Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[Harry Easter]

Dragon Commander 2, braaah!

Possible too! They now have the ressources for that. With better units and other dragons to fight! Fuck yeah!

 

[Dodo1610]

Divinity 3: Divine Divinity beyond the Original Sin of the Ego Draconis Dragon Commander that game should please everyone.

 

[Harry Easter]

Divinity 3: Divine Divinity beyond the Original Sin of the Ego Draconis Dragon Commander that game should please everyone.

Kinda sad, that Beyond Divinity was already taken. Would've been the best title for a finale game in the series.

 

[vortex]

Divinity 3: Divine Divinity beyond the Original Sin of the Ego Draconis Dragon Commander that game should please everyone.

Do you mean
Divinity 3: The Divine Ego Draconis Divinity Saga beyond the Knight Dragon Commander's Original Sin

Everybody would use shortcut
D3EDDSKDCOS

 

[Sykar]

Divine Divinity Ego Draconis Commander's original sin, sounds like a good title.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/divinity-original-sin-2/nintendo-valve

Valve and Nintendo helped bring Divinity: Original Sin 2 to Switch

As much as I love my Nintendo Switch, it’s safe to say that it has some technical limitations when compared to my PC. So earlier this month, when Larian announced that it was bringing its massive RPG, Divinity: Original Sin 2, to the platform, I was a little sceptical.

Thankfully, however, it seems as though the company has had plenty of help in bringing the new version of the game to life, most notably from the people behind the platforms themselves. In an interview with PCGN, Javier Moya, software engineer at port developer Blitworks, said that their team “had support from Nintendo and Steam, who helped us with any technical problems that we faced.”

Those problems ranged from syncing up the game’s cross-save capabilities, to getting Steam logins working on the Switch’s web-view, but that’s far from an exhaustive list of the challenges faced. Moya also says that “one of the biggest challenges was to make the cross-save as transparent as possible for the players.”

“Also, since the Switch has a limit about how much data the game can store but we didn’t want to apply a limit to the cross-save users, we needed to make some adjusts to how the game handles this,” using the Steam cloud as a backup container to get around the Switch’s save-game limitations.

While there have clearly been a few bumps in the road, Steam’s relatively easy-to-understand API helped Blitworks manage many of the more complicated backend elements of the port’s development. But I imagine it was also handy to have both Valve and Nintendo on hand as well.

 

[LESS T_T]

Another bit from the upcoming interview thing. Every paragraph gets its own article!: https://www.pcgamesn.com/divinity-original-sin-2/cross-saves

Divinity: Original Sin 2 devs will deliver “in-depth, real RPGs” even in a mobile future

Now that Larian’s 2017 RPG masterpiece Divinity: Original Sin II has made the leap to the Nintendo Switch, you’ve got the option to jump into adventures in the land of Rivellon on the go. Thanks to its Steam cross-save feature, you can even pick up where you left off on your PC, saving precious time by not needing to start again from scratch. It’s an exciting step towards portability for players – and it looks like it’s part of Larian’s preparation for what the future of videogaming might hold.

In an interview with PCGamesN about the Switch version, which was created with port devs Blitworks, director of publishing Michael Douse talked about how Larian is preparing for the future of videogame play. He said “the world is changing, and I cannot envision a future where you’re locked down to one place when you’re gaming.” However, it looks like when this change might come, Larian wants to be ready keep delivering the games it wants to make.

“What we’re trying to do is get ready for this shift (note: Stadia), so that when trends change, we don’t have to change our content. We want to deliver in-depth, real RPGs essentially forever. I will never buy the idea that our content has to change for any specific platform. The players are there, it’s our job to find them. It’s our job to give to them, not to take from them.”

With videogame streaming platforms like the Google Stadia and Microsoft’s Project xCloud on the horizon, it does look like being able to simply hop between platforms, carrying over your content and progress as you go, could well become the new normal. While cross-saves aren’t yet a common feature of videogames, Divinity: Original Sin II signals an important step forward – and a really fun one at that.

If you’re keen to hear more from Larian about the game’s jump to the Switch, keep an eye on the site – an interview on how the port came to be is on the way soon.

