D:OS2 First Impressions

Divinity: Original Sin 2
Ehh, there's been plenty of positive posts and hype surrounding the release of D:OS 2. The real problem, for me, in such situations is fair critiques of a title getting drowned out by hive-mind, tunnel vision praise.

Personally, I don't pay attention to much of anything people have to say about a release in its first two months. The bulk of real reviews with the benefit of impartiality only start thereafter.

A great deal of RPGWatch posters (regardless of post count) also felt that Pillar of Eternity was the best game evar upon its release...
 
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Well, I generally like first-person and a single character but I'm having fun with this. That probably means the non-combat stuff is pretty decent because I could care less about the battles. They're the boring part of the game to me.
 
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I personally love DOS2, it's everything I like about a RPG (build choices, a party, c&c, various way to finish a quest, lots of exploration, puzzles, challenging combat, lack of hand holding, wacky plot, etc). Some things could be better (camera bouncing on 3d objects, some menus like crafting) and it took me about 8 hours of restarting to find a character that I clicked with (happens all the time though), but neither of these are detracting from my fun with the game in the last 40 hours.

Also, I don't feel the need to compare games to each others. I play RPGs because I love RPGs, not because I'm trying to find the One.

I just made a DOS2 pun, lol.
 
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SirJames said:
Yeah, it does seem sometimes like there are surprisingly few RPG lovers around. Seems at least half the posters are more into FPS games with RPG elements or MMORPGS.

There could well be a correlation between amount of time spent posting in forums and amount of time playing RPGS. The more you're posting; the less you're playing.

The real trouble comes when no one is posting but jaded people because everyone else is having fun playing and rather than help eachother get hyped we end up helping eachother lose interest.

It's sort of like how game forums are always filled with negativity around launch just because the positive are busy playing.
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I don't really see that being the case here. There are a few negative posters, but those are usually just the same 3 or 4 members that are always like that.

Generally, I always talk about a game if I'm enjoying it, and I'm far more likely to post about a game that I like than one I don't like.

Also, not everyone has the same taste, and there hasn't exactly been a plethora of great crpgs the last couple of years. 2014 & 2015 were fantastic, but 2016 and the fisrt half of this year were pretty sparse.
 
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So far, my impression is a black screen. All the UI elements are there, but everything else is black.. According to the net, this may have something to do wirh firewall settings.

Pibbur who will look into said settings, when he's done feeling sorry for himself.
 
Ripper said:
Maybe, but I've been in the same boat for a while. Just seems like a long time since an RPG really did it for me. I'm hoping to enjoy this one, but going to give it a while for patching and tweaking. I'm sure it's a fine game on its own terms, but Larian's later games just never quite pulled me in. Fingers crossed, though.
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For me, it seems the game itself doesn't seem to matter as much as my attitude at the time. If I'm really hot on gaming and RPGs, I'll enjoy just about anything (just about, with some exceptions as I'm sure you guys know. :p) But if I'm cold to gaming, it would take something really, really interesting and new to warm me up again. I go through this all the time with my hobbies.

That said, this started happening a few weeks ago. Got some hours into Gothic 3, was feeling it a lot and then started to drift and I couldn't bring myself to turn the game on since. Played several hours of Dead State since and I enjoyed it a bit, but it still wasn't enough and I felt tired of the game quickly. And while Vaporum seems cool and almost enough to warm me up again (it's much different than RPGs I'm used to, so it's unique to me), D:OS 2 seems very familiar to me right now. Just not feeling it.

So yes, I'm feeling jaded towards RPGs right now. I'll come back around. No need to be alarmed. :D
 
pibbur who said:
So far, my impression is a black screen. All the UI elements are there, but everything else is black.. According to the net, this may have something to do wirh firewall settings.

Pibbur who will look into said settings, when he's done feeling sorry for himself.
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I had a black screen too, Pibbur. I was able to play the boat scene, but when I landed on the beach I just had the UI and a black screen. Fortunately, a reload worked for me, but I did go into the Nvidia control panel and set everything back to default in between. YMMV.
 
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The game is expansive! I've played a bunch of hours and I haven't left Act 1 yet. So many things to discover.
Drithius said:
I've been somewhat bored as well. Trying to understand this, I feel it to be more a game of gimmicks rather than a game of story. The prequel exuded the same feeling (and I never did finish it).

Likely going to restart for the ~8th time tonight, hoping yet another combo of abilities is enough to grab hold of me long enough for something more substantial to interest me.
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You might want to plow through it until you can respec, then you can try all the build combinations you want without having to go through the same conversations again.
 
