Review German Divinity 2 review

[Lesifoere]

Says the furry.

 

[Jasede]

Oh man you got me there. BRB, fucking animals.

 

[shardspin]

Besides, I already admitted in one of my first paragraphs that I am a bit biased towards the game. That is why I asked someone to comment on it who has played it a bit longer than me.

Compare this to Monolith. He is from Poland which probably means he is a Sapkowski and a TW fanboy. Why? Because he actually seems to like TW's combat. Everyone who has played the game knows that the combat was really the worst part of it. That is if you are not gay for Geralt and like watching the same moves over and over doing the same thing with the same pattern over and over again.

I'll compare DD2 to TW a bit more because its obviously the only recent mainstream Action RPG and it might help some people to understand the good points about DD2.

I read the two books containing short stories because I really wanted to like TW. I liked them, they were fun to read but they were by all means not great. This is especially true if you know all the fairy tales he twisted. The twists are nice of course, but for great literature this is just not enough me. Social commentary? I am fine with that, but he sometimes deliberately builds his stories around this ideas. It is not a problem per se but when the reader becomes aware of it, it is.

Why are all these things acceptable in games? Because I don't have the same standards for different media. If you do, then you have either low standards or should not be playing games at all.

My problems with TW are mostly connected to the game's structure. This is on one hand the map design and on the other the general structure of the main quest. The game is divided into different chapters and in every chapter you will have a choice with consequences later on. This sounds fine on paper, but there is the problem that one chapter = one choice. I like my cRPGs with atmosphere and this design choice breaks it completely. Sometimes you will get a side quest with a morally ambigiuous choice but as far as I remember it is again one side quest like this for every chapter. I like to think about a game's design but I don't like being forced to think about a game's design. The whole design of the main quest just screams "the game is deliberately built around this concept" - there is no "love" behind the game, the quest seem generic without even thinking about it.

There is a very similar problem with the map design. While exploring the maps is fun, they are very confined and the game thus indirectly throws at you that this is an engine limitation. I prefer not to think about stuff like this while I am in the actual process of trying to enjoy a game. And running around in them after you explored everything just is not fun. It seems as if the designers did not even care to play their maps themselves. Again, there is no "love" behind it.

So how does DD2 compare to this?

There are a lot of quests as I already mentioned and nearly every one has something going for it. You can really see the effort the quest designers put into them (but then again, a lot of it focusses on meta game humour; if you can not understand or like that then you might lose a potential source of fun, but I don't feel that it is a bad distraction). And there are usually more than (or equal to) 3 choices while I don't remember any quest from TW with more than 2 choices (I did not play through the whole game because I was bored by it and I felt like I would be forcing myself through it). Though DD2 does not seem to have main quest choices, I already tried to explain that this design can have a lot of bad effects too. And cosmetic choices? While there are quests with only one solution, this definitely seems to be the minority. It's not like Fallout had gameplay results for every quest choice you made (despite sliders at the end, but really? It was a nice touch, but it is make-believe on the same level as LARPing in Oblivion).

There are no cosmetic choices on the same level as in Bioware games - mind you the last Bioware game I played was KotoR, I don't know if they actually improved. In my opinion the way DD2 handles c&c is alot better than the one found in TW.

If you ask yourself why I do not give specific examples, the answer is that I hate any forms of spoilers with a passion. You have to decide for yourself if you believe me - but if you decide not to do so, then I would advise to disregard me completely and to not form an opinion based on mainstream reviews.

If you think the map design and thus the exploration of DD2 sucks you can go fuck yourself because I won't argue about that. It was the best thing about DD1, so why would they lose ability to create maps which motivate you to explore?



I never said that Damian's backgroundstory was written well. What I was implying is that the reaction by the Divine, who is worshipped as a god in DD2, is the cause for the destruction. And I encountered this theme in sidequests twice already. So in a way DD2 too is "morally ambiguous", but not so obvious like in TW, where they pretty much say to your face "Oh look, how MATURE I am by giving this choice to you". DD2 is alot more "mature" than TW by not pointing it specifically out.

You might also ask yourself: what cRPG had "the balls" to let your main quest actually fail (like in DD1)?


Edits: Formal Correction, made the post a bit less "aggressive"

 

[Kane]

You might also ask yourself: what cRPG had "the balls" to let your main quest actually fail (like in DD1)?

Very good point. However

I don't have the same standards for different media. If you do, then you have either low standards or should not be playing games at all.

why do you have to discredit yourself in every second sentence just to show us your burning hatred to whatever it is that currently creeps around your mind?

 

[shardspin]

Good job, quoting that out of context.

 

[Kane]

Good job, quoting that out of context.

