Divinity Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

[Lacrymas]

None of that is true. Even though there is a multiplayer component, you can't give a lower level character high level gear with your other high level character. That's why they exist in MMOs and hack and slashers. Casting times are definitely enough for non-MMOs/hack and slashers. Imagine a 3-round casting time in a TB game, or a 10+ second cast time in a real time game. You are quite open to interruption and it needs set-up to do correctly. Cooldowns do indeed create rotations because there is always an optimal way to handle cooldowns, sometimes that optimal way is obvious like going from longest to shortest. This does inevitably lead to rotations unless there are no damaging abilities at all (healers also have rotations but not in that sense and they are way more flexible). MMOs have proven that when you are a DPS, your role is to find a way to maximize your rotation uptime on bosses, however that may be. I have never caught myself doing rotations in a game without cooldowns. How do you do rotations in the BGs?

 

[Lacrymas]

I noticed a bug just now, I stole (of course) a dagger but it didn't appear in my inventory.

 

[Lacrymas]

After finally leaving Cyseal like 9 hours and a half in, the game does pick up when you start fighting the undead. Here's what I would've done though - instead of approaching Cyseal from the other coast, I'd have pitted us against the undead from the very beginning and we'd have to fight through them to reach Cyseal. The structure would've been a bit different of course, and you'd have to recruit Jahan and Madora among the ruins, but that would fix the pacing issue from the start. After that I'd have made Cyseal bigger and be the center hub of the entire game, instead of making little settlements in every big map. The city would've been divided into parts depending on your progress in the main quest so that you aren't compelled to go through and pick up every quest in Cyseal, that is what grinds the action to a halt. It's really hard not to notice how just a bit of structural cleaning up could've made this game a thousand times better, both in terms of writing and pacing.

 

[anvi]

None of that is true. Even though there is a multiplayer component, you can't give a lower level character high level gear with your other high level character. That's why they exist in MMOs and hack and slashers. Casting times are definitely enough for non-MMOs/hack and slashers. Imagine a 3-round casting time in a TB game, or a 10+ second cast time in a real time game. You are quite open to interruption and it needs set-up to do correctly. Cooldowns do indeed create rotations because there is always an optimal way to handle cooldowns, sometimes that optimal way is obvious like going from longest to shortest. This does inevitably lead to rotations unless there are no damaging abilities at all (healers also have rotations but not in that sense and they are way more flexible). MMOs have proven that when you are a DPS, your role is to find a way to maximize your rotation uptime on bosses, however that may be. I have never caught myself doing rotations in a game without cooldowns. How do you do rotations in the BGs?

If you can't give items then why have item restrictions? They must have it for a reason. Casting 1 spell for 3 rounds sounds shitty, cooldowns are better. Game designers of those games know better than you. Most MMOs with cooldowns leave you open to interruption as well. And again, you can only mash a routine from longest to shortest if the combat is shallow and stupid. Anything that requires thought means a routine is no use and not all MMOs even have them. If you are mashing out a 12345 routine then it is a bad WoW style game, but doesn't mean they are all like that and it doesn't mean the mechanics of cooldowns make every game work the same way.

Often the rotations are because of the abilities themselves, if one says "Blast the enemy with lightning for 20 damage and lowering their armor for 5 seconds" and another one says, "Does 20 physical damage, or 40 if their armor is lowered" then you obviously cast 1 then 2. These types of abilities are good, fun, interesting, deeper than most single player RPGs. Add synergy to abilities and make you think about what order to use things rather than just spamming your biggest attack in every fight. The problem is that if doing the most damage in the shortest time is the only consideration, then it degenerates into mashing 1234. But it doesn't have to be like that. My favorite MMO has immunities and resistances so mashing a routine would be bad if one of them fails to land. It also makes it so players have to be careful about the damage they do, too much will cause the enemy to turn on them instead of whoever it was fighting. And most important of all is the mana or stamina cost of abilities. You can do a lot of damage in a short time but it will use up a lot of mana and then you can end up dead if the fight drags on. So sometimes you need to use slower but more efficient abilities. Add in lots of target switching and needing to crowd control at any moment, and it gets a lot more interesting and makes a routine useless.