 

[Infinitron]

Full article: https://www.pcgamesn.com/divinity-original-sin-2/switch-port-pc

Divinity: Original Sin 2’s Switch cross-save signals the future of gaming
We tried Larian's CRPG masterpiece Divinity: Original Sin 2's cross-saves on the Switch

The CRPG is a PC genre. It has always been that way and will remain so for some time, and not just because of the legacy of icons like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Pick up Larian’s masterpiece Divinity: Original Sin 2, arguably the pinnacle of the genre today, and it’s soon abundantly clear that PC is the best place to play it.

Its intricacy is one reason. The character creation screen alone doesn’t pull its punches in this regard – there are just so many unique combinations of character looks and builds to try out (mine’s a custom human archer with awesome armour and a soldierly ‘tude). Get into the game proper, and the sheer immensity of it all stretches out before you.

We’re not just talking about its scale, many side quests, and involved narrative here. The tactical scope of its rewarding turn-based combat system is also humbling. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is what a modern CRPG should be, with all the complexity you’d expect (and, let’s be honest, demand).

To properly access such depth and squeeze it for its full value, you need all your options literally at your fingertips. That is, with a PC setup on your side, and the precision and many hotkeys offered by a mouse and keyboard.

In the interest of total disclosure, I did try to tackle Divinity: Original Sin 2 the game on my PC using a Steam controller, I suppose for some of the reasons a Switch version is so darn tempting – ease, comfort, and the chance to play slumped on my sofa rather than hunched over a keyboard. It turned out to be more encumbering than I was happy to accept, especially knowing how much better it could be – mouse and keyboard simply gives you the tools you need to grapple with everything the game offers, which is lots.



Or so I thought, before diving into the Switch version. Having now tried the game on Nintendo’s miniature but mighty console, and experienced the power to just pick up where I left off on the go thanks to its cross-save with Steam, I think the game’s scope for fun has only grown.

I was certainly sceptical about whether the Switch would do justice to DOS 2, tantalising as that cross-save sounded. But it does. From a technical standpoint, no, the graphics don’t match those of the PC version (how could they?). No, it’s not as easy to traverse the world with the Switch’s small screen, toggles, and buttons, especially as I do find it a little less ergonomically friendly than a really good mouse. The combat is also a touch more fiddly without a deck of keys in your immediate reach.

But Divinity does still shine on the console. It’s fluid, it’s clean, it’s got impressively rapid load times – ultimately it still feels like the same game, just slightly less polished. And of course – it’s got that cross-save.

I never could have anticipated how seamlessly cross-save functionality could work between platforms so (seemingly) antithetical to one another in their basic approach to videogaming. But what Larian and the clever devs behind the port, Blitworks, have achieved with DOS 2 is fantastic – it really is as simple as firing up your game on one platform, then play, save, change platform, load, play, save (repeat) between the two.

I asked Michael Douse, director of publishing at Larian, how the Switch cross-saves came to be. He revealed that, while it was a tricky feat in a technical sense, Valve and Nintendo jumped on board, helping to make it the best it could be. “Literally everyone was excited about the idea. Everyone at Nintendo was super into it, and everyone at Valve was into it,” Douse says. “The fact that Valve had an engineer who worked with us on this, and Nintendo were talking to Valve, and everyone was talking to us was actually quite soul-affirming.



“Despite being massive enterprises, the whole thing – in how open and willing it was – felt quite indie. You could tell that everyone really cared.”

You can tell this in the finished product too. DOS 2’s cross-save works by linking your Steam account on your Switch (you’ll get prompted) – just follow a few simple steps, and you’re up and running. And it just works. In less than a couple of minutes I was haring around Rivellon, backchatting Magisters with my thumbs, having done so with my mouse mere moments before.

The convenience of this, especially for those of us who are often time-poor and sometimes struggle to fit gaming around the demands of daily living, is clear. You don’t have to start a new game, you don’t have to find an extra 100 hours to sink into it – you just continue. When so many of us have time to spare when commuting or travelling for work, this kind of cross-save means mobile gaming can finally complement the chance not just to pick up a game for some time-killing, but to jump back in to something longer form, more engaging and demanding that you’re already really invested in. That’s worth breaking the trumpets out for.

