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Very disappointed with Divinity: Original Sin

Elex

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
2,043
The depressing thing is that DOS1&2 had such a staggering success, both games are likely to become a de-facto standard for what modern gamer expects from this type of game.

And we all know how that ends. It's going to become the Oblivion of TB RPGs and it's going to spread its cancer throughout the planet, leaving no game untouched. Publishers are going to give instructions to studios to "make it more like that Larian game". It's going to pulverize everything in its path and leave only a pile of shit, tears and broken hopes behind.

The end is nigh, people, so start reading those prepper websites and learn how to process your urine into drinking water.
they will copy the humor and the loot and item progression.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
You are overestimating its success.

I think Witcher 3 and Skyrim are still kings, especially with them sharing so much. Ubisoft made a bunch of Far Cry games that are Skyrim-light with guns. From what I've heard AssCreed Origins want to be a Witcher game very much, complete with character levels overhead and your knife being to weak to kill highlevel dudes by piercing their throat.

It probably means that we have a better chance to see turn-based RPG games. Maybe it will help Blackguards series to continue or something. Maybe Ubisoft will make Might & Magic XI with some inspirations from DOS2 (I bet they'll concentrate on party characters). It's not big enough to turn bad.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,124
You are overestimating its success.

Am I, though? We're talking over a million units moved at what is a near-AAA price. Those are fucking massive numbers for an indie game. And that's just Steam. Then there's GOG, and they are more likely already rolling the inevitable console release.

It's the highest rated PC game of last year, and the 2nd highest rated PC RPG of all time, behind BG2. The hype for this game is huge.
 
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ilitarist

Learned
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Am I, though? We're talking over a million units moved at what is a near-AAA price. Those are fucking massive numbers for an indie game. And that's just Steam. Then there's GOG, and they are more likely already rolling the inevitable console release.

It's the highest rated PC game of last year, and the 2nd highest rated PC RPG of all time, behind BG2. The hype for this game is huge.

Critical appraisal is secondary to sold copies if you're gonna to copy something. Fallout New Vegas sold 1.4 millions of copies on release year if google doesn't lie - don't see many copycats. Skyrim had sold 30 million copies by 2016 (before the rerelease as I understand) and that was good enough to force the industry to listen. Even then you don't see copies of Skyrim as it was with Oblivion (Two Worlds and Kingdoms of Alamur were more or less copies of Oblivion, right? And Gothic 3 if you want to irritate fans) because by that point AAA industry had matured over the idea of clones. There are light influences. Witcher 3 is clearly inspired by Skyrim's openworld but it's still its own thing, same with Far Cry and other games. Minecraft has clones, and those games are cheap shit indie games, Fallout 4 steals only little of its ideas. Hearthstone has clones and those are relatively cheap games.

Modern clones are cheap copies of very big games. You'll probably see some indie small DOS2 inspired games, maybe more focus on elemental interaction in game series that are already about turn-based tactics. Maybe XCOM3 will have some of those setting things on fire/striking with freeze ray/shooting tesla cannon into a pool of water things. Just like Bioshock, heh.
 

hivemind

Guest
sorry if the above was mean I actually like you as a poster because you write down your own reasoned opinions on games and don't just """"""discuss"""""""" rpgs in megathreads

you are one of the few positive aspects this forum has in regards to RPG discussion I just get triggered by pst so I had to make such a mean post
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
I can understand ur guys' frustration with the slow combat, but that's why the internet invented speedhacks?
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
the new face of decline is turn based

the depths to which codex edgelords won't sink

I would argue that something like D:OS getting high praise is actually worse than Oblivion. With Oblivion it's just the inevitable mass market decline, which is bound to happen. So you say to yourself, meh, McDonald's, Twilight series, etc, and go looking for the niche products. But D:OS is targeted at more hardcore players, so its decline (in terms of infantile writing, 80s era pixel hunting puzzles, balance issues, endless combat turns) hits us much closer to home. If we don't hold the hardcore devs accountable, might as well go play Fallout 4.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
The depressing thing is that DOS1&2 had such a staggering success, both games are likely to become a de-facto standard for what modern gamer expects from this type of game.

And we all know how that ends. It's going to become the Oblivion of TB RPGs and it's going to spread its cancer throughout the planet, leaving no game untouched. Publishers are going to give instructions to studios to "make it more like that Larian game". It's going to pulverize everything in its path and leave only a pile of shit, tears and broken hopes behind.

The end is nigh, people, so start reading those prepper websites and learn how to process your urine into drinking water.

