Divinity Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

[Volrath]

Man the Vaelanna fight is kicking my fucking ass. Any tips?

Simply blind her or knock her down with crushing fist, then kill her minions.

Also watch out for that ranger, she has some strong debuff arrows, disable her too or kill her quick.

Blinding, muting, knockdown never works...

Not only the ranger is dangerous, also that cleric keeps crippling my dudes. Also that dog can defeat my ice elemental in one round...

Maybe I'm just underleveled? My party is level 10 so I thought this was going to be an even fight. Probably need to do some more questing in Silverglen, or defeat some more orcs and goblins in the forest...

 

[Darth Roxor]

Charm the doge, summon something to divert attention, kill vaelanna fast, spread disables around everyone else

worked for me

although I think I won that one by the skin o' my teeth

 

[Tigranes]

Charm, hide in shadows, shoot them from behind, hide in shadows, stun & backstab 4 times then hide in shadows, victory for Marquis de Sade and Marie Antoinette.

 

[Sodafish]

Static cloud arrows can be godly in tough fights. Stun 2 or 3 people in one go easily. Also I tend to charm the archers and then they can fuck up a couple more people with special arrows.

 

[Zed]

I'm having a hard time playing this game in intervals and coming back to it because the exposition and story is so bad. I'm tired of the cardboard for-hire companions too. They should have let the player create all character him/herself. It's like everything that isn't combat, optional (like crafting), or superficial (graphics, sound) is of truly bottom-grade quality. They should have collaborated with a team of real writers.

 

[Eddas]

Enemy rangers have got to be the most dangerous enemies in the game. Knockdowns, explosions, charms, attribute lowering, armour lowering, freezing. Scary shit.

Sand is the worst enemy.

 

[Azalin]

 

[Dorateen]

Enemy rangers have got to be the most dangerous enemies in the game. Knockdowns, explosions, charms, attribute lowering, armour lowering, freezing. Scary shit.

Sand is the worst enemy.

The wizard from NWN2 is in this game?

 

[Tigranes]

Ironically, even NWN2 OC is better written than DOS.

 

[Konjad]

what, i ignored it at the beginning of the game, does it actually give anything worthwhile?

 

[Outlander]

Uh, it activates the RPG Codex vs RPG Watch extravaganza, right?

 

[Metatron]

The writing is pretty decent of course though I can see how it won't appeal to bionedrones who expect every npc to converse in an overly serious grimdark tone.

The overal plot on the other hand is (and I guess I'm about halfway) nothing to write home about so far, fairly generic fantasy stuff. They could use an Avellone type for that at Larian.

 

[HiddenX]

I think the RPGWatch/Codex quest is in every version (-> you can get steam achievements).

The key enables the Kickstarter version, plus the little things (message in a bottle, henchmen,...)

 

[Tigranes]

Nope. THE WORLD IS ENDIIIING is terrible, but (1) there is plenty of that in DOS, i.e. every single fucking thing Icara, Astarte and the Weaver says is even more boring than Bio melodrama; (2) the wacky imp is even worse, every line he says is just....

"Hi, important plot character!"
"Ho, now, there be heroes here, or is it there or here, who knows what time or space means in this strange place? Oh, strange is you, strange is me, the whole world is strange! Who knows what we shall find in the portal beyond, I eat bananas for breakfast and yes indeed do marvel at how funny and lackadaiscal I am!"
*repeat 50 times over course of game*

 

[Sodafish]

I took great pleasure in

Spoiler

giving those fucking imps back to the hunters. Little shits kept blocking me off at those stairs next to the elemental statue

 

[SuicideBunny]

I took great pleasure in

Spoiler

giving those fucking imps back to the hunters. Little shits kept blocking me off at those stairs next to the elemental statue

get the fuck out of here, watch scum.

 

[Sodafish]

Sorry, codex in-jokes rank below my desire to avoid pointless aggravation

 

[Zed]

The writing is pretty decent of course though I can see how it won't appeal to bionedrones who expect every npc to converse in an overly serious grimdark tone.

The overal plot on the other hand is (and I guess I'm about halfway) nothing to write home about so far, fairly generic fantasy stuff. They could use an Avellone type for that at Larian.

I'd take Bioware's writing over Larian's writing any day.
Bioware often makes me angry about pathetic emo bullshit characters and so on. That's more than you can say about Larian, which leaves me completely indifferent. I can see how it could be appealing to 8-year-olds tho. It's all just super trite. It's like an unfunny caricature of fantasy.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I'm enjoying the game a lot more now I've worked out the combat. Basically, you have to go for a focused build and be really, really careful with your points. It isn't quite what I was expecting, people made so much noise about how good the systems were, I thought you would be rewarded for trying other things than just the straight forward "dump your points into the main stat and get good weapons" approach.