Douse offers his thoughts on this, saying “it doesn’t take an Excel sheet to understand the world is changing in terms of motion. We’re busy. Far too busy. You’re probably too busy. Players are too busy. Society asks a lot from us, and increasingly so. I think it’s a safe assumption to say ‘Hey, people probably wanna take this game with them.’” I think this touches on the crux of the Switch-Steam cross-save’s appeal, but portability isn’t the only boon.



It also signals an important shift, of which Larian’s acknowledgement may prove astute, about how gaming will work in the coming years. The investments we’re seeing now in streaming services are bets by massive corporations like Google and Microsoft that the ability to hop on and off (and on again) across platforms without limits will become essential to our gaming habits. Whether players will agree with respect to those services is still an open question, but for me, the value of DOS 2’s cross-save with Switch – even for PC players – is immediately clear.

Larian’s tapped into this early, and in my estimation, it’s a big moment as much as it’s a big win for fans of the game. “The world is changing, and I cannot envision a future where you’re locked down to one place when you’re gaming,” Douse says. “What we’re trying to do is get ready for this shift, so that when trends change, we don’t have to change our content.” It’s worth noting at this point that Baldur’s Gate III was announced at Stadia’s game showcase in June. “We want to deliver in-depth, real RPGs, essentially forever. I will never buy the idea that our content has to change for any specific platform. The players are there; it’s our job to find them.”

It’s not a directly comparable experience. Like I said, CRPGs are a PC genre, and we all know that for the full Divinity: Original Sin 2 experience, I’ll need to find some time for an extended PC session. But the chance to take on the Voidwoken while sitting on the train is a welcome and increasingly important one. Douse says “I do secretly hope that the Switch version goes in some way to bringing players back to deeper RPG experiences,” and I think it might. The future of RPG-ing on the move looks bright. Now, if we could just get a Switch-Steam Skyrim cross-save…

 

[Lacrymas]

"Mobile future" and "cross saves signal the future of gaming" sounds like the worst possible timeline. Yet here we are.

 

[Harry Easter]

"Mobile future" and "cross saves signal the future of gaming" sounds like the worst possible timeline. Yet here we are.

But it's the next logical steep on this capitalistic market. You go were the money is. Besides, those little devices got very powerful in the last few years.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's only the next logical step if there's a big enough audience on these devices. I wouldn't play something like D:OS on a mobile phone or tablet. Do we have numbers on how well the BG EEs did on tablets?

 

[Jimmious]

Actually D:OS would be much more comfortable on a tablet in comparison to BG, I guess at least. Being turn based and all.
I don't know why people play such long games on mobile devices but anyway

 

[LESS T_T]

The actual full interview: https://www.pcgamesn.com/divinity-original-sin-2/switch-larian-blitworks

Actual quote on the "extended universe" thing, probably the most interesting part to us:

Do you have any further plans for Divinity 2 support? If so does this include future new content?

MD: Yes. In and outside of the game itself. We have some massive things coming up in what I’ll off-the-cusp call the “extended universe” though that’s not at all what it is — this is outside of the game. Inside of the game, we of course have more Gift Bags on the way that come to all platforms and offer some really major tweaks to gameplay. Personally love increased movement speed, an opinion that risks my life every day. Also more action points. Those are in the current one.

Will the combat system get an update, I wonder?

Divinity: Original Sin 2 on Switch: “The players are there, it’s our job to find them”
We talked to the devs about how the Switch port and cross-saves came to be

Earlier this month, Larian’s 2017 CRPG masterpiece Divinity: Original Sin 2 arrived on Nintendo’s miniature but mighty Switch. The port not only offers the chance to jump into Rivellon on the go, but might even tempt PC gamers to try it out thanks to a pretty peachy bonus – cross-save with Steam. I tested this out, and it’s clear that what Larian, and the clever devs behind the port, Blitworks, have achieved here is not only a great technical achievement, but might herald a major shift in the way we play.

In my reflections on the DOS 2 Switch and Steam cross-save, I highlighted just how streamlined the experience of hopping back and forth between my PC and Nintendo’s handheld feels. It’s technically smooth and has obvious benefits – not least because it means time-poor players won’t have to scrounge up another 100 hours from somewhere to start it all over.