These AA turn based RPGs were always going to make disappointing compromises, so the particulars of how those compromises are made don't matter as far as I'm concerned. The garage dev stuff's going to keep doing its own thing.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
I would argue that something like D:OS getting high praise is actually worse than Oblivion.
And that is wrong.

Oblivion is literally the Heart of Darkness. Or it would be if it wasn't so blindingly bright. So its just a shiny version of Hell.
Yeah,but Oblivion is old,we need something new to hate so the young edgehoppers can recognize it.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Yeah just about sums up my impressions o the game, as with most modern games i'm left unimpressed wi way they can't match up to their own earlier works. DivDiv was superior in my eye, though admittedly it needed turn based badly. Companies aren't improving or even matching decades old games, an all you get is apologists excusing em for this.

I enjoyed about half on OS, but I can't say it were owt to write home about.
This is weird, DivDiv 1 combat sucks a big time but you can see Larian still tried to flesh out their game world, D:OS 1 and 2 are big fails at that and while having better gameplay... I'm really in doubt if they are better than DivDiv 1 too. Larian stopped trying to creating a fantasy world with some humor on it to have a slapstick world that is just a base for jokes. There were always absurd shit like Belengar or the Dragon Terror Patrol or the talking existentialist skeletons on Larian's games but what was funny was that they were pretty much easter eggs on a more serious background, but now it is like they tried doing those kinds of jokes all the time and I didn't feel engaged by their world so the jokes felt random for me.

Their worlds felt like half digested fantasy cliche supporting random slapstick kinda of silly humor now and this gets old fast. I didn't felt engaged by the game and after a certain point, it was obvious that the combat alone wouldn't cut it, didn't finish D:OS 1 and by the look of it, won't finish D:OS 2 while I finished DivDiv 1 and 2. D:OS 2 is better at this but on this aspect of world building is more like a D:OS 1.5 than a truly good game.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
Yeah,but Oblivion is old,we need something new to hate so the young edgehoppers can recognize it.

Hating Witcher 3 would be pretty edgy. We can talk about bad combat system, shoved-in Hearthstone, SJW infusion due to forced strong women and all the talk about racism, 4chanism due to all the talk about how wife beating is not so bad and most of the women are prostitutes, Geralt is obvious Marty Stu, no change in playstyles through character development ("less RPG than Far Cry 3"), forced choices in dialogues (shove him, forcefully), bad poetry about Lambert.
 

Ebonsword

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2008
Messages
2,326
the new face of decline is turn based

the depths to which codex edgelords won't sink

Well, to be fair, the Codex has never been shy about criticizing mediocre turn-based games (Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, for example).
 
Joined
May 1, 2013
Messages
4,499
Location
The border of the imaginary
I cannot agree with OP; but I will not be too hopeful for future products from Larian Studios.

DOS2 has been a mainstream sucess and all the 11/10 dorito dew reviews/reactions as it the second coming of incline and Larian's reaction to Codex criticism is a clear indication of the impeding decline (more sjw, popamolish mechanics, dumbed down shit in the future wtc.)

Don't get me wrong, I still think DOS2 is much better than PoE/ELEX/Grimoire/latest codex meme hype etc.; but the signs of future aren't optimistic.
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
My favorite Larian game is still Divine Divinity. I also like Divinity II and think it's underrated. But despite spending 140+ hours beating the first Original Sin in co-op, I got insta-bored by D:OS2. I'm more likely to play either DivDiv or Div2 if I play any Larian game now. Or maybe Beyond Div simply because I haven't played it yet (heard bad things though.)

D:OS2 to me was just too much. Yes, it seems a CRPG can actually have "too much stuff". Inventory was a mess, too many items, convoluted, and the enemies all felt like they had the same endless and too-huge bag of tricks to draw from, a move (or three) for every occasion and then some.

Once a crocodile cast magic on me, I knew it was time to uninstall.
 
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thesheeep

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Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
D:OS2 to me was just too much. Yes, it seems a CRPG can actually have "too much stuff". Inventory was a mess, too many items, convoluted, and the enemies all felt like they had the same endless and too-huge bag of tricks to draw from, a move (or three) for every occasion and then some.

Once a crocodile cast magic on me, I knew it was time to uninstall.
So you basically sucked :lol:

I mean, don't get me wrong, on Tactitian mode and stronger, I would also say enemies simply have too many abilities (and simply cheat on multiple occasions) and the only way to win is through the power of cheese.
But on Classic the game is pretty much ... smooth.
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
D:OS2 to me was just too much. Yes, it seems a CRPG can actually have "too much stuff". Inventory was a mess, too many items, convoluted, and the enemies all felt like they had the same endless and too-huge bag of tricks to draw from, a move (or three) for every occasion and then some.

