Hi all,

I seem to remember the previous title had quite a few fans here... the sequel will release on 14th September.



I really liked the Enhanced Edition of DOS1. Was a bit sad that DOS2 was initially planned not have fully voiced audio but that decision has been reverted and the game will ship with voiceovers for every single in-game character, NPC etc. And they did an orchestral recorded soundtrack too.

So basically this time round we get five races, six "Origin" heroes, vastly updated GFX with new camera angles, a new dynamic audio implementation, a huge amount more landscape to explore, and a darker, more grittier setting which suits me well. The game retains the environmental "elemental" combat mechanics, is obviously still party based, and according to Larian basically "total Pen & Paper RPG freedom".

So yeah... Even as I never played the isometric classics back in the day I'm really excited for this title. This one looks like a true AAA production attempt, not unlike CDPR going all out on W3. And we know how well that ended

*raises hand*

The only reason I didn't make this the first early access game I ever purchased is that it was only the first act. Getting this one for sure.

Best CRPG combat eva (in my humble opinion)

Yeah, I actually wanted to purchase the EA for this rainy weekend. But they confirmed the savegames would not carry over... :/

Bought it anyway already as a gesture of support, going to wait for the full release to get the maximum wow effect.

Also worth noting that Larian really upped their PR-Game. Their Kickstarter update videos are really fun and informative.

Definitely a developer worth supporting. For anyone who has played it, have they made any significant changes to the inventory system and management? That was the only thing I would list as a negative with the first game. But that could also be said about Pillars and many others. I hope there is a completely overhauled (and improved) inventory system.

I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be more interest in this game. I picked it up and have only played through the prologue.

Since I've barely begun I have little to say about impressions. But Larian did address what I felt was the biggest shortcoming of the original Orignal Sin. Inventory. It still looks like it will become unwieldy. But they added an auto-sort and a 'put to wares' option, which presumably will group unwanted items to be sold. One of the things that frustrated me with the first game was when I wanted to sell things. You likely have just one character leveled up as your barterer, but if the items you want to sell are distributed among your party you wouldn't get the best price unless you transferred said items to your barter character. I hope this has been addressed. If I initiate the convo with my barterer I'd like to be able to toggle through each party member and sell stuff at the best rate. I'll know more when I've found a merchant.

Another nice addition is the bedroll. If you played the first game, no doubt you stood around after every combat casting Regeneration on everyone. The bedroll allows you to insta-heal everyone if there are no enemies around.

The artwork is beyond fabulous. The cutscenes are beautifully drawn, very talented artists indeed. Combat looks to be even better, with a few new twists, and I already felt this game had the best CRPG combat going. If the writing and story only match the first game, then it looks like this is another classic. It's far too early to tell yet, but I'm not expecting to be let down.

I rolled a custom human Ranger. If it was part of the original game I didn't notice, but in DOS 2 the Huntsman trait grants additional damage for high ground. So positioning for a bowman is critical. I'm hoping I can grab a self-teleportation ability to quickly set the character in the best places. Perhaps it will have to be done by another party member. But it adds an additional tactical element to the already great combat. I've tended to play a Ranger since as long as I can remember as my first character in a new RPG, since playing a Scout in Morrowind, or maybe even before that. In DOS they are quite powerful with some great skills and crowd control abilities. The dual main character thing is gone and you create only one this time around. One more thing... in DOS 1 your portrait did not match the character you created, which was a bit jarring at first. Eventually you stop noticing., But that has been rectified in DOS2.

I kinda sneaked a word for DOSII into the current W3 thread

Own it, installed it, patched it, and then had to quit after making a save immediatly when the very first scene loads.

High Ground advantage is new to part two, I'm happy to hear they made the inventory a bit easier to work with. The writing has been compared to W3 already so the story should more than match the first game (which to me also was a bit too funny, whereas part two seems a lot darker).

Maybe I can find some time tonight...

I've almost finished Divinity Original Sin (1) - only got the last fight left.

But I've already bought Divnity 2. Debating which character to play if I want to include the origin story - torn between Skeletor and Lizardbreath

I have these on my wishlist but have never played them. What makes the combat so good or the best in your opinion? How is it different from other CRPG games? I love the game Titan Quest and I'm trying to start and get into Grimm Dawn by the same folks. I also, what little I've played, enjoy Pillars of Eternity although I ran into a very bad save game crippling bug that's never been fixed I believe but it has that great hand drawn environments and isometric gameplay.

For me the combat is great partly because of the way the various systems and mechanics interact in concert with the environment. For example you can soak an enemy in water in a number of ways, then cast chill on said wet character to freeze them. Or create an oil puddle, to slow down an enemy and then set it ablaze, and sometimes the enemy will set it ablaze for you. Steam clouds can block LOS and act as a safe haven. You can teleport an enemy and drop him on a poison barrel, then use a fire arrow to explode the cloud. Use electricity to stun someone standing in water, or use a water balloon or water barrel to create the puddle yourself. Using the environment to your advantage isn't a new concept but it's really slick in this game.