 

[NJClaw]

After finally leaving Cyseal like 9 hours and a half in, the game does pick up when you start fighting the undead. Here's what I would've done though - instead of approaching Cyseal from the other coast, I'd have pitted us against the undead from the very beginning and we'd have to fight through them to reach Cyseal. The structure would've been a bit different of course, and you'd have to recruit Jahan and Madora among the ruins, but that would fix the pacing issue from the start. After that I'd have made Cyseal bigger and be the center hub of the entire game, instead of making little settlements in every big map. The city would've been divided into parts depending on your progress in the main quest so that you aren't compelled to go through and pick up every quest in Cyseal, that is what grinds the action to a halt. It's really hard not to notice how just a bit of structural cleaning up could've made this game a thousand times better, both in terms of writing and pacing.

It amuses me how the first 10 hours are nothing like the entire rest of the game. After 5-10 hours of fucking around in Cyseal stealing every painting while nobody is watching and learning how to mute voices, you have 40 hours of combat with a couple of non-combat quests every ten hours or so. If you enjoy the environmental puzzles there's also that, but thankfully you can just rely on Walk in Shadows, Winged Feet, Teleportation and Tornado to solve all of them. You have the occasional "read-the-book" quest, yeah, but nothing like the neverending nightmare that's Cyseal.

 

[catfood]

So Cyseal is like Targos. Huh. But Black Isle had a bit more self awareness and when you talk to a certain NPC about why you're doing all of these fed-ex quests he replies "I was told that it builds character". Granted Cyseal is more varied than Targos.

 

[NJClaw]

So Cyseal is like Targos. Huh. But Black Isle had a bit more self awareness and when you talk to a certain NPC about why you're doing all of these fed-ex quests he replies "I was told that it builds character". Granted Cyseal is more varied than Targos.

With the exception that in Targos you have 3 very short quests (fix the palisade, talk with the dead goblins and grab the arrows) that don't take more than 10 minutes each. Every other non-combat quest in Targos is an auto-conclusive event, like "win this drinking contest", "do your inspiring speech", "destroy this barrel" or "make this skill check". The only subquest that's longer than that is the ghost one.
You are looking at 1 hour in Targos (and you need to play at snail pace to take that long) vs almost 10 hours in Cyseal.

 

[NJClaw]

But yeah, like Cyseal, Targos is an almost completely different game.

However, after Targos, you have the occasional "quests hub", like the hunters' village and the Severed Hand that offer even more quests than Targos. In comparison, after Cyseal, you have the Luculla village that has 1/100 of the quests and the Dark Forest one that, even if it's still more "quests-dense", it still isn't comparable to Cyseal.

 

[catfood]

They should have scrapped Hunter's Edge entirely and focused on making Silverglen a bigger town. But noooo RPG's need to be 14910947194719 hours long or otherwise they aren't RPG's.

 

[Lacrymas]

I honestly think this reliance on big towns in RPGs is a detriment. BG1, and arguably Arcanum, were the only ones to do a big city right. Devs put the big cities in the start which contributes to the already slow boil that is an RPG, but BG1 put it at the very end which was a very good idea. It seduces you with its siren call when looking at it on the map and you want to go there to see what wonders await you, but you have to earn it. The comparable sparsity of combat doesn't bother you because you've already spent the entire rest of the game fighting, so it feels like a bit of winding down before the storm and like you've achieved something and went somewhere that pushes the story forward. It was nothing short of brilliant tbh, it's comparable to music in its structural logic. Tarant in Arcanum is a bit of a different beast, it's the writing that makes it, but that's infinitely harder to make compelling than to structure your game properly.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

BG1, and arguably Arcanum, were the only ones to do a big city right.

Lionheart's Barcelona

 

[Lacrymas]

Ah, right, forgot about that because I haven't played Lionheart since I was like 14. I remember playing it until the nagas/yuan-ti-likes and was wondering when am I going to go back to a city, then I quit.

