I have finished the game
 

After 195 hours I have finished the game with a level 21 party in classic mode.

My party:

• Ifan ben-Mezd (Ranged) (Main character)
• Sebille (Two knives)
• Lohse (Staff or Two-Hander)
• Fane (Two Wands)

This party was fun, but challenging because I had no real close combat warrior.

The game is excellent - great story, characters and exploration (secrets).

The only thing I really didn't like was the exchanging of the whole gear after each level. Because gear is leveled and becomes nearly worthless after each char level upgrade.

A better solution would be: Old Gear levels with your char stats or can be upgraded by your local blacksmith.

To be honest, at least in normal mode, you really don't need to exchange the whole gear after each level. I didn't, in fact most of my gear (I'd say about 90%) was from adventuring, including what I got from Lucky Charm. It worked out fine. But I do agree they should lessen the power curve anyway just for better design reasons.

You can just upgrade every 2 or 3 levels. While it's not optimal - I find that obsessively upgrading each level is overkill.

That said, I do wish they would tone down the RNG nature of loot and hand-place pretty much everything.

It's one of the very few flaws in an otherwise fantastic game.

Hum. I finished a while ago - I think it took about 80 hours on tactical. I really liked some aspect of the game but I feel that the ai is cheating (able to shoot range items through obstructions). I hope to replay but waiting for a few more patches. Most of the patches were for the first 1/2 of the game; i want patches for the last 1/2 of the game which was weak (imho).

I haven't been getting new gear every level. Of course, I've been getting my tail kicked around pretty often, too, so maybe I should start spending more of that cash…

Played on hard difficulty (not the ironman one) and only started buying gear very late into the game. While gear scales quite a bit, it's not necessary to have all the newest stuff in order to beat your opponents.
In fact I think it is well balanced. The way it is, you can use the option to buy gear as "way out" of stuck situations when you feel too weak to proceed. After spending your money in a shop you might have gained enough power so it could actually make a difference, which is not the case in most other games.

You seem to have neglected your defense though. Shields are a huge bonus in defense.
Once your mages have lots of spells and you don't rely on basic attacks anymore, you can easily switch to wand and shield which gives a HUGE defensive bonus.

Personally beat the game with:
Ifan (as Player character, Ranger, no shield obviously, but very agile with jumping away via Ranger skill "Retreat")
Beast (Tank, but in combat mainly using summoning and polymorph spells, 1H and shield)
Lohse (Wind and Water spells, Wand and Shield)
Fane (Earth, Fire and Necro spells, Wand and Shield)

Yeah - I've played Swen Vincke style: Attack, Attack, Attack :)

I exchanged not every part of the gear at every level, but at least the weapons and everything else due to my current money situation.
So my gear was only one or two levels behind my character level most of the time.

My most effective characters were Ifan and Sebille.

Sebille could take out one foe in one round with her assassin skills.

Ifan was a ranged damage monster.

Lhose was my healer and Jack of all trades. I used her as a high INT char first (Staff), but changed her to a high STR char (2-Hander). So she could cast and attack in the end.

Fane was good at playing dead and using summons.

BTW: I never used the re-skilling feature. I don't like this in RPGs and try to live with my non-optimal characters.

It’s next on my play list!

Yea. I never used it either. I kept meaning to use it but wanted to wait to see how my characters panned out - a couple were really gimped. However, in the third act (or was that the fourth) I finally figured out how i wanted to change them and the option was no longer available :)

I finished the game on classic difficulty several weeks ago and it was a blast. 100+ hours put in and the most fun I had gaming this year.


My party was:
Male Custom Human "noble" character. Ranger.
Red Prince - 2H Warrior
Lohse - 1H + Shield - Cleric/Warrior
Sebille - Huntsman with Earth Magic.

The real hero of the group was Lohse. By the end of the game she was a serious tank and nearly impossible to kill.

My custom and Sebille had Huntsman levels of 10+. So generally, we'd use "Tactical Retreat" to find high ground ASAP. After that, it was short work of most foes.

It's true that you don't have to update equipment at every level if you choose the right skills and manage your party effectively. However, I love having the "best" loot so often a new level would find me going to the market to see what new equipment was available.

The exceptions were cases where "Divine" level equipment of a slightly lower level, had better bonuses that outweighed the slight increase in raw numbers.

