God DAMN Divinity II is addictive

[sea]

I'd advise against DD on Good Old Games. Looks like Larian is pulling the 'pay-to-patch' thing again with Divine Divinity. Steam users get version 1.006a while the GoG version will permanently stay on version 1.005a

Applicable larian forum information is below:
http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=456404#Post456404

The versions are nearly identical, as explained there - if there are any changes I wouldn't be surprised if they're for compatibility with Steam more than anything else. Larian also specifically states that the GOG version may be updated as well.

 

[commie]

'Unique' (even though it isn't as multiple games have allowed you to be a dragon) isn't always a good thing. i don't like it because it simply isn't fun. I much prefer to be my adventurer not some silly dragon.

Have to agree with Volly here(yipes!). Dragon form isn't dynamic, it's slow, tedious and repetitive(more so than ground combat even due the three types of enemy you face: with two of them being towers), and the needle in haystack quests that go with aren't much fun either. Certainly the bullshit anti-dragon spheres don't help. They may be part of the lore but are just a cheap mechanic to stop you from having fun by swooping down on enemy encampments and frying fuckers from above while dodging arrows and casters and there's the problem: you really can't do much in dragon form except circle strafe towers and the odd flying fucker.

For a game which did dragon combat a lot better, check out Drakan.

Err, there is one dragon form part at the end of the expansion, and it is so terrible it nearly ruins it completely.

The ultimate in quest compass gameplay...the quest line. Not even Fable went that far...

 

[Volourn]

On top of that, the most 'unqiue'/special aprt of the game is the mindread ability. When i first started the game I planned to avoid it as I didn't want to lose xp (yeah, lol); but going on, it adds so much cool stories - extra loot, more bonus abiltiies, different ways to solve quests. That's cool shit.

 

[commie]

On top of that, the most 'unqiue'/special aprt of the game is the mindread ability. When i first started the game I planned to avoid it as I didn't want to lose xp (yeah, lol); but going on, it adds so much cool stories - extra loot, more bonus abiltiies, different ways to solve quests. That's cool shit.

Yeah that was good. I too avoided it at first to hoard my XP but eventually you realise that you'll have more than enough XP even if you mindread every single person and max out mindread skill to still reach level 46 which is about as high as you can go without grinding or maxing out wisdom(maybe you can reach 47 if you don't mindread everyone and a bit more if you endlessly grind the respawning areas in the FoV content). No big loss.

 

[abnaxus]

For a game which did dragon combat a lot better, check out Drakan.

It's better only because you can destroy ground targets. And your dragon actually gets more than a lame fire attack, but also ice, lightning, etc.

Plus it was fun to lure otherwise difficult enemies to your dragon who would instagib them.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Yeah that was good. I too avoided it at first to hoard my XP but eventually you realise that you'll have more than enough XP even if you mindread every single person and max out mindread skill to still reach level 46 which is about as high as you can go without grinding or maxing out wisdom(maybe you can reach 47 if you don't mindread everyone and a bit more if you endlessly grind the respawning areas in the FoV content). No big loss.

There's a good chance to end up one level higher than normal if you max out wisdom and mindread. You will get +3 skillpoints (or was it only 1 SP per level? don't remember) for this additional level and all you had to do was spending, I dunno, 20-30 skillpoints to max those skills. Sounds like a deal.

 

[commie]

For a game which did dragon combat a lot better, check out Drakan.

It's better only because you can destroy ground targets. And your dragon actually gets more than a lame fire attack, but also ice, lightning, etc.

Plus it was fun to lure otherwise difficult enemies to your dragon who would instagib them.

Well those 'only' things actually are the primary reason to 'want to be a dragon(tm)'! Nothing like swooping down on a bunch of Goblins or Orcs and frying them while they helplessly try to flee when those same creatures would be really formidable if you fought on foot. The whole point of having a dragon or becoming one is to feel like a motherfucking badass. That game also was a lot faster in its dragon combat, you didn't just leisurely flap around. Even the reasons for why you couldn't instawin the game by using the dragon weren't as contrived as in DKS but actually made sense. Especially cool was; like you say; the possibility to lure out tough enemies from their caverns where the dragon couldn't reach in order to quickly mount your 'steed' and with a evil chuckle turn around and end their pitiful existence in half a second.

Yeah that was good. I too avoided it at first to hoard my XP but eventually you realise that you'll have more than enough XP even if you mindread every single person and max out mindread skill to still reach level 46 which is about as high as you can go without grinding or maxing out wisdom(maybe you can reach 47 if you don't mindread everyone and a bit more if you endlessly grind the respawning areas in the FoV content). No big loss.

There's a good chance to end up one level higher than normal if you max out wisdom and mindread. You will get +3 skillpoints (or was it only 1 SP per level? don't remember) for this additional level and all you had to do was spending, I dunno, 20-30 skillpoints to max those skills. Sounds like a deal.

Yeah that's right. The problem was that you didn't need to use those skillpoints for much else. Once you maxed out magic missile and a couple other things related to spell strength it was instawin time and then you could just dump the skillpoints into mindread and wisdom just for chuckles as you hardly needed any other spells or skills. Had there been a need for a more rounded character, that may have resulted in some kind of compromise and maybe you'd have to make do with a lower skilled character: Not that it would matter much, I'm sure you could defeat both enemies(if you freed whatshisname as I did for extra challenge) with a character 5-6 levels less than 47 if need be. Maybe even more, but within 5 levels would still be reasonably easy.

 

[DraQ]

For a game which did dragon combat a lot better, check out Drakan.

It's better only because you can destroy ground targets. And your dragon actually gets more than a lame fire attack, but also ice, lightning, etc.

