Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[MWaser]

Lucckman was pointing out things that he felt were major issues about the game because he saw them as taking away from enjoying the experience as a whole. (It's not a question about feeling, the issue is real as a brick.)

If anyone thinks the majority of the complains in this thread exist (WTF?)for the sake of nitpicking ( You call broken initiative system is nitpicking?) and complaining for the sake of complaining (Complaining to who? None of the people here can actually change something. It's called discussing.) then you're all clearly missing the point. Even people who bring out the review scores merely do it because even if they enjoy the game or think it's good in multiple levels but unenjoyable due to a clusterfuck of broken-ass mechanics, they're doing it to show that, in their opinion, this scoring is not done in a fully objective or thorough manner(SO?). In fact, I'm quite sure a lot of people who would rate the game a 9/10 or 10/10 after the first chapter or two could change their opinions later due to an increasing amount of glaring issues that you notice as the game piles up nonsense that you have to deal with. ( One of these people could be you too)
In that case, pointing out that a 9/10 or 10/10 score for a game they wouldn't give a score beyond 7/10, (Ahh. So you think the scores are important way to rate their feelings about the game) regardless of their enjoyment of it or not(You wouldn't say half of the game: Tha Combat and plus the char creation PLUS the level-gating in all accounts-skills,enemies and items affecting exploration too. Oh my looks like there are major things to affect the whole "experience"), and calling it shilling or the people scoring and reviewing them "stoopid causals"(This has become a race card for people like you FFS stop using this non-logic thing) is just a form of expressing their disappointment with how the issues they have seem to be blatantly looked over, and perhaps worry over the fact that if the game seems to be doing amazingly both in scores and sales regardless of its issues that it reduces the chances of the big issues being fixed in the way that is desirable to them.(I think most of the people who enjoy the game at the peak of the hype mountain -including you- are not aware of what they are playing and not questioning their "tactical rpg's" mechanics not trying to find out what they are playing.)

I think I need a "failed at reading comprehension" rating for your post. You spent so much time attempting to dissect what I was saying and yet you missed the point of even the first things I mentioned? I specifically said that "if you think people are nitpicking you are all clearly missing the point", and here you are, parantheses'ing me with "YOU call broken initiative nitpicking"? And no, I don't think scores are important way to rate the complaining people's feelings, those complaining about the game, that is. Their walls of text never mention a score of any kind. But I think the people who spend this time complaining about "professional video game review" scores instead clearly must care about scorers.

And I have literally no idea what you were going for with this part

(I think most of the people who enjoy the game at the peak of the hype mountain -including you- are not aware of what they are playing and not questioning their "tactical rpg's" mechanics not trying to find out what they are playing.)

Never in that entire statement or anywhere else in the thread did I try making any defense for any of the broken systems of this game, yet from the very beginning you seem to be interpreting my post as some kind of "pay no attention to the broken mechanics of this game" excuse. How about you check what was posted earlier on that page, with people complaining about game journos shilling by virtue of inflated scores, and people complaining about people complaining about game journos shilling by virtue of inflated scores. Maybe then you'll have the context necessary to attempt proper comprehension of what kind of posters this was addressed at and what exactly my point was.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

While DOS2 is fun, it has some glaring flaws.
Initiative, Strictly Binary Armor system, popamole encounters where enemeies just pop out of the ground (forcing reloads for positioning in many cases), heavy number bloat, mmo loot are the most glaring flaws which irritate me.
Now number bloat (and consequently equipment tetris) to some extent has been fixed by mods
.
Rest of the issues aren't unfixable as such, but will Swen on cocaine and dorito scores even bother?

But meh, enjoyable TB crpgs which I haven't played are few and far in between so I will just have to

 

[Freakydemon]

I heartily recommend this mod to everyone who dislikes the insane number bloat, add the penetrating debuffs mod and the game becomes a lot more pleasant.

