D:OS2 Ran out of DoS 2 gas - again :(

Divinity: Original Sin 2

bizorker

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Here is my mini review of DoS 2.

I have very fond memories of DoS 1. I thought it was refreshing. The silly dialog. Turn based. And I enjoyed the strategic nature of the combat and encounters. Straightforward, fun, strategic-combat oriented RPG.

I backed DoS 2 and looked forward to its arrival. At launch I played through the first map. I really, really loved the game those initial hours, but when I got to the boat I ran out of gas. I found it to be somewhat boring and repetitive once I left the prison area.

I picked it back up about a month ago. I respec'd my PCs, added some new skills, and I enjoyed exploring around the new map for a while. But then I got bored again, and I put it down. And I honestly don't think I will play again.

So...I don't think i would recommend this game. If you can't even finish the game, I think that is a problem with the design. There's just something about this game that is really boring after a while. Maybe they should have cut down the content and just focused on the best encounters and kept things moving at a more rapid pace. Maybe the story just isn't good enough - to the point where I really want to see what happens. Maybe there is a problem with the pace of skill unlocking or variety of combat that requires more strategy. Maybe some combination of various factors. But overall, I'd say this game was disappointing when I look at the big picture, despite the fact that there are some very fun elements and memorable moments to the parts I played.

On to PoE II. I hope it is better.
 
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I am actually on the complete opposite side.

I think the story was quite good. I mean I don't even remember any RPG with a "great" story, but the DOS2 story was quite nice and seemed more logical to me than it's predecessor's or for example Pillars' 1 story, where you suddenly hang out with the gods basically.

The combat system was great and it was more challenging than the first game. Had some very nice fights.

Overall I'd consider it as the best RPG of the recent years, if not the best overall if I try to remove nostalgia out of the equasion.

My full review is here, but it's in german:
 
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Well, I really liked it.

Finishing it in coop with my brother and a mutual friend was probably the best gaming experience of last year, for me.

That said, it's not perfect. I found the character system very promising in the beginning, but it was ultimately underwhelming. Too many of the fights revolved around over-the-top environmental effects. The loot/character scaling mechanic was too excessive.

Definitely flawed, but still great - especially when it comes to the coop integration which was just masterful.

Also, much, much better than the first game.
 
I agree with Dart. Can't comment on the Coop side because I didn't use it, but otherwise pretty spot on for me too. One of the few games that I modded before finishing it just because I found the loot/stat scaling WAY too much. A mod easily fixed that without altering the difficulty, and after that I had a blast.

The armour system is so-so to me, what it does is make direct damage more viable and usable as opposed to the first game where CC was king, always. On the other hand it feels a bit limiting as well.

Still a great game in my opinion.
 
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I really enjoyed the first one. Like bizorker, I struggled to get into the second one though and eventually drifted away from it after sinking in about 40hrs. I didn't like the NPC companions, or the way "teleport" type abilities were so freely available to all classes in combat, or the new armour system. I also didn't find the world particularly interesting to explore.

I'm planning to give it another go when the ultimate edition comes out though. On paper it should be amongst my favourite games, a big world TB stat heavy game is everything I enjoy, so I'm still a bit bemused that I didn't enjoy it. Maybe I was in a month long bad mood or something...
 
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I think D:OS had better game mechanics and greater diversity in character build but D:OS-2 had better story design, better characters, better writing, and more interesting quests.
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The problem with D:OS is that the flexibility in character design could allow for greater abuse of the game mechanics so they tried to 'constrained or restrict' those builds and as everyone has seen with pillars series balance prevents some abuse (but 'abuse' here doesn't matter as a single player game) but cripples the fun factor.
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having said that I think I prefer D:OS-2 just because some of the story development (not main story but origin stories) were really quite decent imho but late game i rather be doing combat in D:OS-1. It just that I could do more diverse things where as D:OS-2 funnel a lot of the fights into the same moves.
 