Partly it's due to how many skills and talents and options you'll have. Of course not early on, you'll need to level up a bit. But eventually when your proverbial quiver is more full, there are so many options to choose from. It's all quite tactical. You need to know the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies and act accordingly. Poison on a spider will heal, not hurt. I'm playing on Tactician mode, which isn't the hardest mode, but gives a stiff fight. Even the Classic mode (essentially normal) gives a good fight. Enemies use their skills well, even if they perhaps are less averse to friendly fire than the player. Most fights will have the player outnumbered to a certain degree, so the player needs to use all of the tools at his disposal. Crowd control is very important. A well placed Charm arrow can turn a fight. One big change I've noticed is that Larian has added a new armor rating, and most characters now have a magic armor rating and a regular armor rating. Certain attacks will do nothing to one or the other. Another small, but more tactical mechanic.

I have Pillars too and really liked it. It's probably even better written than DOS, and much darker. But I like DOS combat better.

Here's a video I found that more or less shows some of the tactical freedom the player has. Of course without playing the game you can't realize all of the other options there were. But it's fairly revealing nonetheless.

https://youtu.be/ga6uJaGyrEk

What I think I like the most about it though is the fact that most every battle feels challenging. Rarely are you just waltzing through with nary a scratch. Emerging the victor after most fights is quite satisfying indeed. Or reloading *ahem* and then emerging the victor

More about inventory.... now that I've recruited a party I found they have made it possible to have the inventories of all party members displayed together. A great feature that makes party management much, much easier.

DOS is essentially classless. You pick a starting template of course, custom or preset, but there is nothing class-locked. There are prerequisites of course, you can't have low memory but know a ton of spells for example. You can continue to build a traditional fighter, or mage or rogue if you like. But the system encourages the player to mix it up. High-level stuff is very powerful, and I usually have a wizard that can cast the top spells. But for many of my other character I go with more of an all-rounder sort of build. I see my party as an A-10, with plenty of redundancy. For example I'd rather have three characters that can summon something at level one, than a single guy with the highest level summon.

I think this approach might make each individual character less powerful than they could have been, but the party is stronger, because a dead or otherwise incapacitated character doesn't take the only copy of a certain ability with him. And due to the cost of leveling, the game sort of encourages me to go this route. It allows for a lot of experimentation, as you can respec, and very versatile party members.

Thanks for that description DBond. I watched the part of the original thread video on crafting and it that by itself looks really well done. Is the first DOS just as good? Any major differences?

Another nifty thing in DOS2 is that when you now recruit a character (you have up to 3 companions in your party) - it asks you what role you want that character to have. Their original role, or you can have them change it to whaetver role you need.

This means you get the character with their well, character in the role you need. So you don't have to pick a character you dislike just to cover a needed role (like healer). Just tell Minsc he is a wizard this time

I played the first hour or so, just got to the island...

Neat. Visually a lot improved, audio is top, personality of the origin character quite different (I already dislike the Red Prince).

The story definitely starts off more interesting than part 1.

No problem Coot. I'm still on the first island, so I've yet to see most of the game. From what I've seen though the biggest changes involve the character creation and levelling options (combat/civil skill trees, tags, races). Combat is more or less the same, with a few additional things like the high ground we talked about, or the ability to bless or curse surfaces, as seen in that video I posted.

It feels like there is a bit more hand holding in 2. For example location flags on the map. Every player is different of course, but I tend to like games that challenge me intellectually, if that's the right term. Games that don't place a flashing beacon on the next important thing or place to check out. DOS 1 was notorious for this, as some complained it was too obtuse. You need to actually figure things out for yourself.

There is plenty that is hidden, and Larian crafts some quests that some players will never see. Some people complain about this sort of stuff but I like it. As an example I'll put this in spoliers. Don't read it if you want to discover it for yourself (you do )




From what I've seen so far the game is really more of the same, with some refinement and more robust character creation.

Yeah that sounds cool. I like dynamic discovery of new quests. Makes a game and the world more immersive and have a realistic and and natural flow.

One major change that I failed to notice at first, and that sort of negates my point about the cost of levelling encouraging a more diverse build, is that raising skills no longer costs an increasing number of points. It used to be that if you wanted to increase a skill to level 1 cost one point, level two cost two points and level 3 cost three points. So at level 3 you would have spent a total of 6. To me, that encouraged branching off in to other stuff. Instead of saving four points to go to level 4 one-handed or whatever, I could have 4 additional level 1 skills. Now it's just one point for one level. This is a big change. Now it's easy and cheap to max some out.

Respec is available for free at the beginning of act 2, so don't worry too much about poor choices while on Reaper's Eye. However, the characters keep learned spells and skills, so keep that in mind.