Does it also handle the dmg scaling? Because I have a sunray that does like 1.5k dmg on average. If Vitality drops down to like half I can one shot low magic armour enemies then.

 

[Alienman]

Games like this aren't a diamond dozen, I'm enjoying playing this game in my spear time. The writing is superb.

Freudian slip clearly.

 

[Mark Richard]

Sure there is also the guy with the Arcanum avatar going on incessantly about the supposed systemic failures of this game. The irony!

I can go ahead and shit on Arcanum for a week, if that makes you happy, it's just that it's about 16 years too late, you muppet. Arcanum was an amazing, amazing game, but it was broken in so many more ways than D:OS2 is, even if Arcanum more than made up for it as a whole in other parts.

And in case you missed it - and you likely did, seeing as how you're a cum-guzzling fuckwit - I actually like D:OS2.

That's why I'm criticizing it. If I wanted to do was nitpick and bitch, I could've just done that and been done with it, but that has never resulted in a better game in the history of game development. While intentionally harsh, and harsher on the worse points, all of the criticism was constructive when even remotely possible - the only one where I have no answers or suggestions is on the Attributes, because I simply have no idea how to resolve it without relevant subsystems. It also wasn't like most of this criticism wasn't already pre-existing; I merely compiled it.

Sure, some things need improvement and a couple of bugs need to be fixed but out of the gate it's maybe the most complete rpg experience since BG2 and less flawed at release than most Codex classics from yesteryear.

Frankly it's a miracle the game works as well as it does. Baldur's Gate and NWN had restrictions placed on multiplayer to keep them from turning into a logistical nightmare, but DOS2 lets up to four human players run roughshod around the map independently. I'm only just starting to understand how ambitious that is. It's a topic that'll keep the journalists busy for years.

The journalists won't even care in 6 months. They don't even understand what a massive fucking achievement that is.

I can absolutely see why people would have many complaints about the game.

Mine are still armor system is not my cup of tea and the way enemies that are above your level can sometimes destroy you no matter what. The way stats go up and how you need to buy equipment (not that I dislike getting new equipment, the scaling is broken) that scales is a bit broken. Animations in combat are slow, but that is a complaint I had in the first game.

The thing for me is: I'm having fun. It has solid content coupled with some not so solid content. I'm happy the game is getting positive reviews. We need more of these types of games (turn-based rpgs), and despite some flaws, I am finding the game to be enjoyable.

Yeah, I really should've addressed the scaling and the numbers bloat, but for some reason, it completely slipped my mind. In my defense, it was all written in two (-ish) sittings spread over 4 days or something.

The scaling really is grotesque.

what the fuck are you people talking about? world of warcraft let 10 million people run around the map independently. what does that achieve?

Are you... asking the difference between RPG multiplayer and MMORPGs, on an RPG forum?

 

[Ruzen]

Lucckman was pointing out things that he felt were major issues about the game because he saw them as taking away from enjoying the experience as a whole. (It's not a question about feeling, the issue is real as a brick.)

If anyone thinks the majority of the complains in this thread exist (WTF?)for the sake of nitpicking ( You call broken initiative system is nitpicking?) and complaining for the sake of complaining (Complaining to who? None of the people here can actually change something. It's called discussing.) then you're all clearly missing the point. Even people who bring out the review scores merely do it because even if they enjoy the game or think it's good in multiple levels but unenjoyable due to a clusterfuck of broken-ass mechanics, they're doing it to show that, in their opinion, this scoring is not done in a fully objective or thorough manner(SO?). In fact, I'm quite sure a lot of people who would rate the game a 9/10 or 10/10 after the first chapter or two could change their opinions later due to an increasing amount of glaring issues that you notice as the game piles up nonsense that you have to deal with. ( One of these people could be you too)
In that case, pointing out that a 9/10 or 10/10 score for a game they wouldn't give a score beyond 7/10, (Ahh. So you think the scores are important way to rate their feelings about the game) regardless of their enjoyment of it or not(You wouldn't say half of the game: Tha Combat and plus the char creation PLUS the level-gating in all accounts-skills,enemies and items affecting exploration too. Oh my looks like there are major things to affect the whole "experience"), and calling it shilling or the people scoring and reviewing them "stoopid causals"(This has become a race card for people like you FFS stop using this non-logic thing) is just a form of expressing their disappointment with how the issues they have seem to be blatantly looked over, and perhaps worry over the fact that if the game seems to be doing amazingly both in scores and sales regardless of its issues that it reduces the chances of the big issues being fixed in the way that is desirable to them.(I think most of the people who enjoy the game at the peak of the hype mountain -including you- are not aware of what they are playing and not questioning their "tactical rpg's" mechanics not trying to find out what they are playing.)