It's just one out of many examples, so yes, I did quote it out of context and willingly so.

But whatever. The main question hasn't been answered yet.

How does it compare to Morrowind?

 

[shardspin]

In the same way DD1 does, I guess. Meaning they are not really comparable.

I know this sounds like a paradox, I'll try to think about it.

What do you like about Morrowind?

 

[Kane]

Meaning they are not really comparable.

I think they are very well.

Don't they both boast a huge open game world that satisfies the explorer in us?
Don't they both feature extensive character development?

 

[shardspin]

Yeah, that is what I meant with a paradox.

Morrowind is a huge non linear area with tons of stuff to explore, but DD2 is a lot more linear because you are limited by enemies, which are hand placed and won't respawn, but thorough exploration is rewarded nonetheless often giving you more solutions to quests while Morrowind forces you to explore to finish certain quests.

DD2's literature is embarassingly short when compared to Morrowind.

Dialogues and therefore quests are not comparable at all.

I would say that Morrowind has a higher percentage of filler area.

Combat is not as bad as in Morrowind because of the skill system.

In general I would say that Morrowind is a free-to-go-anywhere-and-discover-different-areas type of game, while the DD's are more of an discover-this-area-thorougly-and-venture-forth-on-your-own-risk type of games.

If you think of Morrowind as >50 hours game, and if you are looking for that in DD2 then you won't find the game to be to your liking.

 

[Monolith]

LEAVE SHARDSPIN ALONE!!!

What the fuck is wrong with you, Jasede (well, besides the obvious)? What hate? I merely disagree with some of his points, give me a fucking break.

Compare this to Monolith. He is from Poland which probably means he is a Sapkowski and a TW fanboy. Why? Because he actually seems to like TW's combat. Everyone who has played the game knows that the combat was really the worst part of it. That is if you are not gay for Geralt and like watching the same moves over and over doing the same thing with the same pattern over and over again.

How about getting your head out of your ass and concentrating on what you know? Because you suck at measuring probabilities. German is my native language. I haven't read Sapkowski before I got The Witcher. Anything else you need to know about me in order to form cohesive counter -arguments? Or do you need to rely on guessing games?

And how about refraining from "if you like X you are gay" lines of argument? Ließen wir nicht dergleichen in der Grundschule zurück?

Just look at the offfical web page of DD2. There are not even gameplay scenes, all you get is pretty accurate text description of the game. I don't know about you but I prefer a company which actually delivers what they promise instead of twisting the truth through gameplay videos. Hype also means ad revenue for magazines and it is accepted as a fact around here that this equals good scores in reviews. I was just trying to explain why the game has such a low score (in my opinion).

Coming from developers, hype means (before anything else), getting the media and the public hyped about your game. Larian overdid it with the new info flood. Weekly updates about some random beasts, instead of getting some time between the updates and releasing valuable information. That's why they failed, from a marketing point of view (and imho). Did this affect the scores? What do I know, possibly. But the reviews I read and the scores I've seen were reflecting my opinion (which is based, like I said, on about 1/4 of the game).

My description was meant for people who know and liked DD1's writing (specifically because some people asked for an opinion on that in another thread and I tried to reassure them). Well, the writing might not be everyone's cup of tea because it focusses alot on meta-game humour. But it fits the setting and often ridicules fantasy cRPG clichees (for example the pig farm).

So meta-game humor makes dialogs/the writing "pretty good"? The writing is generic, often mediocre, most of the time either fairy tale or epic fantasy. And how is it ridiculing fantasy RPG cliches when it's practically following them by the book?

I personally never found anything interesting in journals regarding the NPC's personalities, for me it was just a spelled out description of the character as opposed to drawing conclusion from the dialogue alone.

Yeah, what I was trying to say is that dialogs as such don't convey personality very well, unless the characters are exaggerated beyond hope (for comical reason, as you claim, or because the writing is generic crap, as I argue). Mostly because there aren't satisfying dialog option - at least up to the point I was playing. There are exceptions, but most of the time the dialog is strictly functional and ends when it's about to get interesting.

Cosmetic choices ? Are you kidding me?
Did you try to find the bandits camp? Did you always follow Richard's orders?
Yes, there are quests with only one possible solution but it is not like every quest has one solution only.
Do you mean the mage's temple or the big tower? Different things, I am currently heading towards the temple and I was having a blast so far.

I did try to find the bandit's camp, did you? What happened when you rescued the prisoner, when you left the cave? You had exactly two dialog options, then again two dialog options respectively, which ALL lead to the same outcome. The bandit may react slightly different, but at this point in the game, during that dialog, those choises are cosmetic (to be fair, I have yet to find the bandit camp, so the different options actually might lead to different outcomes, but here I am guessing that this is not the case - tell me if I'm wrong).

