Divinity Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

[DragoFireheart]

I fucking love this game.

Might just top Fallout: New Vegas as a game I restart over and over again.

 

[Atchodas]

So recently i have got into replaying D:OS and my first serious attempt on Enhanced Edition , i gotta say " voice acting tm " was surprisingly satisfying , even the non stop chatter of market NPC's kinda feels like part of the world now . I even took Pet Pal on one of my characters so i can hear what various animals has to say

Anyway Cyseal part still takes way too long before you get into real action , and i ended up restarting in the middle of it because i miss Evelyn's quest and i did not get Aureus quests for some weird reason , well at least i sorted my Traits so they fit both characters and i never have to Rock paper shitzors between my characters

9/10 would restart again

 

[Ensi]

Lovin the game so far in co-op mode with my long distance gf. Baidotr seems op with all the damage and status affliction options, but I'm not complaining. We just got to Braccus Rex and had to stop, should be fun times when we start up again.

 

[DragoFireheart]

My wife doesn't like the voice acting or dialog.

 

[agris]

that's ok, it means she has taste

 

[Murk]

So I hadn't played the enhanced edition, and have been diving p hard into it recently. Been playing (the other) Honor Mode and so far it's not diabolically difficult other than surprise lolgotrekt 1-shot traps, that have basically forced me to always leave 1 character a bit behind when going through uncharted areas.

Some traps are very obvious to spot, and so throwing a box or barrel usually handles it. Others are weird and hard to tell, and the fact they one-shot is horrifying, but eh -- it's what I signed up for. At least it makes trap spotting and disarming a legitimate investment, though I have avoided that for the most part. Resurrection scrolls are pretty cheap and plentiful.

So the big wall I've hit is Braccus Rex. I remember beating him pretty easily in the original, but I don't think I was playing on hard mode, and the risk of a save file wipe wasn't there.

So far I've prodded twice but cowardly ran away when things got dicey. I'm not sure if I can take them on as is and I just need to organize myself more (get some resistance up, use some well placed barrels, etc.) or if the fight is so unilaterally stacked against you that you have to basically level more somewhere else and use higher powered items to compensate.

Both chars are level 9, lone wolf; one is a man-at-arms 2hander with other skills focusing on craft/utility, the other is a dual-wielding caster with focus purely on hydro, geo, and witchcraft.

I am 99% sure I've cleared literally everything else in the starting Cyseal area, and so I can try to go to Silverglen to get better gear/more xp, or keep going up against Braccus. I think I'm going to keep trying, as I don't like winning fights because I sequence-break them when I'm first playing a game (that's fine later in replays, but for now I don't want a soft-cheat.)

Anyway, what strats did you bros use against Braccus on honor/tactician mode?

Side comments on views so far:

I don't ever remember melee and archer characters (enemies) being so dangerous, but in tactician/honor mode, they're definitely the priority. Charm, knock-down, stun, freeze, etc are so horrifyingly debilitating, more so when only using 2 chars and summons. Maybe with followers it'd be easier, but I was specifically hoping to avoid that.

 

[vmar]

The easiest way to kill Rex is to kite him back to the door and keep summons up at all times, his minions will basically just come 1 by 1 through the door since they can't all fit at the same time, and Rex will stand a little further back not doing anything. Use CC when you can and make sure to block the door with your summons.

 

[Murk]

Welp, apparently I was overestimating it greatly based on the initial 'meteor swarm' problem. I left one char behind near Thelyron's corpse and used a pyramid to warp my other char back. The lieutenant enemies died way more easily than I expected, Braccus himself got messed up pretty easily from oath of desecration + double ice wands.

 

[Ensi]

I'm playing on normal mode cuz gf co-op and Rex was surprisingly really easy, lieutenants had almost no hp and I just stunned the fuck out of everything. Stunning is ridiculous, I love it. Best thing is "accidentally" stunning her melee character pretty much every battle cuz he's right next to the enemies.

 

[procrastinator]

I've started playing Gothic 2 recently, and it really struck me how similar are Khorinis and Cyseal...

Just wanted to put it out here.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I've started playing Gothic 2 recently, and it really struck me how similar are Khorinis and Cyseal...

In what sense?

 

[procrastinator]

They are both generic RPG game port towns, I guess Still, when I put together market square, beaches, nearby lighthouse and roaming orcs, I immediately think of Cyseal.

 

[Alienman]

Cheese vendors are missing though.

