Divinity: Original Sin 2

Springbok · Sep 25, 2017

I'm about 4 hours into Act 2, about to hit the Mordun cave at level 11.... This game is fucking awesome. Not just good, not just great, fucking awesome. Other than Horizon, I'm struggling to think of a game this year I've enjoyed this much. The amount of thought, love, and detail they've put into this game is astonishing and I'm pretty certain the only studios who could make a game like this in 2017 are smaller, independent studios. It's not perfect, I've ran into several weird bugs that caused me to reload - it's difficult to pick up and figure things out as there is no explanation to anything really - and for me anyways, it started kind of slow... but once I got halfway through the Fort Joy, I was hooked. I'm starting to see some stat/gear inflation that is a little annoying (nothing like replacing a legendary with a blue two levels after finding it!), and the bosses/encounters in Act 2 are much more difficult than the first (which is great, dying to something a ton and reworking your strategy/abilities to overcome something is one of the things that makes this game so great), but the world, voice acting, side quests are all excellent.

I plugged this into my tv and play with my xbox controller and the experience is fantastic. I jumped in yesterday afternoon hoping to get a few hours in before dinner, look up and it's pitch black outside, my wifes downstairs asleep and I played through to 9. Don't want to award GOTY in September, but.....

Gravel · Sep 25, 2017

I just got to act 2 and I'm having issues where I feel like I'm underleveled for everything.

Level 9, went north (past gallows) and some lvl 12 scarecrows fucked me up. Went NE to the Paladins and the shit there is all lvl 12 as well. Went into the town and got arrested so I just reloaded.

Pyros · Sep 25, 2017

Gravel said:
I just got to act 2 and I'm having issues where I feel like I'm underleveled for everything.

Level 9, went north (past gallows) and some lvl 12 scarecrows fucked me up. Went NE to the Paladins and the shit there is all lvl 12 as well. Went into the town and got arrested so I just reloaded.

Town is the right way. Either get arrested and escape, or bribe the fuckers, or if you're feeling a bit crazy kill everyone, but the other 2 options are better. There's a lot of shit in town to do, and then you can figure out where you want to go based on the other stuff.

What I like about act2 is how most of the stuff in there is optional. Your objectives are simple and you have multiple ways to complete them, and you can choose to ignore like 80% of the act(well maybe not entirely ignore, not sure about level issues, but still ignore a large part). And the interesting part is how much detail went into each part even though some people might never see them because it's still mostly optional. Hell there's a bunch I feel would have played differently if I did it in another order.

j00t · Sep 25, 2017

so uh.. the alice alicseon fight...

the initial round she almost one shot my whole party, but when it was my turn, i just teleportaled her into the water. i thought, heck, she's clearly cursed or something, let me dump her in the water away from all the fire and see what happens. well. she took a single round to move OUT of the water, just to go on the beach. then sat there and yelled at me. never moved, never attacked again. it would get to her turn and she'd just yell. i was out of range of her totems so once i killed her i just ranged her totems down in a single round. it was... odd. she dropped a key, but i don't know where it goes to yet.

cyrusreij · Sep 25, 2017

j00t said:
so uh.. the alice alicseon fight...

the initial round she almost one shot my whole party, but when it was my turn, i just teleportaled her into the water. i thought, heck, she's clearly cursed or something, let me dump her in the water away from all the fire and see what happens. well. she took a single round to move OUT of the water, just to go on the beach. then sat there and yelled at me. never moved, never attacked again. it would get to her turn and she'd just yell. i was out of range of her totems so once i killed her i just ranged her totems down in a single round. it was... odd. she dropped a key, but i don't know where it goes to yet.

The cellar in her cottage. There are a couple of cows next to her house, who are people turned into cows if you have someone with Pet Pal you can talk to them. There is one copy of the potion in her house, and her eyeball is upstairs, the recipe to make another copy of the potion (which uses that eyeball) is on a frog in a cage downstairs. Make a second potion, give them to the two cows, quest complete. Although it bugged for me, and when I left the Act it said I never freed the second cow even though I did them both simultaneously. There are a few quests which bug out for completion, but I remember it being the same way in the first game too, so, oh well.

k^M · Sep 25, 2017

Lol @ deathfog barrel + Dallis as a strategy, that shit is hilarious.

Completed it last night and thought it was amazing from start to finish. Lots of things I couldn't figure out how to solve but great replay-ability. Only major gripe I had is the persuasion side of things, had 74 finesse and... persuassion level 4? but still failed shit constantly. Lots of checks didn't have finesse as an option so next play through is going to be int based.

Kind of a bummer that mods erase achievements. Found one that has permanent spirit vision once unlocked (no more forgetting to use the damned spell), and 25% out of combat run speed. Those would be nice QoL updates without making anything OP

Caliane · Sep 25, 2017

yeah, act 2. i move forward, then leaped over the bridge to save the kids mom, directly. then, continued into the GY via the tunnel.
... then the hardest boss to date.. a dog. straight up gave up on the dog. left, and went to the town. I did hit the scarecrow first and was owned there as well.

Droigan · Sep 25, 2017

k^M said:
Completed it last night and thought it was amazing from start to finish. Lots of things I couldn't figure out how to solve but great replay-ability. Only major gripe I had is the persuasion side of things, had 74 finesse and... persuassion level 4? but still failed shit constantly. Lots of checks didn't have finesse as an option so next play through is going to be int based.