On the port itself, I was impressed with just how much Divinity felt like the same game in my hands, despite the Switch’s smaller screens and toggle controls, even if combat was a teeny bit more fiddly to master minus a deck of hotkeys. But, I wondered, surely it can’t have been so smooth an enterprise under the surface, no matter how great the finished product? Bringing Divinity to the Switch must have faced obstacles on multiple levels – technical, collaborative, and otherwise. Not to mention that the CRPG is a PC genre, and always has been. The dinky, fiddly Switch, even more so than the PS4 or Xbox, seems a strange place for them.

To find out more about how the Switch port and cross-save functionality with Steam came to be, I spoke to Michael Douse, director of publishing at Larian, and Javier Moya, software engineer at Blitworks. They let me in on some of the work, philosophies, and anecdotes behind Divinity: Original Sin’s journey to the Switch – and why it’s fine if you’re not a turn-based combat fan (you can “make love to a sociopathic lizard” after all).

PCGamesN: What was the main reason for going for cross-save? Is this something you’ll pursue for all your future games?

Michael Douse: We brainstorm a lot – internally, externally, and we listen to a lot of feedback. [Cross-save] came up in one such brainstorm with Nintendo, and I think – paraphrasing – the conclusions were sort of: “If you’ll let us do it, we’ll make it work”. So we went to work on making it work.

Literally everyone was excited about the idea. Everyone at Nintendo was super into it, and everyone at Valve was into it. And to be clear, the difference between a ‘yes’ and nothing happening and a ‘yes’ and something happening is a willingness to put people on it. The fact that Valve had an engineer who worked with us on this, and Nintendo were talking to Valve, and everyone was talking to us was actually quite soul-affirming. Despite being massive enterprises, the whole thing – in how open and willing it was – felt quite indie. You could tell that everyone really cared.

I can’t really give you a main reason outside of ‘this would be awesome’, but I can tell you the obvious benefits. For example, retargeting PC players who may have a Switch, and also giving the press something new to talk about in the DOS2 world. Let’s be real, the game has been around for a while. It would have been very difficult to make headlines outside of the initial announcement with no new features. But for me, you never need a reason to do cool stuff, as long as it makes sense. I think to everyone this just made sense.

I remember one specific conversation with someone quite senior at Nintendo who I won’t name out of respect. I rolled up with a DualShock 2 tattoo on my arm. And the conversation was basically “awesome tattoo! Oh, cross-saves, can you do that? If you can do that, we’re in.” Which is the exact opposite of how you think in your head these conversations will go sometimes.

Why pursue cross-save on the Switch specifically?

MD: This is a tough question, because I think to some players and indeed some journalists it might look like some shady partisan deal designed to one-up the ethereal ‘other’, but that’s not really the case. There was no deal – as I said above, the conversation (not necessarily the execution) was smooth.

We’re a small team in publishing, we’re working on Baldur’s Gate 3 as well, and Blitworks are also sized relative to the challenge of the port, and so in the stolen words of the immortal Todd Howard: “We can do anything. We just can’t do everything.” There were many times in both discussion and development where this may not have worked out. To be honest, for practicality’s sake I don’t think we’d even have the mental bandwidth to get it done across all platforms. However, our hope for the future is that no matter where you are, who you are, or what device you’re on, you’ll be able to play our games as easily as possible.

Very short anecdote: there was an email where Nintendo weren’t 100% happy with something on the Valve log-in screen on the Switch device. I mean, there’s a Valve log in screen on a Switch device. That’s pretty nuts. At this point, I thought to myself “oh god, it’s all over.” But Valve was like “yo cool, changed it up” and Nintendo was basically like “aight cool.” I felt very small, and silly, and also safe at that moment.

Do you think PC and Switch can complement each other as platforms when it comes to something like a CRPG experience?

MD: Oh boy, do I have a lot of opinions about this. Divinity: Original Sin 2 works on all platforms it’s currently on, because it’s fundamentally a modern game. It’s very systems-driven; the writing is very snappy; it’s colourful, and light in tone, and you can interact with almost anything. We know from the success on consoles that it works with a lot of audiences, but there is one thing that looms over it: this exact question.

