I'm very upset about Div 2's combat

[DraQ]

Shitcock. I'm close to rage-quitting again. You know one of those caves with the jumping puzzle and the fireballs? Fucking fuck.

The one that is optional?

Kay, so spoiler moment. Anyone know how to get Dr. Needleman's password to his storage?

Yes. Later.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Kay, so spoiler moment. Anyone know how to get Dr. Needleman's password to his storage? The one chance you get to open it already passed but I'm still curious...

...is it related to doing Locke's quest with Keane?

This quest was in ED, not FoV, right? After Broken Valley has been destroyed you'll find Needleman on top of Lovis' tower. Mindread for password. This was a spoiler.

 

[DraQ]

DraQ, speaking as someone who used to favour magic classes for the reasons you highlight I'm inclined to partially agree in theory and (haha) partially disagree in practice. Morrowind is a good example of so many fun concepts being neatly combined into an incredible game. At the same time, as is well known, after the first adventure it really falls to the player to delineate parameters or else have their character undergo apotheosis far too early in the game to ensure enjoyment from explorations, battles and such else.

Main problem of Morrowind is that MOST of its mechanics doesn't seem really thought through and doesn't show any signs of exploit proofing. Alchemy is exploitable based on basic foundations of the system, even though it would be simple to prevent exploits there. Trainers are exploitable due to their relative cheapness and lack of limitations, enchantements are moderately exploitable due to the fact that they don't trigger casting animations, spell effects are not balanced, diplomatic skills are easy to abuse and ability leveling could have been made much less broken if the devs introduced one extra variable and multiplication as I detailed in my very first post on this site.

Mechanically Morrowind is an obvious beta, I am well aware of this despite my love for this game. Still, exploits are fairly well defined and are generally not fun, so playing the game normally should prevent most of them.

one point I want to emphasise again is that I am not criticising magic per se, nor those who enjoy playing magic classes. Just the level of unchecked power which comes more readily to mages before the other classes cross over into a state of relative imbalance ( a game's meaningful level of challenge and thus, presumably, enjoyment).

The problem here is less of a variety of possible actions available to a mage, more of a relative lack of stuff other classes can do. Other classes just tend to be mechanically impoverished, regardless of their relative power.

 

[denizsi]

Shitcock. I'm close to rage-quitting again. You know one of those caves with the jumping puzzle and the fireballs? Fucking fuck.

In the old days, games came with dev/console cheats that let you do all kinds of cool and circumvent the stupid.

 

[Murk]

This quest was in ED, not FoV, right? After Broken Valley has been destroyed you'll find Needleman on top of Lovis' tower. Mindread for password. This was a spoiler.

Yes, interesting. I had explored the top of lovis tower before after getting dragon form but I guess I missed this part. I thought Bellegar dropping you in front of his storage was the only way to access it but I guess I can just fly to it later.

I'm replaying ED and am absolutely delighted to find there's quite a bit of stuff I missed the first time around.

 

[Lesifoere]

Shitcock

Shitcock

Shitcock

Beautiful, that's going in my sig.

Actually, I quite enjoyed that jumping puzzle. T'was a nice changeup. Just remember to quicksave often. To avoid the fireballs, try not to land right in the middle of the platforms. I found it easier to take a step back before jumping again.

Oh, avoiding the fireballs is simple, and I slapped on a +2 healing bracelet just to get me through this thing. What made me ragequit was after you pull the first lever and two platforms appear.

 

[Aothan]

after clearing the ballista towers and spawn nests from the Fjords I have resumed human form to battle the Imps and Black Ring soldiers found along the beaches. Now my problem is after thirty or more of these not one has dropped any items or gold. Is this typical ? Lamentable as this sounds I am about to run short of gold.

at the start and throughout most of the game I did not make a habit of collecting everything found on tables, in persons' chests or perceived from mind reading their thoughts. I realised after talking with a friend that the game is designed to be amoral in this regard. After all not a few key quests are dependent on reading someone's mind, 'collecting' a key of theirs and then coming across a series of details which culminate in a major quest. The most obvious relating to a certain tree..

the quest system in Divinity II is worthy mentioning in that it makes some effort to leave a number of quests relatively open and even aloof in how the character comes to participate in them. Choices do generally (not always, trainer selection as a key example) come to selfishness, being a "Paladin", or possible a form of indifference. At the same time the morality system can appear to be contrived when everything is meant to be 'collected'. Even more telling would be the lengths went to to assure that one's summon is entirely guiltless and in no way related to the usual connotations of the practice. For some reason I forgot about the door to this area and only rediscovered it about ten levels afterwards.

