Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[undecaf]

If you kill the "real" Trompdoy the fight ends immediately. I think it is the one with the staff.

Thanks. I'll try it out.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Would you look at that. Someone is addressing all the stuff Larian didn't have the balls to fix:



Might give it a new playthrough with this mod installed.

 

[Isak]

In my few hours, I’ve found that this game is both the best and worst co-op game ever made. There are so many ways to interact with your friends as you do things, and it’s crazy how much freedom you have from each other—a couple people could be fighting in one place while the other two are just exploring a town on the other side of the island.
Unfortunately, this freedom comes at a cost in co-op, and it actually ended up with my friends and I deciding to stop playing together and start new games on our own after our first session.

The freedom that it gives to your characters and the lack of a clear leader player driving the direction of the experience means that differences in playstyles sometimes cause a bit of friction.
While one of us wanted to push the story forward, looking for clues to figure out where to go next, another person found a stray cat and wanted to spend all their time figuring out what to do with the cat. Meanwhile, I was just trying to figure out where to buy a staff, but I didn’t have much gold because my co-op partners had looted most of it.

Add onto that the fact that someone can have important conversations with NPCs, pick up quests, and trigger important events without any of the other players even being nearby, and the story becomes a bit hard to follow.
Often, someone would accidentally trigger an important scene while the other players were elsewhere, creating a moment of "should I wait here and ask everyone else to stop what they’re doing and come to me so they can watch the conversation, or should I just watch it myself and try to relay the information?". So, the co-op experience was sometimes stressful.

Thinking back on our several hours with the game, the positive memories were mainly from combat encounters (the ones we were all involved in, anyway).
When we were forced to stay together and act in tandem, the game systems really created some fun co-op moments. But when we were apart, it essentially felt like a game of D&D without a dungeon master. Which, I suppose, bodes well for the game master mode, in which there actually will be a person guiding the adventure.

Although now that I read what I've written here, this sounds just like a lot of pen & paper experiences I’ve had. Even a good DM can struggle to keep a game on-course when you have X number of people and each of them have different goals and playstyles.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Co-Op single player RPGs are a retarded idea. If you want to play with friends, there are already a million genres to do that: MOBAs, MMOs, card games, sports games, multiplayer FPS, RTS, etc. Single player RPGs are the one fucking genre left that is about immersion and deep stories and shit like that, must you village idiots bring your decline to it? It's like in a world that is a massive public bathroom, one idiot found a flower amidst all the mountains of shit, and ripped off his pants and started shitting on it.

 

[anvi]

Would you look at that. Someone is addressing all the stuff Larian didn't have the balls to fix:



Might give it a new playthrough with this mod installed.

I am gonna play that. I was thinking about giving the game a second go but too much about it was bad. Hopefully this mod will fix it.

 

[d1r]

Would you look at that. Someone is addressing all the stuff Larian didn't have the balls to fix:



Might give it a new playthrough with this mod installed.

Wow. I might actually be inclined to finish this game for the first time ever. All these changes sound great.

 

[Yldr]

...

95% of whatever problems people have with coop sound like they would be solved by simply fucking communicating with each other.

 

[Isak]

Co-Op single player RPGs are a retarded idea. If you want to play with friends, there are already a million genres to do that: MOBAs, MMOs, card games, sports games, multiplayer FPS, RTS, etc. Single player RPGs are the one fucking genre left that is about immersion and deep stories and shit like that, must you village idiots bring your decline to it? It's like in a world that is a massive public bathroom, one idiot found a flower amidst all the mountains of shit, and ripped off his pants and started shitting on it.

Get a grip, shitstain. Your gayfinger personality is through the roof, fucking psychopath.

And yeah, you fucking autistic fart-huffer with your old man balls - RPGs, just like every other genre evolve over time, get over it, and stop fucking wallowing in fundamental braindead stasis.
People have been fucking bitching about the genre becoming stale for years. When they finally make a RPG in a slightly different style, now people are bitching they changed it.

If you really want the old style of RPGs with no co-op so motherfucking desperately, then go back and play the fucking Infinity-era games, or the Ultima games, or the Wizardry games etc. etc.. There are lots of them. Some good CRPGs from the early 00's even.
I'm sure there are like three people who were pissed that D:OS2 was nothing like Ultima. Motherfucker.