Anyway, we're talking apples and oranges here. When mentioning that often you're presented with just two options, I was referring to dialog. Those two dialog options are often cosmetic, as in the reaction of the NPC won't change substantially depending on your choice. Yes, quests can have more than one solution, and more than one outcome, I never said otherwise.

And I meant the mage's temple. Btw, don't mention Richard's orders, that's one silly clusterfuck of a quest...

As for funny dialogue:
I laughed my ass off when I could try to elaborate on the philosophical matters of the typical bandit threat "Money or I'll take your life!". This seemed somehow familar, so it might be that another RPG already did something like this (Baldur's Gate or DD1 maybe?) but I think this gives a very good impression of the kind of humour you will find in DD2.

I smirked, but mostly at how it didn't make any sense that the character was there, next to mindless undead that attack everything on sight. That doesn't mean it wasn't funny one bit, the light humor was appreciated.

Yeah I know, nobody is forced. Blablabla... I already said that I waited for such a game a long time and it is not like the whole thing is completely unoriginal - there are a lot of neat touches to the usual generic material. Also comparison to P:ST:
wake up, read tattoos, look for journal, find pharod, look for journal AGAIN - first few hours of P:ST ; one MacGuffin after another - really what is the point, cRPGs are bound to have a structure like this.

Divinity 2 is generic crap with some neat touches, PS:T takes a neat shit on generic crap. That's the comparison. MacGuffin in Divinity 2 makes sense because you reach it to be able to fight on, level up more, explore and solve quests. Divinity 2 centers on that. In PS:T you fight, explore and solve quests in order to get to the next stage. I'm not saying this is bad, Divinity 2 is a different type of game, simple as that. Don't compare it to PS:T, that's all, don't make it out to be anything it is not.

Did I mention that the story behind Damian is not even told in the game itself at that point? Clichee villain ? He is the fucking incarnation of evil (this is from hearsay only, I did not play DD1 to the end myself). In the beginning he is supposed to be perceived as a typical clichee villain. I guess you did not meet Lovis yet because this encounter puts a small spin on everything again (a decadent ghost who reveals a very atypical solution to the typical big enemy problem).

And how is "the fucking incarnation of evil" NOT the cliche villain? Is it going to change that much? If that's the case, I'm going to take it back, but I have to see it with my own eyes, because right now he acts like the cliche villain, talks like the cliche villain, has the ambitions of a cliche villain...

You also just reminded me how bad the TW's combat really was. FUCKING REACTION BASED PATTERN FOLLOWING. I totally forgot about that.
If you want to react to the same pattern in the same way the whole game then this is your choice. But when I compare this to DD2's fast paced action combat where I must react to the situation at hand, something which is at most times totally not necessary in TW, DD2 easily wins.

I like about the combat that my selection of skills determines how I can or must play the game. I have a very similar build to that of Morgoth who also seems to use the healing ghost as a backup. It might be possible that this is the only build which is fun to play but I somehow doubt that. Because I can imagine that a mix of a fighting character with some spell casting abilities and thus the ability to dish out huge amounts of damage in a shorter time might be just as satisfying as relying on brute force alone as I currently do. (This is actually pretty similar to the build I used in DD1, so I have pretty good reasons to believe that I am correct with my assumption).

But still, feel free to name more cRPGs with "fun" combat. Even with tactical ones it is not really a fun system on its own but only becomes so because it is heavily influenced by the choices you make in your character design. And this is true for DD2 as well as far as I am concerned.

"Fucking reaction based pattern following" compared to "fucking pattern following with tons of health potions thrown in", which is better and why? Strike out the part with the health potions if you've got a healing ghost as backup. The problem I have with Divinity 2 is that I don't feel that my choice of skills or my actions have much of an impact on combat. Skills aren't a tactical choices, but a necessity up to the point that they are a chore, and you end up getting drunk on health potions anyway. I prefer Gothic because, while all of that might be true as well, I need player skill to win. Same with The Witcher. In Divinity 2, I need health potions to win, and if I'm out of health potions, I die, and I can't do a damn thing about it (unless I get out of sight and wait until my health regenerates, but come the fuck on!). And this "I can't do a damn thing about it" is what's bugging me the most. In tactical games I can do much more, and in The Witcher and the Gothics I have reaction based combat.

