Divinity Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

[Ismaul]

Yeah, but right now initiative is a dump stat that does nothing. It actually leads to situation where I was at all costs avoiding building it on my low armor archer and rogue, because I needed my tanks to move first and engage the enemy to soak the damage, then safely peel them of armor with my high damage dudes and then just chain CC till the victory

And I don't think the dos1-style initiative would be a problem. In dos1 it allowed you to chain CC enemies from turn 1 if all your party moves first, but in dos2 thanks to armor bloat it wouldn't be nearly as effective

Yeah I agree the way the initiative stat works is terrible now. In my current game, I want my debuffer (rogue) and my buffer (summoner) to act first, but my 2 other PCs that are stacking Wits for crit chance are acting first by default, unless I fucking stack Wits even more on the others which is a ridiculous proposition. It's fucking annoying. But, and that was my point, it is a minor flaw overall; I can live with it and enjoy the game. I prefer that initiative be broken than that the possiblity to alpha strike makes the game unchallenging.

And yes, the armor system prevents some of the alpha striking that is possible. But I know for a fact that in a well optimized party, with mixed damage to strike the lower armors, you can CC at least an enemy per PC in the first turn quite reliably. With alpha striking initiative, that would make the game very unchallenging.

In any case, the initiative stat is retarded in DOS2, whether with regular initiative or alternating turns between PC-enemy. In addition to the 10-70 range being crazy, Initiative being tied to Wits is a good part of the problem: not everyone that wants to crit wants to act first. If it was tied to Finesse though, no one would bat an eye because it simulates the agile guy being quick, even though not all agile guys want to act first. For that matter, the way Delay works sucks, and makes having high initiative when you don't want to act first annoying. Delaying your turn just makes you act last, 2nd last if you're the 2nd to delay. You can't choose up to when you delay, for example choose to act right after another PC has acted (or after the enemy after that PC has acted). If that were possible, it would highly alleviate the flaws of the current initiative system.

IMO, the main issues are not with the alternating turns system, which is a valid alternative turn order system to the classic one, but with how the initiative stat iitself s implemented. The initiative stat and how it scales is clearly made for a turn order system where characters go in initiative order, and stack it to go first. It wasn't made for the current alternating turns system and it shows. Hell, in an alternating turns system, who acts first might not even have to be tied to an initiative stat; it might even make more sense to determine who acts first by other means, since the acting order wouldn't follow the pure initiative order anyways.

 

[Citizen]

But I know for a fact that in a well optimized party, with mixed damage to strike the lower armors, you can CC at least an enemy per PC in the first turn quite reliably.

I'm not even sure that 50/50 damage party is optimal. I had mostly physical damage and a lot of mobility and my archer acted as a source of magical damage and CC with elemental arrows in the rare cases where it was really needed, while still dealing massive physical damage. I just dipped my party in all classes to get maximum of mobility spells and gave adrenaline + polymorph cooldown reset to everyone to cheese with hit-and-run tactics (5 jumps/teleports from all skilltrees + adrenaline + elf racial AP bonus. Combine it with cooldown reset from polymorph and you are unstoppable)

I chose physical damage because I used two warriors as my frontline and they have dirt cheap AoE CC skills, so I just stunlocked enemies with them while jumping around and oneshotting them with very mobile archer and rogue

In some cases where enemies had so little magic armor that physical damage was impractical, arrows and grenades were enough to disable them for few turns

 

[LESS T_T]

I wonder, now that Fallen Heroes is put on hold, if they gonna backport the combat changes as a Gift Bag option.

 

[Ismaul]

I wonder, now that Fallen Heroes is put on hold, if they gonna backport the combat changes as a Gift Bag option.

Don't count on it, they'd have to rework all encounters and skills.

 

[Drakortha]

Finally playing this game for the first time. I'm on the definitive edition playing as an undead.

So what happens to companions if I tell them to go away? Is there a location I can find them again if I ever feel I'll need them? I don't want to lose them forever because they helped me escape Fort Joy, but I now want to go Solo for a bit.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Finally playing this game for the first time. I'm on the definitive edition playing as an undead.

So what happens to companions if I tell them to go away? Is there a location I can find them again if I ever feel I'll need them? I don't want to lose them forever because they helped me escape Fort Joy, but I now want to go Solo for a bit.

If you leave them in Fort Joy they are gone forever.

After Act 1 if you tell them to leave they will wait on the love boat and you can get them back any time. You can also hire mercenaries just like all the previous Divinity games.