I can understand why some are sceptical of a CRPG on the Switch, but at the same time, it just works. It’s funny because when we released on consoles an influencer rolled into the booth with the understandable and classic “Gamepad? That’ll never work!” and within an hour he was like “Oh, this is cool actually”. We’re seeing the same thing on Switch. The elephant in the room will always be this idea that this type of game should not work on consoles, or on Switch, but we put a lot of effort into making it work.

When it launched, I played 20 hours straight on Switch over the weekend after PAX, darting between my laptop, PC, and Switch. The world is changing, and I cannot envision a future where you’re locked down to one place when you’re gaming. What we’re trying to do is get ready for this shift (note: Stadia), so that when trends change, we don’t have to change our content. We want to deliver in-depth, real RPGs essentially forever. I will never buy the idea that our content has to change for any specific platform. The players are there, it’s our job to find them. It’s our job to give to them, not to take from them.

We can imagine cross-save being helpful for busy gamers who need more time to get into a big game like DOS2. Is this part of the reason you’re porting to Switch? If so, is it backed by any data, or just intuition?

MD: Anecdotes about flights, mostly. It doesn’t take an Excel sheet to understand the world is changing in terms of motion. We’re busy. Far too busy. You’re probably too busy. Players are too busy. Society asks a lot from us, and increasingly so. I think it’s a safe assumption to say ‘Hey, people probably wanna take this game with them’. A lot of what we do is intuition, but we do try and be data-driven too.

It differs depending on who you ask. I prefer data to fact-check intuition, rather than data in place of intuition. I have a more reductive view on the CRPG thing. I understand as a quantitative tag that it accurately describes “what you’re getting into”, but for me it’s just an RPG. Basically, if you like RPGs, you’ll probably like DOS2. As long as you like turn-based combat. If you don’t like turn-based combat, then that’s also fine, don’t forget you can make love to a sociopathic lizard. Surely you’re into that?

The tactical combat system often involves some quite precise inputs – how did you mitigate the limitations of the Switch’s input relative to mouse and keyboard?

MD: We crossed this bridge for the Enhanced Editions of DOS1 on PS4 and Xbox One, as well as with controller support for PC. Then the same thing with the Definitive Edition for DOS2. Moving to Switch, input wasn’t the biggest challenge so much as UX and UI. A boat load of testing went into the game. QA who had a lot of experience with DOS, as well as the entire dev team, Publishing, and basically everyone, really. Everyone has a lot of opinions; everyone wants it to be perfect.

How tricky was it to develop the cross-save functionality from a technical standpoint?

Javier Moya: The Steam API is very clear and easy to understand, so it was relatively easy to create a manager in the game that takes care of all the process (files retrievement, timestamps comparison for detecting conflicts, etc.).

One of the biggest challenges was to make the cross-save as transparent as possible for the players. Also, since the Switch has a limit about how much data the game can store but we didn’t want to apply a limit to the cross-save users, so we needed to make some adjusts to how the game handles this. We finally built a system where all save games are treated like local save games and they are downloaded or removed on demand. For example, if all the local slots are being used and any extra slot is needed, the game will automatically remove the oldest synced slot to free up space, so the player is able to surpass the Switch limit by using the Steam cloud as a backup container.

We also had support from Nintendo and Steam, who helped us with any technical problems that we faced (e.g. getting the friendly name feature of the Steam login working on the Switch web-view, or having the savegames synced in all platforms). That was very helpful.

Cross-save itself works really well – why is this kind of seamless cross-save still uncommon in games that support it?

MD: At a guess, it’s hard to put a value tag on this feature. These things have to be built, and that costs money. So without fully understanding what you’ll gain from it, I can imagine people not being able to budget the feature. It’s an extremely lateral process. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lot of people doing two things now: asking how many people used cross-saves, and asking how it was done. If you’ve ever worked in development, you’ll know how hard it is usually to commit money to a lateral feature, the value of which you cannot quantify. Business doesn’t like the unknown. This is a sort of standard platitude that shouldn’t exist in games, but it does.

Will we see cross-save with the Xbox One or Playstation 4 versions?