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The pacing of the game is all wrong: the enormity of the second Act, as well as just how out of place the third Act feels. Combined with the randomized Diablo loot scheme and level scaling, it can indeed get quite tedious. I finished but won't be returning any time soon, if ever.
 
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I'm planning to give it another go when the ultimate edition comes out though. On paper it should be amongst my favourite games, a big world TB stat heavy game is everything I enjoy, so I'm still a bit bemused that I didn't enjoy it. Maybe I was in a month long bad mood or something…

This is exactly what I went through. I thought "surely I am missing something...maybe I just hit a slow point in the game story arc...maybe I will get back into it". But then I tried, had fun for a while, and ended up putting down again.
 
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That said, it's not perfect. I found the character system very promising in the beginning, but it was ultimately underwhelming. Too many of the fights revolved around over-the-top environmental effects. The loot/character scaling mechanic was too excessive.

One of the few games that I modded before finishing it just because I found the loot/stat scaling WAY too much. A mod easily fixed that without altering the difficulty, and after that I had a blast.

The armour system is so-so to me, what it does is make direct damage more viable and usable as opposed to the first game where CC was king, always. On the other hand it feels a bit limiting as well.

Still a great game in my opinion.

I think D:OS had better game mechanics and greater diversity in character build ...
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The problem with D:OS is that the flexibility in character design could allow for greater abuse of the game mechanics so they tried to 'constrained or restrict' those builds and as everyone has seen with pillars series balance prevents some abuse (but 'abuse' here doesn't matter as a single player game) but cripples the fun factor.

Pretty much disagree with these conclusions. (yeah I know it's undiplomatic to start a post that way :p )

Scaling:
The item scaling was obviously quite high, no denying that and I can also see that people don't like it. However it worked very well with the rest of the game. It was rewarding to replace an item, but it wasn't necessary to do that all the time. Also the game had an actual use of money. Most RPGs have money becoming obsolete between the 1/3 and 2/3 of the game.

Also the character scaling purely by level of the first game was pretty hardcore.

Character/Item System:
The first game actually had a system which was much more limited. It just offered a lot of "fake freedom". Skills and even items were strongly tied to attributes. A mix of two things like a strength based skill and a Dex based skill made no sense as you were not able to perform good in either and in addition you might not be able to use the best items.
Divinity OS 2 changed that in multiple regards:
-Requirements on items were low.
-Most Spells also had several things which didn't scale with your attribute or even scaled with a different attribute. Like the lash which scaled with strength.
-Some spells even required skills of two schools
-the system even gave you utilities from other non-learnt schools via some items

Environmental Effects:
While they were present quite often, it mostly came down to "don't stand in the fire". It was rarely a good and effective use of environmental effects besides of a few exceptions. A more selective but also important use in combats would have been cool.
 
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@Kordanor;

Didn't we already have a pretty extensive debate about DOS2 a while back?

No need to rehash it here, I think.

I know you're a very big fan of it, and you don't see much in the way of significant flaws.

That's cool - I think it's wonderful when people enjoy games on that level.

But I think you know me well enough to understand that I don't just pull my opinions out of my ass. I kinda think about them a little before stating them :)

So, I think it's best to just agree to disagree about this game.

Still love it, though - and feel some people are being a little hard on it. I think it's maybe because it was so massively hyped at release that some people expected the second coming or something, instead of just a really strong CRPG.

Most games tend to lose steam towards the end - especially huge CRPGs. At least, that's my experience with them.

Oh well, to each his own :)
 
@Kordanor;
Most games tend to lose steam towards the end - especially huge CRPGs. At least, that's my experience with them.

I totally agree with this. Most huge games lose momentum towards the end. I think that's human nature. However, one of the reasons I posted this was the fact that I really did get bored after the first map, which is unusual for me personally. If I were looking at this game vs. a big backlog of others, I would rank lower than most of the recent releases and certainly many classics. But seems given responses here and the sales figures quoted above I am likely in the minority.
 
