Divinity Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition

[catfood]

I've been playing this game recently and I'm enjoying it a lot. the ability to interact with a lot of objects and the environment is really good, and the writing reminds me of some of the games I've played in the 90s and 2000s. I also appreciate the puzzles and how the game doesn't hold your hand everywhere. Still, it has its' flaws like in combat where you can accidentally move closer to your target and it could be frustrating at times.

I found that using the over the top camera mode helped mitigate this problem a lot.

 

[DalekFlay]

I think there's a decent amount of lore. There are lots of dialogues that talk about past historical events and figures in the world, i.e. the source war, the dragon war, Maxos, etc.

Well I prefer getting it through dialog, so hopefully it becomes more prominent and the opening chapter is just lighter on lore. So far all I know is a source war happened, I am a team that hunts down people who still use it, and there are 7 gods who went missing. Not even sure which country I'm in.

 

[DalekFlay]

BE THE BIG CHEESE ON YOUR BLOCK WITH A WHEEL OF THE GOOD STUFF!!!

 

[DalekFlay]

No one cares update: this game's shit boring story and goofy dialog is wearing on me something fierce. I think I'm about halfway through, we'll see if I make it. Combat's good though.

 

[Nano]

No one cares update: this game's shit boring story and goofy dialog is wearing on me something fierce. I think I'm about halfway through, we'll see if I make it. Combat's good though.

Important question: are you playing the Classic or Enhanced version?

 

[DalekFlay]

Important question: are you playing the Classic or Enhanced version?

EE. I googled the changes and they sounded fine.

 

[Nano]

EE. I googled the changes and they sounded fine.

The combat is the one enjoyable thing in D:OS and it's better in Classic. The Enhanced edition is when Larian started getting overly obsessed with balancing, to the detriment of the fun factor.

 

[DraQ]

The combat is the one enjoyable thing in D:OS and it's better in Classic. The Enhanced edition is when Larian started getting overly obsessed with balancing, to the detriment of the fun factor.

Larian was not in the mood for cheese, sadly.

 

[DraQ]

It's not like that, it's very segmented into zones like WoW. That's my complaint. Here's a map:

I prefer when it's more organic like say a Gothic game, so you can explore more freely rather than doing entire zones sequentially.

And the only area that does *any* job conveying that it's higher level is the one that's on fire.

Bloat is cancer. When stats are so inflated that they increase by whole orders of magnitude between levels you can have no freedom as a player because you're literally riding a razor's edge.

In general I become increasingly convinced that almost any sort of level advancement is cancerous in practice and RPGs would generally be better off without.

 

[TemplarGR]

No one cares update: this game's shit boring story and goofy dialog is wearing on me something fierce. I think I'm about halfway through, we'll see if I make it. Combat's good though.

But but but but but but it was CODEX GOTY...... LOL, just LOL.

People put silly "dumbfuck" tags on me because they are butthurt i am always correct and they are always wrong. I tell you every time man... DOS games are trash. They are trash not because they are mediocre isometric archaic games. Typically, this would have made them mediocre, not trash, in normal circumstances. The issue with DOS games is that the story is so retarded and goofy that does not belong into a 100 hour epic adventure. Silly joke stories belong in shorter games. You cannot invest so many hours of yourself and become immersed when the game is basically a silly joke. Also, the combat is too simple for it to be a turn based slog. It is barely deeper than your typical JRPG. So why take so much damn time? The thing with DOS, is that when you actually complete it, you have a nasty sick feeling that you wasted many tens of hours from your life that you wish you could have back. It is too time consuming for not being fun, deep, or engaging.

And the only area that does *any* job conveying that it's higher level is the one that's on fire.

Bloat is cancer. When stats are so inflated that they increase by whole orders of magnitude between levels you can have no freedom as a player because you're literally riding a razor's edge.

In general I become increasingly convinced that almost any sort of level advancement is cancerous in practice and RPGs would generally be better off without.

The map of DOS is worse than WOW zones. The worst shit about it, is when you realise how small the map is, yet it takes so many hours to complete each area. Seriously. Just visualize it. See how small it really is, and how many hours it took to complete. all because Larian tuned the gameplay into a turn based slog so they could advertise their game is a "epic rpg adventure with hundrends of hours of playtime". This shit is evil, seriously.

As for the level advancement you say, yes, i believe that the best systems are skill/perk systems, reflecting skill training and/or cyber prosthetics and stuff, like Deus Ex. That is why Skyrim and Fallout 4 have some of the best level advancement systems around.

 

[Roguey]

And the only area that does *any* job conveying that it's higher level is the one that's on fire.

You're supposed to highlight the monster, see that it's higher than yours, then run back until you find one that isn't.

 

[DraQ]

And the only area that does *any* job conveying that it's higher level is the one that's on fire.

You're supposed to highlight the monster, see that it's higher than yours, then run back until you find one that isn't.

