D:OS2 First Impressions

Right, I cleared everything (I believe) and am about to go for the final clash. Tomorrow.

But now I'm thinking, the patch was supposed to set runeslots into one per item. That change was cancelled due to some problems, at least for now. But if it will happen next week when a new patch appears, it will be generally bad IMO.

Spot this item as example (hint: yes, that's the one!):


Yeah, exactly those two rune slots make it desirable at a certain point of game (basically till you find three runeslots jewelry). Cut one runeslot from it and you get what? Nothing, you'll see better legendary and divine jewelry than this.

The change will be bad for these unique items and will render them useless, unless they replace the empty runeslot with some effect.

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More on the matter, I might be wrong, but seems that the amount of armor, physical or magic, you improve on your characters, loses it's efficiency somewhere on the third island. It might be just my impression, but it seems that element resistances (especially fire and water) is more important than stacking a huge number of physical/magic armor.

Did anyone else get similar impression?
Aka, should we actually prioritize element resistances on equipment even if it's armor bonus isn't big past second island instead of, dunno, huge armor and +2 warfare?

azarhal said:

All Larian games soundtrack but D:OS2 were made by Kirill Pokrovsky, he died in 2015.

Larian new composer is Borislav Slavov (aka Bobby).

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Really sad to hear that! He must have been quite a talent, I love his works.

joxer said:

Did anyone else get similar impression?
Aka, should we actually prioritize element resistances on equipment even if it's armor bonus isn't big past second island instead of, dunno, huge armor and +2 warfare?

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Yeah, it gets very magic-heavy towards the end. Magic armor + elemental resistances seemed much stronger.

I'm stuck in blood island; bloody game ending bug keeps popping up.

Time to throw my impressions.

Best rpg game and game,in general, for years for me. I dropped the fist original sin quite fast as i didn't enjoy the humor. I find the writing here more to my liking.
Battles are fun and you have to think(classic mode).

The things i do not like is the inventory. I get a headache just to search for a book in there.
I still wonder how useful the crafting is, as i haven't manage to craft something good. For now i still use it for money earning.

In any case i'm enjoying the game and hope for more quality games like this to come.

I won't give anything away but crafting can be quite overpowering later in the game. Hold on to some of those early items and you'll see a huge payoff later, trust me.

akarthis said:

Time to throw my impressions.

Best rpg game and game,in general, for years for me. I dropped the fist original sin quite fast as i didn't enjoy the humor. I find the writing here more to my liking.
Battles are fun and you have to think(classic mode).

The things i do not like is the inventory. I get a headache just to search for a book in there.
I still wonder how useful the crafting is, as i haven't manage to craft something good. For now i still use it for money earning.

In any case i'm enjoying the game and hope for more quality games like this to come.

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As for the inventory management, it helps when you use the filter buttons (like there is a filter specifically for books). Also I just 'flag as crap' items I'm going to sell so they disappear from the filtered lists, so even if I have 100 books in the inventory, if 98 are flagged as crap I'll only see the remaining 2 when I use the 'books' filter.
The only problem is in the 'ingredients' category, since some quest items are also ingredients so it's hard to find them even with the filtering.

They should have really implemented a search option within the inventory and crafting GUIs. I would have also preferred a PoE'esque stash instead of the bags; they only make inventory management even clunkier.

Also, while we're lamenting the inventory, some way to filter out pc-vendored items from merchant stock would have been swell.

It does seem that many of these divinity games do suffer from an inventory issue or issues. I can only guess that not enough people complain about it to warrant making significant, positive changes.

Yeah, I'm playing Divinity 2 right now (not Original Sin 2), and it's present even there. They do like a cluttered inventory with lots of garbage.

This "flag as junk" seems useful. will use it in order to make it more convinient for me.

As for the crafting i'll wait and see then. Although i sold any item i did not use. I guess we live with our choices.

Maylander said:

They do like a cluttered inventory with lots of garbage.

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I do like it myself. Why?
Easy for mouse, tiresome for mushrooms.

I'm 1/2 way through nameless and the game has lost a bit of steam. I mostly find nameless quite confusing. I spoke to sallow man and he wanted me to die die die die; after a few more dies he attacked me and died. I need a gem to open a temple but haven't found it and there are 3 temples aligned with the sun and 4 with the moon (does it matter?).

you said:

I'm 1/2 way through nameless and the game has lost a bit of steam. I mostly find nameless quite confusing. I spoke to sallow man and he wanted me to die die die die; after a few more dies he attacked me and died. I need a gem to open a temple but haven't found it and there are 3 temples aligned with the sun and 4 with the moon (does it matter?).