 

[catfood]

Another huge plus in favor of Khorinis.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

And Khorinis has lovely music:

Another huge plus in favor of Khorinis.

"Hear ye! Inhabitants of Khorinis... and Innos threw Beliar into the Sea..... by the explicit order of the honorable Lord Hagen.... but Beliar said... That's all just gossip."

 

[catfood]

Still less annoying than anything that can be heard in Cyseal.

 

[Aenra]

I've started playing Gothic 2 recently, and it really struck me how similar are Khorinis and Cyseal...

Just wanted to put it out here.

Can i just "put out there" how fucking dumb a statement this is..?

Khorinis:

- night n day, quests opening up depending on the time. Systems allowing for different actions depending on the time (stealing? Sneaking in? How about the "nighttime only" quests?)
- actors having proper schedules, both the game mechanics and the overall story complimenting them; aka not just for show
- not a hub to clear and never go back, aka content locusting, the bane of all things modern, but a -place-. Central. You came back to it over and over, in all chapters prior to the last one. You formed an attachment to it. I can hum you the fucking harbour music right now. And i bet you my balls i'm not the only one. That says a --lot--. And i don't mean about my balls, lol
- depending on quest outcome or progress/chapter, the actors (and since you came back frequently you could not miss this) disappeared, treated you differently, had new things to tell you.
- portions of it inaccessible until later (suspense/curiosity), portions of it entirely inaccessible unless you were in a specific faction. And old school way too, no one warned you of this when you were making your choice
- UNSCALED. Had NPCs that could give you a hard time even when you were ready to board a certain ship to somewhere

Cyseal? Nothing of the above / the exact opposite.

All that remains to be asked? Are you retarded?

 

[Aeschylus]

I've started playing Gothic 2 recently, and it really struck me how similar are Khorinis and Cyseal...

Just wanted to put it out here.

Sorry, but the level of detail and complexity really can't be compared. Gothic 2 is miles ahead. I guess if all you really look at is 'a port town with some orcs nearby' then yeah they are superficially similar.
Both games were attempting to be Ultima-esque games, Gothic just did it a lot better.

 

[thesheeep]

That Braccus Rex fight.

Dialog ends.
Fight start.
Weird meteor shower that nobody should be able to cast at that level.
3/4 characters die.

GF and I had a good laugh.

Next try.
Split up group.
Dialog ends, fight starts.
One character dies. Since no resurrects are available (we used them up freely instead of reloading when something happens, seriously, reloading is the killer of co-op fun)...
Reload.

Try this 6-8 times until the the dialog initiator by some miracle survives the meteor shower (fire resistance potion barely has any effect, who cares about 15% damage reduction? Pointless.)
Lose the fight anyway because somehow all 4 bosses collected at one space ignore three ice grenades in a row as well as all blinding, tripping, etc. FFS!!!!.

Decision between cheesing the hell out of that fight (as every single guide suggests) or just giving up and play something fun instead ends with riding on pink dinosaurs.
You can't beat pink dinosaurs.


Seriously, that is just horrible design for co-op.
When I played alone, I had no problem cheesing that fight, but that is just not something that is fun to do in co-op (at least GF and me have no fun doing that).
I honestly hope D:OS 2 will not have those "lol! u die" fights.

 

[DavidBVal]

I stopped playing a while ago, at Hunter's Edge (L16). While I like the combat and the game has many things right, I struggle to feel motivated to play. Combat should not be slowed down so much by animations that you already watched a million times; fighting a few goblins which you know will pose no threat still involves at least 20min. Inventory management is a bloated hell. And the hidden linearity is another con. I guess the game is good enough to deserve being finished, so I'll do it as soon as work allows... After all I completed turds like Oblivion and Dragon Age and this game is a thousand times better. But It kinda feels like a chore at this point.

 

[Ivan]

Combat should not be slowed down so much by animations that you already watched a million times

AND NOTHING WAS CHANGED

 

[SniperHF]

Combat should not be slowed down so much by animations that you already watched a million times

AND NOTHING WAS CHANGED

For the EE I understand why they kept them, speeding them up creates issues with the existing animations. Not much excuse for D:OS 2 though since most everything was redone anyway. I've always got the impression that this is one of those things some devs get locked in a bubble about and don't notice how annoying it is. Similar to how everyone seems to think first person games with 60% of your screen blurred by depth of field post processing looks good.