Plus it was fun to lure otherwise difficult enemies to your dragon who would instagib them.

Well those 'only' things actually are the primary reason to 'want to be a dragon(tm)'! Nothing like swooping down on a bunch of Goblins or Orcs and frying them while they helplessly try to free when those same creatures would be really formidable if you fought on foot. The whole point of having a dragon or becoming one is to feel like a motherfucking badass.

This.

The problem with DKS (and ED) dragon combat wasn't that it was a lame idea. It was that it was an awesome, nigh-unbotchable idea that got botched.

A game that did all those parts of dragon combat Drakan didn't do so well right (and vice versa) was IoTD. You didn't get as much control and the game was riddled with poor design decisions, lacked story and atmosphere, and generally got boring pretty fast, but in the end you could vaporize forests and cripple entire cities with magic, burn a lot of stuff, snatch people and monsters off the ground and nom them, and generally wreak a lot of havoc.

Also, while you didn't get as much contrast as in Drakan with constant dragon/on-foot ttransitions, you had several "taste the weakness" levels where you controlled a puny human instead of a dragon and puny monsters that could barely scratch you became nightmares spilintering entire swathes of forest over your head with their weakest attacks.

 

[Volourn]

Working on my 2nd fortress now. Nowhere near as bad as people claim they are. Dragon Form still sucks though. <>

 

[Roguey]

The fortresses were redone for DKS. The ones in ED were repetitively awful. Like "see a group of enemies, spam your two or three abilities in the same manner each time, turn into a dragon to recharge your mana, loot a bunch of containers, repeatxseveral dozen times"

 

[Volourn]

"turn into a dragon to recharge your mana,"

People actually feel the need to do this cheat?

 

[Roguey]

Well the alternative is to spam potions and constantly send your helpers to gather ingredients so you can make more free potions (which is what I did in the interiors where you can't turn into a dragon). Why buy things you don't have to?

 

[thesoup]

Wtf? I used maybe a grand total of 10 potions during my entire playthrough. Most of them before I got the dragon form. Not because I used the transform option to regen mana, but because I had so much mana I literally couldn't run out if it because it recharged too fast.

 

[Roguey]

I used high-cost high-damage abilities whenever they weren't on cooldown and never put any points into spirit so I ran out a lot. When I was outside, I became a dragon, when inside, drank a potion.

 

[DraQ]

Working on my 2nd fortress now. Nowhere near as bad as people claim they are. Dragon Form still sucks though. <>

Dragon combat is "meh" bad, not "oh god make the pain stop" bad.

That's quite a difference.

The fortresses were redone for DKS. The ones in ED were repetitively awful.

Actually the ones in ED were better, because the changes in DKS only involved simplifying and cutting gameplay elements form them (for example generators for anti-dragon bubbles that had to be disabled) allowing you to just dragon-drop on the boss to complete the fortress.

The only other element that was better in ED than DKS was your creature.

 

[Volourn]

No. DF is beyond shit. Period.

 

[abnaxus]

I used high-cost high-damage abilities whenever they weren't on cooldown and never put any points into spirit so I ran out a lot. When I was outside, I became a dragon, when inside, drank a potion.

Put one point in Mana Leech = never out of mana

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I used high-cost high-damage abilities whenever they weren't on cooldown and never put any points into spirit so I ran out a lot. When I was outside, I became a dragon, when inside, drank a potion.

Put one point in Mana Leech = never out of mana

Only if you melee and use 1000 strikes a lot.

 

[DraQ]

I used high-cost high-damage abilities whenever they weren't on cooldown and never put any points into spirit so I ran out a lot. When I was outside, I became a dragon, when inside, drank a potion.

Put one point in Mana Leech = never out of mana

Only if you melee and use 1000 strikes a lot.

1000 strikes only eats your mana after you finish the whole sequence.

Problem?

 

[abnaxus]

1000 Strikes + maxed Bleed + maxed Life leech

Problem Divine/Zandalor?

 

[Roguey]

I used high-cost high-damage abilities whenever they weren't on cooldown and never put any points into spirit so I ran out a lot. When I was outside, I became a dragon, when inside, drank a potion.

Put one point in Mana Leech = never out of mana

Yeah, I was a ranged character because it was clear early on that melee combat wouldn't be fun for me at all thanks to no-reliable-dodge/block/parry and no attack rolls. A lot of kiting and jumping backwards going on.

 

[Volourn]

Me. Just finished the original game, and started the expansion. The 'twist' (even thoguh I was pre spoiled) is lame and the way they 'resolve' it is stupid. It's illogical. You win the 'dream battle' and suddenly you are 'capture' no questions asked? then promptly 'rescued' by an obvious 'evil' dude where the game taunts you with a retarted non choice that if it was BIO who had done iit they would have been bashed but the fanboys here at blest praise it at worst gl;oss over it. L A M E.

Hall of Echoes was quite a let down consideirng the 2nd half of the game was geared toward reaching it. And, the 'portal battle' to helpm Zandalor is just silly stupid when you have monsters who spawn right over top of him. L0L Yeah, stop them from hitting him then. HAHAHAHA!

7.5/10 - Lots of good stuff, but lots of bad stuff.

P.S. The semi constant feezing is just pathetic.

P.S.S. Still, a HUGE step up from DD1 which was just plain shit. At least DD2 has been fun for the most part.

 

[Jaesun]

P.S.S. Still, a HUGE step up from DD1 which was just plain shit.

No.

 

[Tigranes]

Dragon Form is stop this please shit, and the story is also, only rescued by a few decent jokes like the vegetable brothers. Up to the dragon parts it was quite nice, though.

 

[Volourn]

"No."

Yes.