Beyond Divinity

For $6 on GOG I picked it up. Runs nicely in widescreen native just like DD. Tried it for about an hour and love it (except the Death Knights voice but that's ok…). I'm not sure what my problem was years ago when I tried it. Great pixel art too btw…
 
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For $6 on GOG I picked it up. Runs nicely in widescreen native just like DD. Tried it for about an hour and love it (except the Death Knights voice but that's ok…). I'm not sure what my problem was years ago when I tried it. Great pixel art too btw…

I'm going to play it a little later today myself and see if my opinion has changed from the demo back then also, let us know if you keep enjoying it.
 
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Since i just finished NWN2 OC i'm looking for a new and diferent game... However I played less than half of Divine Divinity a few years ago so I think I'm going to restart that. It's pretty long I've heard so it may be a while...
 
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OK finished Divine Divinity last night and started Beyond Divinity. So far I like it. One concern I have is how fast the game plays and quickly I can respond (even with pause) to issue orders. For example, some of the enemies are very powerful, such as Ghosts early on. They can take out the Death Knight in 2-3 hits and it happens really fast. I'm not sure if this is going to be an issue yet...
 
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Interesting thought. I noticed you don't have complete build control so should I tank with my PC then? If I can't upgrade his armor that is. Did you keep him on secondary melee most times to preserve mana or just let him chew through it?
 
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Yeah, I built my player character as a tank melee defensive type and the knight did most of the damage with spells, I believe. That's about all I can remember.
 
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I restarted as you suggested. This game is a bit frustrating though. I balanced my fighter's damage and accuracy and now I can't hit the broad side of a barn with these higher level creatures. For the tougher fights I essentially have to kite with my fighter once his health depletes and nail the creatures with my Death Knights fire attack. This is classic Larian where some skills are marginally useful or broken outright. No play testing, crappy game balance. From what I've read online my fighter should have +6 accuracy +1 damage instead of +3 and +4, which my guy has and can't hit sh*t.

I have a Battlefield Key now, I'm going to have to use it to improve stats and loot. I find myself continuing because its a challenge rather than fun per se. If I could enjoy the setting instead of watching my guys die and chew through potions and food I would enjoy this.
 
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Oh a follow up….

Reading the community Strategy Guide apparently the fact that I'm holding a shield negates my 1H slashing skills. So I wasted all my skill points as there is a "One-handed with Shield" skill tree vs. "One-handed".

Again.. WTF? How was I supposed to know that? Not in the manual. You discover this after 6-8 hours of gameplay when a trainer offers it? No indication I'm negating my bonuses?

This makes me rethink my "investment" of time in Larian games.

I found a great critique that mirrors my criticism completely:
Even for as simple as a set up as that, Larian screwed it up utterly. Your weapon proficiencies are laughably redundant.. with a particularly annoying caveat: They don’t overlap. You have weapon proficiencies for one handed and two handed weapons. So, depending on your choice of using a shield, that seems like a no brainer so far. However, there is a specific proficiency for one handed weapons WITH shield. If you train up your 1 handed weapon skills and pick up a shield, your character will automatically use it… thus removing ALL bonus you had for pumping up your 1H weapon skill, since you now fall under the “1H + shield” skill set. If that wasn’t annoying enough, there are weapon proficiencies for each damage type of weapon – slashing, blunt and piercing are the standards, and that you would expect; fighting with a spear and a sword are very different things. However, some weapons deal elemental damage instead of physical damage, and despite the fact that it’s still a spear, a Shadow Spear deals shadow damage, and thus requires its own training in order to wield. Of the 290 skills the box boasts of having, a full 135 are spent in this morass of skill points. Literally, your tree does this:

Handedness (3 types) -> Weapon Type (9 types) -> Bonus attributes (5 types)

Bonus attributes are things like extra accuracy, extra damage, % critical strike, % deathblow and weapon speed. Each attribute can take skill points, and have little benefit for doing so. Bows and Crossbows have similar features, so tack on 10 more skill sucking trees to the pile already produced… and you can gain proficiency in arrow types as well, so that’s 10 MORE skills to do very little.

As a means of offsetting this, you can buy back, at a cost of gold, spent skill points. This wrecks the reality of your training, but considering how badly set up the skill trees are, it’s a blessing. If they had made skills matter, they wouldn’t ever have needed to include this “feature,” but skill buyback is a workaround for sloppy game design, and clearly a concession to annoyed beta testers.


http://www.fourhman.com/reviews/archives/000573.html
 
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BTW I just tested the Shield vs. no Shield thing by unequipping my shield. The Stone Gargoyle that was killing me repeatedly went down with no health potions needed. Its what you don't know that will kill you in this game!
 
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OK I have to bitch again. So I took my Battlefield key and decided to do some exploring there for loot and XP. Everything was going great working my way to the quest assignments (3 quests, 3 bosses). Everything was great until I encountered ALL 3 bosses in 1 freakin room! All level 13. I can barely scratch them. Bear in mind that every other level in this dungeon was populated with level 2 skeletons.

Larian… Wow… Seriously… Is this a bug or for real? I'm taking this personally now. I *will* slog through this game damnit!

bdiv_wtf.jpg
 
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So investing my remaining skill points in accuracy (1H, no shield) was the tipping point for this battle. I backed up to the portal and concentrated on that damn spider. 4 medium health potions under withering assault and it went down. I then jumped through the portal. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. The Fire Elemental went last because my Death Knight's fire spells weren't going to work. Back on the main quest, things are far more doable.

To redo my skills will cost around 2600GP and I have almost 30,000 so this is not an issue. That's a saving grace, that you can reallocate your skills to solve problems without completely committing. As you level up it gets much more expensive however. I only plan to do a "mass overhaul" once, when I get the "Shield+1H" path unlocked.
 
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So this is becoming my gameplay log…. not sure anyone is reading this but that's ok. I plan to write a review of this at the end. Last night I finished Act 1 in the wee hours of the morning. My opinion is improving dramatically. The only oddity last night was losing access to the 1-3 battlefields at the conclusion of Act 1 (without warning naturally). I saved before exit so I'm going to polish them off before progressing. I got the opportunity to rebalance my tank to 1H+Shield and it only cost around 3K GP (I have something like 40K). Although I cannot use the charms I've acquired yet I have accumulated lots of gear with slots. I have to figure out how to unlock that skill.

I think its fair to say at this point that the fundamental "flaw" with this game is the skill system. Luckily its easily overcome.

Regarding the battle above: apparently that is an artifact of the Battlefield specific quest randomization. I got this answer from the official forums:

Battle Field quest monsters and items are randomly distributed on the third levels of the dungeons. Getting 3 bosses in the first dungeon is not likely, but is certainly possible (10% chance, given 3 bosses and 3 locations). Return near the end of the act and you should do better.

I guess I'm just lucky! Ha ha
 
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I'm enjoying your posts on this Todd, so at least one reader.
Basically I'm "going to school" with your tips before I start playing, will make it a lot less frustrating by the looks of it.
 
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That's my take as well. Its a really good game with some mind boggling design decisions. Once overcome its alot of fun.
 
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They should have lead with the outdoors. How many try BD and get past Act 1 I wonder? This pic is Full 1080P, you can't appreciate the animations, fire and mist effects. Really nice environment and lots of fun out here!
bdiv_land.jpg
 
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Todd, you bad person. You can't have such an enticing description and then link the image wrongly!

:p
 
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