOS1. Despite all of that I enjoyed DOS2 but I will mostly likely be not replaying it untill some bigger mods are created that at least try to fix it.

Whats your opinion on that matter?

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From what I'm reading this is a lot like the DOS release. So I'm expecting in time a EE version and it will be even that much better from start to finish. I do expect mods to fix these things as well, but most don't give those a shot. I think the editor tools are a big step forward from what I've played with.

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The stats do sort of explode during Act 2, but on the bright side, the challenge of the game doesn't immediately become trivial like it did in OS1. I think the overall design of act 2 is pretty fine, and the way the stats are balanced is probably necessary to keep things engaging. Every level needs to be a percentage increase over the last one rather than a linear increase from the beginning or else it quickly stops mattering. I would prefer if the power curve were more level-based and less gear-based though.

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Similar to DOS.

I also agree about story/mechanics.
The mechanics of DOS1 made it a gem while the story was meh.
The mechanics of DOS2 are shit in a bucket, and so no matter how cute the story is, it's not even close.

For some reason they took something that works and fucked it up with bells and whistles.
It's kind of what Larian is known for though. But it's really starting to hurt their product..
In DOS1 you had fire arrows to flame a target, and explosion arrows which were more rare and expensive. In DOS2 it's all area effect galore, no two characters can ever stand next to each other because everything has some kind of elemental area attack that's very likely to cause mass explosions etc. They need a leash.

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Chapters 1-3 and half way through 4 was 10/10 for me. The rest 4/10.

This is in part due to the crazy gear/stat scaling and in part due to the mess that I felt the later areas were, both entirely broke the immersion, were largely boring fights, uninteresting (but still well written) quests and held to tightly to the mystery of the story to be engaging.

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I feel the same, story wise, music, graphics, detail etc. DOS2 is easily a 10/10 but mechanic wise compared to DOS1 its sorry fucked up smirk.

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DOS1 does not interest me at all as I don't played it. This is DOS2, period.

Act 2 is the open world so many people cried for. You have to explore carefully and at first you are a bit lost, at least I was, similar to Act 1 at the start of the EA, only worse. But you can think a bit and look at the NPCs in an area and change, if they are too high.

It works more or less well. At least on Classic, what I play. Quests near Driftwood town are usually lower than farer away. Logical. I arrived at level 8 (or 9?) and you can go nearly to 11 in and around Driftwood. Then you go to the cave of Mordus, and so on.

I usually managed to be on par with the level of the mobs, with some exceptions. I fought Ryker with me two levels higher which is of course bad/boring. I fought Mummy Dearest without intention with lvl 14 and she disembowelled both my main and Sebille in her first move (I don't know how Lohse plus incarnate and Ifan won that fight, but they did). Such a dangerous old lady.

On Tactician all may be more distorted and cheesy but on Classic it feels quite harmonious, even the item stats bloat does not hit that hard.

Last edited by geala; 25/09/17 08:25 AM.
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Why do you have the need to tryhard this much? Going back for refill every other fight?

It's simply not needed and cursed surface, necrofire and shit are not the end of the world that you have to bless immediately. Stats are fine as well, if you fight equal level enemies, keep your gear close to that level and use your head and surroundings you will be just fine, yes the enemies are overpowering with a lot of stat, but they need it because AI is not exactly on the level of human player and things like standing on high ground taking out key targets and teleporting nuisances away to Africa while you deal with key stuff compensates A LOT, as also not starting fights clumped in the middle of all enemies, but taking positions first.

If you want to tryhard, put it into exploiting environment because this is a huge advantage for you, you can lure enemies into absolutely shitty positions for them and then just decimate with crossfire or just make it very difficult for them to do anything you can't mitigate.


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Mod to reduce the insane number scaling in act2+ :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1142608415
https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/58/

Honestly this basically saved the game for me and i think it's how the game should have been from the start.

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*Level 18 Player purchases Really Amazing Divine 2-Hander of Bad-Assery from Vendor for 12,000 gold.*
---
*Plays for 1 hour. Hits level 19.*
---
*Goes back to Vendor. Vendor now has Really Amazing Divine 2-Hander of Bad-Assery scaled to level 19 for 15,000 gold and offers you 1500 gold for the one you purchased from him an hour ago which is now obsolete. Your 1 hour of adventures netted you 9,000 gold*
---
*Player slits wrists*


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Considering how much gold you can rake in during that hour, it's not an issue, 15k gold at level 19 for me was not a big deal and amusingly I only started using thievery in Arx and not used that luck thing at all.

Those are 2 good ways to get $$ there and unless you are actively avoiding these chances you have either.

Other than that a really amazing badass divine level 18 weapon will be just fine at level 19.

