• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Divinity: Original Sin |OT| Sandbox RPG. Co-Op friendly. Bread.

Im thinking about restarting the game (again) since im only like 1 hour in and Im not really feeling the cleric (
and the graveyard dog died in my game
), can someone tell me
the 2 classes you can recruit in town so I dont have the same ones at the start

would really apreciate it

A
2h warrior and a air/water mage.
 

Valkyra

Banned
Was a bit busy but I finally got around to beating the game, not a story spoiler but about that mage being under powered part.
Last guys got first turn(not sure how that happened when we had almost 30 initiative), then each fight the boss was will debuffed with witchcraft then petrified (no physical damage draw backs like frozen) and nuked and slashed into oblivious. What was probably an epic battle was alluded to slowly hacking down a really big tree. I enjoyed abusing every one of my synergies to do it.
 

Sentenza

Member
Not singling you out in particular, but it amazes me how different the conversation is regarding difficulty between Original Sin and a game like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Granted, Reckoning had problems besides low difficulty, but the easiness of it was always the first complaint you'd hear leveled.
Well, first, it's a matter of focus in a game. I love Ultima VII above pretty much any RPG in existence, but if you gave me a game with Ultima VII combat and balance but without all the hundreds of unique NPCs, dialogues and interactions I would hit you with a iron bar.

Second, balance in combat is a serious issue when it simply trivializes any challenge, not when it can *eventually* be reduced through some min-maxing and advanced tactics.
In KoA the "battle system" consists of mashing buttons while the character does flashy moves.
In games like D:OS or Baldur's Gate II, to name two, being completely slaughtered or destroying completely your opponents are both very common outcomes, and the difference is your battle plan.

Personally, I'm not even that much into hard games. There are plenty of easy ways to make games harder that I would simply hate (i.e. inflating enemies HPs).
While I can appreciate some challenge as far as I find it fun to beat, I just don't want games that play themselves and require hardly any attention on my side.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Damn, now I really want to find the Battle Force theme used.

I assume the Soundtrack with the DLC only comes with the 22 tracks that people have uploaded?

If you're still curious, the sped up Battle Force can in fact be found on Kirill's Musica Divina album.
 

Mashing

Member
63 hours played. I just reached level 9 and I'm still bumming around outside Cyseal.

Should I go to the
church
or head
north to find the white witch
? Also, should I go ahead and kill the
undead general guy and the big fire elemental?
. I know this is free form, but it just feels wrong doing certain tasks out of order.
 

Chaos17

Member
63 hours played. I just reached level 9 and I'm still bumming around outside Cyseal.

Should I go to the
church
or head
north to find the white witch
? Also, should I go ahead and kill the
undead general guy and the big fire elemental?
. I know this is free form, but it just feels wrong doing certain tasks out of order.

63 hours and you still in Cyseal ?
Did you made an typo ? XD

the story wants you to discover Evelyn lair first, imo
Then kills all the outside undead general, I think they're four.
They're related to the king undead in the church.
I'm not sure at 100% though.
 
Well, first, it's a matter of focus in a game. I love Ultima VII above pretty much any RPG in existence, but if you gave me a game with Ultima VII combat and balance but without all the hundreds of unique NPCs, dialogues and interactions I would hit you with a iron bar.

Second, balance in combat is a serious issue when it simply trivializes any challenge, not when it can *eventually* be reduced through some min-maxing and advanced tactics.
In KoA the "battle system" consists of mashing buttons while the character does flashy moves.
In games like D:OS or Baldur's Gate II, to name two, being completely slaughtered or destroying completely your opponents are both very common outcomes, and the difference is your battle plan.

Personally, I'm not even that much into hard games. There are plenty of easy ways to make games harder that I would simply hate (i.e. inflating enemies HPs).
While I can appreciate some challenge as far as I find it fun to beat, I just don't want games that play themselves and require hardly any attention on my side.

I suppose that's fair.
 

Yoda

Member
So I'm at the
Immaculate Catherdral
and can't seem to find a way to open the stoned off door to keep going. Is it suppose to be obvious how to open it or no?

nm... got it.
 

Mashing

Member
63 hours and you still in Cyseal ?
Did you made an typo ? XD

the story wants you to discover Evelyn lair first, imo
Then kills all the outside undead general, I think they're four.
They're related to the king undead in the church.
I'm not sure at 100% though.

No no typo. Lots of backtracking and crafting. I've already done the first thing (long time ago actually). I'll take out the two bosses around cyseal.
 

Varna

Member
Well, that's mostly because (THANKFULLY) no one really cares about perfectly tuned balance in single player games as far as classes are fun to use and diversified enough, so it's not perceived as a big issue. In some cases even like a plus.

