God DAMN Divinity II is addictive

[Murk]

Root - no difference, if I'm not mistaken, as I cannot tell if the previous "benefits" from the side-quests actually carries over through the game.

You'll catch up on XP without a problem -- but heads up -- if you max out your Mindreading skill its completely free, you won't use any XP at all, very useful to have (especially since you can respec).

 

[Multidirectional]

The lower level you are, the more exp you get, so you shouldn't worry about mindreading costs anyway. I didn't invest in mindreading skill and I've read minds of every single FoV character I could, finished it at level 45 with no problems whatsoever, except for that only dragon sequence making me reload a few times. I should have played on Nightmare, not Hard, gonna fix that soon I guess. I feel the itch to replay this already.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Bought the game for 30 pounds. Haven't regretted it.

You know, it's a sad sign of the times when I died for the first time trying to melee 9 goblins with my wimpy mage and wholly expected to be resurrected back in town with a loss of 5% gold. I was pleasantly surprised when all I got was a "You suck!" screen of death and the option of reloading.

Same with the lack of quest markers and completely obvious "hints" telling you how to complete quests. The bandit couple in the bandit hideout told me to get some special rum or whatnot, and when inquiring about where to get it from, all they had to say was "beats me, you're the hero, you figure it out!"

How I've missed this kind of quest writing, actually making the player work a little for his rewards. I also like how there seems to be multiple ways of solving a lot of quests, and the outcomes aren't always predictable - I had the option of ratting the drunken town guards out to their captain but didn't, which they rewarded me for by telling me the location of the captain's secret treasure stash. After raiding that, I then had the option of telling the captain they told me where it was. The entire bandit camp quest is cool as well, as you can choose to side with the bandits and do their quests or simply tell the captain where the base is and kill the lot of them.

There's a commendable amount of options here, far more than I've seen in many years. Some of the location design is also pretty cool - just went up that tower the dying Dragon Knight tells you to visit and was pleasantly surprised by some short but entertaining jumping puzzles interspaced with fights against huge gangs of undead, and the view itself was magnificent.

As far as I can see though, playing this thing straight warrior would be hard as hell. Archers abound and they hit HARD, I survive by running back and forth, dodging their slow-ass arrows and spells, and blasting them with spells of my own. If I ever manage to finish this thing, I'll try replaying as a warrior.

The XP function from DD is back. XP gain from monsters depends on your relative level to them while quest XP is static. I wonder if this means I can pretty much break the game like I did in DD by simply killing the entire map before handing in any quests for XP reward, which resulted in me being comically overleveled around mid-game.

Good game guys, not regretting buying it.

Good post. Yes, a modern game complete with epicness and bloomz, but still retaining enough old-school RPG standards to appeal to the hardcore and noobs alike.

You can fail quests too, just by asking the wrong questions or approaching a quest one way, which results in the failing of one or more others. Holy shit, what's the world comming to?

When DKS comes out on the 360 in the US/UK/Aus, if they promote it properly, it could do very well indeed for them - and it deserves to. Dragon combat with a controller - the console kiddies are gonna love this shit (on easy of course).

EDIT: Instead of "When", I should've said "If it comes out on the 360". Apparently they are having trouble finding a publisher/distributor for the console version in the U.S. - nobody want's to know about it, can you believe that? (actually, fuck yeah - unfortunately I can).

 

[Admiral jimbob]

DKS has been pulled from retail in the UK as well. It's not even on Amazon anymore, had to buy it on Steam. Anyone got any word on sales figures? I might have a slightly skewed perception, but this game seems to be a buzz everywhere, and the advertising is all over Steam/GameFAQs/whatever, it's not exactly obscure. Seems strange.

Also, I discovered that the +30 magic damage on the two-hander I've been using purely for that reason for half the game can be removed via the disenchant menu and applied to another weapon. And a random merchant I met in the Orobas Fjords sold me a one-hander with +76. Now I am a dual-weilding death machine.

I don't think I've ever been so excited about killing and looting before. Probably up there with M&M3 in the most horribly addictive games I've played in years.

 

[Crispy]

Glad more people are discovering and enjoying this game through reading about it here. If there were ever an provided from an ARPG, it would be from Divinity II.

 

[Seolas]

I just started it earlier and have to say it is an awesome game so far. Haven't done much combat yet but seems OK. Really like everything else about the game and the voice acting is surprisingly good. Up there with Risen and Witcher as two of my favourite open world RPGs in recent years.

 

[DraQ]

I have a brotip for everyone wanting to minimize the tedium and maximize enjoyment of fortress busting - max out the dragon strike or whatever the massive spherical shockwave thing is called. It might be more flashy than practical in combat, but it busts the clusters of defensive turrets surprisingly well when maxed out - just use shield, dash in and and rip enemy defences a new one.