Last edited by Gaidax; 25/09/17 03:08 PM.
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Originally Posted by Gaidax
Considering how much gold you can rake in during that hour, it's not an issue, 15k gold at level 19 for me was not a big deal and amusingly I only started using thievery in Arx and not used that luck thing at all.

Those are 2 good ways to get $$ there and unless you are actively avoiding these chances you have either.

Other than that a really amazing badass divine level 18 weapon will be just fine at level 19.


I'm over-exaggerating my entire post here, not sure if you caught on. Gold is in fact not a problem in late game vs. mid-game, as, even though item stats scale REALLY poorly late game, your level difference and base stats thereof make a far larger impact on fights more so than gear. Gear obviously helps. But late game you can win battles using plenty of common gear in the mix because level 17 enemies' stats are SO much worse than a level 19's... it's almost hilarious.

I'm still waiting on level 20 before I craft Swornbreaker and Eternal Armors.


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Originally Posted by geala
Act 2 is the open world so many people cried for. You have to explore carefully and at first you are a bit lost, at least I was, similar to Act 1 at the start of the EA, only worse. But you can think a bit and look at the NPCs in an area and change, if they are too high.


In order to be genuinely open world it would have to avoid the level-gating that is used all throughout it, so that you could actually go anywhere and reasonably tackle things in whatever order you preferred. That isn't really possible given the way the game's mechanics and math scaling work, though.

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Originally Posted by ExecutiveCivic
*Level 18 Player purchases Really Amazing Divine 2-Hander of Bad-Assery from Vendor for 12,000 gold.*
---
*Plays for 1 hour. Hits level 19.*
---
*Goes back to Vendor. Vendor now has Really Amazing Divine 2-Hander of Bad-Assery scaled to level 19 for 15,000 gold and offers you 1500 gold for the one you purchased from him an hour ago which is now obsolete. Your 1 hour of adventures netted you 9,000 gold*
---
*Player slits wrists*


Why would it be obsolete once you ding?

Min-maxers dig their own graves :p

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When you reach high-end levels, the scaling on gear is disastrously higher, to the point where (roughly speaking) a weapon two levels higher than your own, without modifications, can be close to twice as powerful.

This is not "min/max", the game naturally scales enemy health at a similar rate, and expects your equipment to be up to par.


The Flaws of Divinity: Original Sin II: A list of observations of the game's shortcomings for the community.
Found HERE.
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Originally Posted by GreatGuardsman
When you reach high-end levels, the scaling on gear is disastrously higher, to the point where (roughly speaking) a weapon two levels higher than your own, without modifications, can be close to twice as powerful.

This is not "min/max", the game naturally scales enemy health at a similar rate, and expects your equipment to be up to par.


That's really just an exaggeration right there, level 21 weapon will be noticeably more powerful than level 19 one, but not twice, especially if that 19 in question is Divine and 21 one is epic or something like that.

If you scored some REALLY good level 19 divine weapon it will be just fine and at worst you can pick up replacement gear at trader for pittance anyway, so what's the problem really?

Honestly the end fight is level 20 anyway, if you are talking about level 21 stuff you already over the requirement anyway. It's really a min/max kind of thing and unnecessary at that, really.

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I think it mainly depends on the difficulty. Anybody should mention what difficulty he is using to know the relations. I'm on Classic, as said, and till now (lvl 16) it's quite relaxed, item wise. I used Thievery the last time with level 10, to get some money for better weapons than that of Act 1. Lucky Charm gives you a lot of good items you can sell, it's ok.

My biggest complain about the items it that higher level stuff looks bad, especially the human Finesse helmets and the boring clothes, but also the heavy helmet for the elves after level 14, terrible.

Hmm, the last fight is level 20? Really? That's only 4 levels left. Do you mean in Driftwood, so Arx is higher levels?

I'm curious about the coming fights. Till now I lost one fight, against Alice A. on lvl 14, she eliminated my whole party in the first turn. jawdrop It was so satisfying to repay her dearly with lvl15. grin


Last edited by geala; 26/09/17 02:22 PM.
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Alice was an incredibly difficult fight, even on Explorer (though as I've said various times previously, I'm an adventurer, not a tactician). I think I eventually dealt with her when I was about a level above but it was still tricky.

Dunno about the last fight, but the doctor is level 20, and can become quite awkward if you're ill-prepared.

Probably quite obvious when you do it, but you really need to one-shot him before he has a chance to turn. Otherwise it's much more... well, "tactical".


The end battle was just too protracted for me, whatever level it was, but I often say that about video games with end battles and frequently fail to complete them as a result.


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I didn't have much of an issue finding where to go vs the story. I just went in head first and started exploring and now have about 60 quests currently. Some were easy while some are glitched out and I can't finish no matter what. So I decided that I was going to murder anyone that sympathized or was part of the magistrates and I got a lot of broken quests but the "main" quest lines are advancing just fine.