MD: I don’t know. To be honest, the cross-save functionality you see on Switch was built from the ground up. There isn’t a single tech or process in there that wasn’t developed or tweaked for it to work with DOS2. Nintendo had to look at a bunch of stuff, and Valve had to work on a bunch of stuff, as did we. So it’s a big freight train to get moving, but when it does get moving it really goes. This isn’t a universal system that’ll work for everyone. I am extremely humbled it works for us, but we cannot really move on anything unless we have that sort of euphoric “yes” triangulation.

Do you have any further plans for Divinity 2 support? If so does this include future new content?

MD: Yes. In and outside of the game itself. We have some massive things coming up in what I’ll off-the-cusp call the “extended universe” though that’s not at all what it is — this is outside of the game. Inside of the game, we of course have more Gift Bags on the way that come to all platforms and offer some really major tweaks to gameplay. Personally love increased movement speed, an opinion that risks my life every day. Also more action points. Those are in the current one.

Could you tell me about why you think now is the right time to launch the Switch version? Was it for technical or perhaps other reasons?

MD: We build things until they’re ready and we don’t release them until they’re ready. I know that sometimes it’s difficult to wait for news, such as with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Fallen Heroes, but we are a company of idealists and we believe (truly) that players deserve the best possible experience. I would have liked the Switch version to come sooner, as would a lot of the players. There is a very valid argument for launching it closer to the DE launches on consoles, but that wasn’t possible.

We did the right thing and launched it when it was ready to be played. Blitworks were also an incredible partner. It is no easy feat fitting 100+ hours of RPG into the Switch, as awesome as the hardware is (the hardware really is a mini-miracle). Over a million fully voiced words. One million. That’s enough to make an iPod throw up. Audible would reject it. People’s ears would explode. It took time, and love. We were thrilled to be in that Nintendo Direct, and let me tell you, we really cut it close.

Do you think this could open up big CRPG games to a different audience going forward? Maybe to those who don’t really engage with platforms like PC or consoles, but like to play games on the go?

MD: It’s funny because when a ‘broad audience human person’ picks up DOS2, they don’t go “Oh, yeah now I like CRPGs”, they just describe why the like the game. You can talk to animals. You can unlock doors with your boney fingers. Elves can learn skills from eating human flesh. You can rip the faces off people and make your own face. You can fly. You can combine spells and skills. You can create a character and the world literally, actually, reacts to what you’ve done and who you are; it doesn’t just go “Eric will remember that, and then probably not react in any way”.

These are things I’ve been internally calling “micro-features”, the sum of each of these equals Divinity: Original Sin 2. It may seem like a pretentious way to think about the game, but I think that the game exists to give people joy. When people interact with these “micro-features”, they get a sense of satisfaction from each and every one of them or the sum of them together, but I don’t think they reflect and go “Oh, I like CRPGs now”.

I do secretly hope that the Switch version goes in some way to bringing players back to deeper RPG experiences. I love CRPGs, but not by default. I think that’s true for players, too. If it offers people good vibes, and good emotions, and feels rewarding narratively and systemically, then it’ll resonate with people. Whether it’s a CRPG or anything else. It’s just gotta be good. There are a lot of so-called RPGs that I don’t believe are actually RPGs, but I don’t say that with spite. It’s more of an academic design question.

 

[Turuko]

Actually D:OS would be much more comfortable on a tablet in comparison to BG, I guess at least. Being turn based and all.
I don't know why people play such long games on mobile devices but anyway

With all the inventory juggling you have to do, a touch based solution is probably retarded
But then again, people who still buy Nintendoes...

 

[Atchodas]

It's only the next logical step if there's a big enough audience on these devices. I wouldn't play something like D:OS on a mobile phone or tablet. Do we have numbers on how well the BG EEs did on tablets?

actually turn based RPG ports on tablets plays extremely well and is very much incline especially if you are travelling for several hours often, rtwp ones well depends on the game something like KOTOR plays decent but BG series not so much tbh

 

[LESS T_T]

http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=655955#Post655955

Update 3.6.49.2201 is now live!

Hi Everyone,

We’ve just implemented a bunch of tweaks and fixes for the Switch version of Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Some of the highlights from this update include fixes for the character portraits, as well as skill or object icons, and some issues with cross-saves on Steam. There are also performance improvements as well as fixes for sound and audio effects.