I cannot be sure if it is largely the result of not simply obtaining any possible item from any possible source or an extensive lack of favourable chance because I have almost no usable enchantment formulas, and of course a sudden lack of resources. If only I could find a few standard weapons and armours from these imps -_-

 

[AlaCarcuss]

after clearing the ballista towers and spawn nests from the Fjords I have resumed human form to battle the Imps and Black Ring soldiers found along the beaches. Now my problem is after thirty or more of these not one has dropped any items or gold. Is this typical ? Lamentable as this sounds I am about to run short of gold.

at the start and throughout most of the game I did not make a habit of collecting everything found on tables, in persons' chests or perceived from mind reading their thoughts. I realised after talking with a friend that the game is designed to be amoral in this regard. After all not a few key quests are dependent on reading someone's mind, 'collecting' a key of theirs and then coming across a series of details which culminate in a major quest. The most obvious relating to a certain tree..

the quest system in Divinity II is worthy mentioning in that it makes some effort to leave a number of quests relatively open and even aloof in how the character comes to participate in them. Choices do generally (not always, trainer selection as a key example) come to selfishness, being a "Paladin", or possible a form of indifference. At the same time the morality system can appear to be contrived when everything is meant to be 'collected'. Even more telling would be the lengths went to to assure that one's summon is entirely guiltless and in no way related to the usual connotations of the practice. For some reason I forgot about the door to this area and only rediscovered it about ten levels afterwards.

I cannot be sure if it is largely the result of not simply obtaining any possible item from any possible source or an extensive lack of favourable chance because I have almost no usable enchantment formulas, and of course a sudden lack of resources. If only I could find a few standard weapons and armours from these imps -_-

Ok, I can't subject myself to this any longer without saying something...

Jesus mate, are you a native english speaker? Because, with all due respect, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use so many ridiculously obtuse words to make such simple points. I'm refering to your previous posts here as well. They're just so goddamn hard to read. No one here gives a fuck how articulate you are, just say what you really mean.

Language, as opposed to spelling and grammar (which I know Lesi's a stickler for), is all about communication. The rest is largely irrelevant. I doesn't matter how you say it, as long as you get your message across.

"Shit, these trash mobs drop fuck all - where do I get all this epic shit" works just as well as (and in most cases better than):

I cannot be sure if it is largely the result of not simply obtaining any possible item from any possible source or an extensive lack of favourable chance because I have almost no usable enchantment formulas, and of course a sudden lack of resources. If only I could find a few standard weapons and armours from these imps -_-

Each one of your posts I have to read at least three times to get the gist of what you're saying. That is not good communication.

In short, you're trying too hard. Just fucking spit it out will ya.

Having got that off my chest... Yeah, trash mobs usually drop trash loot, the best loot I've found has been from locked chests, the chest you get ot after some epic battle, or from a named enemy.

 

[Aothan]

Jesus mate, are you a native english speaker? Because, with all due respect, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use so many ridiculously obtuse words to make such simple points. I'm refering to your previous posts here as well. They're just so goddamn hard to read. No one here gives a fuck how articulate you are, just say what you really mean.

eeya, usually I don't trouble myself with these posts, unfortunately it is very direct and in the middle of a thread I am unusually active in. My grammar is terrible, even in a basic sense, grammar can be unnaturally complicated for some people, the reasons would be extensive and difficult to fully detail. My "obtuse" words ? I'm not so sure about that, I've been steadily devolving for a year or more now, of course the setting is different but I'm not sure which choice of words could leave you uncertain.

