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

I'm so late on this game, but I still feel the need to do some serious gushing. Will probably write a long post at some point just to get it off my chest. Yes there are little quirks here and there, but overall it's just a fantastic achievement.

Kudos to everyone who kickstarted this thing. It's certainly the best advertisement for Kickstarter I've come across, and that includes Broken Age.
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
I've been slashing at that giant Bloodstone north of Silverglen for waaaay too long.
It can be destroyed with Tenebrium, right? Then why does it heal!
Heck did I know that the weapon I had also owned elemental properties which healed the darn thing. :(
 

xXBaconXx

Banned
I feel like I'm stuck in this game. I made it to the second area of the game (
Lucella
) a while ago and I feel underleveled. I'm currently level 10, but every single enemy here is at least level 12. That might be manageable for some, but I'm a complete CRPG scrub so just can't deal with it. I tried leveling up some more, but I've killed almost every single enemy in Cyseal, and I can't find any more quests to complete. What the fuck do I do?
 

epmode

Member
Sounds like you're not following the
white witch
story. You need to
get into that hut
.

Basically, you're never required to face enemies over your level. If you see some, go elsewhere.
 

Einbroch

Banned
While I really do appreciate that there aren't giant exclamation marks or anything like that, this game is incredibly overwhelming and a little frustrating.

There are SO many quests in the first zone I never completed. Went to the second zone and did okay early, but now the enemies are such a high level that all my attacks are missing and I can only beat them by cheesing them with some pretty shady tactics which aren't satisfying to me. So I went back to the first zone and simply wandered around for 2+ hours, only getting one of my quests complete.

Really turning me off from what otherwise is a fantastic game. Oh, and no respec until 20+ hours into the game is a huge fucking bummer.
 

xXBaconXx

Banned
Sounds like you're not following the
white witch
story. You need to
get into that hut
.

Basically, you're never required to face enemies over your level. If you see some, go elsewhere.

Yeah, I kind of figured that I should do that. It's a bit hard, though, when the only lead is "there might a be a spell somewhere in this forest. Maybe. I Guess."
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Yeah, I kind of figured that I should do that. It's a bit hard, though, when the only lead is "there might a be a spell somewhere in this forest. Maybe. I Guess."

The forest isn't terribly large, and there's definitely a place that seems like there should be something there...
 
What advice would you give to having two lone-wolf characters?

Or maybe I will reroll with 1 lone wolf, since I like playing ranger and with 2 LWs you probably want a meele + mage.

You can play any combo really, however I'd recommend mage+something, mages are just very useful for a lot of stuff. Can make hybrids instead but results might vary depending on how solid your build and items are. Glass Cannon talent is more or less designed for Lone Wolf, the health penalty is countered by the LW bonus and you really want a lot of AP per turn to be able to keep up with 6-10mobs when you only have 2 characters per turn. Keep your talent point at 3 until 5 and get Glass Cannon right away. Leech is probably a necessity if you don't run a healing mage(so like any mage), however it's kinda buggy and seems to often heal you for way more than it should, so not a big fan.

One of your 2 chars should be designed to do crafting to facilitate the process, which means he needs Scientist talent and 2points in each blacksmith and crafting(then +2 from bracers/belt). Can instead get +1 crafting from a trait to save a skill point and can go 3points in each to save you a talent point. Crafting lets you buff your gear a lot by adding stats to it which helps tremendously, for example on the screenshot my weapon has a blacksmith whetstone damage bonus(like 20%dmg), a tenebrium bonus and a +2str+2dex bonus, remove these and the weapon is a lot weaker. Talking of traits, you definitely should get the Immune to Fear and Immune to Charm traits. Immune to cursed isn't a big deal but those 2 are insanely important.

If you play on hardmode, I'd recommend 2 leadership from the mage to buff the other char with chance to hit aura. This can be done for free with the +1 from trait and then +1 from gear(for example helm, which for mages don't really have very good stats anyway). Mages always hit so don't need it the other way. If you don't play a mage though you should get it on both chars.