Combat balance I can deal with that being one sided. In oldschool CRPGs there was a lot aside from combat and unless you were reading a guide you really couldn't build a character that could do everything in one playthrough. My first characters in Fallout 1/2 and Baldur's Gate were very rogue'ish and were damn near worthless in combat. So I don't believe these kind of classes should be very combat viable.

But in this game it seems like you can build a pure powerhouse brute AND you can still rob every single house in town without every putting a point into any thievery skills. That just doesn't seem right at all.

Don't get me wrong. I love being able to bash doors and locks open. But there wasn't any attempt at all to balance it. Breaking down doors makes a lot of noise in towns, breaking chest opens might break items within... really simple stuff.
 

Riposte

Member
People will tear my head off and it's something I didn't want to believe myself, but I really think there is nothing in the world that wants to make me play a game less than clicking on a spot, watching my characters move there, then clicking on another spot, watching them move there, and so on for hours on end as I move back and forth in and out of an ugly, dull town. Such a flaccid stop-go method of interactivity and feedback wears down my enthusiasm. Olde style CRPGs have become very demanding of me. I'd probably get over it easier if the setting and characters weren't so plain and trite.
 

Varna

Member
Would you prefer you had to hold a key down to move and have to stop moving entirely to check stats, items, journal entries etc?
 

Veezy

que?
I suppose that's fair.

I like to look at it from a game design decision of what tools you are given.

It's been discussed in other games, but everybody, seriously everybody, is going to find the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. You can give somebody a million different button combinations, but if pressing X over and over again is the quickest way to go about winning a fight, why use the other tools? They're superfluous and don't really enhance the experience when unneeded. Why waste the time putting in a tonne of options if one easy solution trumps everything?

What's really good design in a game like Fallout, BG, or D:OS is that the system is designed in a way to go around this, giving legit multiple ways to complete a task that are all equally effective while not having a single option that is just flat out unfun. Stressing out about min maxing in this game is quite silly as there is no top tier solution (although pouring all your points into loremaster and telekinesis might not be the best way to go about things). Sure, you can rock out 2H, but you have a whole plethora of options that are as viable and don't ever make you feel like you have to do something one way to really blast through a scenario. There is no quantifiable "best" way to play the game, where as other recent titles surly have that problem.

Hell, we've got people on all ends of the spectrum saying what's the "best" way to go about the game, but nobody really has said "X way of playing is the only way to go." All your options are fun and any way you want to go about playing is going to get you to the end without you feel like you've wasted your time.

People will tear my head off and it's something I didn't want to believe myself, but I really think there is nothing in the world that wants to make me play a game less than clicking on a spot, watching my characters move there, then clicking on another spot, watching them move there, and so on for hours on end as I move back and forth in and out of an ugly, dull town. Such a flaccid stop-go method of interactivity and feedback wears down my enthusiasm. Olde style CRPGs have become very demanding of me. I'd probably get over it easier if the setting and characters weren't so plain and trite.

Well, you can hold the mouse button down to continue moving in one direction? I'm not entirely sure I understand the complaint.

Also, I'm not really understanding the "plain and trite" issue you have with the setting. The world and characters are fantastic to interact with.
 

Riposte

Member
Would you prefer you had to hold a key down to move and have to stop moving entirely to check stats, items, journal entries etc?

Probably, yes; it would be less soul-sapping over time I think. I'm not really concerned about the latter, although I guess having both kinds of movement like Pikmin 3 doesn't sound so bad. That's from a videogame reference of mind. From a tabletop one, I wouldn't mind just skipping the walking altogether.
 

nbthedude

Member
People will tear my head off and it's something I didn't want to believe myself, but I really think there is nothing in the world that wants to make me play a game less than clicking on a spot, watching my characters move there, then clicking on another spot, watching them move there, and so on for hours on end as I move back and forth in and out of an ugly, dull town. Such a flaccid stop-go method of interactivity and feedback wears down my enthusiasm. Olde style CRPGs have become very demanding of me. I'd probably get over it easier if the setting and characters weren't so plain and trite.
I don't understand. You don't have to do that, you hold the mouse button out in front and your character keeps moving just like Diablo.
 

nbthedude

Member
Combat balance I can deal with that being one sided. In oldschool CRPGs there was a lot aside from combat and unless you were reading a guide you really couldn't build a character that could do everything in one playthrough. My first characters in Fallout 1/2 and Baldur's Gate were very rogue'ish and were damn near worthless in combat. So I don't believe these kind of classes should be very combat viable.

