I can't get into Divinity OS games and i can't figure why.

[RPK]

Even after a few years, I don't want to continue from where I left them.

I don't want to continue *any* game from where I left off if it's been that long.

yeah, I'd just as soon start over.

 

[NJClaw]

D:OS is a game that has a lot to offer and this is both its biggest strength and its worst flaw: if you enjoy everything the game throws at you, this is going to be your favorite game for a long time, but if you (like me) despise some parts of it, you risk to completely ruin your enjoyment of the entire game.

The key to enjoying D:OS is ignoring the parts you don't like and focusing on what is fun to you. If something bores you, just avoid it as much as you can: if you don't like the writing, quickly skip through everything and just read whatever catches your attention; if you don't like puzzles, ignore all optional puzzles and just use an online guide to complete the mandatory ones; if you don't like equipment management, just equip the item with the highest level and ignore everything else; if you don't like the combat, well, you are fucked.

Once you start focusing only on what you find fun, the game becomes much more enjoyable.

 

[Sranchammer]

Hype killed it

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

Look, its pretty fucking simple -- Larian puts out shit games. Thats it ! No long explanation or big fucking theory, Larian just puts out shit games. Plain and fucking simple.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

So I finally gave up and looked at a walkthrough, and found the one last clue I needed to progress. Also, I thought the suspect was around an abandoned church and was trying to find my way past a barrier to get to my target, but I found fom the walkthrough that I was looking for the suspect in the completely wrong area and that I needed to hunt them down before I could get through the church barrier. Basically, I was completely flipped in the order I was supposed to do stuff.

Now that I'm passed that hurdle, I am enjoying the game once again, but not as the programmer's intended. Instead, I'm enjoying the game like a player whose enjoying playing the Elder Scrolls: Arena with a mage whose created a spell absorption/spell reflection spell for himself and has learned Passwall, God's Fire, and Purify. Basically, I'm breaking the game, wrecking shit, and turning the game design against itself.

Pretty much every encounter goes thusly:

- My fire/earth mage casts Oil at the very edge of the combat area, usually causing the spill to leak slightly over everyone's weapon range. He then lights that shit on fire with a simple flame spell, catching 2-3 of the nearest enemies instantly on fire.
- All my three other characters wait.
- The enemy moves. The melee guys stuck in the flame run through that shit, injuring themselves further. Melee guys not caught in the flames try to run around the burning pit, wasting their round. Archers directly behind the pit can't see the party and waste their turns trying to move around and get into line of sight. Some archers on the fringes and casters might get some shots off.
- My water/air mage heals anyone too hurt if he needs too at this point with his very reliable regeneration spell. He follows that up with a teleportation spell, picking up the nearest melee enemy and dropping him near or on the flaming area or finding their spellcaster and dropping him or her in front of my melee fighter.
- My melee fighter now acts. If anyone is near she moves forward to stop them from getting to my mages and archer and starts stabbing with her long spear. This weapon helps prevent them from running past her because she gets attack of opportunities with her 6 foot reach. Otherwise she throws gas bombs/fire bombs/nail bombs into the closest cluster of enemies.
- My archer acts next. If the situation looks under control she'll use regular arrows or maybe a knockdown or charm arrow. If the enemy is numerous, she'll expand the flaming area on one of the flanks with a poison cloud arrow or explosive arrow, or any other arrow that will slow the melee guys down while causing a screen between the group and the enemy archers. If I'm in a real pinch, my archer will summon a new undead pirate buddy I recently got and have him slow down the hordes until my spellcasters can finish their hijinks.
- My fire/earth mage goes again. He expands the burning area with an earth spell that drops a boulder on an enemy and covers more of the area with oil. Of course, the outer edge of this attack will touch part of the ground already burning, instantly expanding the field of burning earth and catching more enemies in a burn effect. Between my fire/earth mage, archer, and grenade-chucking fighter I've expanded the area with more burning earth (poison cloud grenades and poison cloud arrows will also create a fiery explosion when the cloud touches flames). This leave a black burning cloud over the battlefield, so the archers have a rougher time engaging, and oftentimes they'll run through the flames too in desperation. Most of the enemies die before they can engage my party as I take them out one or two at a time as their injured bodies emerge from the flames.

Oh, "But what about when you are going against fire enemies?", you ask. A funny thing about fire elementals and other fire-based attackers... my air/water mage has a spell that makes a large area rain, and being wet weakens fire elementals. It also makes them vulnerable to the freeze spells and lightning spells, which my air/water mage has naturally and my fire mage has by way of a couple of wands he keeps for special occasions. Enemies hit by electricity are often stunned, and stunned and frozen enemies are hit 100% of the time. So my archer (who switches to her ice arrows by this point) and fighter choose an ability that allows them to hit harder while sacrificing accuracy, and we make quick work on relatively helpless opponents.

