God DAMN Divinity II is addictive

[adddeed]

Its fun to play as well. I for one like the combat. It feel likes Divinie Divinity but in 3D, theyve captured it perfectly.

 

[lefthandblack]

<Skyway>
God DAMN Divinity II is a piece of shit.

I can't fathom any of the praise for this game. I've forced myself through ten hours and I'm done.
I'm not so much pissed about the five bucks I wasted on it but the bandwidth I spent downloading
it pisses me off. I could have used that bandwidth for porn or cat pictures or something.

In no particular order:

- tryhard voice acting, the game's voice acting is so tryhard they even had to give voices to inanimate objects like bulletin boards - "YOU WALK AWAY" - Really? Is this some Eurofag attempt at humor? To me it just comes across as pointless and wasteful.

About the third time that I heard my character scream "Oooof! I've beeeeen Poiiisonneed!!", I was contemplating finding the voice assets and replacing them with silent sound files or audio cuts from porn videos, either one would be infinitely better.
The URGLP URFF URGLP sound that a brutal deepthroat makes would work nicely for this.

- Clickity, floaty, bullshit combat. WTF, you can't even block. You can't even aim a bow what with the consolshit sticky targeting.
AHAH! THERE ARE SOME BAD GUYS OVER THERE, LET ME PICK OFF A FEW WITH MY ARROWS! WTF I SHOT A BIRD!


- LOOK A STEALTH MECHANIC! Oh wait, it's just a filter that makes it look like your video card has gone bad while you run around like Frodo after equipping the one ring, NVM. Seriously, how about pressing ctrl to crouch and backing off the AI's awareness range a little bit - SORRY DUDE, WE COULDN'T AFFORD CROUCH ANIMATIONS BECAUSE WE HAD TO HAVE MONEY FOR TALKING BULLETIN BOARDS.

- Speaking of AI: I guess stealth isn't really necessary when you can escape from pursuing enemies by walking behind a tree.

- OH LOOK AN UNSCRUPULOUS MERCHANT HANGING OUT BY THE BANDIT CAMP. IT IS OBVIOUS TO MY HEROIC
MIND THAT HE IS UP TO NO GOOD. LET ME VERIFY MY SUSPICIONS BY READING HIS MIND:

"Heheh, stupid fools paying for my fake shit!"

IT HAS BEEN VERIFIED, I WILL NOW KILL HIM WITH DEATH BECAUSE HE IS A CUNT.
WTF! MY SWORD GO THROUGH HIM BUT HE DON'T DIE!
NOT EVEN HURT!
In fairness this fucker may have been part of some quest down the road but unkillable NPC'S are a pet peeve of mine, especially when it's done with such a cheap tactic as making them ethereal.

This did remind me of the one game mechanic that I liked: The ability to read minds. Being able to slice and dice this particular NPC after reading his mind and confirming my suspicions would have been a genuinely good moment, too bad it was not to be.
</Skyway>

I liked DivDiv and I think that they would have been better served sticking to that formula. Either make a third person action game or make an isometric RPG, trying to mix the two just ends up making a shit sandwich.

I know there was more that pissed me off, but I can't think of it right now. I'm sure it will come back to me after some of the Larian fanboys inevitably call me names.

So, did they fix this shit in D:OS or is it more of the same?

 

[adddeed]

<Skyway>

- tryhard voice acting, the game's voice acting is so tryhard they even had to give voices to inanimate objects like bulletin boards - "YOU WALK AWAY" - Really? Is this some Eurofag attempt at humor? To me it just comes across as pointless and wasteful.

About the third time that I heard my character scream "Oooof! I've beeeeen Poiiisonneed!!", I was contemplating finding the voice assets and replacing them with silent sound files or audio cuts from porn videos, either one would be infinitely better.
The URGLP URFF URGLP sound that a brutal deepthroat makes would work nicely for this.

Voice acting is fine. Why are you shmucks expecting Oscar performance from video games?

- Clickity, floaty, bullshit combat. WTF, you can't even block. You can't even aim a bow what with the consolshit sticky targeting.
AHAH! THERE ARE SOME BAD GUYS OVER THERE, LET ME PICK OFF A FEW WITH MY ARROWS! WTF I SHOT A BIRD!