Keep sets of gear for various situations, for example as I said earlier +1crafting/blacksmithing bracers/belt, +1 telekinesis on a bunch of pieces if you need that, +loremaster gear to identify your gear for free(pointless lategame though), as many perceptions pieces you can to find stuff(if you have an archer you probably don't need that too much as you'll most likely put points in perception anyway), bartering/charisma gear for selling/buying, sneaking/lockpicking/pickpocketing gear for doing those. Don't really need to put any points in any of these, though having max bartering will let you swim in money easily, having max loremaster lets you see mobs resists and sneaking is great for combat if you pick the Guerilla talent(works on every attack that comes out of stealth besides maybe spells, means you can use it on an archer or warrior if you want).

Bodybuilding and Willpower are pretty useful stats, should probably dump a few points in them to get at least decent rolls to avoid status effects. A well prepared mage will be able to remove every effect on your other character though, but most effects can't be removed easily by other classes so you need to be careful with your mage. Save often and reload/flee if your mage gets CCed right from the start, it's unlikely you'll win a fight if that's the case. On the other hand, you really want to put a lot of skill points in magic schools rather than defensive stuff, so it's a hard call. At least gear for it.

I made a list a few pages back on how to spec a mage or a rogue. Warrior and I assume Archer are very straight forward, just 5points in your main skill(man at arms/marksman) then pick all the utility stuff you want. Don't bother with bow/crossbow/2H, you'll eventually get another skill to buff your weapon damage with so points in those are fairly wasted, damage difference doesn't really matter early game anyway. A note, at lvl 20 with Lone Wolf from level 1, you get 68ability points. You also get 3more from a book(or you can keep buying to book and get a lot more but it's pretty cheesy). As you can see you can also get more than level 20 in a playthrough, I was halfway through 22 and could have leveled to 23 if I went to clear the maps out of friendly NPCs. You get 2skillpoints per level until 5, 3 per level until 10 and 4 after that. That means that you can max every school of magic on a mage if you get to lvl 21(without any points in anything else).
 

Darklord

Banned
Ok so I just came across this game and it seems really cool. One thing I don't get though. Do you pick the dialogue for all the characters? I saw a video and it looked like the player was picking both sides of the discussion. That seems really weird and kinda lame. Is that just for certain moments or what? I'd much rather characters have their own personality and things to say rather than me pick it(aside from my main character).
 
Ok so I just came across this game and it seems really cool. One thing I don't get though. Do you pick the dialogue for all the characters? I saw a video and it looked like the player was picking both sides of the discussion. That seems really weird and kinda lame. Is that just for certain moments or what? I'd much rather characters have their own personality and things to say rather than me pick it(aside from my main character).

In char creation you can setup "AI" for one of the 2 characters and they'll pick answers based on that. Selecting answers let you get the traits you want but yeah it's pretty weird, you can roleplay both chars though that way. It's also good when you play coop, both players pick their own stuff. Thing though is you basically play 2 characters in this game, it's not a main+team, it's 2mains+team, that's why you get to pick both. You also create both.
 

epmode

Member
While I really do appreciate that there aren't giant exclamation marks or anything like that, this game is incredibly overwhelming and a little frustrating.

There are SO many quests in the first zone I never completed. Went to the second zone and did okay early, but now the enemies are such a high level that all my attacks are missing and I can only beat them by cheesing them with some pretty shady tactics which aren't satisfying to me. So I went back to the first zone and simply wandered around for 2+ hours, only getting one of my quests complete.

Really turning me off from what otherwise is a fantastic game. Oh, and no respec until 20+ hours into the game is a huge fucking bummer.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=124102415&postcount=9786

Also, did you just leave the first zone's quests unfinished because you couldn't be bothered? I would suggest that you don't leave a major zone until most of the monsters are dead.

Ok so I just came across this game and it seems really cool. One thing I don't get though. Do you pick the dialogue for all the characters? I saw a video and it looked like the player was picking both sides of the discussion. That seems really weird and kinda lame. Is that just for certain moments or what? I'd much rather characters have their own personality and things to say rather than me pick it(aside from my main character).