For instance I purchased an awesome "Divine" crossbow for Sebille around level 19 and didn't change it out until level 22 I think. I couldn't find one with comparable bonuses until later.

My only complaint is that there is no "New Game Plus". At the end, I just wanted to get in more combats so I could use my groups' new shiny equipment and late-game skills.

Personally I absolutely hate newgame+ modes. To me this completely devalues my current playthrough. I like to be able to play on hardest mode right away (I don't consider an ironmode meaningful in such a game though)

I don't hate "newgame+", I just couldn't care less for it. Once I finish an RPG I already did the story so I'm never inclined to do it all over again (even if it's now much easier because it carries your equipment/levels/gold/whatever). Besides, it destroys any semblance of immersion, it's like a bunch of gods and goddesses decided to come down and roflstomp everything just for the lolz.

Hating something entirely optional is pretty irrational :)

Also, New Game+ isn't normally about making the game harder as such - it's about getting to play the game again without having to progress your character from the beginning.

It's essentially an incredibly easy and rather cheap way to provide replayability for people who can't get enough of a game.

It's not about hiding "the best stuff" until later - it's about trying to extract as much entertainment from something you've already completed as possible without having to do much work for it - both from the perspective of the player and the developer.

It's a clear-cut win-win from where I'm standing.

That said, I've never actually played a game on that mode - because I almost never replay games, and when I do - I tend to prefer starting over from scratch.

Well, you could say the same for ingame purchases, like "Spend 10€ to get 1000XP!". ^^

Definitely. I think hating something that other people enjoy - or find a use for is a pretty strong reaction.

Especially if there's no detriment to the actual game.

To me, there's no inherent detriment to buying progression - unless it's forced upon you, or we're talking a competitive environment where you can actually get ahead of other people by paying for it.

But that's not the mode itself, that would be a terrible design flaw - and it would no longer be optional, as any competition needs to happen on an even keel.

As for New Game+ modes - I've never seen any version that negatively impacted the game in even the slightest possible way.

Mostly, they're made as an afterthought - and they take very little effort to implement on the part of the developer.

So, I honestly don't see any kind of issue that would warrant hatred.

But, to each his own and all that :)

Man, there is no game in history that would have benefitted LESS from a new game version than this game. Playing this melee-hating mediocre game was enough of a chore once, if there is a third I certainly hope it favours the first and not this version. Quite the disappointment.

Doesn't seem too melee hating to me. Though wings sure do help a fighter!

I'm pretty sure my Rogue is appreciated as the primary bringer of pain in our 3-man group :)

Game is full of mobility options as well. If there's one thing that could be improved, it would be the finicky nature of positioning when objects are nearby. A bit too restrictive in that way when you're trying to land a proper backstab.

Nothing like the problems in, say, PoE - but enough to make it a needless pain for backstabbers.

Didn't play a rogue and therefore never had problems with backstabbing (imho it worked horrible in the previous game) and fiddling around with the position.
You can press "o" though for a "tactical" camera. Not sure if it helps in your case.

And yep…positioning in PoE was a pita

It's nowhere near as bad as in the first game. The tactical camera never helped much - and it doesn't in DOS2 either.

Unlike DOS1, the problem isn't accidentally misclicking or not being sure where to stand - it's not actually being able to stand at the right spot, because the game is pretty rigid when it comes to the amount of space required.

But it's not a big deal - and you learn to adapt :)

That bone spider my necro uses can have position issues, too. He covers up the enemy I want to attack sometimes, making it hard to click on them. You have to figure out which panel along the top is the one you want to attack and use that.

Like NewDArt said, though, I've adapted. Just don't summon boney right on top of the target.

Yeah, that bone spider is HUGE :)

My brother uses it. But he just summons it at another enemy - and it deals enough damage to kill most things with a little help.

At first I thought summons were overpowered - but then I realised that my own personal damage scales better with both gear and stats, so I end up being highly justified.

True, but the summons stick around. So a few APs spent in a single round yields almost player level damage in several rounds. In terms of AP -> total damage, the bone spider + incarnate at rank 10+ are second only to certain source spells as far as I know.

Edit: Not that such levels (maximizing AP:damage ratios etc) of min/max or margins is ever needed. Not even close.