 

[Eyeball]

shame that there's not much enemy variety, tho.
and the 'bosses' (if you can call them that) don't require much more strategy than the average mob.

Disagree - after plowing my way through tons of Black Ring cultists easily in the temple of Maxos, I came across the dragon boss. After eating repeated fireballs to the face for a few reloads, I thought "Hmm, maybe I should try a different approach here..." Turns out there was a nicely done quest to make him killable, and even then his ranged attacks kicked my ass.

Game difficulty fluctuates well. You're strolling along killing goblins when suddenly BAM! 500 bandits plus boss, game over bitch!

I love that lady that nags you all the time, by the way. She keeps reminding you about the main quest in a pretty funny way.

"My, that's a good view from here, you can even see the Temple of Maxos! We should totally go there next, you know."

"Yeah, being the hero of Broken Valley is cool and all, but wouldn't you rather be the hero of the Temple of Maxos?"

"I don't mind you taking the time to murder these goblins - the practice will come in handy when you get to the Temple of Naxos. You should go there, NOW!"

Translation from German is astoundingly good. They even threw some silly puns in there. "Hello, I am the castle Larian, I mean Librarian."

 

[Antihero]

I came across the dragon boss. After eating repeated fireballs to the face for a few reloads, I thought "Hmm, maybe I should try a different approach here..." Turns out there was a nicely done quest to make him killable, and even then his ranged attacks kicked my ass.

The game's going to play differently depending on your build, but with even just one point in that superhuman rush attack, you can close the the distance and melee his human form to death pretty fast. Even lets you cross gaps and go up cliffs with it.

 

[abnaxus]

Translation from German is astoundingly good. They even threw some silly puns in there. "Hello, I am the castle Larian, I mean Librarian."

That's because the game was developed in English and later translated to German because Larian wanted to release there first (biggest European market).

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Glad more people are discovering and enjoying this game through reading about it here. If there were ever an provided from an ARPG, it would be from Divinity II.

It's funny isn't it? I originally torrented ED a year or so ago, played the tutorial island and a little way into Broken Valley and thought 'meh' and didn't touch it again till recently.

There was next to no coverage here on the game in that time either (good or bad) - which is pretty strange for the codex. I would've thought there would be at least some rage threads.

When FoV came out, I torrented that as well and still didn't think much of the game. By now I had NV, 2W2 and soon RoT to slog through so again put it aside. I finally saw a positive thread on the game (DKS actually), posted by....hmm... can't remeber, maybe Draq or even Skyway (shock, horror - he liked it!), so this time I decided to give it a fair go.

Well, long story short(er), about 10 hrs in I've gone "this shit is fucking great - I'm buying this mofo" - bought FoV for $20 off GG which actually installed (and legalised - no crack required anymore) my 'extended demo' copy of ED. Unfortunately, at that time you couldn't apply the latest patch available for DKS that removed the forced 30FPS cap - so fuck it, I went and bought DKS as well for $40. Don't regret the investment at all.

Now the game's really picking up steam (no pun intended) as more people hear about it. It's kinda like how 'The Blues Brothers' originally flopped at the cinemas, then became a massive hit (by word of mouth) a year or so after it was released on video (for those who remember the early 80's).

 

[DraQ]

Fuck, yeah! I have beaten the ED part of DKS, now onto the expansion.


Also, my conviction about all the dumbfucks complaining about the ending being fucking retarded has grown stronger than ever upon reaching it for the second time. The twist *is* nicely done and while unexpected, *subtle* hints are dropped throughout the game, they are just subtle enough to only be obvious or even noticeable in hindsight, rather than making you bang your head on the wall lamenting your character's stupidity.
In about any other circumstances I would go all for Larian *daring* to plant such an obvious sequel hook, for dooming me and my character to such an inevitable failure, I would feel cheated and ripped off, but they somehow managed to do the ending in such fashion that I can't help but Larian for both skill and audacity,
while loudly proclaiming the .

Sure the ending comes off as quite a punch to the gut, but it just works so well. All the whiners should cease their butthurt herpaderping, as they really make me feel inclined to test whether they would handle real life punch to the gut as poorly as they did a virtual one.

P.S.
I actually chuckled at the 'Larian' pun. The writing AND ubiquitous voice acting is of very good quality and really entertaining in this game.

Maybe we should invite some Larian devs here? I'm sure they would be met with reception completely different from usual torrents of bitter nerdrage gushing out of our beloved cesspool.