Combat is not tactical, its Diablo 1 combat translated into 3rd person. Works beautifully. Its still a clickfest hack&slash, but in 3D. Nothing wrong with that you oaf.

- LOOK A STEALTH MECHANIC! Oh wait, it's just a filter that makes it look like your video card has gone bad while you run around like Frodo after equipping the one ring, NVM. Seriously, how about pressing ctrl to crouch and backing off the AI's awareness range a little bit - SORRY DUDE, WE COULDN'T AFFORD CROUCH ANIMATIONS BECAUSE WE HAD TO HAVE MONEY FOR TALKING BULLETIN BOARDS.

Again chump, this isn't Thief.

- OH LOOK AN UNSCRUPULOUS MERCHANT HANGING OUT BY THE BANDIT CAMP. IT IS OBVIOUS TO MY HEROIC
MIND THAT HE IS UP TO NO GOOD. LET ME VERIFY MY SUSPICIONS BY READING HIS MIND:

"Heheh, stupid fools paying for my fake shit!"

IT HAS BEEN VERIFIED, I WILL NOW KILL HIM WITH DEATH BECAUSE HE IS A CUNT.
WTF! MY SWORD GO THROUGH HIM BUT HE DON'T DIE!
NOT EVEN HURT!
In fairness this fucker may have been part of some quest down the road but unkillable NPC'S are a pet peeve of mine, especially when it's done with such a cheap tactic as making them ethereal.

Can't even undesrtand what you're whining about you goof.

I liked DivDiv and I think that they would have been better served sticking to that formula. Either make a third person action game or make an isometric RPG, trying to mix the two just ends up making a shit sandwich.

Well they succeeded. Back to Skyrim you big dolt.

 

[lefthandblack]

Voice acting is fine. Why are you shmucks expecting Oscar performance from video games?

I'm not expecting Oscar quality, just something that doesn't actively make me cringe. A silent protagonist is
loads better than cringeworthy.

Well they succeeded. Back to Skyrim you dolt.

If you are talking about action games, ALL of Bethesda's games are infinitely better that this one.

 

[Jimmious]

D:OS has nothing to do with Div2 as it is a great turn-based game....

Spoiler

except the sometimes really bad humor, that's there again

 

[Gnidrologist]

Before i finally try Divinity:OS, i have set as my duty to finish the fucking finale of D2, the infamous dragon escort mission. I do fine until the narrator (Zanadalor i guess) tells something in the line of ''this is the final stretch, we must double our effort''. Till then the ship is almost undamaged and me-the-dragon fucks shit up convincingly. After those lines are told the ship goes dead in the matter of 10 seconds or so and the dragon dies from the most minor confrontation with some stupid nest. I'm weak at spatial orientation in this mission so maybe i'm missing some crucial target that should be destroyed first. Otherwise i can't seem, to fathom why at that point shit suddenly hits the serious fan and simply can't make it. It seems there are some serious shit missile launcher somewhere that fucks the aerobuss up in mere seconds, but i can't spot which one of them is it.

 

[Cadmus]

Before i finally try Divinity:OS, i have set as my duty to finish the fucking finale of D2, the infamous dragon escort mission. I do fine until the narrator (Zanadalor i guess) tells something in the line of ''this is the final stretch, we must double our effort''. Till then the ship is almost undamaged and me-the-dragon fucks shit up convincingly. After those lines are told the ship goes dead in the matter of 10 seconds or so and the dragon dies from the most minor confrontation with some stupid nest. I'm weak at spatial orientation in this mission so maybe i'm missing some crucial target that should be destroyed first. Otherwise i can't seem, to fathom why at that point shit suddenly hits the serious fan and simply can't make it. It seems there are some serious shit missile launcher somewhere that fucks the aerobuss up in mere seconds, but i can't spot which one of them is it.