What a fabulous idea! Let's see how it works against ambu... oh.

 

[DraQ]

No one cares update: this game's shit boring story and goofy dialog is wearing on me something fierce. I think I'm about halfway through, we'll see if I make it. Combat's good though.

But but but but but but it was CODEX GOTY...... LOL, just LOL.

People put silly "dumbfuck" tags on me because they are butthurt i am always correct and they are always wrong. I tell you every time man... DOS games are trash. They are trash not because they are mediocre isometric archaic games. Typically, this would have made them mediocre, not trash, in normal circumstances. The issue with DOS games is that the story is so retarded and goofy that does not belong into a 100 hour epic adventure. Silly joke stories belong in shorter games. You cannot invest so many hours of yourself and become immersed when the game is basically a silly joke. Also, the combat is too simple for it to be a turn based slog. It is barely deeper than your typical JRPG. So why take so much damn time? The thing with DOS, is that when you actually complete it, you have a nasty sick feeling that you wasted many tens of hours from your life that you wish you could have back. It is too time consuming for not being fun, deep, or engaging.

And the only area that does *any* job conveying that it's higher level is the one that's on fire.

Bloat is cancer. When stats are so inflated that they increase by whole orders of magnitude between levels you can have no freedom as a player because you're literally riding a razor's edge.

In general I become increasingly convinced that almost any sort of level advancement is cancerous in practice and RPGs would generally be better off without.

The map of DOS is worse than WOW zones. The worst shit about it, is when you realise how small the map is, yet it takes so many hours to complete each area. Seriously. Just visualize it. See how small it really is, and how many hours it took to complete. all because Larian tuned the gameplay into a turn based slog so they could advertise their game is a "epic rpg adventure with hundrends of hours of playtime". This shit is evil, seriously.

As for the level advancement you say, yes, i believe that the best systems are skill/perk systems, reflecting skill training and/or cyber prosthetics and stuff, like Deus Ex. That is why Skyrim and Fallout 4 have some of the best level advancement systems around.

 

[Roguey]

What a fabulous idea! Let's see how it works against ambu... oh.

I can't recall the first combat encounter of any given area being an ambush, but if so, then run away..? That's always an option unless you take courageous. Or simply reload.

 

[DalekFlay]

The combat is the one enjoyable thing in D:OS and it's better in Classic. The Enhanced edition is when Larian started getting overly obsessed with balancing, to the detriment of the fun factor.

Well it's too late to start over now. Maybe some distant day I'll try the original release. Though honestly the combat is what I'm most enjoying. Dagger rogues suck though, Beardaughter's damage output is leagues higher.

You're supposed to highlight the monster, see that it's higher than yours, then run back until you find one that isn't.

Indeed, this works fine. I think they also telegraph what's a higher level, with the cat mage guy popping in to go "you should really do X before this" at times. Though honestly the game is pretty fucking easy on "classic" difficulty and the only challenges I've had so far are going up against higher level enemies. I guess I should have played on tactician, but I read it added additional enemies which sounded annoying. Oh well.

 

[Shrimp]

The combat is the one enjoyable thing in D:OS and it's better in Classic. The Enhanced edition is when Larian started getting overly obsessed with balancing, to the detriment of the fun factor.

Well it's too late to start over now. Maybe some distant day I'll try the original release. Though honestly the combat is what I'm most enjoying. Dagger rogues suck though, Beardaughter's damage output is leagues higher.

You're supposed to highlight the monster, see that it's higher than yours, then run back until you find one that isn't.

Indeed, this works fine. I think they also telegraph what's a higher level, with the cat mage guy popping in to go "you should really do X before this" at times. Though honestly the game is pretty fucking easy on "classic" difficulty and the only challenges I've had so far are going up against higher level enemies. I guess I should have played on tactician, but I read it added additional enemies which sounded annoying. Oh well.

It's been far too long since I played it for me to remember it properly, but I believe one of the changes in the EE version was that sneaking during combat was changed to cost significantly more than in the original release. If I recall correctly it's also often felt 50/50 if it even was worth the AP cost to move behind your enemy in order to backstab them unless you were immediately next to them so the movement would cost minimal AP. Definitely one of my biggest gripes with rogues in that game.
The 'additional enemies' in Tactician isn't as intrusive as it sounds since in a major part of the new enemies essentially just are stationary attackable totems that provide in-combat effects to most of the enemies. That being said I don't think it's worth it to restart the entire game just to try out a different difficulty mode unless you really want to try to play through the game with different builds.

 

[DalekFlay]

I don't know if it's an EE difference but you get the backstab auto-crits whether you're sneaking or not, so I barely use it. I have high movement on her and basically just use invisible or teleport to get away, if she draws aggro. Generally use her and the tank in a pair though, so he taunts and she just stays behind them backstabbing every turn. Still, her backstabs do much less damage than Beardaughter's arrow shots, and Beardaughter has glass cannon so she gets three hits per turn. Long story short, I wish I made a DPS mage, but oh well.