 

[bhlaab]

Wow, I thought Broken Valley was going to be the first area, turns out it's pretty much the only major area. That's a bit disappointing. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of this game and it's almost over.

Of course, the expansion should help in that regard.

 

[Murk]

Orobas Fjords is just as large and populated -- you just have to use dragon form instead of foot travel.

The Expansion has a very well fleshed out Aleroth with very little "running back and forth".

 

[Jezal_k23]

I've bought the DKS on Steam a few weeks ago, still have to play it. I most certainly will, soon!

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS ED IS OUT ON THE FAGBOX

LIKE YOU ALACARCUSS I FIRST PLAYED THE DEMO AND WAS VERY UNIMPRESSED BUT GOT IT BECAUSE OF THE RECOMNADATIONS FROM THIS PLACE

 

[bhlaab]

Orobas Fjords is just as large and populated -- you just have to use dragon form instead of foot travel.

The Expansion has a very well fleshed out Aleroth with very little "running back and forth".

Is Aleroth a part of the main game? Because it seems you can go there from the Fjords, is the epxansion content meant to be mixed in with the main quest? I thought it was supposed to occur after the main quest.

 

[Murk]

Both, sorta. You will visit Aleroth in Ego Draconis -- the expansion takes place nearly exclusively in Aleroth.

In the original game you see a very limited amount of the city compared to what you get in Flames of Vengeance.

 

[Shannow]

I played Divinity 2 when it came out. Liked the starting town, but the quests and mindreading never really fulfilled their potential. And then it was hours of pure combat interspersed with very little, either uninteresting or confusing dialogue. The bad combat, broken character development and bugs made me uninstall after 10-15 hours.
So, I couldn't keep track of what is what. Game, add-on, stand-alone expansion... Were combat and character development fixed in the later games, or would someone who hated them in vanilla still hate them? Does it only make sense to go through the games in sequence or is it fine to skip the boring Ego Draconis? And are the others any better for someone who didn't like ED?

PS: I skipped most of your gushing in this thread, since it seemed as if you enjoyed vanilla...

 

[AlaCarcuss]

I played Divinity 2 when it came out. Liked the starting town, but the quests and mindreading never really fulfilled their potential. And then it was hours of pure combat interspersed with very little, either uninteresting or confusing dialogue. The bad combat, broken character development and bugs made me uninstall after 10-15 hours.
So, I couldn't keep track of what is what. Game, add-on, stand-alone expansion... Were combat and character development fixed in the later games, or would someone who hated them in vanilla still hate them? Does it only make sense to go through the games in sequence or is it fine to skip the boring Ego Draconis? And are the others any better for someone who didn't like ED?

PS: I skipped most of your gushing in this thread, since it seemed as if you enjoyed vanilla...

Not quite sure what you're talking about here. First there was ED, then the expansion FoV. DKS is ED+FoV with some minor rebalancing/tweaking - but mostly identical to ED+FoV. FoV also brought some graphical improvments that are apparent in both versions.

So yeah, if you didn't like ED, you won't like ED+FoV/DKS. Looks like you would be in a very small minority though - havn't come across too many people that have given it a good crack that havn't enjoyed it.

 

[Shannow]

K, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Saxon1974]

Dang you guys got me playing this/now too

Had the same experience when I tried ED about a year ago.

Dissapointed to hear broken valley is the only major city though

What difficulty is recommended? I like a challenge but it sounds like this one is even on normal

 

[Admiral jimbob]

I play on Hard. Depends on your build, the difficulty varies and spikes wildly; you can adjust it in-game, so just start on the upper end of the scale and alter it as you see fit. To my shame, I had to play on Normal for a while in Borken Valley between levels 5 and 10 or so, but after that it does get easier as a whole; thinking of going up to Nightmare.

 

[Raghar]

If you play at one save, or hate saving and reloading, normal should be fine. You know at that talking about hard... ...until you would face several archers, warriors, and one big ball. On hard they would probably one shot you. On normal you would be at less than half live after first attack, and trying to hide behind that wall nearby. All these splitting and explosive arrows are deadly. That is if they don't stun you.

As a general rule if you have problems in that situation with Laiken, and you are unable to win even on third try, hard was too harsh.

Spoiler

(If you can't survive it even on third try on normal, you suck. That girl that is with you is kick ass.)

 

[Crispy]

I agree that Hard may be a little too harsh for some. If you can only devote about 2-3 hours per gaming session like me, just put your pride in check and play on Normal. Trust me, it's still quite a difficult game at times.

Larian obviously spent some time balancing the game nicely.

Oh, and thank you all for refraining from major spoilers ITT. I appreciate it.