I prefer the class-free approach to generic skill trees, but that is a matter of taste of course. I personally don't like Diablo 2's skill system and its combat at all, but I am satisfied with DD2. Why ? Because combat is a lot less important. I see it as a quick way to gain some experience points and to get some quests done along the way while exploring is the main focus. So I don't have very high expectations towards it. With Diablo 2 on the other hand combat is the main part of the game and for a whole game clicking someone to death with whatever spell effects is just not enough for me.

And I prefer skill trees to generic class-free approach. Whatever, like I said, fights are still interesting because they are tough, so here we sorta agree.

Oh please, are you trying to deliberately disagree with me here or what?

Yes, that's what I do. If I disagree I must do so because I decided to deliberately disagree - that's the most likely reason for stating something that slightly resembles my fucking opinion. I'm just here to rile you up. Monolith, putting the "ass" back in "asshole".

Do you even realize that the whiny NPCs are ridiculing clichees by being a contrast or a caricature? And if you want to go down the "logical flaws in cRPGs" road, have fun taking that long walk alone. The alchemist you mention is also a hidden quest and a nod to players of the original. And by the same logic: why would the tree have any agenda to share his secrets with a complete outsider? I suspect that you might later run into a more talkative form of this one. I was actually pretty surprised by this because I was already finished with the village and only came back because I needed apples.

Whiny NPCs are overdone personalities resulting from a lack of writing skill. It might be ridiculing, but simply because they couldn't do better. It comes across as childish, the NPCs as pubescent teens. And what's wrong with pointing out logical flaws? Gothic is also a cRPG and had less logical flaws, the world was much more consistent and realistic. Why can't I compare both, seeing as they are quite similar? Divinity 2 took a giant step back, and as I see it, quite often they simply didn't have to.

I was also possitively surprised by the quest. Still, it's just one example of "lost potential", a pity, simple as that.

So you are defending the game, but you still wont acknowledge that you might close or open up different quest lines depending on your choices? Or maybe you just did not notice it yet?

Your choices can close or open up different quest lines. I never said that this is not the case. In actual fact, I mentioned that some quests can be solved in multiple ways and can have different outcomes. What the fuck is your problem (except for lacking reading comprehension)?

 

[ricolikesrice]

i d like to hear more about the combat & skill system.

do you only have 1-2 attacks which you click over and over ? (say oblivion, two worlds etc.)

or do you have multiple special attacks with different cooldowns, casttime, different effects (lets say like WoW/MMORPGs where you have area attacks, knockdowns, stuns, interupts, snares, disorients etc. etc. ) in addition to different stances, auras, etc. etc. yada yada.


there s nothing i loate more than hack n slashs that are only about 1-2 different attacks and constant health potion chucking. as much as WoW may have badly influenced pc gaming in many areas, its combat system is imho about the best you can get for a hack n slash / action RPG. (obviously since it requires quite a bit of player skill its however not very fitting for "real" cRPGs ) . feel free to disagree (but be warned, i might call you a faggot over the internet!) , whatever - i just wanna know if DD2 is more like WoW/MMORPGs in terms of combat or yet another one button clickfest like Oblivion, two worlds and co. ?

 

[Phelot]

Is it like the first one were you could pick up apples and random shit? I must have this information...

 

[Darth Roxor]

German is my native language.

Location: Wroclaw

why doesn't that surprise me in the least...?



/end derail, carry on.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

So is it worth buying or not? How is the spell system? Rudimentary and boring like in Drakensang?

 

[Nedrah]

The magic "system" is more or less non-existent as far as I can tell. You get to chose from a small list of spells which can then be leveled up. Maybe there's more to it, I haven't seen too much, yet.

Anyways, I like the quests, which are diverse enough as well the game's general atmosphere, so far. Fighting is pretty fun, c&c probably hardly worth speaking of, the story should serve it's purpose (background for leveling and chasing the ph4t l00t). No complaints from a graphics point of view, but it surely is not high-end stuff. Apart from the huge shoulder pads of doom and a certain overabundance of exclamation/question-marks over people's heads , I rather like the art direction. I think the interface is done very well, organized into tabs and pretty efficient overall. There might be a certain lack of diversity in enemies, but maybe I'll get to see more further into the game.

Hard to tell whether you should look forward to it. I liked Drakensang in the beginning, too, only to abandon it midway through out of pure boredom. However, if you're in the mood for this kind of game, demoing or "demoing" it certainly won't hurt.

 

[GarfunkeL]

So if I uninstalled Drakensang demo after 10 awful minutes, this game would not be for me?

 

[Morgoth]

Divinity 2 is anything but Drakensang.

Divinity 2 rules!

 

[Nedrah]

So if I uninstalled Drakensang demo after 10 awful minutes, this game would not be for me?