I just had a showdown with the killer we had been sent to track down at the beginning of the game. The killer was in a large chamber at the bottom of a long staircase, where an argument was occurring between the killer and the secret mastermind of this whole thing. Now I'm sure Divinity: Original Sin wanted me to walk down the long steps during this conversation, where I probably would have entered into some dialogue with the bad guys before combat would have started in a strategically inconvenient position for yours truly. So fuck that noise. My fire/earth mage casted his oil spell from the top of the stairs while the argument was still going back and forth, and the two baddies were 'oiled', but did not otherwise respond as their pre-programmed dialogue script continued. One flame spell later and the dialogue stopped, the mastermind ran off, and the killer instantly summoned a bunch of fighters and archers from thin air... the problem for them was that most of them teleported right into the middle of the flames. By the second round all of them were burning, and struggling to get up the steps to fight my party. They never did get past Mr. Pirate, who was summoned at the bottom of the stairs by my archer. By the third round the killer was dead. By the fourth round so was the rest of the enemy. One of my characters was slightly wounded and my summoned pirate was temporarily destroyed (summons can be used once a battle even if defeated in a previous one).

This was supposed to be the big bad battle for this section of the game, and I'm sure it would have been if I let it pull off the ambush it was scripted to pull off. But the game's combat design is easily exploitable and the AI is just dumb. So I'm enjoying the combat portions of this for all the wrong reasons.

By the way, I'm still using my starting spells. I still haven't bothered to get anything more than that since I don't feel I need them. My archer is using specialty arrows each round, and still gaining more arrows after every combat since the enemy archers usually die before they can get their trick arrows off.

Now I don't hate the game. It's a fine time waster. But it has no consistent tone, the combat is pretty easy (though it gets points for being very tactical and turn-based), and the plot and writing is as bland as you can get. I can see Codexers liking it fine enough. But the fact that it scored so high in the Codex's latest Top 101 RPG list boggles my mind a bit. It's just fine. Everything about is it serviceable and fine, but it does nothing great. I'll likely peek at the walkthrough again if I get stuck and see this one through (unlike the Queen's Wish and Wasteland 2), but this game (#32) had no business beating out games like Ultima Underworld (#37), World of Xeen (#40), or Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall (#54). It beat Dragon Age: Origins (#43), however, and I totally agree with that.

 

[JDR13]

Talk about overanalyzing...

 

[RPK]

isn't naval-gazing half the point of this forum :D

 

[Silly Germans]

isn't naval-gazing half the point of this forum :D

Who doesn't love naval gazing, just look at this beauty:

Spoiler

Are you wet already ?

 

[jackofshadows]

I am enjoying the game once again, but not as the programmer's intended. Instead, I'm enjoying the game like a player whose enjoying playing the Elder Scrolls: Arena with a mage whose created a spell absorption/spell reflection spell for himself and has learned Passwall, God's Fire, and Purify. Basically, I'm breaking the game, wrecking shit, and turning the game design against itself.

- My fire/earth mage casts Oil at the very edge of the combat area, usually causing the spill to leak slightly over everyone's weapon range. He then lights that shit on fire with a simple flame spell, catching 2-3 of the nearest enemies instantly on fire.
<.....>
- My fire/earth mage goes again. He expands the burning area with an earth spell that drops a boulder on an enemy and covers more of the area with oil. Of course, the outer edge of this attack will touch part of the ground already burning, instantly expanding the field of burning earth and catching more enemies in a burn effect. Between my fire/earth mage, archer, and grenade-chucking fighter I've expanded the area with more burning earth (poison cloud grenades and poison cloud arrows will also create a fiery explosion when the cloud touches flames). This leave a black burning cloud over the battlefield, so the archers have a rougher time engaging, and oftentimes they'll run through the flames too in desperation. Most of the enemies die before they can engage my party as I take them out one or two at a time as their injured bodies emerge from the flames.

Don't wanna dissapoint you or anything but this is exactly the way to play by design. It's what 'normies' was screaching about all the time when the game came out. And it's really fun, especially in co-op, I personally agree 100% but for a while, not for a whole fucking game. They applied this environmental design to almost every encounter including the bosses so it quickly becomes simply boring as hell. You're applying environmental gimmicks, using some CC (stuns, charm, etc) and DD guys like your archer killing shit. That's it, rinse and repeat. Devs tried to get rid of this formula by adding magic armor in sequel but that's another sad story.

 

[cosmicray]

Don't wanna dissapoint you or anything but this is exactly the way to play by design. It's what 'normies' was screaching about all the time when the game came out. And it's really fun, especially in co-op, I personally agree 100% but for a while, not for a whole fucking game.

I found playing in coop really boring, because it was time-consuming as hell. Those freaking animations and waiting for your turn. Meh.