 

[skradacz]

Is the Trompody (or what ever the name was) fight in the bridge maze supposed to be so damn tedious?

Is there are quick way through it?

I had to stop and reload because I just couldn't take it anymore, I got so bored. The fight wasn't difficult, but it dragged on and on with no ending in sight, and once you got the mooks somewhat down on their armors and HP, another batch of similiar armor hogs rushed in and the whole things was just a fucking mess. I admit I made some mistakes building my party, so it is not "optimal", but still...

You don't have to fight him. You can just sneak or run past him and get his soul.

 

[Isak]

...

95% of whatever problems people have with coop sound like they would be solved by simply fucking communicating with each other.

Clearly this pathetic male menstruator is too much of a depressing loner to have ever played Co-op. Coz if he did he'd at least have an inkling of the actual issues plaguing the coop, and would respond according to that, instead of excreting the kind of filthy drivel he just shat out above.

Hey idiot, do you even have any clue about the actual intended purpose of the fucking Co-op system?
Answer- No you don't.

The game doesn't want you to be taking the same quest, by design. It's designed with this perspective that the party members -- in this case, me & my friend -- are playing their own game, in different locations, sometimes far removed from each other, but still "together", and are ok with missing out on some things because they will instead experience other things. Which becomes stressful if one of the players is a completionist and/or has a fear of missing out on content. Now, no amount of yelling into voice comms would instill that thrill of discovering an interesting location, or an interesting NPC -- in essence, robbing you of that essential sense of discovery.
The other option is to just stay together, you won't miss much if you go everywhere together, but you'll be giving up a lot of freedom the game offers, which ironically(?) also happens to be one of the fundamental design pillars of not just this game, but the entire CRPG genre -- the freedom of choice.
Yet another problem this option creates, is that taking the lone wolf talent with a 2 man party can make the game significantly easier as enemies don't get stronger or weaker in coop.

Basically, as PorkyPaladin so eloquently stated, co-op in RPGs is a retarded idea.

 

[DraQ]

Basically, as PorkyPaladin so eloquently stated, co-op in RPGs is a retarded idea.

Waste no time! You need to bring those grave news to The Gazebo!
They must know!

 

[Yosharian]

Apparently it's bugged

 

[Yldr]

...

If you want to play in coop you need a degree of compatibility and coordination. You're playing with people who have vastly different playstyles and expectations, you have obviously made zero effort to come to an agreement, and yet somehow the blame falls on the coop system. If your differences cannot be reconciled, just play something else.

By your own admission:
- Your friends run off to do their own thing
- One or several of you is a completionist
- Your friends randomly trigger story beats out of sequence
- Playing this way is frustrating and stressful
- When you decide to stick together it's actually fun
- Somehow trying to synch would require "yelling into voice comms"

"I just have to play with retards" isn't as good an argument as you seem to think it is.

 

[Isak]

Never made that specific argument and I don't think you understand what I meant to say, considering the way you went quoting my "admissions" out of context, so much that you clipped out the vital parts of those sentences, and in one or two instances, straight up fabricated.
But Yeah, like I mentioned in my very first post in this thread, we just decided to "stop playing together and start new games on our own after our first session."

Also, yeah I agree. It's very much a game where negotiation and communication between party member is really important. You're basically in a relationship with your friend, you need to get on the same page. If my friends are jealously hording all loot and refuseing to wait up when asked, that's an issue with the relationship. The game is set up so all of us have complete autonomy; the flip side is that it's possible to be too independent, but the game can't control that, so we have to do that with our party. I do realize that.

Thanks for being civil this time around, and apologies for that outburst earlier. G'day.

 

[anvi]

Anyone played that mod then? Any good?

 

[sullynathan]

Anyone played that mod then? Any good?

I'll save it for a 3rd playthrough.

 

[anvi]

I was gonna play it but just reading about it reminded me of how crappy dos2 was, think I'm gonna play Grimoire instead.

 

[whydoibother]

Basically, as PorkyPaladin so eloquently stated, co-op in RPGs is a retarded idea.