Each one of your posts I have to read at least three times to get the gist of what you're saying. That is not good communication.

hmm, I do have problems explaining ideas, at the same time and in the nicest possible way it would have to be suggested that the fault is not exclusive. Anyway, send me a message if you wish to continue the point, I would rather keep the focus of the discussion (yes I know this is a bit ironic from me) on Divinity II.

I'm not asking for spoiler details about the location of epic items, just whether it is preternaturally bad luck that I cannot seem to find a single item or quantity of gold over the last thirty or so encounters.

 

[Murk]

I think you're running a spot of bad luck or spending your gold a bit too easily.

I find on average every dozen or so enemies drop something and that the random containers found throughout dungeons and cellars often have a few dozen to a few hundred gold coins. I tend to strip enchantments and sell gear as I get it -- right now I'm about to storm the battle tower on sentinel island and already have over 30k in gold.

I'm kind of annoyed with the armor sets to a certain extent, right now I have the blood echelon set which is cool but I also have the full Defenders of Aleroth and Rivellon Guard's sets. And I already know Ulthric's set is badass so it seems that I'm really missing out on using the piece-meal armors because I'm basically power-gaming for the bonus-benefits from the sets.

Bleh, anyway.

 

[Lesifoere]

Loot drops in this game are shit. Barely anyone drops anything--it's all in the chests, and even then the randomly generated loot tends to be amazingly mediocre.

Jesus mate, are you a native english speaker? Because, with all due respect, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use so many ridiculously obtuse words to make such simple points. I'm refering to your previous posts here as well. They're just so goddamn hard to read. No one here gives a fuck how articulate you are, just say what you really mean.

Language, as opposed to spelling and grammar (which I know Lesi's a stickler for), is all about communication. The rest is largely irrelevant. I doesn't matter how you say it, as long as you get your message across.

I just assumed either English is his distant second language or he's high-functioning autistic. This isn't an insult, the language pattern looks like either thesaurus abuse or savant, both of which could result from mild autism. So I didn't really want to bring it up.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Jesus mate, are you a native english speaker? Because, with all due respect, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use so many ridiculously obtuse words to make such simple points. I'm refering to your previous posts here as well. They're just so goddamn hard to read. No one here gives a fuck how articulate you are, just say what you really mean.

eeya, usually I don't trouble myself with these posts, unfortunately it is very direct and in the middle of a thread I am unusually active in. My grammar is terrible, even in a basic sense, grammar can be unnaturally complicated for some people, the reasons would be extensive and difficult to fully detail. My "obtuse" words ? I'm not so sure about that, I've been steadily devolving for a year or more now, of course the setting is different but I'm not sure which choice of words could leave you uncertain.

Each one of your posts I have to read at least three times to get the gist of what you're saying. That is not good communication.

hmm, I do have problems explaining ideas, at the same time and in the nicest possible way it would have to be suggested that the fault is not exclusive. Anyway, send me a message if you wish to continue the point, I would rather keep the focus of the discussion (yes I know this is a bit ironic from me) on Divinity II.

I'm not asking for spoiler details about the location of epic items, just whether it is preternaturally bad luck that I cannot seem to find a single item or quantity of gold over the last thirty or so encounters.

Oh Jesus, you still sound like 'Data' from Star Trek: TNG....

There's nothing wrong with what you're saying, or techincially your grammar. Just, on a forum like this one, I like to talk to people the way I would 'face to face'. I seriously doubt you talk to you friends and family the way your talking here, right? (God help them if you do....)

I'm not trying to offend you in any way, I like the fact that you obviously like Div2 and I apprecieate your posts. Just don't put so much effort into them. Speak naturally, that's all I'm saying.....

Now or course, I could be making an absolute fool of myself. I remember as a codex noob, having a go at BLOBERT for being retarded and typing in all caps - only to realise later that he was the most intelligent and articulate poster this board (or any other) has ever seen. So, if this is your 'thing' then go for it.

I just assumed either English is his distant second language or he's high-functioning autistic. This isn't an insult, the language pattern looks like either thesaurus abuse or savant, both of which could result from mild autism. So I didn't really want to bring it up.