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The entire point of the Nameless Isle is to get into the section that was reserved to the godwoken.

You can trial&error the puzzle to get into the last part.
You can get the entire solution form someone's head (if you got an elf around to eat it).
You can find the clues around the islands to the solution.
You can find the back entrance and ignore the rest of the island.

you said:

I'm 1/2 way through nameless and the game has lost a bit of steam. I mostly find nameless quite confusing. I spoke to sallow man and he wanted me to die die die die; after a few more dies he attacked me and died. I need a gem to open a temple but haven't found it and there are 3 temples aligned with the sun and 4 with the moon (does it matter?).

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From that point and onwards, a lot of quests seemed vague to me. In retrospect I see how it all fits, but at the time the events were too disconnected. That's basically what I referred to as "vague in the final third" or some such thing in the review. It's been mentioned quite frequently on the official forums, but rarely in reviews, which I find a bit odd.

Edit: In addition to azarhal's four solutions, you can also:

Also you can kill him then persuade his spirit to tell you.
Just as with the rest of the game, there is not just one solution.

Regardless of your approach, finding the mentioned gem and using it however IMO is a must experience and I will not accept to put it in spoiler tags:
- get the gem from two wolves who are arguing over it (pet pal trait if you don't want to fight them).

Already posted somewhere, while in the zone this gem leads you to, do quicksave and quickload when you enter, then do the same when you turn on a certain drive. You won't gain anything gamewise from it, but there is a crazy special effect I've never seen (okay, heard) in any other game.

Hum. I did get that gem the non violent way before i found the temple but when I tried it it didn't seem to work so i just assumed it was some other gem.
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Also i ended up killing alexander. Actually I told gareth not to kill him and then a fight started but the ghost of alexander has no interest in talking to me. I can't interact with it.
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Ok i figured out the gem; it wasn't that hard but it also was convoluted. Not sure why you all recommend saving... We shall see what happens now as things run like clockwork.

joxer said:

Also you can kill him then persuade his spirit to tell you.
Just as with the rest of the game, there is not just one solution.

Regardless of your approach, finding the mentioned gem and using it however IMO is a must experience and I will not accept to put it in spoiler tags:
- get the gem from two wolves who are arguing over it (pet pal trait if you don't want to fight them).

Already posted somewhere, while in the zone this gem leads you to, do quicksave and quickload when you enter, then do the same when you turn on a certain drive. You won't gain anything gamewise from it, but there is a crazy special effect I've never seen (okay, heard) in any other game.

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Yeah the game becomes a huge slog, about the middle of the second isle is where it started for me. I was already a bit peeved about how melee builds are just so weak, and the gradual turn into boredom didn't improve my opinion much. At the end I was really disappointed with this offering, and doubt I'd ever replay it.

I'm playing on tactian mode and my one warrior is single handed with shield (i find i really require shield on all but archer) anyway he is hardly weak - er I mean i hardly find him weak.

Carnifex said:

Yeah the game becomes a huge slog, about the middle of the second isle is where it started for me. I was already a bit peeved about how melee builds are just so weak, and the gradual turn into boredom didn't improve my opinion much. At the end I was really disappointed with this offering, and doubt I'd ever replay it.

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Aye, after a bit melee wins out, but the first eight or so hours were rough when I tried sticking to a pure melee blend. I don't use mages or archers, and I was really trying to advance the plot with just three characters, but that turned out to be costing me more time than it was worth. But those first few hours trying to survive while avoiding ranger or mage type builds really stuck in my head, as well as trying to run with a smaller squad.

I just finished the third island and my view of the game has grown significantly more negative. First and foremost it took an extra 5+ hours simply because of bugs (the game kept hanging during a key battle required to move to the last island). Also I found the third island much more convoluted and many quests seemed broken. Many people I think I should have been able to talk to had no option to talk (esp ghosts). Then there is the very fact that knowing 'sun' and 'moon' is not enough as the symbols required to manipulate look nothing like a sun or a moon. I don't remember seeing these symbols when I interacted with the alters and found the gods alignment which made it even more confusing.
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I hope to do the last act this weekend or into next week (not sure how long it will be) but I felt that this third island lacked a great deal of love that the earlier portions of the game received in all apsect (story progression; writing; technical and general presentation). Given that this is approach the climax I'm rather disappointed in the love it did received. Anyway hopefully the last act is not nearly as poorly done and then I'll let the game sit for 6 to 12 months while I presume it will see significanlty patching and try again.
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I am playing with the latest patch but perhaps because I started before the patches that is having some impact in the later part of the game ?