A few more thoughts....

I've reached level 7, still on the starting island. The game is epic, it really is. It may not feel that way when you're still in the prison, but once you escape it, things really start to pick. Writing is fantastic, the story is gathering momentum. I've laughed out loud, been crushed in battles, saved a cat, teleported a dwarf repeatedly and he doesn't seem to mind the hard landing. I've had an origin party character killed permanently, talked to flaming pigs, rescued those less fortunate, met my god and murdered a blind man.

I've played most of the best isometric RPGs over the years. Baldur's Gate, NWN, Planescape, Icewind Daleand on and on. I think when this is done I'll view this as one of the best of them all. Nostalgia weighs heavily on those older titles, but this game is that, but modern, and so much more. It's like when you think of Half-Life. In 1998 I thought that was the finest video game that had been made. It's a classic and deserving of all the praise. But if you compare it to Witcher 3 for example how does it hold up?

There is still plenty of time for me to change my mind. The cannibalism thing doesn't sit right and I ignore it. And earlier I mentioned the change in armor mechanics, and now I can say I think that was a poor decision. I hope they change it. The way it is now, you'd be better off having a party that does all physical damage, or all magic damage. It discourages a balanced party. There needs to be some sort of middle ground. I don't like the way that no spells work until magic armor is gone, then they work all the time. It doesn't act as a resistance, but as a hard block. If the enemy has a sliver of magic armor you can't CC them. As soon as it's gone the CC works 100%. Games like this should roll an attack versus a defense and resolve. This is too binary. I love the combat in this game, but the armor mechanic is a step backwards in my opinion. Shields are too powerful, the Shields Up skill too necessary. When your mages are rocking shields something's not right.

Edit: OK, been thinking more about this. I entered in to this game thinking the combat was 'more or less the same'. Well, it's not. Aside from the armor issue above, they've also removed the Speed stat, which would allow you to, among other things, increase starting AP and recovery. That's gone now, so everyone always starts with 4. This tends to pigeon-hole the combat strategy. Makes it less tactical/strategic. You are almost always going to start with two 2-AP attacks or buffs. They've also removed the defense stats like fortitude. Not sure what they are trying to achieve. Does it make it more challenging late game? Are they trying to prevent first-turn CC mastery? Is it 'balancing' for MP? It feels like they decided to make RNG not matter. I think the random lucky or unlucky roll adds a lot to the experience. It's a necessary ingredient in an RPG like this. It adds tension, which is good. These things weren't immediately obvious to me at low level, but as I gain levels it's starting to show. I liked how in DOS 1 I could invest in speed to increase max AP, it made me feel like my characters were mastering their skills. Perhaps the benefits of the changes will come to me down the line.

In the interest of public service I feel obligated to retract my comment about this game having the best CRPG combat eva! I still feel that way about DOS 1, but having reached level 10 or 11 and sinking quite a bit of time in to it, I feel Larian broke far more than they improved in regards to the combat. There isn't much discussion in this thread so I won't go in to a long post about it, but armor, initiative, wits, attributes, talents and defense are all either broken or poorly implemented in my opinion. I based my comments on DOS 1 and the fact that things surely would improve, right? Nope.

I am still having a blast with the game, there is far more to it than combat of course. But combat was the thing about DOS 1 that I felt really stood out and was the best of it's ilk. I have no idea why they made the changes they did. Usually you can see a logical reason, even if you don't agree. Here, I just dunno.

If I had typed it all out I would have come up with something like this. Long read, but spells it out quite well

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=621419#Post621419

Thanks for keeping us updated, I still haven't managed to put a few more hours in.

I don't like the sound of this:



So yeah, I get the problem with the round-robin combat system, but I hadn't considered yet that this leads to an inability to chain party effects together before the enemy can do stuff.

No problem Colonel. It's hard to reconcile why they went this route. Their combat system was universally praised, so it boggles the mind why it was so drastically altered. The round robin thing sucks, because now initiative really doesn't make much difference. I had been sinking points, until I caught on to what was happening. There were a few times that an enemy went twice in a row, seemingly skipping my turns, and I was like what the hell? Why did he go twice? Leadership is another big issue. It has a 5m radius. Wow, right? And it only helps dodging and resistances now. So once I saw how this was working and I reached the respec point, I redid everything, essentially removing all points from things like leadership and retribution, and giving my characters just enough Wits that they would fight in the order I wanted. You still want one character (my ranger in my case) with high Wits to discover hidden stuff, but otherwise the actual value doesn't matter much. Just who has more than who to set the order.

Despite these combat changes, the game is still fantastic and I highly recommend it. But it's a shame that the combat didn't improve, and took a step backwards. I still like the combat, it's not like it terrible. But after DOS 1 you wonder why they changed it.

Most definately not a fan of the combat system in D2

I dislike thwe dual armor types - you need to break through both to bother using abilities or spell for crowd control.