Yep, I thought of that too, and if that's the case I apologise. I wouldn't even bother bringing it up either, except I think the guy really has somthing to offer. What he's saying is quite interesting, once you get past the bullshit. Just please - burn that fucking thesaurus man.

Also, I'm a bit pissed (that's Australian for... hic... drunk) at the moment so I'll probably regert this tomorrow.

Now, OT. Have you ever played a game that you know you should't like? Or, in usual circumstances, would rage at till the cows come home?

Every now and then I find a game that.... for want of a better word... 'grabs' me. Even though it should be a game I hate. There's all sorts of things 'wrong' with Div2: DKS.... lots of little things that could be better...

If we're lucky, one of these games comes along about once a year (usually longer). I remember playing the tutorial island of ED when it first came out last year and thinking 'this is shit'. Now I'm totally 'hooked' and can't wait to see what's around the next corner. I don't know why, and every now and then - usually after a rage quit and an exclaimation of 'SHITCOCK!" - I'll drop it for a few hours, and then think... shoulda', woulda'..... coulda'... FUCK YOU!! UNDEAD SKELETON WHORE!!!!! .... Time for a respec....

Love it.

 

[Lesifoere]

I didn't think of Div 2 as something I shouldn't/wouldn't like, really. I liked DivDiv and, even though Beyond Div was a gigantic piece of turd no polishing could save, I had some hope for Div 2. I guess that despite two rage-quits, I'm still going back to it. What can I say, I'm stuck in the middle of the fireball jumping puzzle and I don't want to ditch the progress I made all the way up to that lever.

(I didn't expect to like Dawn of War 2 (hey look, it's another title beginning with D and ending with 2). Ended up loving it though, despite the many, many flaws in the vanilla campaign. Chaos Rising made me scream SHITCOCK!!!! at the final boss repeatedly, but I went back and beat it, and am considering another replay.)

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Is it that Fireball puzzle, somewhere, where you have to jump on appearing/disappearing platforms or something and then pretty far above there's some lever and you have to go down again quickly and be fast enough to get the chest that appears?

Loot drops in this game are shit. Barely anyone drops anything--it's all in the chests, and even then the randomly generated loot tends to be amazingly mediocre.

DD had that problem too, you could get something awesome or something completely worthless, encouraging reload-fests until the drop/loot in chest was decent.

 

[DraQ]

@Aothan:

Div2's take on morality is very old-school as far RPG morality goes. It can essentially be summed up as "good, bad and kleptomaniac", or, in other words, "there is well and unambiguously defined good and evil, you can be either, but even if you're goody-two-shoes paladin in shiny armour, you should grab everything that isn't nailed down and may help you in your quest".

Since you're running around Orobas Fiords freely, I presume you already have access to your battle tower, which means you can send your runners out for valuable ores and gems. When they return you can sell the stuff they bring for profit, though you'd better give them some good armour first (which will cost you).

Finally, regarding your grammar, and general posting style:
Given that it took me a lot of effort to learn how to not sound like a voice synthesizer and why I shouldn't write convoluted two-page long sentences with multiple nested parentheses, even if they are perfectly logical, back when I was a kid, I can sort of sympathize. Even though things I write have more semblance to the natural language, you'd still find a lot of rote phrases and other stuff hinting at them being composed rather automatically if you examined a large number of my posts closely enough and I do believe most of them are rather florid and verbose.

Still, your posts are indeed rather hard to read, especially when discussing things that simply don't amount to a lot of content, resulting in reader having to search your long and complex sentences for meaning. I believe I can share a few useful pointers, though:

1. If you can put some intonation in your speech IRL and generally avoid speaking in complete monotone, try 'saying' what you're writing to yourself in your head and interpreting it as if it was said by another. It should help you notice which parts may be difficult to understand or too monotonous and correct them.

2. Observe capitalization and spacing convention, especially around punctuation marks. Yes, it's technically redundant, but capital letters and punctuation marks followed by space stand out visually and help speed up the parsing.