But in this game it seems like you can build a pure powerhouse brute AND you can still rob every single house in town without every putting a point into any thievery skills. That just doesn't seem right at all.

Don't get me wrong. I love being able to bash doors and locks open. But there wasn't any attempt at all to balance it. Breaking down doors makes a lot of noise in towns, breaking chest opens might break items within... really simple stuff.
To be fair, you are basically the Inquistion come to town. Nobody would likely want to fuck with you if they could avoid it.
 
People will tear my head off and it's something I didn't want to believe myself, but I really think there is nothing in the world that wants to make me play a game less than clicking on a spot, watching my characters move there, then clicking on another spot, watching them move there, and so on for hours on end as I move back and forth in and out of an ugly, dull town. Such a flaccid stop-go method of interactivity and feedback wears down my enthusiasm. Olde style CRPGs have become very demanding of me. I'd probably get over it easier if the setting and characters weren't so plain and trite.

Of all the things you could complain about, it's Divinity's setting being plain and trite? Divinity the wackiest, most out-of-this-world fantasy setting I've ever seen in gaming, aside from maybe Eador: Master of the Broken World. It's filled to the brim with wit and humour, while retaining a serious world and story - a very unusual and unique trait that few other settings share; I would go as far as saying it's Divinity's trademark style, because both Divinity games I've played have had it.

And I dunno where you're getting trite from. The murder mystery and ensuing intrigue are not enough for you, I suppose?

As to the travelling being annoying, keep in mind that gathing your party and venduring forth is a core aspect of CRPGs. The game even has Skyrim-style fast travel (as opposed to Baldur's Gate 2's physical journeying) to aid travel without breaking the flow of everything, so I'd say Larian did what they could in that respect.
 
It's just so hard to talk properly about the game even after hours of play. I feel like I'm still so early in the game that there's nothing much I can really say in detail at all.

Yeah. I've put in five hours so far and I've barely done anything, it feels like; I'm still feeling my way around the first town and trying to move forward like six plotlines. The amount of content is ridiculously huge, and the quest mechanisms are welcome after a few too many games with an extremely unfriendly approach. I appreciate a game that lets you constantly make changes with a permanent effect, but makes sure you're actually making a choice (rather than tripping some idiotic hidden flag) every time.

Also, this is the first game that's ever given me a good mechanism for resolving the constant crippling choice paralysis that comes with these sidequest decisions. I picked a personality for each of my two characters early on, and every time there's a decision point that I feel any uncertainty about (like, I only even considered one side in the Elf-Orc quest, but otherwise...) I have each of the two characters stake out a side and rochambeau my way to a decision!
 

Riposte

Member
Well, you can hold the mouse button down to continue moving in one direction? I'm not entirely sure I understand the complaint.

Also, I'm not really understanding the "plain and trite" issue you have with the setting. The world and characters are fantastic to interact with.

It hadn't occurred me to use the option you describe. Maybe I would like it better.

The setting and its aesthetics are just really boring and standard so far. A little disappointingly so compared to glimpses from Dragon Commander; that had more of a setting I wouldn't mind playing in. I know it has a humor twist to it, in fact that may be the whole point for all I know, but fantasy parody doesn't exactly change the world into an interesting one, it just makes fun of it to some success. I just met some godly being in a godly place, chosen ones and all that, and in most ways you could depict such a thing it was quite dull and predictable. Maybe that's the joke or something. Then I'm back at this highly typical pier harbor where they all talk like your standard low level town NPCs. I can only judge by the first few hours of the game, btw.

I recently started the murder mystery (with the dog who I can talk to). It's interesting and probably have some pretty good quest paths, but it's happening in a ugly, boring world. I'm not complaining about quest contents, just where they are happening.
 

Varna

Member
It hadn't occurred me to use the option you describe. Maybe I would like it better.

The setting and its aesthetics are just really boring and standard so far. A little disappointingly so compared to glimpses from Dragon Commander; that had more of a setting I wouldn't mind playing in. I know it has a humor twist to it, in fact that may be the whole point for all I know, but fantasy parody doesn't exactly change the world into an interesting one, it just makes fun of it to some success. I just met some godly being in a godly place, chosen ones and all that, and in most ways you could depict such a thing it was quite dull and predictable. Maybe that's the joke or something. Then I'm back at this highly typical pier harbor where they all talk like your standard low level town NPCs. I can only judge by the first few hours of the game, btw.

Even I will admit that part was just painful and predictable. The fact that it comes completely out of nowhere with no build up didn't help either.

To be fair, you are basically the Inquistion come to town. Nobody would likely want to fuck with you if they could avoid it.

All well and good. But then why even have non-combat skills?
 