In terms of game mechanics and builds, co-op is great to build a functional team that synergies, and to set things up for each other's strengths and cover each other's weaknesses.
In terms of story and character development, the co-op we saw in Divinity 2 made for some debate with my buddy, and some backstabbing even. This plays out great at the end, when, spoilers:

Spoiler

You have to fight the other person, because only one can ascend to godhood.

Overall this was some of my best co-op experience. Even games specifically built around cooperation, like Dungeon Defenders, result in a lot of solo common sense action, and less conversing and planning and COOPERATING than playing Divinity OS2 with a buddy, neither having played it again and both seeing the story for the first time as it happens.

 

[anvi]

Any co op they do is always going to be < an MMO experience anyway. If you want to play as just a wizard or just a paladin or something, then you are best doing that with real people in big open world with challenging battles and stuff. MMO have that sewn up. If you want to control more than just a wizard then you need to play a whole party and that is better without other people being involved.

 

[Jezal_k23]

People who are against coop, I'm afraid that ship has sailed and left you behind. You can dislike it, but it's pointless to try to minimize the role coop has played in DOS2's success. It was a huge driving force for the massive sales numbers it pulled off, enough that Larian's games from here on out will likely be defined by being coop-able.

 

[JDR13]

Anyone played that mod then? Any good?

I'll save it for a 3rd playthrough.

You've got way too much time on your hands.

 

[Mangoose]

Armor-Based Saving Throws are great. I did have to toggle one of the options off. One automatically restores armor to 1% right after broken, which was intended to force hard CCs like Dominate Mind to always have a saving throw (since 0% armor = no saving throw). Unfortunately, 1% means a lot especially with bloat. I also toggled off Con/Wit affecting throws because NPC builds and NPC AI wouldn't be able to take that into account. Nor did I want to take them into account in building my character.

BTW expect a lot of new/updated mods because someone (Norbyte) created a script extender for the game: https://github.com/Norbyte/ositools/releases

For example, the script extender has allowed Initiative-Based Turn Order to actually work. I tried it myself. In fact I had it on for a while but then got rid of it... Because true initiative-based-turn-order requires rolling initiative. This one, so far, doesn't, and allows for "stacking initiative" just as much as vanilla.

Edit: Someone on Reddit pointed out the lack of granularity or randomness to the mechanics. Namely, the armor system. Vanilla is completely binary. Armor-Based Saving Throws fixes that well.
Now, the author of Initiative Based Turn Order should recognize that rather holistic issue.

The script is also why the guy who already did the major DOS2 overhaul (Divine War) is doing another one, this time using the script (Divinity Unleashed).

 

[sullynathan]

I ended up using the reduced bloat mod and it significantly reduced numbers of all damage, health and armor values in the game. The real kicker is that lower level armor isn't completely useless in stats anymore.

 

[Mangoose]

I just recolored Sebille as a Drow and now it feels like she isn't killy enough. Not demanding that the male elves worship their Matron Mother. Lol. I mean, it's funny, but I'm not joking that it makes her palatable.

 

[Mangoose]

Basically, as PorkyPaladin so eloquently stated, co-op in RPGs is a retarded idea.

In terms of game mechanics and builds, co-op is great to build a functional team that synergies, and to set things up for each other's strengths and cover each other's weaknesses.
In terms of story and character development, the co-op we saw in Divinity 2 made for some debate with my buddy, and some backstabbing even. This plays out great at the end, when, spoilers:

Spoiler

You have to fight the other person, because only one can ascend to godhood.

Overall this was some of my best co-op experience. Even games specifically built around cooperation, like Dungeon Defenders, result in a lot of solo common sense action, and less conversing and planning and COOPERATING than playing Divinity OS2 with a buddy, neither having played it again and both seeing the story for the first time as it happens.

People who are against coop, I'm afraid that ship has sailed and left you behind. You can dislike it, but it's pointless to try to minimize the role coop has played in DOS2's success. It was a huge driving force for the massive sales numbers it pulled off, enough that Larian's games from here on out will likely be defined by being coop-able.

There is something unique about playing a couch co-op game where only one of you can ascend.

(The unique part is my roommate not trolling me by blocking doorways)