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

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Yeah - I've played Swen Vincke style: Attack, Attack, Attack


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

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.

Originally Posted by elkston
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.

Originally Posted by NewDArt
Hating something entirely optional is pretty irrational

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

Originally Posted by Kordanor
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