Once a crocodile cast magic on me, I knew it was time to uninstall.
So you basically sucked :lol:

I mean, don't get me wrong, on Tactitian mode and stronger, I would also say enemies simply have too many abilities (and simply cheat on multiple occasions) and the only way to win is through the power of cheese.
But on Classic the game is pretty much ... smooth.

Sucked? I play RPGs on the hardest difficulty, it has nothing to do with that. It was the principle of the design. When enemies have 25 different moves it feels boring, generic and like they're more or less all the same. Now granted I only played for a few hours but I did not see anything that compelled me to go further with the game, quite the contrary actually.

Crocodiles, to me, should not have magic spells. It was almost as if to showcase their AI or have every enemy be "interesting" according to the developers, they had to give them all at least one of every type of attack imaginable. The human thief or whatever I fought had so many abilities it was like fighting a 10th level Wizard in D&D, except here it was at level 1. It was just "too much" and felt like they threw everything plus three kitchen sinks into it all. So I uninstalled it. Even after winning the fights.

I guess I prefer "low excitement" RPGs, or at least RPGs that ease you into throwing the kitchen sink into things. I'm having more fun playing BG:EET on Hard with all the Sword Coast Strategems content installed with the highest difficulty encounters, because even if you fight a very tough enemy there they have lore and level-appropriate amounts of spells and tactics. They often have one or two "unique" type of traits, rather than just "everything goes!" at all times. And an Ogre Berserker is not going to cast a Magic Missile on me at ranged, then turn invisible, then throw an AoE grenade, shoot a flaming arrow and then become visible again and cleave my party. An Ogre Berserker is tough because they have massive strength and go berserk in melee.

Even in games like Elminage Gothic or classic dungeon crawlers, enemies often have just one, maybe two unique attacks or traits to make them interesting and challenging. A Ninja in Elminage may decapitate your character with a lucky dice roll, or a Basilisk can turn you to stone. The Ninja may be able to hide in shadows, too, giving it a unique personality with only a couple of unique traits. My initial hours with D:OS2 felt like every enemy had an indiscernible amount of traits and tactics at their disposal that it felt more like a mishmash than a tightly handcrafted experience. Like there were no real "classes", more of just "everyone can do a million different things." That's just my first impressions.

Not sure if I'm making it clear but those combats combined with the huge amount of "stuff" to sift through in the inventory just turned me off for now. I didn't think a game could have too much stuff but I may have been proved wrong.
 
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Metro

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Messages
27,792
I played D:OS shortly after it launched a couple of years ago and... for the life of me I can't even remember the plot. I enjoyed the combat, though.
 

thesheeep

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Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
they have lore and level-appropriate amounts of spells and tactics.
I agree with the tactics. There are enemies that should be dumb, but aren't. Animals going straight for your mage and shit like that. It's weird, I agree.
But to me, that is a very minor complaint. Especially since being "realistic" would mean the fight would mostly be a pushover.

huge amount of "stuff" to sift through in the inventory just turned me off for now. I didn't think a game could have too much stuff but I may have been proved wrong.
I'm with you on the inventory. I absolutely don't like crafting and this game is no exception. Especially because the recipes are mostly hidden behind "you need to find random books" and even those won't show you half the stuff. Thankfully, except for arrows and some potions it crafting is entirely optional, even on Tactician.
By the end of the game my inventory was full with stuff that "looked like" it might be useful but never was.

Even in games like Elminage Gothic or classic dungeon crawlers, enemies often have just one, maybe two unique attacks or traits to make them interesting and challenging. A Ninja in Elminage may decapitate your character with a lucky dice roll, or a Basilisk can turn you to stone. The Ninja may be able to hide in shadows, too, giving it a unique personality with only a couple of unique traits. My initial hours with D:OS2 felt like every enemy had an indiscernible amount of traits and tactics at their disposal that it felt more like a mishmash than a tightly handcrafted experience. Like there were no real "classes", more of just "everyone can do a million different things." That's just my first impressions.
Don't really know what you are talking about.
Humanoid enemies have access to the same spells and abilities you do - restricted by their class(es). Some may have unique abilities, but I don't think I saw that often. Mostly on bosses.
Non-human enemies have abilities closely related to their elements. I remember a crocodile causing some bleeding effect (makes sense) and spitting something (water? poison?), but I don't remember too much else. It's not like you meet some water based enemy and it starts summoning skeletons and throwing fireballs at you :lol:

Maybe you met one of the corrupted animals, those do have a lot of abilities. They're more like demons, really.
 

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