Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[Strange Fellow]

I confess I'm not following everything Swen says and maybe he changed his opinion, but from what I saw based on his reactions of criticism after DOS 2 launch, his whole argument was, "we sold 2 million copies so whatever you say is invalid"

I assume you're aware that he has folded on the armor system and at least for Divinity: Fallen Heroes, on the turn order.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Fallen Heroes won't use the armour system, though, does it?

 

[Infinitron]

This doesn't necessarily mean that Fallen Heroes won't use the armour system, though, does it?

Does it, Avonaeon?

 

[Lacrymas]

Uhm, doesn't that action point addition imbalance the game?

 

[Infinitron]

My understanding is that these are optional powerups that you can enable, like the Berath's Blessings in PoE2.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I confess I'm not following everything Swen says and maybe he changed his opinion, but from what I saw based on his reactions of criticism after DOS 2 launch, his whole argument was, "we sold 2 million copies so whatever you say is invalid"

I assume you're aware that he has folded on the armor system and at least for Divinity: Fallen Heroes, on the turn order.

Good news, everyone! No more thinking required — just stack resist and win, the crying retards won.

 

[LESS T_T]

A bit interesting they didn't partnered with Bandai Namco for Switch release (likely the reason it has no physical release): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/divinity-original-sin-2-definitive-edition-switch/

Publisher Larian Studios
Developer Larian Studios, The Dragon Commanders

(The Dragon Commanders is Larian's related company incorporated in Ireland. Fallen Heroes trademark is registered under this company.)

Also in case anyone still hoping for this:



Bonus, in case anyone has doubt in Larian's writing team:

 

[DraQ]

Can't you people quote instead of twatting?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Can't you people quote instead of twatting?

A forum feature to automatically convert twats to quotes would be nice.

 

[DeepOcean]

Good news, everyone! No more thinking required — just stack resist and win, the crying retards won.

Are you offended by incline, good sir? I know a good salve for lesions on the butt, it is guarantee your butt won't hurt that much. Use "Edgyboy fanboy butt salve" and all your problems will be fixed, guaranteed. It is not acceptable for an edgy fanboy having such a pain.

 

[DraQ]

A forum feature to automatically convert twats to quotes would be nice.

Twats to bans would also be acceptable.

 

[DraQ]

The recurring problem with Larian is that when putting something in their games, apparently no one of them stops to ask this very important question:
"What this thing I am now about to add IS?"

 

[Ismaul]

Even Swen admitted the armor system was a mistake. Example: A mage on the Infinity Engine games is easier or harder to defeat by another mage (magical damage equivalent) or a fighter (physical damage equivalent)? The answer is depends on the mage's spells and the fighter's weapons, the system created by Larian doesn't allow for such subtleties, pretty much when you see a huge magical armor bar, you knew the right answer was to use a physical attack, period, and many times which to use was kinda superfluous, just the one with the biggest damage (the result of making defenses working like HP), that is predictability and I find it boring.

It still depends on a mage's spells in DOS2. Y'know, Necromancy does physical damage, and Geomancy or Polymorph skills grant a lot of physical armor. So it is not necessary that a mage is worse to defeat another mage. As for "fighters", they're not limited to physical damage -- despite being admittely less flexible on damage type than mages in DOS2, especially for melee types. Fighters attacking at range have ways to make attacks of any element, have special arrows, and piercing attacks, etc. When it comes to melee, the Scoundrel tree has some attacks against magic and some piercing. The Warfare tree is more limited there and must appeal to something else to supplement it magically, such as Geo for venom coating or Pyro for sparking swings. But it's true it's less obvious to make a melee fighter that does mainly elemental damage; there are a smaller number of viable builds, and no purely elemental melee weapons.

As for the idea that combat is boring and repetitive because you just try to do damage, I don't see it. I find myself rarely choosing attacks because they do the most damage. I usually am setuping future moves, surfaces or circumstances to combo off of. I often choose attacks that CC the enemy or do some effect, because effects are better than just pure damage unless it's a killing blow. The Scoundrel tree for example has nice things: Rupture Tendons hurts the enemy if they move and applying it bypasses armor, being able to set atrophy or decaying is great, decay especially is great to turn your healing spells into attacks, etc.

On an Infinite Engine game, an archer with a higher firing rate and special arrows could be as dangerous as a mage with breach/dispel, two different solutions to the same problem that allow for flexibility so a fighter focused into be a fighter can defeat anything, just needs to change tactics/weapons the same as a mage.

It's the same in DOS2? Actually, Archers / Crossbowmen are the most powerful type of build.

 

[DraQ]

Even Swen admitted the armor system was a mistake. Example: A mage on the Infinity Engine games is easier or harder to defeat by another mage (magical damage equivalent) or a fighter (physical damage equivalent)? The answer is depends on the mage's spells and the fighter's weapons, the system created by Larian doesn't allow for such subtleties, pretty much when you see a huge magical armor bar, you knew the right answer was to use a physical attack, period, and many times which to use was kinda superfluous, just the one with the biggest damage (the result of making defenses working like HP), that is predictability and I find it boring.

It still depends on a mage's spells in DOS2. Y'know, Necromancy does physical damage, and Geomancy or Polymorph skills grant a lot of physical armor. So it is not necessary that a mage is worse to defeat another mage. As for "fighters", they're not limited to physical damage -- despite being admittely less flexible on damage type then mages in DOS2, especially for melee types. Fighters attacking at range have ways to make attacks of any element, have special arrows, and piercing attacks, etc. When it comes to melee, the Scoundrel tree has some attacks against magic and some piercing. The Warfare tree is more limited there and must appeal to something else to supplement it magically, such as Geo for venom coating or Pyro for sparking swings. But it's true it's less obvious to make a melee fighter that does mainly elemental damage; there are a smaller number of viable builds, and no purely elemental melee weapons.