You can choose responses for both characters if you want. I find it distracting so I turn off dual dialogue responses in the options. You can also set it so that the other player's responses are based on an AI personality but I'm not sure how well that works in practice.
 
Jahan question

Do you ever find out his complete backstory? About to enter the Phantom Forest which I assume is the end of the game. Just found out Madora's deal and I am curious if I missed a trigger for Jahan.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
Ok so I just came across this game and it seems really cool. One thing I don't get though. Do you pick the dialogue for all the characters? I saw a video and it looked like the player was picking both sides of the discussion. That seems really weird and kinda lame. Is that just for certain moments or what? I'd much rather characters have their own personality and things to say rather than me pick it(aside from my main character).

I really don't know why people find choosing for two characters to be so strange. It felt like such a great mechanic to me, being able to role play the relationship as I saw fit. I just wish they'd made it more in depth.
 

Realyn

Member
I've did
the murder quest(well have to find the lab now) and I'm on my way to the lighthouse now.
Still haven't found a workbench or anything that would allow me to craft. Did I miss it?
 

Zakalwe

Banned
I've did
the murder quest(well have to find the lab now) and I'm on my way to the lighthouse now.
Still haven't found a workbench or anything that would allow me to craft. Did I miss it?

To craft items you drag and drop to combine them.

If they're suitable components you'll either get a window asking to confirm the build or a notification telling you your crafting isn't high enough.
 

Realyn

Member
To craft items you drag and drop to combine them.

If they're suitable components you'll either get a window asking to confirm the build or a notification telling you your crafting isn't high enough.

Oh whelp thanks. Did I miss a tutorial on that?
 
Oh whelp thanks. Did I miss a tutorial on that?

Nope it's not explained at all, making it very confusing. Note you can also drag and drop stuff on like forges, anvils, whetstone wheels, ovens and such to do stuff corresponding. There's a full list of all the crafting recipes on the tips forum, bunch of them are definitely not obvious.
 

Realyn

Member
Nope it's not explained at all, making it very confusing. Note you can also drag and drop stuff on like forges, anvils, whetstone wheels, ovens and such to do stuff corresponding. There's a full list of all the crafting recipes on the tips forum, bunch of them are definitely not obvious.

That's really fucking stupid. Excuse the language. To make it worse the recipe doesn't get updated after a successful craft. Have the devs ever commented on that system? Just mind boggling, really.

Do I "need" any of those hidden recipes? I know the game is relatively easy and everything. Guess I'll just look them up when I'm nearly done with the game.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
That's really fucking stupid. Excuse the language. To make it worse the recipe doesn't get updated after a successful craft. Have the devs ever commented on that system? Just mind boggling, really.

Do I "need" any of those hidden recipes? I know the game is relatively easy and everything. Guess I'll just look them up when I'm nearly done with the game.

I think they should have included a brief example in the turotiral dungeon to show you how it's done, but I like the actual system and the way they reveal recipes via books and conversations.

You don't need to craft anything but I enjoyed crafting a great deal, it's quite a logical system and fun to experiment with.
 
That's really fucking stupid. Excuse the language. To make it worse the recipe doesn't get updated after a successful craft. Have the devs ever commented on that system? Just mind boggling, really.

Do I "need" any of those hidden recipes? I know the game is relatively easy and everything. Guess I'll just look them up when I'm nearly done with the game.

If you want to min max you need to figure out how to upgrade weapons/armor but it's not necessary otherwise and the upgrading stuff is very easy to figure out(basically everything that can be used for crafting is tagged Ingredient, so you just try to put them on weapons/armor and see what it does). You do need to craft for a couple of quests, but yeah basically just drag and drop items and that's fine. Should definitely be explained in the tutorial dungeon, there's a perfect place to do it too near the end with an int potion, cooking pot, lockpick and things like that, just put an arrowhead and a shaft and tutorial popup: Combine arrowhead with shaft to create an arrow. Kinda need 1 crafting to make it work though which might be why there's no tutorial in the dungeon about it, but I guess making one recipe without a requirement wouldn't be a big deal.