It was the same for me. Incredibly rage-inducing stupid fucking mission. I think it even saved at some shit point so I had to re-do the whole flight just to get there completely undamaged and even then I just barely finished it.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Well, what was your course of action in that final stretch?
I think i did stupid by investing too much into useless dragon skills like that companion bird instead of maxing out '''patriarchal rage'' or what was it called. Despite painfully slow cooling time, it destroys the whole fortress at once even at my puny 1 point in it. Probably would be the best weapon in that clusterfuck, but there's just not enough time to wait for it to recharge.
Also, isn't there any way to protect the ship except for killing the flying bastards flying near it? Those navigators seem completely incompetent and fly right in the middle of bombardment lanes.

edit: Just as it often happens, right after posting this, i managed to beat the game, although it seemed sort of off. I did make a ''double effort'' and beat more of those nasty nest shits, while the shit almost hit the ship once again, but this time, while i killed one of the nests somewhat near to the castle a custscene suddenly starteded, where ship crashed into the castle door with all sorts of demons harassing it. After that the fight with the bitch queen and her demon, which was laughably easy as was expected and ''teh happy end'' with the chosen one of the DD along with Zalandor saluting The Dragon, who flies away into the sunset.

Is that the only ending or was it just one of the.. Because i failed to demolish even 1/4th of the 'final stretch' fortresses/ballistas before going into the cutscene. It seems it was just that i hit the ''hot spot''. Maybe i wouldn't even need to destroy anything in the whole course, just fly right to that spot and trigger cutscene for the final fight?

 

[Cadmus]

Well, what was your course of action in that final stretch?
I think i did stupid by investing too much into useless dragon skills like that companion bird instead of maxing out '''patriarchal rage'' or what was it called. Despite painfully slow cooling time, it destroys the whole fortress at once even at my puny 1 point in it. Probably would be the best weapon in that clusterfuck, but there's just not enough time to wait for it to recharge.
Also, isn't there any way to protect the ship except for killing the flying bastards flying near it? Those navigators seem completely incompetent and fly right in the middle of bombardment lanes.

edit: Just as it often happens, right after posting this, i managed to beat the game, although it seemed sort of off. I did make a ''double effort'' and beat more of those nasty nest shits, while the shit almost hit the ship once again, but this time, while i killed one of the nests somewhat near to the castle a custscene suddenly starteded, where ship crashed into the castle door with all sorts of demons harassing it. After that the fight with the bitch queen and her demon, which was laughably easy as was expected and ''teh happy end'' with the chosen one of the DD along with Zalandor saluting The Dragon, who flies away into the sunset.

Is that the only ending or was it just one of the.. Because i failed to demolish even 1/4th of the 'final stretch' fortresses/ballistas before going into the cutscene. It seems it was just that i hit the ''hot spot''. Maybe i wouldn't even need to destroy anything in the whole course, just fly right to that spot and trigger cutscene for the final fight?

I didn't do anything specific as far as I remember, only also "doubled my effort". I also remember the ship almost dying again when the cutscene triggered so I have no idea what actually triggers it. I do think it got farther that time so it seemed to me it was really a specific waypoint in the ship's route to trigger the ending. The last fight I think I did with literally one multi-shot + invisibility combo, which was strange but you really are supposed to be a badass by the end so why not. Or was it the original ending? I have no idea now. I don't remember what the expansion ending was at all.

 

[Durandal]

I remember almost oneshotting the final boss by having an aura that increased my arrow damage by 300-500% or so, having a ridiculously high crit chance which boosted my damage potential even further, having one of the strongest bows in the game, and having a skill that let me shoot 15 arrows at a time. The boss was mincemeat

 

[DraQ]

<Skyway>
God DAMN Divinity II is a piece of shit.

I can't fathom any of the praise for this game. I've forced myself through ten hours and I'm done.
I'm not so much pissed about the five bucks I wasted on it but the bandwidth I spent downloading
it pisses me off. I could have used that bandwidth for porn or cat pictures or something.

In no particular order:

- tryhard voice acting, the game's voice acting is so tryhard they even had to give voices to inanimate objects like bulletin boards - "YOU WALK AWAY" - Really? Is this some Eurofag attempt at humor? To me it just comes across as pointless and wasteful.

About the third time that I heard my character scream "Oooof! I've beeeeen Poiiisonneed!!", I was contemplating finding the voice assets and replacing them with silent sound files or audio cuts from porn videos, either one would be infinitely better.
The URGLP URFF URGLP sound that a brutal deepthroat makes would work nicely for this.

