First Impressions

I'm playing on explorer and plan to play mostly alone. I really don't like playing other people's stories, so I may solo as much as possible but take some of the origin guys if it makes sense with what's going on. I've started over a few times but I think I'm going with custom-elf-lady that has water and fire skills with a touch of lockpicking. We'll see how that goes.

Weird that everyone needs/wants manuals. I just wing it man. Turn off the Gaming OCD. So far so good.

Originally Posted by Sneaky_seal
Guys, let's share our first impressions in this thread.

1. What character did you pick? What do you think of the character creation?
2. What do you think of your first few hours in the game?
3. What did you like/dislike?
4. How do you think it fares compared to the first D:OS?

1. Fane. Character creation was great. I like the Tags system and all the class preset choices, of which there are many.

2. It was cool. I'm not really in gaming mode right now so I'm easing into it. I liked when the ship section started to get more action-packed.

3. I like the combat a lot so far. So satisfying and challenging. I may want to turn the difficulty up even more. I think I'm on Tactician Mode. But it's just really fun combat so far.

Dislike, hmm. Not much so far. The exploration doesn't seem amazing yet but I'm not very long into the game. The beach area seemed a little linear with not much off the beaten path so far, but I'm hoping that changes.

4. Can't really answer that yet. But it seems good so far, and I really enjoyed the first game, so we'll see.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
I will say I tried her out for a little while before reloading before I met her. I did like her character personality from a general view point. Rather funny in a dark way actually and she has some great lines (well the ones I heard). But she is not someone I would trust … and can't say more without spoilers. Regardless she is very much not an option any more … I made sure of that

Maybe another play through though.

I killed Griff before she talked to him. Didn't know she'll want to chatty with him.
As her quest is now screwed (probably), she's outta my party for good.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Playing tactician is the way to go, game has few battles so I like that I have to play tactically on each battle.

The way to go is different for each of us. I picked as usual, normal (second difficulty).
JDR and dart will start at max (fourth difficulty) and I can't wait to hear how the game wiped them.

Played for about 10h, sadly i think it suffers from the same stuff the first one did, uninteresting story and chars, clunky interface, a lot of useless shit in the inventory
ps who had the bright idea to make dialogue replies "indirect", fuck you

Originally Posted by joxer
JDR and dart will start at max (fourth difficulty) and I can't wait to hear how the game wiped them.

Hey hey, I usually go in blindly at max difficulty too. The insta-save wipe was a little too intimidating for a first run though. I'll save that for later.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Played for about 10h, sadly i think it suffers from the same stuff the first one did, uninteresting story and chars, clunky interface, a lot of useless shit in the inventory

I'm not really wow'd by it so far as I thought I would be, but I sort of attribute that to my lackadaisical attitude towards RPGs and gaming in general right now. But it just seems, I dunno. Lacking something so far. Boring start I think. Only 3 hours in though.

@wolfing
The dwarf is on the western beach looking at a shipwreck.

Well, since I'm here I might as well do my impressions. I've only JUST made it out of Fort Joy into the swamp. Playing on Tactician it has been a legitimate challenge! Pretty much every single battle has been a reload because I'm not happy with the amount of consumables I used. Res scrolls especially. But that final wing from the Fort Joy Dungeons waypoint I used FOUR res scrolls to get out of there. I was starting to fall asleep and just wanted to finish it. Saved and exited without moving an inch in the swamp.

ummmm….. Did I do it right? Hang on….

1. What character did you pick? What do you think of the character creation?
I went The Red Prince with default Conjurer class, default looks, etc. I thought the Demonic Stare was some sort of magic damage amplifier because I didn't understand the way armour works.

My party is the enchanter, rogue and wayfarer npcs on their defaults.

2. What do you think of your first few hours in the game?
Extremely polished and well made! I can't be bothered with the rant but it's an amazing game so far.

3. What did you like/dislike?
I like too much to mention. What I dislike is walking feels too slow, some animations are a tiny bit long and delay (eg. rogue doing flesh sacrifice and adrenaline I wish they were just instant), sometimes enemy can melee attack you when you're on the top of high ground and they just walk up and hit you from the ground level.

4. How do you think it fares compared to the first D:OS?
It's much more Jiggly and full of juice

No spoilers but the game offers one thousand ways to screw your quests by "careless" actions. Check your journal when the update warning is coming.