We have some major things coming up in the pipe, but for now we hope that this latest round of fixes and improvements makes your journey through Rivellon an even smoother experience!

Thanks so much for your support since launch!

Patch notes via the Larian Crew below:

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a crash caused by being offline and trying to load a save retrieved from Steam that wasn’t previously synced properly
• Fixed an issue with freezing while saving the game
• Fixed an issue with Local Save Slots not appearing after changing Steam profile
• Fixed an issue with the X button overlapping copyright text in Italian
• Fixed an issue with the friends filter in Spanish, where if the setting is Friends Only, only the word ‘amigos’ is displayed
• Fixed an issue with the Tags selection in the Character Sheet
• Fixed an issue with Attributes, Combat Abilities, Civil Abilities and Talents displaying incorrectly in the Character Sheet after closing and reopening the tab
• Fixed an issue with certain Crafting skills text being cut off
• Fixed an issue with overlapping and different fonted text in the multiplayer connectivity popup
• Fixed an issue with the functionality of the Y button in the Join Online game screen
• Fixed an issue with missing a button prompt for “Show User Profile” in the multiplayer lobby list
• Fixed an issue with blurry or missing character portraits and skill/object icons
• Fixed a memory issue where after prolonged playing and loading a savegame, all display names show as the same description
• Fixed a multiplayer issue of container UI being broken by opening and then immediately closing the container
• Fixed an issue of enemy corpses not showing the effects that were applied when they died
• Fixed a visual issue of a squarish pattern appearing when characters stand in smoke
• Fixed an issue with Aerothurge spells causing a significant FPS drop and possible game freeze
• Fixed an issue of sounds and SFX being delayed, cut off or not playing in the Bloodmoon Island region
• Fixed an issue of skill SFX not playing if characters from different regions are selected one after another
• Fixed an issue of the loot/container window not displaying correctly in the Chinese localization
• Fixed a lobby issue where a room would appear full despite only having three players
• Fixed a multiplayer issue where client is not able to join the game in act 2.5 (Nameless Isle)

 

[cruel]

I finally reached the final fight and ech... I really wish Larian learns some day how to make boss fights properly. Yet another clusterfuck, with all tactics going to hell when you know what happens as scripted event.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I finally reached the final fight and ech... I really wish Larian learns some day how to make boss fights properly. Yet another clusterfuck, with all tactics going to hell when you know what happens as scripted event.

Real boss fight is the

Spoiler

lohse boss

 

[Citizen]

Armor system is bad for several reasons

Armor system is just unbalanced, and is forcing you to focus on 1 type of damage/cc, but it was not a bad idea and it was probably implemented in the attempt to make combat different from DOS1 where the best way to win was to stunlock enemies (personally I cheesed through tactician on first playthrough with stunlock tactics using mages and archer with elemental arrows)

I think that it can be salvaged and actually turned into a nice gimmick. If I would ever have enough autism to bother with modding dos2 I would try to make magic/physical armor exclusive (units can only have 1 type) and make it a % saving throw against CC (100% armor - you can't be CC'd, 35% - you have a 35% saving throw no to get stunned)

Also even in the current state armor system is not the worst thing about dos2 combat. Completely broken initiative is. I wonder how is it possible for AA developer to release a huge game and completely miss that the key feature of combat is working incorrectly? Did they finally fix it yet?

 

[Lacrymas]

The initiative order is not a bug, it's a feature. It was working like you'd expect in beta, but it was changed just before release for some reason and was not tested at all.

 

[Citizen]

The initiative order is not a bug, it's a feature. It was working like you'd expect in beta, but it was changed just before release for some reason and was not tested at all.

Woah, then it's one of the biggest mysteries of gamedev. A bit of search tells me they didn't change it yet, despite all the negative feedback

 

[Ismaul]

A bit of search tells me they didn't change it yet, despite all the negative feedback

There's a reason initiative is the way it is.