- Clickity, floaty, bullshit combat. WTF, you can't even block. You can't even aim a bow what with the consolshit sticky targeting.
AHAH! THERE ARE SOME BAD GUYS OVER THERE, LET ME PICK OFF A FEW WITH MY ARROWS! WTF I SHOT A BIRD!


- LOOK A STEALTH MECHANIC! Oh wait, it's just a filter that makes it look like your video card has gone bad while you run around like Frodo after equipping the one ring, NVM. Seriously, how about pressing ctrl to crouch and backing off the AI's awareness range a little bit - SORRY DUDE, WE COULDN'T AFFORD CROUCH ANIMATIONS BECAUSE WE HAD TO HAVE MONEY FOR TALKING BULLETIN BOARDS.

- Speaking of AI: I guess stealth isn't really necessary when you can escape from pursuing enemies by walking behind a tree.

- OH LOOK AN UNSCRUPULOUS MERCHANT HANGING OUT BY THE BANDIT CAMP. IT IS OBVIOUS TO MY HEROIC
MIND THAT HE IS UP TO NO GOOD. LET ME VERIFY MY SUSPICIONS BY READING HIS MIND:

"Heheh, stupid fools paying for my fake shit!"

IT HAS BEEN VERIFIED, I WILL NOW KILL HIM WITH DEATH BECAUSE HE IS A CUNT.
WTF! MY SWORD GO THROUGH HIM BUT HE DON'T DIE!
NOT EVEN HURT!
In fairness this fucker may have been part of some quest down the road but unkillable NPC'S are a pet peeve of mine, especially when it's done with such a cheap tactic as making them ethereal.

This did remind me of the one game mechanic that I liked: The ability to read minds. Being able to slice and dice this particular NPC after reading his mind and confirming my suspicions would have been a genuinely good moment, too bad it was not to be.
</Skyway>

I liked DivDiv and I think that they would have been better served sticking to that formula. Either make a third person action game or make an isometric RPG, trying to mix the two just ends up making a shit sandwich.

I know there was more that pissed me off, but I can't think of it right now. I'm sure it will come back to me after some of the Larian fanboys inevitably call me names.

So, did they fix this shit in D:OS or is it more of the same?

Butthurt level: Volcanic.


Also, WTF does an invisibility spell have to do with crouching?

 

[Gnidrologist]

With all the talks about OS being totally shit at writing i'm even afraid to try it. Div2 may indeed be their best, if true. Its combat is nothing special, but not bad either for a real time game, given all the options one could have in char building. Its writing in my book is excellent for a game it is intended to be - a virtual fairytale with light hearted narrative. The silly humor suited it well and was done in unpretentious, tasteful way, which is almost never seen in teh epic AAA mega ar-pee-gees.
My main problem with it was that expansion felt like an afterthought, because the protag was already ubermensch with nothing to achieve in terms of development or gear hoarding at the point it starts. I didn't even finish half the quests in it i think, although they seemed much more fun than ones in the main game. It's just that i wanted to finish this off, because development roof was already finished even with the stuffing all my free skill points at mindreading at the start of it. Also the problem was probably that not knowingly i completed the main quest (the Beleghring or smth confusion) of the expansion almost the first thing, instead of prowling around and doing side quests. The map there is really confusing and there are no clear indications what is what.

 

[lefthandblack]

Butthurt level: Volcanic.


Also, WTF does an invisibility spell have to do with crouching?

Well, I didn't enclose my rant in <Skyway> tags for nothing. The invisibility bs was in the stealth tree as far as I remember and I was not particularly impressed but mainly wanted to bitch about not being able to sneak in a thieflike fashion. If the game had given me proper stealth and a proper archery mechanic instead of the stickytarget console bs it would have gone a long way to making it more likeable for me.

 

[DraQ]

The invisibility bs was in the stealth tree as far as I remember

There is no stealth tree in Divinity 2.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Yeh, where did this assumption come? In Div2 as soon as you're in the vicinity of any kind of foe, you're immediately attacked. Even when ''vicinity'' is quite long range out. There is no way avoiding hostile creatures except for killing them in this game. Not that it's a huge drawback, but it's a fact.