Well, with Apotheosis and Skin Graft - I deal something like 3-4x the damage in the first 2-4 rounds - and something like twice the damage without using source skills in all rounds.

Of course, that's with correct positioning and optimal gear - but I haven't seen anything out of line with summons, except perhaps with the Artillery plant. But that's fine by me, as I'm undead and benefit from all that poison :)

Since mages can only have a single powerful summon going - I don't mind them being worthwhile.

The greatest Rogue weakness seems to be AoE damage - but that's also ok with me, as I prefer focusing on single-target damage.

Like I said, second only to certain source spells (such as Apotheosis, which is even stronger on a Lone Wolf character, because they have so many more APs to burn through future source spells with).

And yes, I'm fine with it, especially since it requires a big investment (10 points, or 8ish + something from items).

As I said, I still deal around twice the damage without source skills :)

I use glass cannon, though - so that helps.

Right, but you still need Apotheosis to rival it. Twice the damage doesn't make up for it. 3 AP for 50% of your damage for 5 full rounds is an amazing ratio. That's 2,5 full rounds for your character, but for just 3 AP.

The bottom line is: Most other characters would need to spend 8-12 AP to rival the damage done by a 3 AP summon over 5 rounds. So yes, it is second only to source spells.

But again, that sort of min/maxing is hardly needed. Fun builds is the way to go.

I'm not sure what your point is. I mean, source skills are part of the game - and everyone will have them. Apotheosis means you're going to use them every fight.

Also, any character maximising summoning will have to spend a lot of points and memorize the appropriate skills, meaning there's no room for other skills/stats that might have made up for the damage in other ways.

As a Rogue, I really don't have to bother with anything but Warfare skill and Finesse. Well, except for the 5 points in Rogue skill and whatever is required in Polymorph (but that grants a similar damage bonus pr. point).

So, I don't think summons can compare at all to a focused damage dealer - but I agree they're a great investment.

The reason I specifically ruled out Apotheosis is because it is way too strong. As I explained in the tips & tricks thread, it's entirely possible to do 30.000 damage to every enemy in the fight within the first two rounds, with a single character, using that skill. So if there are 5 enemies, that's 150.000 damage in two rounds.

It's broken beyond belief, especially when used by Lone Wolf characters, as they can max out way more skills, get way more high end source abilities, and offload all of them in a few rounds due to the extra AP.

The bottom line is that "of the rest", both incarnate and bone widow yields the most bang for your bucks. Those 3 AP will do way, way more overall damage than the likes of Flurry (Scoundrel), All In (Warfare), Infect (Necro), Flay Skin (Poly), Ice Fan (Hydro), Dazing Bolt (Aero) and so on and so forth.

I have no problems with it either, given the required investment, but it is the most efficient 3 AP you can spend outside of certain source spells/abilities, which means it can be a massive, almost "free" boost in power to most specialist characters, such as 2x huntsman (tactical retreat), 8x warfare and 10x summoning. It's almost mandatory for Lone Wolf characters, as it only requires 5 points there, and can provide both tanking and a good bit of damage for just 3 AP / 5x rounds.

Of course, Apotheosis is stronger, no doubt about it, but that's about it. Thunderstorm on its own is stronger, but it can't be combined with other source spells (without Apotheosis), while it can be combined with summons.

Yep, summoned creatures are extremely strong. Up to a point where I'd say that they are a bit out of balance.

I think Divinity Original Sin 2, as well as Pillars of Eternity for the most part actually, both do a great job regarding the overall balancing.
If you play on hardest difficulty, the fights are challenging. But they are challenging to a certain point. Even on the hardest non-ironman difficulty it is not required to min-max every single character. You can get a lot of additional power out of doing so and using cookie cutter builds. And that's fine. But that's also something which comes somewhat naturally for games which are played by lots of people.
I mean - if you have a huge player base you can expect that there are lots of people trying to maximize every element of the game. One player might find a very special trick on a rogue for example, nobody else heared of. Another player found a rare item, which in conjunction with a mage is extremely powerful.
And if these players weren't sharing their experiences, both might still have somewhat challenging fights. But once such information is shared and put together and you try to optimize every aspect, you will blast through the game, especially in a game which is very open to experimental builds and combinations.