3. Try to prune excess words and split overly long sentences.

4. Finally, though it's Codex specific hint and better don't try to apply it anywhere else, we don't really bother with being too polite here, as you might have noticed.

 

[BLOBERT]

I am well versed with the difficulties of being perceived as having the grammatical style of one not native in the language of english. Grammar has often been a one of a source of frustrations and an elusive prize I chase as I saunter down the dichotomy of human interactions; at one point a source of much malaise in the life of mine and at another the only thing germane to existence.

LOLLOLOLLL BRO I CANNOT CONTNIUBNE MY BRIAN IS HIURTING IT REMINDS ME OF THE TIME I IMITATED A BOSNIAN MATH PROFESSOR ONCE IT WAS A SLOW WEEK AT WORK AND I HAD NOTHING TO DO BUT GO OMN THE INTERNET

BROS SORRY TO INTERRUPT I AM STILL LOVING THIS GAME

AOTHAN YOU ARE A BRO I AM KIDDING OUT OF LOVE

 

[DraQ]

BTW: Even outside of obvious humour and references, Divinity 2 bristles with humour.

For example, I absolutely refuse to believe that generated item names are anything but Diablo parody, and hilarious at that.


@BROBERT:

Maybe you should go see a BRIAN STURGEON SPECIALIST?

 

[Sceptic]

if you examined a large number of my posts closely enough and I do believe most of them are rather florid and verbose.

Really? Never noticed.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS I THINK I AM GETTING NEAR THE END BUT I AM HAVING FUN SOME LATE GAME IMPRESSION

SO FAR MONEY IS RELATIVELY SCARCE IN THAT I CANT AFFORD EVERY FUCKING THING AND STILL HAVE TONS LEFT

THE DRAGON SHIT MAY BE A GIMMICK BUT IT IS KINDA FUN AND UNIQUE ONLY THING IS THAT ON THE FAGBOX ALL THE GROUND ENEMIES DISSAPPEAR WHEN YOU BECOME A DRAGON WHAT THE FUCK OH WELL IT IS COOL TO JUST FLY AROUND AND SHIT ALTHOUGH AT TIMES IT SEEMS USELESS CAUSE THE THINGS THAT FIGHT DRAGONS DONT FUCK WITH ME ON THE GROUND AND VICE VERSA

THEY PLAYED THE HUMOPRE WELL AT LEAST ONE THING MADE ME LAUGH I FORGOT WHAT THE FUCK IT WAS THOUGH OH YEAH THE DRAGON SLAYERS WANABEES DOING THEIR POWER RANGERS SHIT WAS COOL OVERALL BEST USE OF HUMER IN A RPG GAME IN A WHILE

THE BATTLE TOWER SHIT WAS NICE AND BETTER USE OF A HUB FORTRESS OIR SHIP OR WHATEVER THAN MOST GAMES DO

NICE TO SEE OLDSCHOOL SHIT WHERE TOUGH MOTHERFUCKERS RAPE YOU WITHOUT WARNING AND NO HANDHOLDING AS FAR AS QUEST COMPASS SHIT

THE DIFFICULTY LEVEL IS NICE HARD WAS TOO MUCH FOR ME AT FIRST THOUGH IT MIGHT BE GOOD FOR ANOTHER PLAYTHROUGH I HEARD DKS WAS EASIER THAN DE THOUGH WHO KNOWS

LEVELS ARE A BIGGER MODIFIER FOR COMBAT SHIT THAN PERFECT BUT IT ISNT AS BAD AS BORDERLANDS

 

[Aothan]

I've just recently encountered two of the platform challenges previously discussed, it is the culmination of these challenges which in my view could be better designed. In particular where the final challenge is essentially trickery after a period of careful timings and movements. Or another set of platforms where after attempting the more reasonable possibilities the only apparent remaining option is to jump, heedlessly, to -- what would appear as -- an overextended position.

the quest system in Divinity II can be commended for leaving much to the player's innovations, willingness to explore and even reward those who did not reload to less costly choices at an earlier time in their adventures. My character received an indirect 'reward' that likely would not have been discoverable had particular actions not been previously taken at significant cost and with no certain advantage. Conversely a number of chests that cannot be opened with lockpicks but with no clear direction to where the required keys might be have been left unopened because of the same general task challenge atypical for the genre. There are also 'mousetraps' where taking what looks like a free piece of loot will trigger a mechanism which shifts even more valuables items out of reach, the catch is, the adventurer might not ( I could not say, having explored and discovered in advance of springing) even be made aware of this lost option.