I think I need a "failed at reading comprehension" rating for your post. You spent so much time attempting to dissect what I was saying and yet you missed the point of even the first things I mentioned? I specifically said that "if you think people are nitpicking you are all clearly missing the point", and here you are, parantheses'ing me with "YOU call broken initiative nitpicking"? And no, I don't think scores are important way to rate the complaining people's feelings, those complaining about the game, that is. Their walls of text never mention a score of any kind. But I think the people who spend this time complaining about "professional video game review" scores instead clearly must care about scorers.

And I have literally no idea what you were going for with this part

(I think most of the people who enjoy the game at the peak of the hype mountain -including you- are not aware of what they are playing and not questioning their "tactical rpg's" mechanics not trying to find out what they are playing.)

Never in that entire statement or anywhere else in the thread did I try making any defense for any of the broken systems of this game, yet from the very beginning you seem to be interpreting my post as some kind of "pay no attention to the broken mechanics of this game" excuse. How about you check what was posted earlier on that page, with people complaining about game journos shilling by virtue of inflated scores, and people complaining about people complaining about game journos shilling by virtue of inflated scores. Maybe then you'll have the context necessary to attempt proper comprehension of what kind of posters this was addressed at and what exactly my point was.

...since all this happened because of my misinterpretation there is no need to continue. This will be a lesson for me to never post when sleepy.

 

[cannondwarf]

I heartily recommend this mod to everyone who dislikes the insane number bloat, add the penetrating debuffs mod and the game becomes a lot more pleasant.

Does it also handle the dmg scaling? Because I have a sunray that does like 1.5k dmg on average. If Vitality drops down to like half I can one shot low magic armour enemies then.

Yes, all damage is tied to vitality, and the mod drastically downtunes vitalybloat from levels. On my level 17 character with all divine gear I went from around 3k (with Picture of Health) to around 600. I'm replaying act 1, and most weapons seem to slowly accelerate in damage for each level, nothing major like in vanilla though.

 

[GrapeJam]

10/10 from Gamespot: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/divinity-original-sin-2-review/1900-6416769/

While I really like the game very much, I don't think it deserve any where near a 10:

The writing is great, but the overall plot is meh, the world building is meh, the choices and consequences are meh, honestly I don't feel my choices to be impactful at all, compared to say The Witcher 3.

The combat is great, but the balance in both characters building and encounter designs are just hilariously bad.

The graphic from a technical perspective is good for a top down CRPG, but the artstyle is meh at best and the armor designs are just awful.

The soundtracks, I don't find to be really good and memorable, certainly nothing I'd like keep listening to.

So to me, this game deserves, an 8 at best, the only recent game that I feel almost deserve a 10, is TW3 with it's only real flaw is the overall plot being meh.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Not advocating for D:OS combat, but - name some or even a few, or one, turn based RPG where reloading in order to get better positioning isn't beneficial, or in some cases, mandatory, if you want to win the combat.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Blackguards

 

[Luckmann]

I heartily recommend this mod to everyone who dislikes the insane number bloat, add the penetrating debuffs mod and the game becomes a lot more pleasant.

Does it also handle the dmg scaling? Because I have a sunray that does like 1.5k dmg on average. If Vitality drops down to like half I can one shot low magic armour enemies then.