I'm more saddened by the amount of broken quests that are out there. I did everything they told me to do but won't complete or move forward so I just killed the quest people and took the loot. I'm hoping that it's just a glitch on the character you choose to work with and I can replay the game later and will be able to complete them.

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Inside fort joy was kinda dissapointing for me. All the "prisoners" are just running around selling GOOD weapons to us and we are killing magisters with ease even with our power from source muted which makes us dangerous? Personally I don't think there should be any vendors in fort joy (at the seeker camp yeah). I think it would be interesting if you started out crafting wooden weapons/armor and then upgraded to metal once you killed a magister, which would be much stronger. Would actually feel like your a prisoner making a prison break, rather than how it is now where magisters just look incompetent and can't do anything right.

I would have liked the option to orchestrate some sort of prison break with the other prisoners as well. I think there's a ton of potential for a more interesting plot inside fort joy. These prisoners you help free could be your vendors on lady vengeance. I mean I walked around the island killing all the magisters and they don't even react. They are hostile towards you (even though they don't even know it was you) but they don't move or anything and just sit there while you murder all their friends like they don't know what's going on.

And then you just walk up and kill the judge, and kill every magister, and unlock all the doors and what not, and the prisoners are still there being imprisoned? What? Why don't you guys leave?

I really liked driftwood but damn was it annoying the first time around. It felt like the game was calling me an idiot for not following it's intended direction. "why are you going east you idiot you can't fight those magisters they are lvl 13, you gotta go kill THESE magisters over here who are lvl 9". You have to clear this cave of monsters before you're strong enough to fight those magisters duh. Nothing makes me remember I'm playing a game more than levels. If you are going to make some magisters levels different then they should look different/more powerful to compensate, otherwise my immersion is broken. Maybe some more interesting names (like a title) would do the trick as well to make them stand out and gives them a reason why they kicked my guys ass. But the thing is the game doesn't intend you to go to the black pits that early, it intends you do things in a rather specific order so that you have the levels and gear to keep doing things at its set rate.

And the thing that makes driftwood even worse is that there's no sense of story direction guiding you. When you arrive in driftwood and help lizard lady she tells you to go find sorcerers, which are in ALL directions. You can GO anywhere to find people to help you get more source, but you should probably go kill mordus first because he's level 11 and everyone else is like 13+... lol. Ryker is only level 12.... but in order to do his quest you have to fight past multiple lvl 13s, typically leaving you at 14 when you turn his quest in and making the fight with him really easy.

I was playing with ifan in party lone wolf and I wanted to go check out his story and the lone wolves are in the lumbermill which is north. It makes sense logically I should go check that out. Oh wait they are lvl 15 (or 14? don't quite remember) and attack you immediately when you try to talk to the boss, jk ifan reload.

I initially didn't free the lizard lady you need because I thought magisters would be hostile towards me if I killed the two who are setting up her execution... Turns out you just murder them and the other magisters don't give a fuck, and don't even bother looking into it or checking the lizard ladys house? She's just sitting there after magisters hauled her off to be executed and now everything is fine? What the hell? I mean I guess she's always in her basement they didn't know was there but it's laughable how easy she gets back into town. She just walks across the river and there's no guards or anyone overlooking this area. Voidwoken could just walk into town and start murdering people before magisters would act. Lmao.

Driftwood was just full of things to trip over which really hurt the pacing of the area overall and makes it feel tedious and annoying at many times if you aren't on its set path which is really hard to know what that path is because it's only indicated by the levels of the enemies you fight and NOTHING else.

I don't know if they intended to make the magisters look like monkeys, but they certainly succeeded in that regard imo.

Arx probably made the most sense from a story perspective, but it was the most annoying area to actually play. Tons of mysteries with vague clues left me heading online looking for help throughout most of it. The guards in this game need some serious help though, magisters and paladins alike. I went through the barrack and murdered most paladins to get to lvl 21 to make the final mission a little easier and no one even cared at all. I murdered one of the guards right in front of another guard then I persuaded her that it wasn't me. Aren't they facing voidwoken that are constantly attacking the city? What will arx do if all of it's guards are dead? I guess voidwoken won't come now surely they wouldn't take advantage of a defenseless city.

I also find it funny how a mercanary you hire passes lucians statue test... They are mercanaries, I mean sure they haven't killed or stolen anything since you've seen them but never? Really? I find that so hard to believe.

I grilled it quite a bit but overall it was a very fun game I enjoyed myself thoroughly both times I played through it and I'm still uncovering some new stuff and trying out different things in a 3rd play through, but there are plenty of times I need to suspend my disbelief. It's hard to say which area I enjoyed the most, all of them were quite flawed in one way or another, arx was definitely my least favorite even if I had the least problems with it story wise. As a game I still prefer gameplay over story any day.

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