The writing and quests aren't terrible but they are sub-WoW. There really isn't any story to speak of. People who say Larian are better than Bioware have no idea what they are talking about. At least BioWare can craft a coherent plotline.

I know the point of this game isn't the story and I keep having to remind myself of that, especially today when I ran into the most obvious advert for another game inside a game I've seen. I was told by one of the Talking Statues to go and buy Divinity: Dragon Commander. Yes, really. Fourth wall is all well and good when done in a subtle way, like easter eggs or something most people would miss. But when put in dialogue for a quest that most players are going to complete... if I wanted obvious braindead comedy I'd be playing Saints Row 4 (and I am, it is fantastic, but nobody is pretending that game is incline or ).

To summarise, the game is good but not a classic and certainly not the best RPG to be released recently. Fallout: New Vegas, Mask of the Betrayer (if it counts as 'recent') and The Witcher games are surely more deserving, all from a narrative and characterisation/C&C point of view.

 

[Western]

The writing is pretty decent of course though I can see how it won't appeal to bionedrones who expect every npc to converse in an overly serious grimdark tone.

The overal plot on the other hand is (and I guess I'm about halfway) nothing to write home about so far, fairly generic fantasy stuff. They could use an Avellone type for that at Larian.

I'd take Bioware's writing over Larian's writing any day.
Bioware often makes me angry about pathetic emo bullshit characters and so on. That's more than you can say about Larian, which leaves me completely indifferent. I can see how it could be appealing to 8-year-olds tho. It's all just super trite. It's like an unfunny caricature of fantasy.

While I don't think either does especially great writing, I prefer indifference to having my mind urinated on by Bioware.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

. I was told by one of the Talking Statues to go and buy Divinity: Dragon Commander. Yes, really. Fourth wall is all well and good when done in a subtle way, like easter eggs or something most people would miss. But when put in dialogue for a quest that most players are going to complete...

Games in the '90s often did this. It reminded me of Monkey Island and I laughed.

I'd take Bioware's writing over Larian's writing any day.

Ehehe, yeah no. I'll disagree with that in a heartbeat. Bioware has a tendency to make me feel embarrassed for humanity while wincing through what their obvious target audience is pining for. At least this game feels endearing, charming and coming from the hearts of people who love the genre and a whimsical chuckle amongst friends.

 

[Tigranes]

Bioware is embarrassing but so is Larian. Imagine the embarrassment if someone thought I was actually enjoying that fucking imp's dialogue. Or anything by Icara, etc.

To be fair, as I've always maintained, Larian does do a lot better in the small things. I enjoyed the talking shell, the rats, etc., even though they again keep a very happy go lucky textbook English disney style. I just wonder why they even bother with this Serious Main Plot (TM). Do they actually think any of that is worth even a second of anybody's time? Why not just carry over the whimsical into the main story & characters, too? Who do they think they're entertaining with ROAR DEVOUR THE EARTH OH WOW SAUCE HUNTER HEROES shit?

Edit: In fact, I can think of a number of situations they wrote in that could have been really funny if they built on it. What if you could manipulate the hapless knight seduced by Esmeralda, e.g. to get him to fall even more in love and do something outrageous and use that to get at the woman? Or what Cecil's terrible hearing actually creates some kind of situation? I feel like if they just go all out on that it could be better. But then, I remember just how terrible Dragon Commander writing was, so who knows?

 

[Suicidal]

I prefer shitty comedic writing to shitty grimdarkserious writing, so Larian wins. Playing the newer Bioware games really made me feel fucking uncomfortable and disgusted, and while Divinity's plot is pretty retarded (I think it would do a lot better without that chosen one savior of time and space nonsense) the occasional chuckle I get from some of the side dialogue and lore is worth a lot more than the satisfaction I get from the writing in Bioware's new games, which is 0. 0.1 is still higher than 0. I admit that older Bio games had better writing than Divinity, but old Bioware is long dead so I don't count it.

 

[Tigranes]

Maybe it helps that I haven't played a single Bio game since DAO... but then, if you have, what is wrong with you?

 

[Eddas]

Maybe it helps that I haven't played a single Bio game since DAO... but then, if you have, what is wrong with you?

So, you played the last game Bio made until now.

 

[RK47]

Maybe it helps that I haven't played a single Bio game since DAO... but then, if you have, what is wrong with you?

So, you played the last game Bio made until now.

Commander Shepard disagrees with you.