Yes, all damage is tied to vitality, and the mod drastically downtunes vitalybloat from levels. On my level 17 character with all divine gear I went from around 3k (with Picture of Health) to around 600. I'm replaying act 1, and most weapons seem to slowly accelerate in damage for each level, nothing major like in vanilla though.

Would you say that it's appropriate for a first playthrough? Is the transition seamless, i.e. if you didn't know beforehand that it's a mod, you'd never know?

The reason I'm asking is that if I start playing again, it'll probably be in an MP game with my SO, and she's practically going in blind, and I'd never run a mod if it's not seamless. At the same time, the bloat in D:OS2 is immense, and I'm really not feeling the love of throwing away all equipment each level, especially if it's ostensibly "unique". It's like rolling a roulette wheel for each level, usually over within an hour or two. I prefer a pacing where benefit isn't entirely eclipsed until a couple of levels, so I could conceivably use lvl 3 equipment until lvl 5-6, maybe even 7 if it's unique, and thus judge the bonuses and not become too dependent on simple "Oh this apparently does twice as much damage, I guess I have to change to pass the next encounter; too bad I lose the modifiers I want" or "Oh, this is an awesome unique weapon, I'm really glad I.. oh wait, there's a magic weapon that's one level above that totally eclipses it".

But at the same time, I'm always really hesitant to much around with the systemic foundation of a game, because it's easy to deviate "too much" from how the game is "supposed" to play as per the intent of the developers.

 

[Jimmious]

Luckmann I'm playing the game exactly as you will (co-op with the missus) and we have no issues from the bloat and we don't constantly upgrade our gear as people suggest they do every level.

 

[cvv]

TIL act 4 is just pretty bugged in this game. NPCs like Jahan literally don't appear, and the area has actual issues. Feels super unfinished and none of the reviews picked up on that fact because nobody got that far in Divinity before filing copy.

Absolutely this. Final act is really bad, reminds me of the notorious final act of Witcher 2. Boring, drab, this time also buggy as fuck. Haven't found Jahan either, he was not where he was supposed to be.

*************


Btw after finishing the game I got an achievement - "Completed the game on the Explorer mode". ON THE EXPLORER MODE?!1!1! I'm 95% certain I went for Classic during the character creation. Must be a bug. Must be. I know for sure there is one other bugged achievement, the one related to the altars on the Nameless Isle.

But the terrible gnawing in the back of my head doesn't go away, the questions, oh the questions, have I been really playing the whole game on the easy mode? I guess I'll never know, forever condemned to live in an unceasing anguish, uncertainty and pain.

Spoiler

Nah, lol, fuck this game.

 

[cannondwarf]

snip

It seems fine for now, I'm currently level 6 on my new save and everything looks good. The voidwoken sitting on the cliff in act 1 kicked my ass when I came in unprepared and underleveled, so everything still feels the same more or less.

 

[Lacrymas]

What the mod does is reduce the percentage of vitality, which everything else is tied to. It might become easier in the sense you can take on higher level enemies with lower level equipment, but it shouldn't mess up anything badly. If you are taking on the same level enemies then you shouldn't notice a difference. It basically makes the difficulty based almost entirely on AI, rather than raw and cheap numbers.

 

[Luckmann]

what the fuck are you people talking about? world of warcraft let 10 million people run around the map independently. what does that achieve?

You might not like it or you might not care for it, that's fine, but the fact that it manages to do it without the entire game just sorta breaking down is actually really fucking impressive, and nobody has really done anything like it before, to the best of my knowledge. It's an actual RPG environment where each character can actually act independently. Comparing it to MMO:s or ARPG:s is bullshit, because they work entirely differently, and are completely constrained by the preset set-pieces.