Also I seem to have skipped a large portion of act 2 by lockpicking the priest's basement and not sure if I should reload for all the missed XP or not.

 

[Lacrymas]

There are 2 perks which are related to backstabbing. One of them allows you to backstab in general and the other increases your damage when attacking from stealth (not sure about invis). I found that my dagger rogue deals much more damage than Bairdotr though and it went bonkers the minute I got that dagger storm ability. Not sure what you are doing wrong with your rogue or I was doing something wrong with Bairdotr. Here's the thing, all of the vanilla pre-packaged "classes" are boring and I'd have suggested making a more customized character. For example, I was thinking the whole time how bland the dagger rogue is and fantasized about making a spear-wielding amazon (i.e. with fighter skills) who uses the aerotheurge jump spells to blitz around the battlefield.

Straight-up focusing on a single tree (or even 2) ends up being meh because the skills somehow don't complement each other. They are a collection of ideas that in the best possible scenario were intended to be combined with skills from other trees, in the worst case scenario they are just random for no reason.

 

[Kirkpatrick]

Ignore the backstabbing, grab some more strength and go with dagger - main, axe - secondary, and just use skills. Great damage from such a rogue. No need for 5 in dual wield, no need for more than 3 in scoundrel. Tormented soul also gives both dex and str attributes when crafted onto weapons.

 

[DalekFlay]

There are 2 perks which are related to backstabbing. One of them allows you to backstab in general and the other increases your damage when attacking from stealth (not sure about invis). I found that my dagger rogue deals much more damage than Bairdotr though and it went bonkers the minute I got that dagger storm ability. Not sure what you are doing wrong with your rogue or I was doing something wrong with Bairdotr. Here's the thing, all of the vanilla pre-packaged "classes" are boring and I'd have suggested making a more customized character. For example, I was thinking the whole time how bland the dagger rogue is and fantasized about making a spear-wielding amazon (i.e. with fighter skills) who uses the aerotheurge jump spells to blitz around the battlefield.

Guerilla adds 50% extra damage when sneaking, yes, but sneaking costs 4AP which is the same amount as a whole second attack (100% damage) so I see it as worthless. I can use invisible and teleport for 3AP each to get in/out of backstab range and just get two backstabs in. As for damage, I guess I mean overall output to effort calculation. Beardaughter is at range with glass cannon and just annihilates everything with little risk. 3 attacks per turn, great special attacks, barely ever gets targeted or damaged and with the right stats has high crit chance. My rogue is in the heart of battle, and even with invis/teleport and the tank taunting she gets hit too often to take glass cannon.

So you're looking at her getting one or two backstabs in per turn versus Beardaughter with 3 archery shots at high crit chance with zero risk. For me it's no contest which is more valuable, but everyone plays differently. Rogue has some nice status effect powers though, but they're mostly useless on higher-level and boss enemies, which are the only challenging things in the game. Weakening does seem pretty effective though, and blind on archers. I use those more than backstabs sometimes.

 

[Sweeper]

Underrail > D:OS

 

[Lacrymas]

Underrail > D:OS

Nobody is arguing this. This isn't a hot take, lol.

 

[Sweeper]

Nobody is arguing this. This isn't a hot take, lol.

Yeah well, we'll see.

 

[jackofshadows]

Well it's too late to start over now. Maybe some distant day I'll try the original release. Though honestly the combat is what I'm most enjoying. Dagger rogues suck though, Beardaughter's damage output is leagues higher.

That's odd. Well, ranger is more convenient in general since he has his own power stance and his own blessing to compensate thc as well while rogue requre getting man-at-arms to get melee buff and needs blessing to realize it (if enemies aren't incapacitated). You may also take 1 witchcraft skill to be able cast oath of desecration by himself rather than wait it from mage (if you have witch caster in the first place). As for attributes - imo rogue needs AP much more than thc so pump speed/perception rather than dex.

Underrail > D:OS

No fucking shit, dude.

 

[DalekFlay]

That's odd. Well, ranger is more convenient in general since he has his own power stance and his own blessing to compensate thc as well while rogue requre getting man-at-arms to get melee buff and needs blessing to realize it (if enemies aren't incapacitated). You may also take 1 witchcraft skill to be able cast oath of desecration by himself rather than wait it from mage (if you have witch caster in the first place). As for attributes - imo rogue needs AP much more than thc so pump speed/perception rather than dex.

Like I said above, by damage output being higher I mean with all factors considered. Beardaughter just gets way more attacks in. When the rogue backstabs she does more damage in one action, and her dagger throwing thing is rad, but over the course of many turns she just doesn't add up (for me) like the archer does. I'll look at putting more into speed though, at level 13 I think she has a 9 in speed, 18 dex.