Since you can stack it with Wits, +Initiative and +Wits gear, it's easy to have all your party have huge initiatives and guarantee acting first with the whole party before the enemy has a chance to act. That is way better than any other gear or stat bonuses, and it completely changes the balance of a combat encounter, because the party all acting first means you can easily disable / CC the most dangerous enemies or a bunch of weaker ones; in other words alpha striking. From a designer's point of view, it's a nightmare: either the encounter is too easy for initiative stackers if you design it with non-initiative-stacking parties in mind, or it's too hard for the plebs if you design it with stackers in mind (for example if you add enemies so not all are CC'd before they act).

Now, say you try to balance it not by adjusting enemy numbers, but enemy initiative. The problem is that the initiative range is huge. Someone with no investment in it has 10, those who invest can get like +30 on gear alone: +Initiative on boots, gloves, pants, weapons, belts (usually +2 each); and +Wits on boots, gloves, pants, helms, rings, belts (can be +4 each); and then another potential +30 directly in the attribute. As an encounter designer, how do you manage that difference and determine enemy initiative? Are you going to give monsters say +30 initiative to account for initiative-stackers? Then all enemies will act before a party of non-initiative-stackers and crush them, because non-stackers are likely players that didn't minmax their PCs. And if you want to add a random roll to the fixed initiative, so there's variability and having a huge initiative doesn't mean you go first, well the range is still a problem. If you add a d20 roll, initiative stackers can still stack enough to make that roll irrelevant. And if you add say a d40, well then it's pretty much all random now is it? No point in having initiative unless you stack it to the max.

So they fixed it by making initiative order alternate between one PC and one enemy. It gave the result they wanted for encounter balance: neither PCs nor enemies can all act first and disable their opponents before they have a chance to act. That's an understandable goal. Desirable even, because it makes for much more challenging encounters if enemies can hit back rather than get disabled right away. But they retained all the initiative and Wits system intact, which is bad design but a lesser evil.

They couldn't just scrap initiative though: they needed a way to determine which PC acts first, especially since there's PvP. So initiative kind of has to stay in. If there was no PvP, they might've done away with it entirely and just prompted the player to decide which PC acts each turn until they've all done a turn. Changing the whole system so the alternating PC-enemy initiative doesn't have to be forced would've required a lot of work and testing. They'd obviously have to reduce the possible initiative range, it can't be 10-70. They'd obviously have to change item generation. Maybe cut out +Initiative bonuses. Wits has to stay because of crit, so +Wits items can't be removed. So maybe you need to divorce Initiative from Wits. But then, is the points of Wits only crit chance? They'd have to rework the attribute. And how would differences in initiative be determined then? How would you model, say, rogues that are quick? Maybe keep the +Initiative gear? Seems very luck-based and item-dependent. Etc. And after all that was done, they'd have to review all encounters, adjust all enemies' initiatives, and retest the whole game for all types of parties with different initiative builds.

Anyways, you get the point: in the late state the game was in, and the design goals they had (no alpha striking to disable the opposing party and negate the challenge; initiative differences between PCs for PvP, etc.), they did the best they could without going back to the drawing board. It's better that initiative is sacrificed than encounter challenge and balance.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Armor system(the thing that everyone here hates) prevents the exact example you provided of being able to CC them immediately.

 

[Ismaul]

Armor system(the thing that everyone here hates) prevents the exact example you provided of being able to CC them immediately.

I kind of agree and made that point earlier.

But you can still alpha strike a large bunch of enemies, even with the armor system. What you need is a mixed damage party, so you can attack the weakest armor everytime and CC them the first round. In my current game and with the alternating initiative system, I can have most enemies disabled after a round already. If I choose as targets those who will act next, I can even prevent some enemies from doing anything on the first round. Now, if all my guys acted first, the enemies would never do anything. I'll admit my party is maybe maximally optimized and overleveled for where I am, and therefore isn't representative, but still.

 

[Citizen]

Yeah, but right now initiative is a dump stat that does nothing. It actually leads to situation where I was at all costs avoiding building it on my low armor archer and rogue, because I needed my tanks to move first and engage the enemy to soak the damage, then safely peel them of armor with my high damage dudes and then just chain CC till the victory

And I don't think the dos1-style initiative would be a problem. In dos1 it allowed you to chain CC enemies from turn 1 if all your party moves first, but in dos2 thanks to armor bloat it wouldn't be nearly as effective