 

[DraQ]

Yeh, where did this assumption come? In Div2 as soon as you're in the vicinity of any kind of foe, you're immediately attacked. Even when ''vicinity'' is quite long range out. There is no way avoiding hostile creatures except for killing them in this game. Not that it's a huge drawback, but it's a fact.

Well, you can use invisibility (Hide in Shadows, but everything - the description, skill tree, and yes, shadurr, make it pretty clear it's supposed to be magical in nature, besides the combat in Div2 is pretty abstract/animu anyway) to bypass combat, but it's not really the best option as far as lasting solutions go because of XP.
It's better to use it for hit and run or for temporarily bypassing a powerful encounter.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Ok, i didn't know that. Always ignored invisibility potions. Played on ''normal'' difficulty though so there was no need to be scared of most encounters.

 

[DraQ]

With all the talks about OS being totally shit at writing i'm even afraid to try it. Div2 may indeed be their best, if true. Its combat is nothing special, but not bad either for a real time game, given all the options one could have in char building. Its writing in my book is excellent for a game it is intended to be - a virtual fairytale with light hearted narrative. The silly humor suited it well and was done in unpretentious, tasteful way, which is almost never seen in teh epic AAA mega ar-pee-gees.

Well, the main problem with DOS is that its writing is forgettable.

There are some attempts at Dvinity 2 style humor but they feel halfhearted. The virtual fairytale style remains, but it effectively has its magic sapped away.
You end up with an experience that is much better constructed in almost every technical aspect but it's an experience it's much harder to care about.

OTOH elemental mechanics in this game is just something special.

Overall the best thing that could happen to DOS (other than, hopefully, DOS2*) is a professional quality total conversion harnessing the wonderful systems for much more imaginative content while keeping overall build quality at comparable level.
Sadly that would require sane toolset and sufficient amount of skilled people willing to invest their time and effort into it.

Ok, i didn't know that. Always ignored invisibility potions. Played on ''normal'' difficulty though so there was no need to be scared of most encounters.

It's not a potion, it's a skill.
Anyway:
invis -> run up to enemy -> SPLITTING ARROWS at point blank range ->

*

I'm assuming that:

• Good folks at Larian can and want to learn from what went wrong
  
• The new stuff - races, etc. - is going to be at least half as good as it seems to be

I don't think any of those assumptions is spurious so I'm fairly optimistic.

 

[thesoup]

I remember almost oneshotting the final boss by having an aura that increased my arrow damage by 300-500% or so, having a ridiculously high crit chance which boosted my damage potential even further, having one of the strongest bows in the game, and having a skill that let me shoot 15 arrows at a time. The boss was mincemeat

I jumped around with my mage for a minute or two dealing damage with spells (iirc boss is pretty spell resistant) and after the boss' spell dropped to a little over 50%, I used execute / fatality (not sure how it was called) and instakilled it. I didn't actually believe it would work. This was also on hard.

 

[Gnidrologist]

DraQ
Concerning writing, i think it seems closer to Divine Divinity. Not as tryhard silly/humorous, but still effective enough to convey narrative. If it stays that way (i'm in the first city now), i'm perfectly okay with it. Given the huge upgrade to combat system in comparison to both previous Divinities, it's a no brainer to assume this is a great game overall. I DID go through through awful writing, abysmal combat and non-existent character development of Baldur's Gate ALMOST till the end and still could get some satisfaction so..

edit: i still haven't gotten an answer - how useful is crafting?

 

[catfood]

Guess Original Sin writing is a case of too many cucks cooks spoiling the broth.

Actually they only had one writer for most of the development cycle. Not sure if it's the same guy that wrote for Div 2, though, because the writing in that game was pretty decent for a video game.

 

[Jools]

edit: i still haven't gotten an answer - how useful is crafting?

As per usual, not at all.

 

[Makabb]

Any other decent arpgs like divinity 2 ?

 

[abnaxus]

Games where you can be a dragon? no

In Drakan at least you can ride one.

 

[Zeriel]

Games where you can be a dragon? no

In Drakan at least you can ride one.

Well technically there are a few adult-rated games where you play a dragon, but probably not what he's looking for (i.e, actual ARPGs, full-fledged RPGs, etc).