Hard to say, but don't base your decision on your experiences with Drakensang. They are very different games and so far I'd say, Divinity should be a lot better. I only mentioned Drakensang because, as I said, I liked it at first, too, just as I like Divinity now. It's entirely possible that I'll continue to like Divinity..

 

[DefJam101]

Sounds like G3 except the combat doesn't suck, which is cool.

Really all you need in these epic free-roaming create your own adventure mercenary-killing demon-slaying castle-dwelling stat-increasing bloom-ogling ARPGs is a cool world, cool items, cool combat, and some replayability.

 

[shardspin]

So first of all, I think I will elaborate on a few more negative thoughts about the game when I will have finished it. Mostly about the humour sometimes being a bit too cheesy, "comments" sometimes being annoying, that the "c&c problem" which I described for TW might also apply to DD2 to some extent and that there is too much stuff to do. This last concern was the main reason for me not to play through DD1 because I got overwhelmed and annoyed at some point. (I am a completionist and this can really drag you down in this game - but I hardly finish every game I touch)

i d like to hear more about the combat & skill system.

do you only have 1-2 attacks which you click over and over ? (say oblivion, two worlds etc.)

or do you have multiple special attacks with different cooldowns, casttime, different effects (lets say like WoW/MMORPGs where you have area attacks, knockdowns, stuns, interupts, snares, disorients etc. etc. ) in addition to different stances, auras, etc. etc. yada yada.

There is the usual one-click-attack for each weapon and then there are active and passive skills you can learn by simply leveling up and which are activatable by hotkeys.
The skill tree is as I said earlier class-free so you are not bound by decisions you made early in the game and can mix different play styles to your liking. The difference between those styles are of course what you could expect from an Action RPG, meaning that you still have to "click the enemies to death" regardless of the skills you choose. Some of the skills are described at the DD2 webpage. I think the skill system is one of the best features about DD2. But I fear that combat is a bit unbalanced - two handed swords seam to be pretty powerful and enemies seem to be only dangerous in groups later on. I could easily fight 2-3 superior enemies but I was having problems fighting 4-6 enemies which were inferior by 3-4 levels. Hopefully there is not a totally game breaking weapon like there was in DD1 but I think the two-handed-sword I found fits the description pretty well so far even if it pretty certainly will not be able to carry me through the game.

Nedrah's description of the skill system refers to the "magic" part of the skill system which is of course only a fifth (there are skills for Priest, Warrior, Mage, Ranger and for the Dragonknight, which are usually passive and non-combat skills or the usual weapon proficiency ones).

What the fuck is wrong with you, Jasede (well, besides the obvious)? What hate? I merely disagree with some of his points, give me a fucking break.

I don't think this was directed at you. You are presenting valid points after all.

Compare this to Monolith. He is from Poland which probably means he is a Sapkowski and a TW fanboy. Why? Because he actually seems to like TW's combat. Everyone who has played the game knows that the combat was really the worst part of it. That is if you are not gay for Geralt and like watching the same moves over and over doing the same thing with the same pattern over and over again.

How about getting your head out of your ass and concentrating on what you know? Because you suck at measuring probabilities. German is my native language. I haven't read Sapkowski before I got The Witcher. Anything else you need to know about me in order to form cohesive counter -arguments? Or do you need to rely on guessing games?

And how about refraining from "if you like X you are gay" lines of argument? Ließen wir nicht dergleichen in der Grundschule zurück?

Okay, I'll apologize. I didn't check where Wroclaw actually is.

But you are still wrong. My argument is not that you are fanboy and are therefore having different standards here, but it is actually based on the fact that you seem to like TW's combat and I think most people who have played it know that the combat sucks especially for an Action RPG and therefore I concluded that you might be having different standards here.

And the "being gay" argument is only a third part "flame" while the other two thirds are a pretty honest description. I mean just look at the combat moves: Geralt's spinning hair, the obvious attention to anything else about his looks, his spinning moves which make him look like a ballet dancer (even if that is his "real fighting style") but most of all the duration it takes for the moves to be finished - really, if you are forcing me to watch something like this for such a long period of time, then please add variation. I myself am a pretty open minded person nowadays so I am not much offended by the "gayishness" but I still think it is pretty snore-inducing.

Just look at the offfical web page of DD2. There are not even gameplay scenes, all you get is pretty accurate text description of the game. I don't know about you but I prefer a company which actually delivers what they promise instead of twisting the truth through gameplay videos. Hype also means ad revenue for magazines and it is accepted as a fact around here that this equals good scores in reviews. I was just trying to explain why the game has such a low score (in my opinion).