I really got my grove last night. Went to bed at 1 am…

Main: Sebille
Extra: Beast, Ifan and Lohse
Everyone with their default setup.

I'm currently enjoying exploring stuff around Fort Joy…and I had some unfortunate adventures, using one-way secret passages.

Originally Posted by joxer
I killed Griff before she talked to him. Didn't know she'll want to chatty with him.
As her quest is now screwed (probably), she's outta my party for good.

It's not screwed. The quest is advanced by a NPC right before finishing Act 1.

I saw lots of people saying that Lohse has nothing in Act 1 regarding hers though, well that just mean they haven't explored all of Fort Joy and going by that discussion missing it isn't that important, once you reach a certain place someone is going to come to her anyway.

Aye I came across two scenes related to Lohse and her quest in two different places in Fort Joy. People may not be doing enough talking or exploring.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Played for about 10h, sadly i think it suffers from the same stuff the first one did, uninteresting story and chars, clunky interface, a lot of useless shit in the inventory
ps who had the bright idea to make dialogue replies "indirect", fuck you

Can't disagree more.
All characters are batshit crazy, story in first 10 hours is basically a prologue so I'm not sure what were you expecting, interface is good but not great as they adapted inventory to console bullshit, and "useless shit" in inventory you should either drop or sell already.

The only reason to despise "useless shit" in inventory is if you're playing a thief able to steal everything.

Originally Posted by azarhal
It's not screwed. The quest is advanced by a NPC right before finishing Act 1.

I saw lots of people saying that Lohse has nothing in Act 1 regarding hers though, well that just mean they haven't explored all of Fort Joy and going by that discussion missing it isn't that important, once you reach a certain place someone is going to come to her anyway.

Didn't know this. Thanks! I'm in some gargoyle maze currently, when I finish it I'll check it up.

Well, my games bugged out. Not long after getting to the swamp my party is permanently wet and it crashes if i try to reload (the initial load works but I have to restart the whole game to load again)

So much for waiting until early access was over to avoid issues such as those which ruined DOS1 for me

Originally Posted by SirJames
Well, my games bugged out. Not long after getting to the swamp my party is permanently wet and it crashes if i try to reload (the initial load works but I have to restart the whole game to load again)

So much for waiting until early access was over to avoid issues such as those which ruined DOS1 for me

Not sure if this will help or not but just saw a hot patch downloaded:

Hello everyone!

First of all, thank you for your patience. We've had a few more problems in the last few days than we had hoped, but we're working hard on fixing them. We'll have them sorted out as quickly as we can.

We have good news for everyone who had problems with their savegames after a few hours of playing - we just released a hotfix that solves the problem. The existing savegames should work now.

We're working on an additional hotfix to resolve some other problems you may have have noticed, and we'll be releasing it in the next few days.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Played for about 10h, sadly i think it suffers from the same stuff the first one did, uninteresting story and chars, clunky interface, a lot of useless shit in the inventory
ps who had the bright idea to make dialogue replies "indirect", fuck you

Might not pick it up after all then… or wait for a massive discount.

@joxer - how does it compare to Expeditions: Viking?

So I started playing this for the first time. The camera reminds me a lot of Neverwinter Nights 1. And that's not a good thing

Didn't see this thread until a few minutes ago - here are some comments:
1. What character did you pick? What do you think of the character creation?
Beast as a warrior and happy i did.
2. What do you think of your first few hours in the game?
I had played a little of the alpha so i knew what to expect; but the voices help a lot and the story is much fuller and well flushed out.
3. What did you like/dislike?
Really well done. Not sure I liked my classes. I have Beast (main char as warrior); ifan as cleric; sibelle as mage and Lhose as archer. Most unhappy with Sibelle and would change her for fane if I start over or play a second time. Also would make Lohse enchanter and ifan archer and fane something and beast cleric.
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Also playing on tatican mode but not familiar with how the classes will evolove as this my first play so bit concern things might become pretty hard later on - ds was pretty easy entire game 'cept for the lich fight - this is definitly more difficult.
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Not happy with the ai as enemy can frequently hit me from places I can't hit them (what I mean is that they seem to have significantly greater range for arrows, spells and throwable and can easily throw things over barriers that block myself - this take into account the impact of height so i'm not sure if ai cheats or npc have significantly higher something or other. I go behind a tower to block arrows and they shoot right through it but i can't return fire because it blocks me.