I kinda like the experimenting/finding books with recipes though, just some recipes don't make a whole lot of sense for example
Iron Bar+Iron Bar= Large Iron Bar, Iron Bar+Forge=Steel Bar, but the only way to make Large Steel Bar is with Steel Bar+Steel Bar, Large Iron Bar+Forge doesn't make anything(or maybe it's the contrary forgot).
 

Noaloha

Member
Has anyone else been playing around, casually or seriously, with the Divinity Editor?

I've been dicking around with it for a few weeks now, having zero experience in modding, level editors, anything of the sort. I guess on the plus side, I can say that I'm making progress, I'm certainly learning new things each day. And it's definitely grabbed me by the balls nerdy project-wise. But by the shits, can it also be frustrating. I'm just wondering if anyone with a bit more experience who's using the editor can shed some light on whether the frustration is part and parcel for this kind of activity, or if the Divinity Editor is especially ball-breaking.

That said, I have managed to make a deliciously super-dumb menu screen by tooling around with view distance and lots of stone walls.

ihFcmmpeU52P9.png
 

KingKong

Member
So I think I'm pretty close to the end and I'm having problems

I'm level 16 and just got to the part past the magic log with the amulet and I'm really struggling to kill the death knights. I drop their invul with the spell and then barely do any damage to them while they can kill me in a few turns. I've not had any problems with combat and bosses for most of the game, and I think I could clear some of the north of that zone and maybe get to level 17 but considering I've cleared most of the other areas and done most side quests I could get, I'd have to really really grind to get to 18
 

Darklord

Banned
I really don't know why people find choosing for two characters to be so strange. It felt like such a great mechanic to me, being able to role play the relationship as I saw fit. I just wish they'd made it more in depth.

Well when I get into an RPG like this I like imagining I'm the main character. So being split into two characters breaks that immersion for me. However, if you can let AI talk for the second character then that should be ok.
 
So I think I'm pretty close to the end and I'm having problems

I'm level 16 and just got to the part past the magic log with the amulet and I'm really struggling to kill the death knights. I drop their invul with the spell and then barely do any damage to them while they can kill me in a few turns. I've not had any problems with combat and bosses for most of the game, and I think I could clear some of the north of that zone and maybe get to level 17 but considering I've cleared most of the other areas and done most side quests I could get, I'd have to really really grind to get to 18

Hmm not sure what you can do, they're not particularily hard I've found but guess it depends. They can be stunned and frozen iirc, not knocked down though. Mass Slow or just Slow/Cripple is also good to reduce their damage(they only attack once per turn with those on I believe), put Shields on whoever's tanking to mitigate damage(Air or Water shields to proc stun/freeze preferably), shields are a ton better than heals then you should be able to whittle them down fine. Can also abuse Blind, if you blind them out of melee range of whatever they're targetting, they'll just stand there doing nothing.

Not sure what your team is like but it seems like your damage is lower than you'd want, they hurt a lot compared to most mobs but aren't particularily tanky so you can just burst them down especially since they only spawn in groups of 2 max(if you fight 3 it's probably 2 patrols at once). Nullify Resistances from warrior then Flurry for example will often take out one right away(with Oath of Desecration+Bless+Rage from the first turn).
 

KingKong

Member
Hmm not sure what you can do, they're not particularily hard I've found but guess it depends. They can be stunned and frozen iirc, not knocked down though. Mass Slow or just Slow/Cripple is also good to reduce their damage(they only attack once per turn with those on I believe), put Shields on whoever's tanking to mitigate damage(Air or Water shields to proc stun/freeze preferably), shields are a ton better than heals then you should be able to whittle them down fine. Can also abuse Blind, if you blind them out of melee range of whatever they're targetting, they'll just stand there doing nothing.

Not sure what your team is like but it seems like your damage is lower than you'd want, they hurt a lot compared to most mobs but aren't particularily tanky so you can just burst them down especially since they only spawn in groups of 2 max(if you fight 3 it's probably 2 patrols at once). Nullify Resistances from warrior then Flurry for example will often take out one right away(with Oath of Desecration+Bless+Rage from the first turn).