Coming from developers, hype means (before anything else), getting the media and the public hyped about your game. Larian overdid it with the new info flood. Weekly updates about some random beasts, instead of getting some time between the updates and releasing valuable information. That's why they failed, from a marketing point of view (and imho). Did this affect the scores? What do I know, possibly. But the reviews I read and the scores I've seen were reflecting my opinion (which is based, like I said, on about 1/4 of the game).

What big media attention has DD2 got? Only TW had a comparable non-attention and they were pretty big on hyping the game up by themselves by gameplay videos which overstated several aspects of the game as far as I remember, needless to say that a game with such a franchise behind it does not actually need a lot of hype.

I don't really know what you mean with "overdid it" because I became interested in DD2 only very prior to release. But I assume the text descriptions were there from the beginning? I admit they are a bit hard to find, but they are giving an excellent overview of what you can expect from the game. Please compare this realistically to any recent mainstream cRPG.

So meta-game humor makes dialogs/the writing "pretty good"? The writing is generic, often mediocre, most of the time either fairy tale or epic fantasy. And how is it ridiculing fantasy RPG cliches when it's practically following them by the book?

You originally quoted a paragraph which was meant for people who played DD1 and liked its writing. I did not mean to say that the writing is good on a whatever-level (even if I personally think it is "good" by comparison, that it is good at what it does and that sometimes the voice actors destroy the writing by overdoing it).

I'll explain the ridiculing part with a quest. So this is a spoiler:

The pig farm quest. First of all the design of the whole place, the guy is a pig farmer who loves pigs but can't stand to slaughter the animals (people in the town are gossiping about beastiality), there are pictures of pigs in his house, a book with poems about them (didn't actually read those) and his wife secretely orders the slaughtering of his pigs [I missed the choice to tell him this, to be honest]. He is portrayed as one of those "whiny guys" you were so annoyed by. Usually in cRPGs - especially in Bioware games - helping whiny guys is always the right choice because some mean people were fucking him up. But in this case he wants you to help bring back his pigs who were sent to be used as means to fight starvation in two different cities. So when you are actually helping him, you are effectively doing something "morally wrong" because the two cities are starving. The game ridicules not only the "whiny guy" clichee because a pig farmer who does not slaughter animals is a contradiction but also ridicules the clichee in cRPGs that helping the whiny guy who has suffered from higher forces is always the "morally good" choice and even carries the message that sometimes the "whiny guys" need to "man the fuck up" for the best of all.

I might be overinterpreting maybe.

Yeah, what I was trying to say is that dialogs as such don't convey personality very well, unless the characters are exaggerated beyond hope (for comical reason, as you claim, or because the writing is generic crap, as I argue). Mostly because there aren't satisfying dialog option - at least up to the point I was playing. There are exceptions, but most of the time the dialog is strictly functional and ends when it's about to get interesting.

I think you might be looking for the wrong things in the game. It has voice overs, so the amount of text is of course pretty limited. But I do not like the idea of people telling me their life stories and completely showing off their personality in a first encounter type situation, I think this is a flaw most cRPGs have. And important NPCs show personality pretty well. People are bitches in this game, they try to manipulate you by not telling everything (even if it gets pretty obvious sometimes).

I did try to find the bandit's camp, did you? What happened when you rescued the prisoner, when you left the cave? You had exactly two dialog options, then again two dialog options respectively, which ALL lead to the same outcome. The bandit may react slightly different, but at this point in the game, during that dialog, those choises are cosmetic (to be fair, I have yet to find the bandit camp, so the different options actually might lead to different outcomes, but here I am guessing that this is not the case - tell me if I'm wrong).

Spoiler obviously,

You can either tell the guard and kill them or you can go there and take the quests there - and one of it seems to be a questline again which can be opened up or closed depending on your choice (this is an assumption because the bandit says something like this - I took the "good" route), but as of now I think this is flawed because you can go there and do the quests and then tell the guard to kill them, which may or may not lead to a choice when you are actually there fighting them, I can also not promise yet that things like that can be found later in the game too.

I killed Richard, so what do you mean by "clusterfuck" ?

And if you have already met Lovis you must have noticed the twist to the typical solution and therefore a generic storyline.

But you are right of course, there are a lot of "cosmetic choices" in dialogues. But I think the only cRPGs who did this right were the Fallouts and maybe Arcanum to some extent and this is a pretty high standard for an Action RPG right there.

I smirked, but mostly at how it didn't make any sense that the character was there, next to mindless undead that attack everything on sight. That doesn't mean it wasn't funny one bit, the light humor was appreciated.

He has a reason to be there, it is written on the note he carries. I thought the same at first but felt that it added a lot to the ridiculouseness of the whole situation.