I think it's a good choice to "balance" around players who want a challenge, but without having to look into external resources for the optimal builds. Experimentation has to be some part of the game, not something which is nullified by having to look it up externally (which is also one reason why the crafting systems of both games are horrible). At least in an RPG or a RTS single player campaign.
For "sandbox" games like Rimworld or Civilization, that's a different story but they are designed to be played multiple times and lots of learning on the way.

Definitely, it's a strong skill - but with those numbers you're talking the very end-game where it's supposed to be a little ridiculous.

You can get it a level 16 - where the numbers are very different.

But if you don't want to use the best skills in the game, I can certainly understand why you think summons are THAT good.

The reason you're dealing that much damage at the end is because of the way scaling works in the game, which is why I said dedicated damage dealers are superior to summons.

Apotheosis in itself IS pretty sick with the +4 stats - but the big numbers are derived from the other skills in themselves.

But, true, source skills are much more powerful than normal skills - and they should be.

First of all, you forget that you invest 10 points in summoning to max it out - which is 50% damage you're missing out on if you put those points somewhere else.

For a Rogue, for instance, every single point I put into my skills will directly contribute to damage for everything I do. Meaning I can add 50% to everything compared to a character that has maxed out summoning on top of his other skills.

Also, summons have WAY less mobility than a normal character has - including at least three 1 AP teleports (with one of them actually being a strong attack in itself), which means you're going to waste a ton of AP going from enemy to enemy if you want your summon to work on more than one of them.

I keep watching my brother waste his turns having to actually move to the enemy - which means 0% damage during that time.

Yes, summons are strong - and they should be, because you should be rewarded for going all out on something that won't directly contribute to output.

If you want to powergame, you can't stare yourself blind on individual skills and just do the numbers - you have to take everything into consideration including things that aren't straight-up damage boosters.

I'd say at the earlier stages - they do seem a little strong for the investment, but it changes later in the game.

Agreed, it seems pretty reasonable to me, though I haven't exhausted all options - nor do I have any desire to do so.

I don't really care about the perfect balance when I play against the computer - just as long as my choices feel meaningful and I can actually mess up by investing in a less optimal way.

True, but skills cap at 10. Aero + Summoning is stronger than Aero + Pyro, for example, because the 3 AP / 5x round cost is so low that they can basically still use Aero skills non-stop. With two full spell schools, the Aero and Pyro skills will be competing for APs, and that's not counting the fact that the summoned creatures can also act as additonal tanks/blockers/etc.

Edit: As for the overall balance, I love it actually. The Apotheosis approach mentioned earlier (minimum of Lone Wolf, high int, 5 Poly, 10 Aero) that completely breaks the game by being able to use multiple high end source spells in a row might not fit in the modern "everything must be balanced" world, but I personally prefer it. I like experimentation and finding ultimate builds, even if it means trivializing the game. The challenge then is in finding that build, not in beating the game.

Oh, we completely agree that summons are great and make for a great investment for most mage/ranged builds.

But 10 points isn't trivial and WILL cost you - and you can reach 20 with gear, which means you still lose a lot of damage potential if you max out summoning.

I realise that Lone Wolf is a unique playstyle and will change some things around.

Since I've mostly played the game with 3 human players - I can't say how Lone Wolf ends out in the end - but I'm willing to bet summons still can't compete with pure damage oriented characters for pure output. At least for single-target DPS. That's without Apotheosis.

But, with Lone Wolf - you're basically missing two characters that could easily compensate in terms of overall DPS. But since the game gets so ridiculous eventually - it doesn't really matter. I mean, when you can take out the 1-2 really dangerous enemies in the first round - who cares what other characters would have brought to the table :)

The Artillery Plant is a possible exception to the summons aren't as great as pure damage characters, but then that's a source spell and a bit situational. It's also not very mobile at all.

Of course, if we include stuff like Time Warp - anything can happen and I haven't done any of the ridiculous exploits.

Actually…I used summoning on my "tank". ^^

First I didn't really have that in mind. But after a couple of fights I thought like "most of my people are doing ranged damage and while the enemies are not close by the tank is just standing around and wasting time".
So I looked around what he could learn without having to change his strength focus.
I started learning Metamorphosis (additional CC and Tentacle Lash scales with strength) and Summoning. And after a while I kept focusing on them. I put some points into warfare (overpower can be quite helpful), none or almost none into 1h, maxed summoning and then mostly used him as
-Tank when needed
-Summoner
-Physical damage when required (tentacle lash does lots of damage)
and first and foremost as CC-applier (Chicken Claw, Medusa Head, Battering Ram, Battle Stomp)

That's cool.