Zukuu

Banned
It hadn't occurred me to use the option you describe. Maybe I would like it better.

The setting and its aesthetics are just really boring and standard so far. A little disappointingly so compared to glimpses from Dragon Commander; that had more of a setting I wouldn't mind playing in. I know it has a humor twist to it, in fact that may be the whole point for all I know, but fantasy parody doesn't exactly change the world into an interesting one, it just makes fun of it to some success. I just met some godly being in a godly place, chosen ones and all that, and in most ways you could depict such a thing it was quite dull and predictable. Maybe that's the joke or something. Then I'm back at this highly typical pier harbor where they all talk like your standard low level town NPCs. I can only judge by the first few hours of the game, btw.
The only point I agree with you on, is that I'd like to dabble in Dragon Commander's world a bit more too. Not necessarily the gameplay as well, tho.
 
Well, that's mostly because (THANKFULLY) no one really cares about perfectly tuned balance in single player games as far as classes are fun to use and diversified enough, so it's not perceived as a big issue. In some cases even like a plus.

Yes, I consider it to be a notable advantage in this type of game for there to be ways to build your characters that are clearly more powerful than others, so you can experiment with the systems and get the excitement of finding ways to break them wide open.

What tends to ruin the fun in a CRPG, to me, is when there are broken builds, but only one or two of them, so that particular minigame only unlocks if you start with exactly the right characters. I haven't gotten far in DOS yet, but I haven't heard anything to suggest it's got this particular flaw.

Even I will admit that part was just painful and predictable.

It's predictable because it's taken almost point-for-point from Chrono Trigger, lol.
 

Nete

Member
Sometimes I would love to kill my coop partner. His person, not his character (that has already died multiple times, some of them while trolling him).

Also, I really really want more action bars. I already have all three bars full and 5-6 useful spells with no place for them... plus several more to learn on the next level up (18).
 

Zukuu

Banned
Sometimes I would love to kill my coop partner. His person, not his character (that has already died multiple times, some of them while trolling him).

Also, I really really want more action bars. I already have all three bars full and still have 5-6 useful spells with no place on them... and several more to learn on the next level up (18).
just rebind the skill book to a better short cut and use that.
 

Varna

Member
Yes, I consider it to be a notable advantage in this type of game for there to be ways to build your characters that are clearly more powerful than others, so you can experiment with the systems and get the excitement of finding ways to break them wide open.

What tends to ruin the fun in a CRPG, to me, is when there are broken builds, but only one or two of them, so that particular minigame only unlocks if you start with exactly the right characters. I haven't gotten far in DOS yet, but I haven't heard anything to suggest it's got this particular flaw.

Maybe it doesn't have that flaw. But it does have an issue with Rogue skills and thievery skills being basically worthless.
 

Instro

Member
Maybe it doesn't have that flaw. But it does have an issue with Rogue skills and thievery skills being basically worthless.

In what way, granted I'm not very far but thief abilities and the starter skills seem quite powerful and useful at the moment.
 

Zukuu

Banned
In what way, granted I'm not very far but thief abilities and the starter skills seem quite powerful and useful at the moment.
I think he means the "Nasty Deeds". Also thieves' skills do suck compared to man-at-arms' skill. And thieves have basically the same set of skills like Rangers, only that they come with 1/5 of the range...
 

Nete

Member
just rebind the skill book to a better short cut and use that.

Yeah, already doing that, but is much less "comfortable" (covers big part of the screen even moving it to the side, can't use key shortcuts for each skill...).

I guess too many action bars could be a problem for some players (dude, where are my skills? :p ), but extra bars as an optional feature would be great. At least for those guys that rolled Lone Wolf wizards and now are sitting on a gazillion spells.
 

Erekiddo

Member
Played about 2 hours, and noticed something... concerning.

Are you telling me each NPC has their own dialogue trees? And they say something different? Ugh.

This is like Dragon Quest barrel searching all over again. AND THIS GAME HAS THAT TOO.
 

Levyne

Banned
So I found the
bloodstone shard
to help Frederick, but now I can't find it in my inventory and talking to him does nothing :<

Edit: Ignore me.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Played about 2 hours, and noticed something... concerning.

Are you telling me each NPC has their own dialogue trees? And they say something different? Ugh.

This is like Dragon Quest barrel searching all over again. AND THIS GAME HAS THAT TOO.

Only if they have a name, you can skip talking to generic people like 'Citizen', 'Legionaire' and the like.
 
Didn't know I was supposed to use
shambling oak wand
on the
Guardian
, and killed it in the traditional way.

Now my character is infected with rot, how do I cure it?
 