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I'm pretty sure some mobs level scale, just not at your level.

I found a boss in the Cloisterwood that was level 13 when I was level 11, I decided not to get close to him at the time. Last night, I made it to level 12 and when I went back to that boss he was now level 14.

That might explain why people have issue finding content at there level in Driftwood.
 
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Fluent said:
I dunno actually. I think there's something wrong with me. Obsessive compulsive maybe. But I go through hot streaks of being enamored with something for a few months than ultra cold spells after. I just can't get myself into any RPG at the moment. So I think that's more what's going on than anything severely wrong with the game.
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It's time to play Battle Brothers. Great simple game with top notch combat. Everything that you complained about in D:OS2 is just the opposite in BB. Not a bunch of boring npc's, not a million crazy attacks, simple realistic story, and BB is half RPG half strategy game. Go play BB now :) Don't make me angry that I gave you the game ;)
 
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Hastar said:
It's time to play Battle Brothers. Great simple game with top notch combat. Everything that you complained about in D:OS2 is just the opposite in BB. Not a bunch of boring npc's, not a million crazy attacks, simple realistic story, and BB is half RPG half strategy game. Go play BB now :) Don't make me angry that I gave you the game ;)
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I already played it for an hour to try it. Didn't really like it all that much. That was months ago though, so might go back to it sometime and try again.
 
Maylander said:
So, I've finished it. Giving it a 2nd go now though, with a double-lone-wolf thing I've been planning for the last few days.

Took me about 70 hours according to the in-game counter, and close to 80 in Steam, so it's somewhere in that region. Big game. Good game too, probably a 4/5 or so in Watch scale for me, mainly due to technical issues, certain balancing issues and too many vague quests near the end or quests that ended abruptly/incorrectly.

If they do an EE version of it, it has the potential to be truly amazing, as the foundation is definitely top notch. I think that's pretty much the bottom line. I could always do a review of it, but perhaps someone else is doing one already?
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Wow, I am so disappointed, you didn't finish it until last night? What took you so long? :p
 
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wolfing said:
The game is expansive! I've played a bunch of hours and I haven't left Act 1 yet. So many things to discover.


You might want to plow through it until you can respec, then you can try all the build combinations you want without having to go through the same conversations again.
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Act 2 is even bigger :)

55 hours so far according to steam. I'd estimate 20 or so was in act 1 and the rest in act 2 which I'm not done with yet.
 
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Steam says I have 28 hours played and I just landed on the shore of Reapers Coast last night then camped. So Act 1 was pretty big and I missed some stuff and didn't do all the quests - some on purpose and some because I was stupid/blind :p
 
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106 hours. Don't look at me. I took free days.
Yes I'm still on the second island, turning every stone. And finding some more quest bugs, lol.

EDIT:
Geez…
Two tips on second island problems, although perhaps I should post this as a bugthread or something:
- click on every chest in the inn BEFORE lockpicking it or one quest will never close
- if civillians are alive in Paradise Downs (Gareth's farm on the map), reload and leave that area for later because saving civilians there will lead to gamestopper bug!

There is no workaround to these two so make sure you do them right.
 
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Maylander said:
I could always do a review of it, but perhaps someone else is doing one already?
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Please do. If there is another review coming in we have two reviews (or more).
 
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Finished! 64 hours, but I skipped lots of side quests in act 2 and later (keeping stuff for replay I guess) and I kept failing persuasion checks which kinda lead to getting what I needed from body parts instead of doing favors. ;) In fact, I only reloaded when I encountered "game over" choices (i.e. clicking something insta-killing the party or characters or if I was going to wipe to restart combat).

I'm not sure if my ending was a good one or a bad one though. I mean most people got an happy ending...but people will be people.

Now though, I'm kinda sad I didn't have Fane in my party. I so didn't expect those revelations.
 
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azarhal said:
I'm kinda sad I didn't have Fane in my party.
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He's my main, you should be ashamed! :p

Well I just left the second island for the third. Reported on Larian forum some stupid bugs/omissions on the second island that according to search noone else spotted.

And I still don't know why my luckbased character can't loot any divine item. He gets only legendary items from containers.
On the other hand, divine items at traders usually have no rune slot. Maybe I'm just unlucky.

While in normal difficulty I don't care much about all this, my impression is that runes (giant and then framed) are essential for tactician mode. I mean those boni are crazy:
https://imgur.com/a/1frWh

Found out something else. Staves are disappointing, I still say that, but if your "mage" has a staff, he can use all warfare spells with it, not just a few. Wouldn't do it in tactician diff., but this is crazy fun. :D
 
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