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You missed the impact of stats on things like action points. The range in dos was much larger depending on build

Pretty much disagree with these conclusions. (yeah I know it's undiplomatic to start a post that way :p )

Scaling:
The item scaling was obviously quite high, no denying that and I can also see that people don't like it. However it worked very well with the rest of the game. It was rewarding to replace an item, but it wasn't necessary to do that all the time. Also the game had an actual use of money. Most RPGs have money becoming obsolete between the 1/3 and 2/3 of the game.

Also the character scaling purely by level of the first game was pretty hardcore.

Character/Item System:
The first game actually had a system which was much more limited. It just offered a lot of "fake freedom". Skills and even items were strongly tied to attributes. A mix of two things like a strength based skill and a Dex based skill made no sense as you were not able to perform good in either and in addition you might not be able to use the best items.
Divinity OS 2 changed that in multiple regards:
-Requirements on items were low.
-Most Spells also had several things which didn't scale with your attribute or even scaled with a different attribute. Like the lash which scaled with strength.
-Some spells even required skills of two schools
-the system even gave you utilities from other non-learnt schools via some items

Environmental Effects:
While they were present quite often, it mostly came down to "don't stand in the fire". It was rarely a good and effective use of environmental effects besides of a few exceptions. A more selective but also important use in combats would have been cool.
 
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I lost some motivation as well with this game and had to temporarily abandon my tactician play-through over 100 hours in, only about half way through the second act.
Basically this was at the end of the summer when I was getting distracted by preparing to go back to work.

Come term 2 holidays now that I've finished PoE II for the first time (and will now wait for the DLC to play again) I'll be trying to get back into this soon. The fights in DOS:2 were certainly longer, more involving, more arduous, less predictable and more challenging than PoE II's current veteran mode.
 
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I'm in the same boat as the OP. I've restarted twice, but haven't made it past halfway of Act 2. Which is odd, because on paper I should totally love it. And I really enjoyed the first 10 hours or so.

I certainly agree with the comments on level scaling, loot scaling and progression, and the like. The physical/magic armour thing I can live with - although I'm not sure how it is any better than a resistance/defence system. It tends to create a rather blatant dichotomy of attack strategies.

I think the biggest issue I have is the writing and plotting. I appreciate the openess and intricacy of the world and available options, but I think there's just too much for it to all hang together well. I constantly feel like I don't have a good handle on the context in which I'm playing; it's not just a feeling of 'I'm not sure what to do next" but rather a sense of "I'm not entirely sure what is happening now". Things just don't seem to tie together all that well - this was also an issue in the first game, but it feels worse here.

The other aspect that bothers me a little: the level of whimsy is just a bit over the top. It undermines the plot structure a bit. I love a bit of humour and self-deprecation, but DOS2 is just a bit too much. All dessert, no main course.

All that aside, I'll probably restart it again soon :)
 
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I totally agree with this. Most huge games lose momentum towards the end. I think that's human nature. However, one of the reasons I posted this was the fact that I really did get bored after the first map, which is unusual for me personally. If I were looking at this game vs. a big backlog of others, I would rank lower than most of the recent releases and certainly many classics. But seems given responses here and the sales figures quoted above I am likely in the minority.

Hey, we all experience games in different ways - and it takes different things to entertain us.

Nothing strange about that :)

I honestly don't know what my opinion of this game would be if I played it alone.

Playing a game cooperatively both significantly enhances and changes the experience.

For me, the best part of DOS2 was the PnP RPG feeling it gave all three of us. It was so flexible in how it allowed each of us to do our own thing, and we all had very meaningful ways to contribute to the story and the combat.

It had tons of little moments where something went wrong, in a fun way, because one of us did something we weren't really supposed to do - which is part of the design.

In that way, DOS2 is a masterpiece. It's an incredibly rich coop game.

As for how it works as a traditional CRPG - I think it's very, very good - but I already pointed out what I consider rather serious flaws.