 

[Murk]

Having beat the Braccus fight on honor mode with 2 different builds (and only 2 chars) with no cheesing and no power-gaming (didn't go to Silverglen to overlevel) I can honestly say that you don't need to cheese it.

You can also not wait for the dialog and initiate the battle yourself, as I did.

You can stack fire resist on him if you want to, but I found that was also unnecessary. Also, you can buy multiple resurrect scrolls from magic vendors (Arhu, the witch lady in the inn, etc.).

The lieutenants are much weaker than before (not sure if they have lower HP, or just the power difference is huge now) and they go down easily if you just focus direct damage on them. The most dangerous, I think, is a combination of the twins-by-fire-joined and the poison spew of he ghoul (that used to guard the lighthouse) causing additional explosions.

Use ice elemental damage and you're pretty good to go, and don't forget to use the ghoul's ooze against him as a source of fire.

 

[DavidBVal]

Having beat the Braccus fight on honor mode with 2 different builds (and only 2 chars) with no cheesing and no power-gaming (didn't go to Silverglen to overlevel) I can honestly say that you don't need to cheese it.

You can also not wait for the dialog and initiate the battle yourself, as I did.

You can stack fire resist on him if you want to, but I found that was also unnecessary. Also, you can buy multiple resurrect scrolls from magic vendors (Arhu, the witch lady in the inn, etc.).

The lieutenants are much weaker than before (not sure if they have lower HP, or just the power difference is huge now) and they go down easily if you just focus direct damage on them. The most dangerous, I think, is a combination of the twins-by-fire-joined and the poison spew of he ghoul (that used to guard the lighthouse) causing additional explosions.

Use ice elemental damage and you're pretty good to go, and don't forget to use the ghoul's ooze against him as a source of fire.

Best tactic for me was to charm the fire twins. While he can't harm Braccus, he gets a lot of attention from him, giving you time to finish off all the other minions. Arrows of Charm & charm spell combined make it fairly easy.

 

[Murk]

"Rapture" is a great spell, IMO, and I've come to find that burning a level or two to get skill level 1 in magic disciplines other than your main is well worth it -- especially water (heal, rain, freeze) and earth (oil, spider, baldurdash). Even if you are making a non-INT char, having regen for 1 skill point is great. Also, rain + lightning wand = stun a whole crowd every turn for 3-4 AP cost. It's great.

Witchcraft is pretty good for oath of desecration + leech + summon skeleton; the skeleton summon is especially good as a decoy to gather up enemies for a poison bomb (though spider works too, but gets less hits and takes up more space.) Fire doesn't seem very good until at least tier 2; firefly is cool, but you can replicate the effect much easier with midnight oil + fire wand. Haste doesn't last very long, and +2 to perception is kind of... meh, unless you are a ranger or specifically hunting for traps. Still, not many other level 1 fire spells so I guess you might as well. I did open up to Immolation a bit when I realized the 25% resistance it gives you -- if you plan/gear right, you can basically turn it into a healing spell.

With sufficent int, you can also perma lock some characters with blitz bolt -- it's cooldown is low, and its chance to stun gets high enough to work almost every time on non-boss enemies.

Anyway, I'm dicking around with both chars being zombie this run and it's pretty cool -- until a stray fire arrow/ball flies in and your party of fume-huffers gets nearly wiped. Still, it's pretty cool as a heal+ trap strat. Nick's a nice summon too in this setup, since he also heals from poison and can be a good tank in that design (spider, too).

In the immaculate fight in the temple (when Loic wants you to sacrifice a chicken) I had a neat little maneuver that worked out super well. They ran into an oil puddle and got slowed as they gathered around my spider. I then hit them with poison spores (healing my spider in the process), and do a battering ram through with the fighter char who is healed in the process, who then uses a flare scroll and suddenly 4 enemies go up in flames from combined poison + phys + fire damage.

The weird ass "will this work?' combinations are just as good now as they were when I first played this game.

I did notice though that since I first played the vanilla version however long ago when it first came out, a lot of skills have been removed. I recall there being at least 2 healing water spells and 2 'whirlwind' style man-at-arms skills. I like the change, and having few but important skills with good synergies is better than just fire bolt->fire ball-> fire orb -> fire storm.

edit: one more rambling thought -- con bonuses are honestly better at healing than straight up healing spells are (for the most part). Inspire, water of life, and food that gives even temporary +1 con is really good for a quick burst of % based healing that you get to retain after the max HP bonus goes away.