I find that the game doesn't really have "tanks" or traditional roles as such. I mean, Provoke works ok - but needs to be in range and has a cooldown.

Game also has lots of ranged enemies that will just target whatever they don't like - so I find that you kinda need all your characters able to take a beating or an escape of some kind.

I use summons in most RPGs as a "free" extra target more than anything - but in DOS2 they're highly useful in other ways - which is just great.

I don't find them overpowered - just appropriately strong.

I haven't really found a weak skill line so far - they all seem to have their uses.

But the system is far from perfect, and I don't think it encourages true multiclassing as much as it looks like at first.

Mostly because you need to focus on a single stat for efficiency - which means cutting your potential as a hybrid in half unless you focus on similar skills. They should have capped out your stats much earlier - like 30 or something.

There's also something off about making memory dictate skill slots. I think they should have made that a level-based cap instead of a stat based cap.

So, it's not my new favorite system or anything - and I don't really care for the scaling mechanics much at all. Also, I never cared for the excessive use of terrain modifiers and traps. To me, that's not so much an added challenge as an added nuisance.

However, compared to the other recent traditional CRPGs - it comes out on top as the clear winner.

Actually I have to disagree here. I'd even say that DOS2 offers the best character system in terms of multiclassing or free skill distribution so far.

In most other games it really is as you mentioned. You have one attribute and your character needs to be focused around it. Or you need to put all "points" in a certain categorie of skills and attributes in some form anyways.

In DOS2 you have much more freedom here. And I think I mentioned that in some other posting. There are lots of things which encourage you to multi"class":

-There are skill symbiosis between different skills
-Some of the skills give you passive effects, which are helpful for all builds (necromancy, metamorphosis)
-Not all skills of one school are tied to a standard attribute. Some aren't even tied to the skill level itself. I mentioned tentacle lash before but it affects lots of other skills, including most ccs and similar.
-You can actually get skills from items, so you can multiclass to some minor degree in that way (e.g. Shield some times come with bouncing shield. I used my mage to actually do tons of physical damage)
-Speaking of shields: The requirements of items are really low. Unlike in DOS1 for example you need hardly any points in an attribute to be able to use the majority of items. Shields just required a bit of constitution, so why not equip mages with shields?

Of course not all combinations make sense. A mage won't find a good use of a bow (but he will make good use of the tactical retreat skill). Imho it finds about the perfect balance here:
The balance between things which are rather "class specific" and the room for experimentation.

And this all without completely breaking the balance immediately.

That's ok, we don't have to agree :)

As I said, the problem is the stat focus for efficiency.

That's not true for games like D&D - because you don't have to focus on more than one stat no matter what combination of classes you pick. You just need to reach a relatively low minimum to accomplish whatever combination you want.

In D&D you don't need to focus on INT/CHA for spells - as they have inherent damage or non-ability point dependencies for the most part. You just need to reach whatever initial ceiling for the spells you want - and they'll be as powerful as can be.

Meaning, you can be a hybrid ranged/melee spellcaster without worrying about anything except your primary damage stat - depending on what you pick.

D&D is a lot more level-based than ability/skill based compared to DOS2.

Also, D&D is full of feats to compensate for multiclassing - allowing you to use Dex for damage or whatever.

In DOS2 - you can't be a hybrid melee/spellcaster without sacrificing a TON of damage, making it nearly useless for a min-max'er.

I do agree that the skills themselves seem to support multiclassing much better - but that doesn't exactly matter when you gain 5% for each and every stat point.

But we agree that if you prefer multiclassing to be restrictive and "mages to be mages" - then that's cool, but that's the opposite of how I enjoy multiclassing.

The game is rather forgiving so far in NOT requiring you to min/max attributes that are in perfect alignment with skills to be successful (at least on classic diffculty). I rather like that I can play in a variety of ways to keep it interesting rather than being stuck in a power game rut.

That's cool. Not everyone minds being half as efficient as they could be :)