4. How do you think it fares compared to the first D:OS?
Story wise much better and ai is better but i think it is cheating (see above). ds story and writing sucked.

@wolfgrimdark Yeah, that hotfix did fix my reloading issue

Originally Posted by Sneaky_seal
Guys, let's share our first impressions in this thread.

1. What character did you pick? What do you think of the character creation?
2. What do you think of your first few hours in the game?
3. What did you like/dislike?
4. How do you think it fares compared to the first D:OS?

1. Picked Lohse and made her into a rogue. Took me a while to pick which kind of character id like to play. My other characters are Beast as a fighter with 1 hand and shield, The red prince as a summoner who also dable in airmagic and sebille as a cleric which I specced into bows. Works pretty solid so far in classic mode.

2. Just finnished act 1. Really good so far, hope it keeps up like this through the following acts. I lost interest in original sin 1 after a very fun act 1.

3. I like most things so far except the inventory clutter and the cluttered questlog.

4. I find the story and the characters more interesting.

A couple of hours in and highly enjoying it. Not at all sold on the armour mechanics though, which makes a party specialized in a single damage type (physical or magical) much more effective than a versatile one. That's just a bad idea severly limiting your choices if you want your party to synergize well. I'm running a pure physical party now and the battles got alot more doable. When the option comes to respec I'll use it and try going 2 physical and 2 magic though, perhaps if they focus on different enemies it's still a decent tactic, and it will be alot more fun.

Originally Posted by you
Didn't see this thread until a few minutes ago - here are some comments:

-
Not happy with the ai as enemy can frequently hit me from places I can't hit them (what I mean is that they seem to have significantly greater range for arrows, spells and throwable and can easily throw things over barriers that block myself - this take into account the impact of height so i'm not sure if ai cheats or npc have significantly higher something or other. I go behind a tower to block arrows and they shoot right through it but i can't return fire because it blocks me.

4. How do you think it fares compared to the first D:OS?
Story wise much better and ai is better but i think it is cheating (see above). ds story and writing sucked.

^this. I'm playing on 'normal (i.e. classic) The AI is definitely more 'clever' this time around. I assumed only Tactician or higher difficulty would have souped up AI…guess not. I spent 40 minute on a fight last night…I don't have time for that! AI seems to know *all* possible combos of skills, has perfect knowledge of the world, can position AI npcs in exactly the right place and exploits all this for every encounter. Even low level critters (including actual bugs seem to have perfect tactics and knowledge so most fights are a chore (long)… What's more, summons, which saved my bacon before, seem crap (well, Ok, only have a certain game awarded summon…but its really useless, doesn't seem to get attacks of oppurtunity and every AI agent ignores it when in combat. If they ignore summons in general then they really have lost 90% of their utility) And as I expected, elemental surfaces account for majority of combat difficulty. It's like swimming through soup at times. I'm almost done with the first part of the game, just the big combat at the end left before I can leave the island …but its been laborious. I'd like some trivial encounters now and then too please, to reflect the fact that I actually leveled up?
One plus so far is that some of the new skills like fly and tentacle lash are great fun, the former is especially good for exploring. But getting enough money to buy skill books is a bugger - I spent several levels with many empty memory slots because I didn't have enough cash to buy more than 1/2 skills books a level. It's improved now, but does limit the impact of levelling up unless you have money.

I'm enjoying the game visuals, and also like the puzzles, exploration and story.

@booboo you sound like someone who have no idea what he is doing.

Summoning is actually great, if you invest into the summoning skill line because summon effectiveness is based on that and your level, nothing else (mentioned on the summon skills). The incarnate can have melee and ranged attacks and it has attack of opportunity and provoke (warfare taunt skill).

Buying books shouldn't be an issue outside maybe level 1 and 2, just pick and sale everything you don't need and you'll be able to trade all the junk for what you want. Some of the junk around is worth a lots of $$. Like the jars of maggots and paintings.

As for the surfaces, bypass them with mobility skills (teleport, cloak&dagger, hasted retreat, etc) or just make sure your armors are up, plenty of skills for both of these options. Shields even provide "shield up" for free. Otherwise, invest into warfare stomp skill (remove normal surfaces).