I think your enjoyment of the game might profit from playing it alcoholized, because I think I was - not much though - when I saw him (as I wrote I do not usually laugh at games, even if that has changed a bit in the last two years). You seem to be thinking of the game as serious RPG business, which it certainly is not. It sometimes has serious undertones but at other times it is even ridiculing its own storyline.

Divinity 2 is generic crap with some neat touches, PS:T takes a neat shit on generic crap. That's the comparison. MacGuffin in Divinity 2 makes sense because you reach it to be able to fight on, level up more, explore and solve quests. Divinity 2 centers on that. In PS:T you fight, explore and solve quests in order to get to the next stage. I'm not saying this is bad, Divinity 2 is a different type of game, simple as that. Don't compare it to PS:T, that's all, don't make it out to be anything it is not.

I never said PS:T is like DD2 or otherwise. What I said is the story sucks. And it does, because it aims too high and fails through this. The whole premise of the story can break up right at the beginning: you are evidently immortal, but there were obvious different personalities inhabiting your body before (which were quite different sometimes as it is later discovered), but they are not here anymore so obviously they found a way to "die", but when you die your personality remains intact, which is either a story breaking contradiction or it means that a way to lose your personality must exist which would be equal to death, and obviously your previous incarnations found it, so you could simply wait for it to come because really nobody cares except the main character, who is having bad headaches sometimes and who is filled with memories that are not his own - there are worse fates than that. But a story which is based upon the idea "OMG I AM SO MISERABLE!" ? I am not saying it was a bad game, in fact it is one of the best in my opinion, but I don't think its story contributed much to it. I believe PS:T was an attempt to cash in on the growing pseudo-intellectual cRPG elite and it succeeded, because its art was comparatively cheap and was not needed in huge amounts while writing huge amounts of text is not really that expensive.

DD2 may not have a great story, but it never tries to make that claim and what it does storywise is done well, PS:T on the other hand is full of this "OH I AM SO PHILOSOPHICAL" pretense but it does this well, so it does not really matter. But I would not call the story itself good, at best by comparison with its competition.

The presentation of the story is bad in PS:T because as you said yourself the game has this structure where you are forced to level up, fight and generally explore while the real purpose of the game is the story or rather the dialogue and both of them are not at all improved by this presentation, while the presentation in DD2 through the rare main quest NPC and the beautiful dungeons which are a very important part of the experience is done pretty good.

Did I mention that the story behind Damian is not even told in the game itself at that point? Clichee villain ? He is the fucking incarnation of evil (this is from hearsay only, I did not play DD1 to the end myself). In the beginning he is supposed to be perceived as a typical clichee villain. I guess you did not meet Lovis yet because this encounter puts a small spin on everything again (a decadent ghost who reveals a very atypical solution to the typical big enemy problem).

And how is "the fucking incarnation of evil" NOT the cliche villain? Is it going to change that much? If that's the case, I'm going to take it back, but I have to see it with my own eyes, because right now he acts like the cliche villain, talks like the cliche villain, has the ambitions of a cliche villain...

That was the point. I don't suppose the game ever portrays this very differently (though I do sense a few plot twists coming). What I meant is that his clichee villainy has its roots in a very understandable reason and is not by itself condemnable, in fact the person, whose deed is, is the good guy. And a spoiler, which you should know by now,:

that you are supposed to abuse this does not make things better (read: actually less generic).

"Fucking reaction based pattern following" compared to "fucking pattern following with tons of health potions thrown in", which is better and why? Strike out the part with the health potions if you've got a healing ghost as backup. The problem I have with Divinity 2 is that I don't feel that my choice of skills or my actions have much of an impact on combat. Skills aren't a tactical choices, but a necessity up to the point that they are a chore, and you end up getting drunk on health potions anyway. I prefer Gothic because, while all of that might be true as well, I need player skill to win. Same with The Witcher. In Divinity 2, I need health potions to win, and if I'm out of health potions, I die, and I can't do a damn thing about it (unless I get out of sight and wait until my health regenerates, but come the fuck on!). And this "I can't do a damn thing about it" is what's bugging me the most. In tactical games I can do much more, and in The Witcher and the Gothics I have reaction based combat.

There is a difference between a more or less static pattern (TW) and a dynamic pattern (DD2 , Gothics). Of course they are mixtures of both, but TW is the most static of all. I hope I am misjudging here and you are not really comparing TW combat to the first two Gothics in terms of player skill level (and in general).

Do you want to say DD2 combat is not reaction based? Every Action RPG is, but TW has this stupid "reacting to timings" thing for which I could use a bot and would not be considerably less succesful, which is not true for the first two Gothics and DD2 (to some extent maybe for DD2 but definitely not on the same level as in TW).