 

[Lacrymas]

This game really does suffer from a lack of unique items. I did the twin dungeons "puzzle" and got lousy items that were worse than the ones I already have. I was expecting a unique item at least, or maybe a spellbook. Outside of that, yeap, the combat is good and every encounter feels like a unique thing. As far as I can remember, the encounters in the enhanced edition are much better and harder than the original. Bows are pretty lousy, I have Bairdotr and she's kind of a dead weight. I gave her a point in Hydrosoph so she could at least help with healing, but her damage is very low. I suppose archers become powerhouses later. She is at least versatile with her elemental arrows.

 

[jackofshadows]

Bows are pretty lousy, I have Bairdotr and she's kind of a dead weight. I gave her a point in Hydrosoph so she could at least help with healing, but her damage is very low.

Activity ITT and especially link to the speed animation mods (thanks a lot, not that I was eager to replay this but it's kinda amusing to watch how this simple change improving game that much, fucking ridiculous) inspired me so I've started a replay. Also thank's for a simple advice to turn off voice completely, helped substantionally.

I took Bairdotr as well and she is kicking ass. I gave her 1 point to scoundrel so on 1st turn she's buffing herself by fast track while one of the two casters giving her oath of dececration. Thus on turn 2 she's pulling off combo ranged power stance+ricoshet+splintered arrow and it's kinda insane and after that she continues with finishing off incapacitated targets but if there requires assistance with archers or casters I give her bless and/or burn my eyes while she's having adrenaline in case of emergency. Gonna check shops soon, looking forward to test barrage, my guess is it rocks too.

So far, I have to admit that she's much more convinient than rogue from my first playthrough because she can operate even w/o all that buffs and overall attention.

 

[Lacrymas]

I give my oath of desecration to my rogue, she does 100+ damage with basic scoundrel skills and 150+ backstabs. I might see what the shops offer in terms of skills for Bairdotr because I haven't given her anything else from the ranger line. Yeah, the faster animations are a lifesaver, I can't imagine playing this without that mod anymore.

 

[JDR13]

Is it possible to have all 4 companions and do all of their quests in the same playthrough?

 

[catfood]

Is it possible to have all 4 companions and do all of their quests in the same playthrough?

https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin/mods/105

 

[JDR13]

Is it possible to have all 4 companions and do all of their quests in the same playthrough?

https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin/mods/105

Thanks, but I'm not looking to have all 4 of them in my party simultaneously. I just meant is it easy enough to do all four of their companion quests or does it require a lot of metagaming? I assume their quests only trigger if you're in the right place and they're in your party at that time, right?

 

[catfood]

Is it possible to have all 4 companions and do all of their quests in the same playthrough?

https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin/mods/105

Thanks, but I'm not looking to have all 4 of them in my party simultaneously. I just meant is it easy enough to do all four of their companion quests or does it require a lot of metagaming? I assume their quests only trigger if you're in the right place and they're in your party at that time, right?

No idea, I played with the 4 custom characters mod.

 

[Roguey]

I just meant is it easy enough to do all four of their companion quests or does it require a lot of metagaming? I assume their quests only trigger if you're in the right place and they're in your party at that time, right?

You should metagame yes, because it's not obvious where the personal quests happen.

You might run into leveling troubles. No one gains levels outside your party. D:OS expects you to stick with your initial selections. Only applies to henchmen, not companions, so disregard.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Stella Brando]

I decided to play some Original Sin to get an idea of where the Baldur's Gate franchise is going. My character is so beautiful it's hard to believe she'd ever be an adventurer. She'd be an actress or model or whatever the medieval equivalent is - some Duke's mistress? Most women don't want to be fighters.

My character seems to be about 6-feet tall and is striding about like a cat walk model. Her 'armour' consists of brown (leather?) yoga pants with bits of metal strapped to the front of her legs. Her boots are knee-length high-heels (always practical). At least we know Baldur's Gate III will have good looking people.


Also, the blonde archer character claims to have been raised by bears - but her hair betrays her. She just stepped out of a salon, for sure.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Silly Germans]

Also the blonde archer claims to have been raised by bears - but her hair betrays her: she just stepped out of a salon, for sure.

Have you stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe you're jel ? Nobody likes a girl who's jelly.

 

[Stella Brando]

Every girl is jealous of someone.