Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

Didn't watch any videos, and just got it working in 2 minutes. You select the game process (game needs to be running), tick "enable speedhack", select speed, apply.

 

Game gets more and more MMO the more you play it

 

Well they're all destined to become Divine, of course they're gonna be self-important pricks. Also, Lohse is still hot.

Would you rather have level scaling?

 

While playing last night, I have noticed on a few occasions that Ifan, when shooting the crossbow given to him by the merchant you meet when you escape the fort, does damage to both armor AND health with the same hit.

I'm almost at level 6 and I think I'm starting to get the idea Larian had with the armor system. What they call "Armor" is really configurable HP boosts. While your HP depends on your level and Constitution stat, your configurable HP boost is determined by your gear, and you are allowed (expected?) to fine-tune it before encounters.

To advance in the configurable HP however, you are practically required to spend serious money on gear, or invest heavily into Lucky Charm, and gamble that you'll find good gear in containers -- which is in effect spending points which could have increased your damage, and hope that Larian included good enough stuff in their loot tables to justify you spending those points.

Conclusion, which answers my earlier question about Barter - Barter is a pretty damn important skill in this game. Invest in Barter, invest in your damage output and you should be set, at least during the early game. It's more economically viable/rational to increase your damage output while reducing the cost of your exta HP (money you pay merchants for gear) than it is to increase your chances to win a lottery.

Investing in Barter = Investing in HP

The shop inventory tables are more reliable than the loot tables when it comes to netting you good loot, and if you can push the price down, the long run gains are much higher than what you could win from the lottery over a long number of "gambles" - opening of containers.

Edit:
Why make such stupid design decisions and go through long periods of Early Access without ever addressing your mistakes? Why not just hire out people from forums like the codex to do QA? With the steam early access and with the telemetry, you can even manage QA remotely around the globe with little hassle. If people on a forum can discover such things with a few tens of hours of play imagine how much better the game could have been after a real QA period.

 

The crossbow has "Piercing damage", right?

 

Probably yes, can't check right now.

 

Does it break the game in any way? There's already plenty of bugs in the game, I don't want to play with the mod for 10 hours, only to realize is fucks the game and corrupts my save sor some shit.

 

It's not really that mobs have wayyy too much shields. It's that they always have the maximum available for their level while you're lucky to scrounge enough money and gear to get this much for one of your characters, two max.

Which is useless anyway coz enemies focus fire your weakest chars.

 

Just loot everything, and I do mean everything with a strength character, and sell that shit. You won't really have problem with money. Spend it wisely of course.

 

I rather dislike it that Barter is a zero sum game - for every merchant, just use the party member with the highest Barter skill. I would have liked it much better if the race/origin reactivity that's seen in the rest of the interactions was spreading more into the merchants.

Arcanum did this so many years ago, though it was relatively simple - merchants of your own race had a better reaction to you and traded with you at a small discount. D:OS2 could go a lot further and make it matter who is doing the trading, while not just relying on the Barter skill. It would also make it more meaningful to have multiple party members investing into Barter, because you would have situations where a character with Barter still can't get as good prices as another character with less Barter who is simply "liked" more by the merchant.

 

It's not boring, fights just become a drag thanks to armor&HP bloat in tacticool difficulty. Whacking pinatas ( most of them are empty) gets boring after a while.

 

It does, around 10-11 piercing and 20-22 physical.

 

Sounds too far-fetched to me.

 

Maybe you were luckier than me in finding good gear, but over the course of the game, I expect that cumulative small savings from the discounts which my Barter character would get, would outweigh the benefits from the gambling of a high-Lucky Charm character. That character would find a cool item in one out of 10-15 containers, which would save him a few hundred - a couple of thousand gold. But meanwhile my character would make profits for every sell and savings from every item bought.


Edit - meanwhile, my character will have on average better armor (more HP in effect) than a high Luck character.

 

Since we're talking about looting, I love the secrets and "hidden" locations in the game. I really enjoy that you get rewarded for trying out crazy stuff like teleporting people in small far out spots.
Usually these spots are the ones that provide the most "unique" loot too.

 

From my experience, the difficulty decreases once you learn some of the (often unexplained) nuances. The difference between arranging your party before a fight starts and being caught in random positions is huge. Knowing that you can delay your turn is helpful. Stacking all physical damage (and CC) has also been helpful.

I don't care whether the writing style was politically motivated. I just wish that it wasn't so cringey. I like the general fantasy setting, but it's ruined very time a conversation starts, especially with the female characters. Most of the female dialogue reads like it was:

• Written by poor roleplayers ("Hello, nice to meet you." "*I walk up to you and lick your neck, then bite your ear." ?????)
• Written for tumbler (as many fetishes as possible in place of actual wit or narration).
• Repetitive. I keep seeing the same middle-aged, sex-starved, self-centered female archetypes who just happen to be magically powerful somehow (aka mary sue) instead of actual interesting women.

This is a shame because I really like good, well-written characters (female and male).

Fetishes aside, the dialogue in general is pretty bad. There are so many conversations where I just want a "stay silent" because none of the following are viable:

• 1. *Frown. Aren't you already a Source Master?* ???????

or

• 2. *Nod - it sounds dangerous, but if that's what it takes.* ??????

Once I started ignoring the dialogue text, the game became much more enjoyable.

 

Yeah me too, but you know, only teleport the party member with the highest Lucky charm stat. I don't know if I like this dependency.

 

I believe Lucky Charm usually adds only some gold to the loot. I agree that it's a bit annoying to have a "designated looter" but... oh well. Not such a big issue for me

 

I'm not sold on Barter yet. My Persuasion 4 char has default 20 attitude at all merchants and that nets him about 10% off the price compared to my other chars. Which is not amazing.

What does Barter actually do? Does it further increase attitude, cumulative with Persuasion, or does it directly reduce prices? If, say, Persuasion 4 and Barter 4 would give you a cumulative 50% off all prices that would absolutely be superior to Lucky Charm, however high.

Nope, it let's you find unidentified valuable items. Not sure if higher LC only raises your chance per container or also raises the quality of loot. My LC 5 char almost always finds Epic or Legendary items btw.

 

If Lucky charm adds just more probability for finding gold, this makes the Barter skill even more superior to Lucky Charm.

 

In the trade interface, switch between a character with barter and a character without barter. Barter gives you a direct discount. They even show you the original price crossed out.

 

As I said, you get lower prices for high Persuasion characters as well - because apparently Persuasion raises your attitude with merchants (the gold colored number below merchant's name). It seems it's +5 attitude for every point of Persuasion.

Does your high Barter character have higher default attitude with merchants?

 

I'll test that, because I have persuasion of 3 or 4 on the Prince and barter 3 on Ifan, but no persuasion.

How can I see my default attitude with a merchant?

 

It can and will fuck up voiceovers in cutscenes and in-game non-player conversations; sound plays at regular speed, but the voice clips will start playing before the previous ones are finished.

It makes the game about 95% less boring though, so it's well worth it. But going too high could make it a bit awkward to play, so you should probably limit yourself to 2x speed.

 

When you enter the shop screen you see the merchant's name and right below there's a yellow star and a number. That's your attitude.

Btw I've just noticed I fucked up. My Persuasion 5 character also has Barter 1 so maybe I get the 10% discount for my Barter instead of Persuasion. Then again if a point in Barter equals 10% off the prices then maxing out Barter gives you shit for free?

Test it and we'll see.