Levyne

Banned
Madam Loenstra
sure wants a lot of my money ;_;

Edit: Finally got into the Troll King Cave.
Is there any way to do this without just slaughtering them all ;_;
 

Valygar

Member
Question: Is there any way to change a henchmen portrait?
I've read something about it
an illusionist on homestead once you gather more stones
, but I'm not sure it applies to henchmen. I also would prefer a faster method since my problem is that the perfect henchman for my party has the same portrait as one of my main characters.

I'm already at level 4, on my way to the lighthouse. It's incredible how much of a difference a level makes at the beginning, specially thanks to the health boost.
 

Instro

Member
I think he means the "Nasty Deeds". Also thieves' skills do suck compared to man-at-arms' skill. And thieves have basically the same set of skills like Rangers, only that they come with 1/5 of the range...

What's bad about lockpicking and such?

With regards to skills, invisibility and haste have been absurdly useful for me so far.
 

Moff

Member
Any advice on
Bellegar's Maze?
Its pretty straightforward, with the switches you turn it into three different animals who will go for their obvious favourite food in an adjacent field.
the only problem is that there is some random chance involved if there are several of the favourite food around, that makes it a bit random, but apart from that its pretty straightforward, you cant fail it, it might just take a bit longer.

What's bad about lockpicking and such?

With regards to skills, invisibility and haste have been absurdly useful for me so far.

lockpicking is pretty much useless because you find keys for most chests and all the others you can simply bash in, the real good ones with magic locks cant be lockpicked, so: useless.

stealth is completely fine without putting a single point in it, so :useless

pickpocketing is fun, but not really necessary either.
 

Arulan

Member
Someone smarter than me is going to have to answer that. There's just a new "triple buffering" checkbox in the video options.

I checked, it's just your standard "add to the flip-queue" triple-buffering. It's better than double-buffered v-sync but it has some downsides, primarily display latency related, especially if you regularly go over your refresh rate.

I'm using D3DOverrider myself and it is working fine. You may have a conflict with something else, typically it's overlays from other programs, or anything that uses a D3D injector which cause them.
 
Is there a key press two switch between the two characters?

Just picked this up today and could use a few basic pointers. It's pretty overwhelming to be quite honest.
 

Arulan

Member
Is there a key press two switch between the two characters?

Just picked this up today and could use a few basic pointers. It's pretty overwhelming to be quite honest.

[ and ] switches between party members. Additionally you can press F1 to select your first character, F2 for second, etc. Since we're discussing keybinds, for anyone who isn't aware, pressing the Home key will re-center your camera to the currently selected party-member and also reset the camera height (from the camera bug for example).
 
[ and ] switches between party members. Additionally you can press F1 to select your first character, F2 for second, etc. Since we're discussing keybinds, for anyone who isn't aware, pressing the Home key will re-center your camera to the currently selected party-member and also reset the camera height (from the camera bug for example).

Cool, thanks.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I was feelingly really drunkenly generous, so I bought the collector's edition and gave the extra copy away to a friend. We got about ~3 hours in... twice.

I really like the way this game looks and sounds. Battles are fun (albeit challenging). But I feel like 60% or more is just walking around, gathering quests, talking to people, and getting lost in town. I'm not the biggest fan of the lore I've seen so far, and I think it's a bit overly verbose at times in the dialogue department, but it's definitely more than serviceable. I'm only in the beginning of the game, though, so I can't really judge it too well yet.

I wanted to roll a Male Wizard/Female Knight, and I did, but my friend insisted on making a Male Wizard with a dandy stache and a giant red fro so we rerolled Male Knight/Male Wizard. And he named him Cade Jurtiss. Sigh. It does kind of change the dynamic a bit, though, to see two guys adventuring with each other. It has kind of a buddy cop vibe to it.
 

Tash

Member
Hands down the best old school PnP feeling you can get on a PC imho.
I absolutely love it so far and I am only just past the murder questline.

Some pet pieves though:

It should be explained better that you should save up skill points since you need to invest them cumulatively. At the very least there should be a one time respec option.

The camera is driving me insane. Why is rotation so restricted? The 3D Assets are there anyway and it won't add to the framerate. Super awkward.

It's kinda buggy in terms of "you haven't learned this skill" in regards to who interacts with the NPC.

I wish there were additional sort function for your inventory and that the choice was persistent.

It would be great if you could click onto the map like in BG to move your party to a certain location.

Still, super awesome game.

I was actually laughing out loud when I
accidentally dragged and combined a Pumpkin with a knife and it created a pumpkin Halloween helmet for me that had the chance to cause fear on enemies.
 
Top Bottom