As for the idea that combat is boring and repetitive because you just try to do damage, I don't see it. I find myself rarely choosing attacks because they do the most damage. I usually am setuping future moves, surfaces or circumstances to combo off of. I often choose attacks that CC the enemy or do some effect, because effects are better than just pure damage, unless it's a killing blow. The Scoundrel tree for example has nice things: Rupture Tendeons hurts the enemy if they move and applying it bypasses armor, being able to set atrophy or decaying is great, decay especially is great to turn your healing spells into attacks, etc.

And the armor system ensures that none of those interesting things happens as long as armor is not depleted, while cooldown system ensures that using interesting skills before armor depletion is wasteful, so you end up bashing through the armor and maybe setting something on fire.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Armor bad because it's hard to think more than 1 turn ahead!

 

[Jezal_k23]

Meh. Who cares about anything other than burst damage in DOS2?

 

[Ismaul]

And the armor system ensures that none of those interesting things happens as long as armor is not depleted, while cooldown system ensures that using interesting skills before armor depletion is wasteful, so you end up bashing through the armor and maybe setting something on fire.

1- That's the point init? Break defenses before disabling the enemy?

2- There are many effects that bypass armor entirely: Rupture Tendons, Taunt, anything that applies suffocating or acid (destroys magical and physical armor respectively), slowing thing with oil, wetting things with rain, Piercing attacks (for Huntsman and Scoundrel). With the talent Torturer, you can add anything that applies bleeding, burning, and poisoned, and even Worm Tremors that entangles bypasses armor.

3- I often destroy armor and with the same attack apply an effect. Say some enemy has 200 physical armor, I just make an attack that does that amount of damage and applies an effect/CC. What's the issue there? With tougher enemies, sure you might have to spend a turn destroying armor so your companion does the CC/effect. I bet many people complaining about having to destroy armor first and that it's a slog are actually attacking the strongest defense rather than having a balanced party that can deal multiple damage types. Or they suck at scaling their damage (admittedly the game is at fault here for being obscure on how to do this well).

4- You're saying the cooldown system makes it feel suboptimal to use your effect causing skills before armor is depleted. But isn't it a good thing that most skills can do both damage and effects? You choose when they're more appropriate, that's all. You can't use everything at the optimal moment, obviously. As for the rest, I feel again it's a problem of not scaling the damage appropriately to be able to apply the effect while clearing what remains of the armor.

 

[Ismaul]

Meh. Who cares about anything other than burst damage in DOS2?

Anyone with a brain to use it effectively.

 

[Neerasrc]

Some people don't like humor, others talk with the game system. Systems such as dnd or pathfinder can be flawless (this is a different topic of discussion), but they restrict freedom. Personally, I play larian games for the innovative systems it brings. And I really love that. If it was bg3, I'd give people the right. However, the subject is divinity series. Is the game bad? Not for me.

 

[Neerasrc]

TGS(Tokyo Game Show 2019) [Larian dos2 will release the trailer. There are no fallen heroes.]

 

[Ismaul]

DraQ About your previous long post I didn't reply to.

Seems we agree on many things except the severity of the flaws in DOS2. My view overall is that if flaws aren't actively harmful to the gameplay, I can live with them. Attributes doing jack shit but +%dmg is bad, but very tolerable / ignorable. Better that than a system that hampers gameplay.

For initiative, obviously initiative is broken but the round-robin system is ok, just another way to decide whose turn it is. I think they just kept initiative in for PvP, because for single player they could've done away with it entirely by just letting you choose which character acts each turn until everyone has acted.

You could have warm bypass relevant armour, but not burning.

Actually warm already does bypass armor. Walk near a fire or cooking spot in town and you get warm. But for some reason fire surfaces don't warm people, just tested it with fireball. That's a real flaw.

I'm not sure if it's by design or a technical limitation. Maybe so a double application of Warm doesn't make Burning bypass armor? Warm kind of plays the role of both Wet and Chilled, making it too powerful to bypass armor. Maybe the fix would've been to make Warm == Wet, and add a status that would be the fire equivalent of Chilled. But then again does the extra status make sense? Is it going to create better gameplay interactions? Fire spells are often thought to be damaging, with a damage-over-time component. So maybe asking for symmetry between elements so that fire works like water effects is misguided? One fix could be that a double application of warm doesn't cause burning, but then that goes against the comboing design of states leading to others. Fixing this isn't obvious, and maybe there's a reason for what is there now. Maybe even at some point of the design fire surfaces did cause warm.

 

[LESS T_T]

TGS(Tokyo Game Show 2019) [Larian dos2 will release the trailer. There are no fallen heroes.]

It's Spike Chunsoft publishing D:OS2 in Japan. I don't see a reason Larian going TGS themselves, let alone Fallen Hereos.

 

[Neerasrc]

TGS(Tokyo Game Show 2019) [Larian dos2 will release the trailer. There are no fallen heroes.]

It's Spike Chunsoft publishing D:OS2 in Japan. I don't see a reason Larian going TGS themselves, let alone Fallen Hereos.

There is preparation for Japan. There will probably be a Japanese localization announcement. It is nice to enter the Asian market. BG3 needs money. -)

 

[Bohr]

 

[Niklasgunner]

The switch port is actually pretty good and I'm suprised how well the game works with a controller

 

[Turuko]

it's a "Swen goes to ..." episode