I still don't like Larian humor - even if it's not as big a part of this game. I think the tone was, overall, very serious - which is why it's even more inappropriate to have moments of the zany, silly crap they love to put in there.

But that's me, and I know one of my friends who played it with me greatly enjoyed that aspect.

I think the combat system was a HUGE improvement over the first game, especially because it was both fast and highly tactical. It was like a dream combo for coop play - because nothing is worse than a slow combat system when you're waiting for people to take their turn.

Ultimately, the biggest disappointment - to me - was the character system and the reliance on a "main stat" for most skills.

You simply couldn't be a hybrid mage/physical guy without major sacrifices in performance - which means you had to pick one over the other, for the most part. I know some "magic" skills scaled well with some "physical" stats - but it wasn't good enough.

That's a gigantic mistake in a game with such a rich arsenal of skills and powers.

But I guess most people didn't mind - as I haven't seen others complain about that.
 
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That's a gigantic mistake in a game with such a rich arsenal of skills and powers.

But I guess most people didn't mind - as I haven't seen others complain about that.

Maybe it's also because the possibilities are kind of limited of what is generally possible. Even more freedom could also mean that attributes get useless. As in the other topic, I have a hard time of thinking of any games which did it better. Not saying that they don't exist. But I'd say that the first one didn't. The Avernum series is another example of where you had "all options" but in fact You basically only have minor choices. If you want to play a tank character there you will have a rather specific build similar by maybe 90% to everone others. Same with mages, melee DDs or "bow" characters.
Another game I played "recently" is The Fall of the Dungeon guardians which also offers a pseudo openness by allowing you to combine talent trees which are not initially made for your class. But only 2-3 of the skills in these trees are usable by your main class at all. A combination of anything else didnt make any sense.

Imho total freedom is over glorified and I am not talking about DOS2 specifically. Actually often class based games offer more choices than free-syle character games, as they are often designed to actually make a different impact on your class, wheras free style systems often tend to make ideal routes obvious.
 
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Maybe it's also because the possibilities are kind of limited of what is generally possible. Even more freedom could also mean that attributes get useless. As in the other topic, I have a hard time of thinking of any games which did it better. Not saying that they don't exist. But I'd say that the first one didn't. The Avernum series is another example of where you had "all options" but in fact You basically only have minor choices. If you want to play a tank character there you will have a rather specific build similar by maybe 90% to everone others. Same with mages, melee DDs or "bow" characters.
Another game I played "recently" is The Fall of the Dungeon guardians which also offers a pseudo openness by allowing you to combine talent trees which are not initially made for your class. But only 2-3 of the skills in these trees are usable by your main class at all. A combination of anything else didnt make any sense.

Imho total freedom is over glorified and I am not talking about DOS2 specifically. Actually often class based games offer more choices than free-syle character games, as they are often designed to actually make a different impact on your class, wheras free style systems often tend to make ideal routes obvious.

In my mind, both D&D 3+ edition and PoE 2 do it better.

As in, you can mix and match pretty much all classes and create something powerful, if you know what you're doing.

It's easily fixed in DOS2 - and you could do it in a number of ways. One easy way to fix it - and retain the concept of stats - would be to have the primary (or highest) stat contribute along with the skill stat.

But it's a trivial thing to fix in terms of design.

It's likely a deliberate limitation based on the intention of Larian - and that's cool, it's their game - afterall.

As for "total freedom" - I don't know what that means. I don't want a game without distinct powers or skills.

I just want ways to create all kinds of hybrids - and not be locked down to physical or magical skills - for the most part. That's how DOS2 made me feel, and it's a big part of why I don't really feel like replaying it.
 
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I really liked the first Original sin, and will likely replay it for the rest of my days. The second one, however, though I got through it once, I will never ever replay. It came off my hard drive right after I completed it, and it shall never return. It just seemed like a huge change in pacing and quality to me.
 
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