OK, I assumed they couldnt be affected because knockdown didnt work and the Jahan stun failed. I did fight a group of 3 through, maybe that's why I had some trouble. Maybe I'm supposed to avoid that patrol instead of fighting it
 
OK, I assumed they couldnt be affected because knockdown didnt work and the Jahan stun failed. I did fight a group of 3 through, maybe that's why I had some trouble. Maybe I'm supposed to avoid that patrol instead of fighting it

Well you certainly don't have to kill them but if it's the one I remember, it's actually 2patrols, 1 single guy and 2 other guys patrolling the same path, and they meet up in certain spots, so you might end up with 3 but if you wait a bit they should split and if you fight the single one quickly you should be fine. And yeah stun/freeze works as far as I remember, freeze definitely does, stun I'm fairly sure does too, but knockdown is immunity right away. Use Rain before the fight so they're wet to raise stun chance and you shouldn't have an issue stunning them with lightning bolt/chain lightning(or freeze them since rain helps with that too it seems).

I killed everything everywhere besides friendly NPCs
(well I killed most of the "friendly" in Hunter's Edge too, the "war" looked kinda weird with most of them dead already)
because no real reason not to but if you find it too hard for your group setup you can skip them, it might be iffy to fight further groups if they patrol that way though, not sure how far they go, since mobs not in combat keep moving at normal pace.
 

DMiz

Member
Good video by Matt Lees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9liA6eze5BE&list=PLswVJ_e2AEzlrULSPhdAcGm7hoNYFdCeN

Not a review, really...more of a general discussion of the game and some relevant commentary about the great late 90s golden age of RPGs.

I definitely agree with him about the game missing some opportunities to include some convenience functions (e.g. autosaving before some instant death situations, the inventory menu...)

Call me a plebe if you wish, but as much as I loved this game, there really were some instances where some time-savers could have put in.
Please don't hurt me.

On another note, I strongly agree with his last point about how effective the debate system is when placed in a solo environment. As someone who almost always defaults to the 'good' option when faced with several decisions, it was really entertaining to have the two leads in the game be vastly different people and to watch some quests end in ways that I traditionally wouldn't allow. For example:
the orc you meet in Cyseal that is supposedly under a spell by the guard I had killed in the first instance, because I had a feeling she would break loose. On a second play-through, my charismatic warrior managed to convince the guards to let the orc live; when I realized the quest had not finished, re-visiting them several hours later found them both dead at the orc's hands...
and it was fantastic!
 

sixghost

Member
Is it worth putting points in sneak if you are playing a dagger rogue? The damage boost from guerilla seems nice, but I can't tell if it's more efficient than just pumping points into one-handed.
 
Is it worth putting points in sneak if you are playing a dagger rogue? The damage boost from guerilla seems nice, but I can't tell if it's more efficient than just pumping points into one-handed.

It's a lot more efficient to put points in sneak than in 1H. Sneak is double damage, 1H is up to 50% and you need more points to do that. For sneak you want 2points, the Cautious trait and +2 sneak from gear, which can be acquired from vendors if you savescum a few times or just over the course of a few hours of play, make sure to check the vendors every time you level up especially the ones selling armor like the captain of the ship in the harbour, gear slots with sneak are headpiece and boots. Eventually you can replace this gear with sneak enchants instead, requires Crafting to make but then you don't need sneak gear to get it maxed. Can in theory get 5sneak without any points in sneak by combining the two(gear+enchants), however the sneak enchant items only drop once you reach like lvl 12+ or so.

5sneak makes sneak costs 1AP in combat. You can constantly resneak inbetween hits, leading to a massive damage increase. Can get 1H on top too even though eventually you'll get another weapon skill that replaces 1H entirely so point put in it end up kinda wasted.

Make sure to also get Backstabber, since you want to sneak behind mobs for it to work anyway, you pretty much always are in position to backstab.
 
Stuck on Immaculate Infiltration

Went past the Level puzzle into next room. All I have is a chest and a dead end. What the hell am I supposed to do next?

NVM: Couldn't see the fucking steps going down
 

bob page

Member
I have a late 2013 Macbook Pro & this game runs pretty poorly on high settings- would've expected it to run better. Will I get better results running it in bootcamp?
 