 

[the mole]

Somehow the player winning is a bad thing and initiative not mattering is a good thing, bunch of fucking idiots

Nothing is overpowered about getting first turn if the battle continues past the first turn, you're sacrificing damage and investing in speed it's a tradeoff

You fucking retards are the worst honestly

Yes let's handicap the player so that the computer can win, fuck off

 

[Drakortha]

Finally I escaped Fort Joy and made it to what I'm guessing is the mainland. I'm really liking it so far, I like the changes they've made since the first game, with the darker tone definitely being the most welcome change IMO. Murder, Torture, Crucifixion, the works. Nice. Reminds me of our fked up history in the real world.

However what's with the story force feeding you this Godwoken and Chosen one nonsense? Wasn't at all what I was expecting when I made my Undead Necromancer/Scoundrel. I would have followed the main quest eventually but first of all I wanted to explore solo and see what kind of trouble I can get up to. But the story was constantly trying to fill my character in for me, like he should care about the divine gods and all that. I think a better approach would have been setting the player loose straight after escaping from Fort Joy. Sort of like how in Morrowind you get off the boat at Seyda Need and you aren't straight up told you're the Nevarine. Maybe I am the chosen one but it should be revealed much later in the story.

There I was witnessing all the death and carnage on that island, only to find out they sacrificed themselves for me, I'm the chosen one and the whole world revolves around me. yay..

 

[Danikas]

Finally I escaped Fort Joy and made it to what I'm guessing is the mainland. I'm really liking it so far, I like the changes they've made since the first game, with the darker tone definitely being the most welcome change IMO.

You are in the best part of game, just wait for act 3

 

[Drakortha]

Finally I escaped Fort Joy and made it to what I'm guessing is the mainland. I'm really liking it so far, I like the changes they've made since the first game, with the darker tone definitely being the most welcome change IMO.

You are in the best part of game, just wait for act 3

Don't worry, if game keeps telling me I'm special I won't make it that far.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/435150/announcements/detail/1606024451705562126

Gift Bag 3 - Order & Magic

Hello everyone,

Today we’re releasing our latest Gift Bag: Order & Magic. Packed full of new features – including options to randomize combat, increase your haggling ability, and organise your sweet, sweet loot – all of which will be effortlessly added to your game, absolutely free.

As ever, the contents of each Gift Bag are accessible via the in-game menu, where you can independently enable or disable each individual feature. Of course, these are compatible with all prior Gift Bags (Beauty Salon and Song Of Nature), and you’re free to enable as many or as few as you'd like!

Gift Bag 3 includes:

Pet Power
Pet Power greatly enhances the summoning class and its infusion spells. With this feature, you can cast infusion spells on all available summons, not just your own Incarnate. Each summons receives different skills depending on the base elemental infusion type.

Combat Randomizer
When entering combat, one or more random enemies will receive one of the new special statuses created specially for this feature. Think you know how a particular fight is going to go down? Not any more! This will change everything you thought you knew about combat, with each battle presenting a fresh new challenge.

Nine Lives (Back Cat+)
Transforms the Black Cat into a follower. Once rescued, a whistle will appear in your inventory. You can use this if your cat gets lost or if you want to change who it follows.

Improved Organisation
Find a collection of special bags that allow you to better (and automatically) organise your inventory.

Sourcerous Sundries
In each major hub, you can now find a mysterious vendor selling exotic and potent artifacts. These artifacts can upgrade a character’s gear with immense power, bringing them up to the players' current level.

Hagglers
Tired of forgetting to switch to your 'haggling' character when talking to traders? Now the reputation and skill of your whole party can help you wrangle the best prices!

Please note that once enabled, these features will roll over to your saves on PC, or vice versa on Switch if you have cloud save transfers enabled.

Remember, if you want exclusive updates on all things Larian, Divinity and Baldur’s Gate 3, make sure you’re signed up to the Larian Gazette at the following link: eepurl.com/gs7nAb

Happy adventures,
The Larian Crew

In addition to the Gift Bag content, there are a number of fixes included in the patch today. These cover:

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed crash in multiplayer Mac-PC crossplay with Crafter’s Kit enabled
  
• Fixed crash related to loading saves with Larian modifications enabled
  
• Fixed major issue related to enabling/disabling Larian modifications in conjunction with community mods
  
• Fixed issue where player could steal Drudanae from the Elf Herbalist without any consequence
  
• Fixed player not receiving points for level up if inside Magic Mirror
  
• Fixed the Battered Raft being destructible
  
• Fixed music not playing during loading sequence when Larian modifications are enabled
  
• Fixed rare issue with Alexandar remaining in battle even after death
  
• Fixed rare issue when failing to pickpocket Meistr Siva
  
• Fixed rare chance of player ending up stuck in combat during the fight for Divinity
  
• Fixed minor issues with UI selection when playing with a gamepad
  
• Fixed small issues with VO and dialogue in Herb Gardens
  
• Fixed minor text and localization issues
  
• Fixed minor visual and animation issues

 

[Lacrymas]

Combat Randomizer seems good. Improved Organisation as well. Actually, a lot of these things seem cool, as long as the summoning effects aren't ridiculously overpowered.