Skills dictate how you play the game in DD2, if you want a specific playing style, then you have to pick specific skills. What is the problem? The only skill which might be a must have is the "sprint attack" but everything else is a matter of choice.

The reliance on health potions will become less later in the game and you will see that combat is not just drinking endless amounts of potions. And somehow I feel this drop of difficulty is fun (but I am not that much further into it right now).

Yes, that's what I do. If I disagree I must do so because I decided to deliberately disagree - that's the most likely reason for stating something that slightly resembles my fucking opinion. I'm just here to rile you up. Monolith, putting the "ass" back in "asshole".

I meant something different, but this has won my sympathy and resulted in a thankfully more civilized post by me.

Whiny NPCs are overdone personalities resulting from a lack of writing skill. It might be ridiculing, but simply because they couldn't do better. It comes across as childish, the NPCs as pubescent teens. And what's wrong with pointing out logical flaws? Gothic is also a cRPG and had less logical flaws, the world was much more consistent and realistic. Why can't I compare both, seeing as they are quite similar? Divinity 2 took a giant step back, and as I see it, quite often they simply didn't have to.

Have you played DD1 ? I believe if you had then you would have known what would await you in DD2 in terms of writing and you would be having a lot more fun (or would not have bought it all).

You can point out logical flaws all you like it, but I think comparing Gothic to DD2 is like comparing Morrowind to Gothic or DD2 to Morrowind. Gothic lives off the small believable world which you will have explored to about 50-70% in the first chapter. If there would be a lot of flaws in it, the whole concept of the game would fail. DD2's world is about continous exploration. The Gothic series also lacks several things DD2 has like c&c in sidequests, questlines and the beautiful dungeons. But I don't think you can really compare the two.

Your choices can close or open up different quest lines. I never said that this is not the case. In actual fact, I mentioned that some quests can be solved in multiple ways and can have different outcomes. What the fuck is your problem (except for lacking reading comprehension)?

Yeah, my fault. I thought your reply to my post was the first post of yours in this thread and now I realized this other post I read here, which I couldn't disagree more with, was yours afterall.

I hope our discussion helps people to understand what they can expect to have from the game.

Overall, I would say that this is the best 3d Action RPG since Gothic - not that there is much competition really - , and one of the only games which truly profits from being 3d (besides the Gothic series, which did not really made a "transition"). The traditions of its 2d predecessor are kept and improved upon while the change to 3d really brought a "new dimension" (I know that this sounds like an advertisement) because of the great architecture and the beautiful dungeons (as evidenced by Morgoth' screenshots).
As this discussion shows, you might dislike the game if you are expecting a more serious RPG gaming.

I strongly feel that this is the exploration type cRPG series which should be successful instead of the Elder Scrolls series because they have a nowadays very rare effort behind them.

If you have too much time on your hands right now and DD2 is not released yet for your country, you might check out DD1 for its writing and quests (the dungeons there suck though and I experienced multiple CTDs of which I am pretty certain I did not when I originally played it).

Edit: Added links for your viewing pleasure

 

[GarfunkeL]

Whoa, someone alert Wyrmlord. His position as the Lord of TL:DR is under attack!

 

[shardspin]

You can read the 3 last paragraphs only. I released them stand-alone.

 

[Nedrah]

You can read the 3 last paragraphs only. I released them stand-alone.

Yeah, cool. You're still either trying too hard or you have to catch up on a lot of rpg-talking.
Anyways - tl;dr.

Besides, I'll most likely work my way through your thoughts later, for now I try to avoid any spoilers.

 

[Kane]

I strongly feel that this is the exploration type cRPG series which should be successful instead of the Elder Scrolls series because they have a nowadays very rare effort behind them.

Yet you say it isn't like Morrowind at all.

 

[shardspin]

And yet it is still exploration based - even if it is linear to some degree. I already said that it was a paradox, what is there to be gained by stating the obvious again?
The game world in Morrowind is open and static as fuck while you have to disregard the broken game mechanics to enjoy the game, DD2's practically opens up the comparably small world which can be dynamic while it has at least working game mechanics. Why are you so obsessed with Morrowind? It is not like the game was a pinnacle of cRPG gaming besides maybe offering a lot of potential content.

Yeah, cool. You're still either trying too hard or you have to catch up on a lot of rpg-talking.
Anyways - tl;dr.

Besides, I'll most likely work my way through your thoughts later, for now I try to avoid any spoilers.

Yeah, cool. You're still either trying too hard by making assumptions on something you did not read or you still have to catch up on a lot of glimpsing ability because I obviously hid the spoilers. What is the point of your post?