"Ranger Surprise" (could have the wrong skill name in mind) is a nice addition to melee orientated design, the reduction in melee defence would appear to increase melee damage and possibly the chance for critical hits. Unfortunately it is quite true that sword skills in Divinity II are very linear, no matter what array is selected. The problem is that active melee skills tend to be almost entirely defined by increasing damage and then knocking away/stunning, the latter property overlaps too much with any other active skill to warrant focused diversification and even becomes self-defeating for basic utility. Dash being a notable example which should increase the range a target is knocked back, at least past the standard skill (level 5) range so as to (optionally) better synchronise with alternate attack skills.

 

[Murk]

I think taking a single-class view of the character system in D2 is terribly mistaken. I find that you should pick, instead, an almost descending order of classes and integrate them all together. In my first play through I found that focusing entirely on Melee was a viable build but was boring, and given that I had so many skill points left over, I found myself pouring them into supplementary magical skills - like demon summoning, healing, and some melee-supporting spells like firewall and fireball.

This not only helped me complement my characters melee abilities but also gave me additional tactical options in combat - like engaging a group of enemies with a powerful blast from a distance, letting them come into a trap of my firewall, whereupon the summoned demon (quite nice through most of the game!) and my pet creature would engage them with me picking off the strategically important enemies (casters and healers).

Oh blast, now I'm doing it too... /Aleister Grout

I do remember in FoV you come across one such champion who shares the above sentiment of 'mouse-traps'. Something along the lines of "like an idiot, I ran for the treasure chest and got trapped in". I believe that's supposed to be a warning that perhaps we should curve our greedy gamer habits.

Divinity 1 had such a moment as well, in the secret shack filled with gold and gems and a simple note telling you not to be a jackass.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

I JUST KILLED THE KILLER BUNNY!!!

Tough little motherfucker too. He's level 22, so no wonder he one shots lowbies in Broken Valley.

Fucking hilarious.

 

[Murk]

did he drop any Gorgombert?

EDIT: fuck it took a while to find (stomp random bunnies) the bastard. Pretty hard to off him considering I'm going all magely this time -- had to abuse running over a river to do it.

 

[Aothan]

I agree the Divinity 2 class system is essentially one of skill choice, which obviously has merits when properly accentuated (the design aspect, not so much player skill choices).

my previous point was not a concern with comparisons between core skill-sets, or viability, but with playability through character concept, generally related design/mechanics and consequent extension/s for tactical gameplay. Which, regarding melee abilities, can indeed become a little boring. I find this is in some ways a result from overlapping skill abilities, and thus the redundancy and even contrary utility of skills as the character and challenge of the game progresses. Obviously other points would be included to better consider the subject.

this is why I enjoy the inclusion of Ranger Surprise to further a sense of depth in how a swords-fighter can engage and adjust throughout battles. Similarly with Stunning Arrow (three or so points suffice) to affect some level of control as opposed to the 'tanking' of masses of units. Admittedly I don't find this approach entirely easy, where often difference in numbers and awkwardness in targeting (typically the healers or summoners) makes for uneven reciprocation. Nonetheless I prefer this style over raw power styles or lack of involvement.

if I start again I would probably attempt a similar design, with a shift from Strength to Dexterity for a composite damage bonus that relies on alternating between sword and bow. I would also exchange points from Explosive Arrow to Blind, to better compliment the described playstyle. Explosive Arrow is very effective, naturally adding to a dedicated archer design; however its strengths would overshadow the intended purposes of combined skills. A primary archer design would be a lot of fun, though perhaps too powerful without some player reservation.

 

[desocupado]

Holy crap, this game is jerky. I tought it was my shitty hardware, but running fraps, I get 30 fps constantly.