 

[Roguey]

It's impressive they're still updating this after over two years.

 

[Lacrymas]

They have to remind people of their existence.

 

[you know what time it is]

It's impressive they're still updating this after over two years.

I see D:OS2 hovering around top sellers during every sale (during halloween thingy they were in top 3 I think). Even as far as personal anecdotes go, met a girl recently, when I asked what she was up to on the weekend, she said "Playing Divinity 2". As far as recent RPGs are concerned, it might be the most successful - which warrants a continuous support.

 

[Alienman]

Time for some co-op if you know what I mean

 

[Atchodas]

So this weekend I started replaying D:OS2 for like 3rd time after long break, I gotta say these 3d environments with fucking camera that I need to manually rotate instead playing the game are pissing me off so much, I actually did not remember it being so annoying when I played it for the first two times ... maybe because after that I mostly played Isometric games and just got used to proper view

 

[Elex]

It's impressive they're still updating this after over two years.

I see D:OS2 hovering around top sellers during every sale (during halloween thingy they were in top 3 I think). Even as far as personal anecdotes go, met a girl recently, when I asked what she was up to on the weekend, she said "Playing Divinity 2". As far as recent RPGs are concerned, it might be the most successful - which warrants a continuous support.

i think it’s the top rated rpg of all time that help with sales. (same score of BG II)

 

[Citizen]

Time for some co-op if you know what I mean

What if she meant Div2: ego draconis? No coop here :sad:

 

[RK47]

I am checking DOS2 again and discover that Larian finally added 2 features I really wanted for a long time:
- Use the party's highest barter and relations to determine store prices.
This is a huge time saver. No need to shuffle inventory.

- Always sprint when outside combat
A big deal since the default setting assumes you want to run when clicking at a faraway distance and walk when you click on a nearby spot. Great time saver.

One issue with these updates, they basically cherry-picked a bunch of popular mods and decided they should disable 'achievements' because a few of them are outright cheats like giving everyone 8 AP. C'mon Larian, learn to distinguish between the quality of life improvements vs 'outright cheat' mods.

Overall, I find Tactician mode the same at the start - you are really fucked by the lack of good Physical Armor and Magical Armor at the start - it's best to just pick easy fights and pick up hand-placed gear till you hit level 5-6 and return to take on the harder encounters. Chameleon Cloak still works to disable AI response. Enemy AI just waits when the entire party is invisible letting you reserve AP and getting ready for alpha strikes in the early turns or... just simply retreat and reset the encounter.

 

[Galdred]

It's impressive they're still updating this after over two years.

They still haven't fixed initiative, though, or have they?

 

[Ismaul]

a few of them are outright cheats like giving everyone 8 AP

Nigga it's not giving everyone 8 AP. Only max AP is increased from 6 to 8. That just means you can have more leftover APs from previous rounds where you did nothing. And also you don't have to tightly manage the sequence of your actions as much: if you're hasted and start with 5 AP, you can use Adrenaline (+2) right away to go to 7, rather than having to use some APs first so you're not cutoff at 6. It can lead to a slight increase in power for those that use the strategy of waiting an entire round doing nothing to then have an 8AP round instead of 6, but that's the only thing.

 

[Atchodas]

+2 Max AP is mostly for glass cannon characters that also wants to haste themselves without losing that 1AP buff and in general Glass cannon without this modification is not really worth it because drawback is huge and you dont get that much in return

 

[RK47]

It's impressive they're still updating this after over two years.

They still haven't fixed initiative, though, or have they?

Can't imagine how they'd fix it - they even resorted to cheating by giving bosses 10,000 initiative.
Let's face it, with how the armor 'tanks' everything from CC to Damage, HP is almost a dump stat.

Also, there's this weird issue they never resolved about 'in combat and outside combat' NPCs interacting with each other.
I was trying to rescue a prisoner in the dungeon. During the fight, the enemy threw a bomb that created a burning field. This set the prisoner ablaze. Before I could put out the fire, the prisoner burned to death.

Why?

Because he was burning in real-time.

 

[SniperHF]

Can't imagine how they'd fix it - they even resorted to cheating by giving bosses 10,000 initiative.

Virtually all bosses in Larian games have cheat stats of some sort. Usually armor, sometimes HP. Stats can also be way outside where they'd be for level.
Their NPCs aren't really system compliant and they don't attempt it.