There is something "off" about the persuasion checks though. There have been quite a few checks (even early on in the game, just got to Act 2), where my primary stat failed, but others worked. IE: The dog in the jail failed all persuasion checks except constitution (hug). There have been others as well, where my tank fails "str" but passes an "int" check. Not sure how much is RNG or not, but like that dog fight, I could reload even before talking to him and every check failed except that one. Even tested with other characters, only con passed. So might be that some persuasion checks are hardcoded to succeed/fail on the stat selected, not your skill with the stat.

j00t · Sep 25, 2017

yeah, i think with npc's their individual personalities base the difficulty of the persuasion check. it doesn't seem to be a flat scale. magister raimond (i think that's his name) in bridgewood has 3 dialogue options that are all persuasion checks. i don't think you can fail that one, ever. he's trying to sniff out sourcerers but he's just a bully. stand up to him and he falls. then there's the dog in the cage. show him aggression and he bites back. BUT a little bit of love and a little help from a high con and persuasion and he's great.

Caliane · Sep 25, 2017

yes persuasion checks are weighted by the action you are doing. using INT, to reason with a dog, is going to be a hug harder sell, then compassion and hugging it.

the problem is, its largely hidden, which is the "correct" one. like, using INT to reason with a dog is hard. but, using INT to outsmart a dog, should be easy. which exactly did the dev consider to be what was happening? you dont know.

you need a 19 int for Birdie the dog in Fort joy.

food can give +1 any stat. Human Encourage +1 all stats. Clear mind spell, +2 main stats, +6 wits.

ronne · Sep 25, 2017

So 3 slot weapons seem fair

4CF0215609B3D9C94CCD7DD293044480950C9D8D

Kiroy · Sep 25, 2017

Droigan said:
There is something "off" about the persuasion checks though. There have been quite a few checks (even early on in the game, just got to Act 2), where my primary stat failed, but others worked. IE: The dog in the jail failed all persuasion checks except constitution (hug). There have been others as well, where my tank fails "str" but passes an "int" check. Not sure how much is RNG or not, but like that dog fight, I could reload even before talking to him and every check failed except that one. Even tested with other characters, only con passed. So might be that some persuasion checks are hardcoded to succeed/fail on the stat selected, not your skill with the stat.

Yup persuasion is pretty borked. There are a number of times when 5+ persuasion main stat doesnt work but a super low offstat will work. 100% some persuasion checks are hardcoded with storyline/choice

ronne · Sep 25, 2017

I find persuasion works way better when you read the text of the different stat checks. Just always smashing INT or whatever your main stat is is asking for failures here and there, because some of the response are really, really retarded. Shit like trying to convince people you're a hallucination, or actually an enchanted animal come to life and dumb shit like that.

Rafterman · Sep 25, 2017

ronne said:
I find persuasion works way better when you read the text of the different stat checks. Just always smashing INT or whatever your main stat is is asking for failures here and there, because some of the response are really, really retarded. Shit like trying to convince people you're a hallucination, or actually an enchanted animal come to life and dumb shit like that.

This. It's a combination of a high Persuasion + the right choice over whatever your main stat is. Basically, don't always choose STR because you're a tank, FIN on your Rogue, etc. Read the choices, choose the smartest answer and as long as your Persuasion is high enough you'll succeed.

goishen · Sep 26, 2017

I think one way it could work is to have you roll a number, have it roll a number, and then it either gives you pluses or minuses based off of whichever's higher.

For example, take the dog. You roll a number (15 on a 20 sided dice) it rolls a number (an 8 on a 20 sided dice), the game gives you an additional +3 to intellect because of your items and then compares the two. It then says because it's a low intellect creature that you're talking to, you have to get within five of whatever they rolled. In other words, you just outsmarted yourself.

I dunno, but I bet it's something extremely fucked up like that.

Khalan · Sep 26, 2017

Have 4 x Bone Widow, Pickpocketed like 30k and upgraded the whole squad. Respecced into multi tree with extra CC and Buffs and def feeling how much easier it is. Thanks team.

Caliane · Sep 26, 2017

havent tested, but:

When you respec after act 1, two things will probably happen: The portraits of your party will change into ones that look more like those of custom characters, and they will get ugly black dots all over. To get rid of those black dots, turn off Light Shadows in the graphics options, then use the respec mirror. The dots should have disappeared now, so you can stop using the mirror and turn on Light Shadows again.

Gravel · Sep 26, 2017

Khalan said:
Have 4 x Bone Widow, Pickpocketed like 30k and upgraded the whole squad. Respecced into multi tree with extra CC and Buffs and def feeling how much easier it is. Thanks team.

Seriously, put one point into bone widow on one of my guys and holy shit is that OP. Thing wrecks face.

Also, in act 1 I was thinking pickpocket was unbalanced as hell, but honestly it kind of sucks. But lucky charm on the other hand? Wow, worth every single point. I think I'm at lucky charm 6 on my looter, and every 6-8 barrels/boxes I loot there's a legendary item in it. Now THAT seems unbalanced a bit.

ronne · Sep 26, 2017

Gravel said:
Seriously, put one point into bone widow on one of my guys and holy shit is that OP. Thing wrecks face.

Also, in act 1 I was thinking pickpocket was unbalanced as hell, but honestly it kind of sucks. But lucky charm on the other hand? Wow, worth every single point. I think I'm at lucky charm 6 on my looter, and every 6-8 barrels/boxes I loot there's a legendary item in it. Now THAT seems unbalanced a bit.

Lucky charm is kind of required near the end game unfortunately. Unless you want to religiously scour merchants every hour/level for upgrades it's really the only reliable source of gear past a certain level, as monsters seem to drop dogshit that is several levels lower than they are.

If anyone cares bone widow with 17 summoning has just over 40,000hp and hits for 2k. Balanced skill is balanced.

Caliane · Sep 26, 2017

Divinity: Original Sin 2

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Mr. Poopybutthole

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