Finalow

Member
uhm, what the hell am I supposed to do? Very near the end of the game
I have to collect all 14 star stones in order to open that door. I have all of them but the door still says that I can't enter, uh?
and yes, I've already used them and counted them 6 times and they're 14.

also the last elemental hall, still haven't unlocked that. how? I've got all of the star stones.
 
uhm, what the hell am I supposed to do? Very near the end of the game
I have to collect all 14 star stones in order to open that door. I have all of them but the door still says that I can't enter, uh?
and yes, I've already used them and counted them 6 times and they're 14.

also the last elemental hall, still haven't unlocked that. how? I've got all of the star stones.

If you haven't unlocked everything at the End of Time then you don't have all the star stones. There are more star stones available than there are rooms. Do you have any unused Bloodstones sitting in your inventory?
 

tm24

Member
Is it worth putting points in sneak if you are playing a dagger rogue? The damage boost from guerilla seems nice, but I can't tell if it's more efficient than just pumping points into one-handed.

You don't want points in 1h because of a story related reason that leads to another skill being present in the weapon section that overrides the 1h skill
 

DMiz

Member
You don't want points in 1h because of a story related reason that leads to another skill being present in the weapon section that overrides the 1h skill

Out of curiosity, does this also apply to other weapon classes (2h, bows?) I never put in enough time to see if that was the case.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
You don't want points in 1h because of a story related reason that leads to another skill being present in the weapon section that overrides the 1h skill

That really bothers me. I JUST got that skill, and does it completely negate the need for that other skill? What a ridiculous design choice. Is there any reason to wield a normal single-hander once you get that skill?
 

Casimir

Unconfirmed Member
Out of curiosity, does this also apply to other weapon classes (2h, bows?) I never put in enough time to see if that was the case.

Covers all weapon classes, see below for additional commentary.

That really bothers me. I JUST got that skill, and does it completely negate the need for that other skill? What a ridiculous design choice. Is there any reason to wield a normal single-hander once you get that skill?

Maybe. It depends on the buff levels provided by the randomly generated gear that you find and what you already invested into your character. Someone already posted that they had lower damage output than with the previous class so they switched back, a situation that I am also experiencing.
 

tm24

Member
Is there any reason to wield a normal single-hander once you get that skill?

Nope, especially since little to no enemies resist it. It was no problem to me since i was spending points in other areas so by the time that happened i was good to spend a shitload of points in that skill
 
uhm, what the hell am I supposed to do? Very near the end of the game
I have to collect all 14 star stones in order to open that door. I have all of them but the door still says that I can't enter, uh?
and yes, I've already used them and counted them 6 times and they're 14.

also the last elemental hall, still haven't unlocked that. how? I've got all of the star stones.

Save your game and use some blood stones and see if you unlock anything else in the End of Time.
 
Yeah it seems there's more gear with +skill for the older skills than the new one, however you lose a hefty amount of damage from not using a tenebrium enhanced weapon, which I'm not sure the +skill compensates adequately, it depends a lot on how much you have. Ultimately I think the way it's designed is an oversight/mechanics constraints, it'd make a lot more sense to only take the bigger of the 2 or to have them stack but tenebrium only increases tenebrium dmg and isn't increased by 2H/1H/bow.

It isn't a big deal if you invest in a skill or not though, either way you'll want to limit your itemization options depending on which one you max. I find investing in other stuff than straight % dmg early game is more useful though, so it works out nicely for me to wait for tenebrium skill to unlock.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Covers all weapon classes, see below for additional commentary.



Maybe. It depends on the buff levels provided by the randomly generated gear that you find and what you already invested into your character. Someone already posted that they had lower damage output than with the previous class so they switched back, a situation that I am also experiencing.

Nope, especially since little to no enemies resist it. It was no problem to me since i was spending points in other areas so by the time that happened i was good to spend a shitload of points in that skill
Ah. Well, that sucks. I should be fine with skill points to level it up, but damn if that isn't a kick in the nuts.
 
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