I liked D:OS1 better, because D:OS2 seems to be going for some kind of competitive co-op or something, and it feels like the system had some considerations for PvP or something, almost like it's balanced around it (or at least partially), and I just happen to prefer full co-op - I loved the arguments and such in D:OS1 and the mild conflicts you could have as player characters, or how both could often participate in a single conversation - I think all of that was top notch and really added to the game, whereas in D:OS2 one seems to always be a passive observer (which, if you really want to play together, and not run around willy-nilly, is meh).

But is it an achievement? Yeah, it is. It might not be my cup of tea, but it's pretty damn impressive. If MMO:s were like this, they wouldn't be half as shit (but they'd also be a complete mess because of the sheer number of players being retarded all at once).

TIL act 4 is just pretty bugged in this game. NPCs like Jahan literally don't appear, and the area has actual issues. Feels super unfinished and none of the reviews picked up on that fact because nobody got that far in Divinity before filing copy.

Yeah, it's painfully obvious that none of the journos actually played very far before phoning it in. I don't think Larian does this, but games seem to be increasingly front-loaded in order to skew review scores, because developers know that out of the few journos that actually play the games, most don't play more than a couple of hours right at the beginning.

I'm pretty sure tons of journos just read some other journos review and apes it, which is why we see these hyperbolic chain reactions that lack all reason and criticizes nothing.

Like jesus christ, I really like the game too, but fucking 10/10? No issues? Fucking hell.

 

[Lacrymas]

Cyseal was also front-loaded. So, yeah, Larian do do this, even Divine Divinity's first areas are better than the other half.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Cyseal was also front-loaded. So, yeah, Larian do do this, even Divine Divinity's first areas are better than the other half.

which i guess is why so many people say 'i quit at the starter dungeon'?

 

[Luckmann]

Cyseal was also front-loaded. So, yeah, Larian do do this, even Divine Divinity's first areas are better than the other half.

No, I meant like, I don't think Larian does it on purpose in order to skew review scores. Like you say, Divine Divinity did this too, but it was before it became customary for hundreds of major reviewers to not even play the full game - and review copies were usually sent out quite some time in advance, whereas today, they often get the game a mere day in advance (if even) and do everything they can to get a review out as soon as possible - including not playing the game, because that takes time away from writing the review.

Cyseal was also front-loaded. So, yeah, Larian do do this, even Divine Divinity's first areas are better than the other half.

which i guess is why so many people say 'i quit at the starter dungeon'?

Many people said that?

 

[Lacrymas]

Well, if they didn't like the starter dungeon then they probably won't like anything else, DD doesn't improve significantly after that. At least I don't remember any spike in quality.

 

[Luckmann]

Well, if they didn't like the starter dungeon then they probably won't like anything else, DD doesn't improve significantly after that. At least I don't remember any spike in quality.

I think he meant the starting dungeon of D:OS1. I've heard that before, but that's usually from people that simply didn't like that type of game or had really retarded issues like "I couldn't find where to go or the button to press".

 

[Lacrymas]

Cyseal was also front-loaded. So, yeah, Larian do do this, even Divine Divinity's first areas are better than the other half.

No, I meant like, I don't think Larian does it on purpose in order to skew review scores.

Well, I don't know, but Swen has proven himself to be a shrewd businessman, so. It's either that or the EAs for both games have skewed their priorities and they focused more on them than the rest of the game.

 

[V_K]

Cyseal was also front-loaded. So, yeah, Larian do do this, even Divine Divinity's first areas are better than the other half.

which i guess is why so many people say 'i quit at the starter dungeon'?

DOS starter dungeon is actually the best one in the game.

Spoiler

 

[fantadomat]

Hey guys on what level did you ended?I was level 21 when i killed the retarded idiots at the end.Also do you find talets to be tottaly useless outside of two,pawn and here and now?

 

[Darth Roxor]

i was obviously referring to divdiv you morons

check any thread related to that game and you'll see tons of folks saying 'zomg game's a p bad diablo clone i quit at first dunjin', when the catacombs under aleroth aren't at all fully representative of the whole deal