 

[RPK]

isn't naval-gazing half the point of this forum :D

Who doesn't love naval gazing, just look at this beauty:

Spoiler

Are you wet already ?

what can I say. it was late :D

 

[anvi]

frist u put da oil on da grond and den u uze da firez

 

[agris]

OP has an acute sense of taste, a terminal diagnosis here.

 

[Sweeper]

The only thing I hate more than D:OS are people that like it.
You're alright OP, just stop reinstalling that piece of shit.

DOS2 became hated here the moment it became popular. Popular = bad, gotta appear cool and hip to the fellow codexers.

It's more a case of everyone hyping up what is at best an okay RPG, but objectively a pretty mediocre one.

 

[gurugeorge]

D:OS was quite enjoyable, I almost finished it (most games bore me about 3/4 of the way through, so that's no biggie), story and all. Kyril Pokrovsky's idiosyncratic music is a big draw for me too.

D:OS2 on the other hand, the gameplay is far too fussy for my tastes, and too dependent on the elemental combo trick and on burning down the buffer/shield thingies (forget the term). And no Kyril Pokrovsky

 

[anvi]

The shields were really stupid.

 

[anvi]

srsly?

 

[sullynathan]

I can get into Divinity OS games and I can figure why.

Spoiler

They're fun

 

[guestposting]

Also could never finish them... hell, D:OS2 I just played like 3-4 hours.

Which is weird, I like Larian games, finished Divine Divinity, Divinity 2 and even Dragon Commander. Their humour doesn't bother me. I even thought I was burned out on RPGs, or maybe tired of isometric party games after Dark Souls spoiled me.... but nope, gave up on D:OS2 and then had a blast playing 100+ hours of Pillars of Eternity II.

I'm happy for this thread, because it's something really hard to put in words... in theory they should be all that I wanted, but the execution never hits.

Reading some of the comments here, the problem seems to a combination of several factors: I'm playing it by myself, I really dislike the character & item system, the wacky world lacks "weight" and they all start by throwing you in a huge area with a billion quirky NPCs and quests. It's ten times more overwhelming than Baldur's Gate II's Athkatla, and that city came up after a solid dungeon crawl and some strong character & plot hooks.

So you start the game, see that there's a billion things to do, none of them matters much, the progression doesn't look like it's going nowhere and you have 80+ hours of this to beat the game. In a sense, feels like a GTA/Saint's Row-like take on RPGs, so I can definitely see the appeal, but it's a hard sell for me :/

This has been gnawing at me, too, especially since I gave D:OS2 another shot when quarantine started.

Here’s my theory. When you look at the top 70 or the top 101, nearly all of those games have great atmosphere. Different sub-genres get there in different ways, but the vast bulk of them work overtime to draw you into the world. They make you feel invested in what’s going on, even when what’s going on is a straight dungeon crawl with minimal story/lore.

The Original Sin games don’t do that. And it’s not just about their worst qualities, though obviously item fever and a weightless setting don’t help. Even the best things about these games detract from the atmosphere. It can be fun to fuck around with all the easily exploitable systems, but it also contributes to the sense of weightlessness.

There’s just a lot of stuff pulling you out of the world and not enough stuff pulling you back in. It’s fun to fuck around with broken systems in Morrowind, too, but Morrowind’s got a great setting that pulls you back in.

 

[Norfleet]

frist u put da oil on da grond and den u uze da firez

Or you just put the oil in barrels next to the fire in barrels, and light the entire thing up all at once in a giant Freedom Pyre.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I've come to the conclusion that I'd enjoy DOS 1.0 a lot more if it was a pure tactical combat experience.

No fiddly inventory management.
No fiddly looting.
No deeper attempts at plotting.
No wordy exposition.
No thinly veiled illusion of exploration.
Nothing that gets in the way.

Just a string of fun and diverse combat scenarios (who didn't laugh at the graveyard lunatic and what he throws at you?) Perhaps a bit like Blackguards. Say what you will about PoE, but when the bells are ringing doom in Guilded Vale, that is at least a hook proper. The game manages to communicate its world's conflict loud and clear. Rivellon in DOS1 meanwhile is just a playground for goofing around. Apart of that you can pick up anything that isn't nailed to the ground, I have no idea where Swen gets the idea that they would be chasing Ultima VII with any of this (or what he personally sees in it).

Is there anybody here who was mixed about DOS1, but absolutely digged the 2nd?

Btw, since part deux is on sale again, anyone?

 

[Stavrophore]

D:OS inventory management and crafting is horrible. Lack of party inventory, lack of choosing best character to sell items, lack of luck skill shared by all characters[have to remember to use a certain char for looting]. It's abysmal. Then you have lack of meaningful fast travel, going from one side of city to another is a chore. It's QoL that ruin this game for me.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

Itemization in the DOS series is absolutely atrocious. Even WoW does it better.

 

[fantadomat]

I can't figure why.

Because they are shit and boring and made by insane people.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Shouldn't you start with Divine Divinity first?
But play DOS if you want i guess...