Divinity Original Sins 2: An unbelievably awesome game

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨belshamharoth@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

Recently I’ve discovered the joy of CRPGs, having previously only dabbled in them without spending any significant time on the genre.

With Baldur’s Gate 2 just around the corner, which I’m sure many of us are hyped for, I wanted to try a similar CRPG to get a feel for whether I’m going to want to play it. Enter DOS2; this game is made by Larian Studios, the same studio making BG2, and is an absolutely incredible game.

From the graphics, which are stunning even 6 years on from release, to the combat which makes you think about your moves in a manner similar to how you might do in a game like chess, and best of all stories which are for the most part genuinely interesting. I frequently found myself surprised at events / characters / quests I found throughout the world, even small things like hearing someone screaming nearby then discovering they had been torn to pieces by voidwoken.

I recently just finished Act I and just started Act II but wanted to share a bit of love for this game as it is an absolute masterpiece with a well deserved 95% positive rating with 144k reviews on steam.

gameplay

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Comments

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Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
One of my favourite games and the only reason I purchased the Early Access of Baldura Gate 3.

Wish I could play it for the first time again. Have fun!:)

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- JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Same here
  
  DOS 1 is also good but obviously the second one is better
  
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rambaroo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I wanted to like this game but I found the combat to be really tedious and the story felt dull. I hope BG3 takes it to another level.

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- Soupbreaker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Having just finished DOS2, and played a ton of early access BG3 as well, I think BG3 really does take it to another level. It does a better job with immersion, I think, which engages you more in the story and characters. Based on what I’ve played so far, they’ve managed to do that without sacrificing any of the complexity of DOS. We’ll see how fleshed out the rest of it is soon, but I’m uncharacteristically optimistic.
  
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slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m one of those who doesn’t get the praise.

It’s probably just me, but I’ve always felt like if you’re not going to hold the player’s hand, then it’s important to be intuitive. DOS2…is anything BUT intuitive; not only is the game open-ended, the way forward isn’t always clear. Some early fights are difficult enough that you might assume it’s a beef gate, when it’s actually required to proceed and you just need to cheese it.

For me, it might be because the RPG mechanics aren’t familiar to me. I picked up Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous and fuckin’ loved both of those games, but Pathfinder is a game system I’m familiar with. Maybe since Baldur’s Gate 3 uses a variant of 5th edition D&D, it’ll click for me.

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I share your opinion about DoS2 being not intuitive and also not holding hands. I also agree that the way “forward” is often unclear when relying on the built in dysfunktional quest journal. However I disagree with your statement that there would be fights that you have to cheese to win in DoS2. The game seems to promote cheesing but it does also not require it.
  
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- Here_in_Malaysia@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I feel the exact same way you do about DOS2. I switched to an easier difficulty soon enough. Baldur’s Gate 3 feels like I finally get to be a player as a forever-DM, but also makes me feel like scolding the non-existent DM for some stupid encounter and quest design. I play with a full party of friends, so maybe it’s because we fuck around too much.
  
  That said, it is early access. Hopefully the final product has better intuition so that you don’t have to save-reload all the damn time because you didn’t mindread the devs.
  
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CoolBeance@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I haven’t played a lot of games like this but from all of the games I’ve played in the past 20-ish years, this one shot up to near the top of my list. I must have dropped at least 200 hours on this game on my first playthrough, just appreciating every little detail there was and doing all of the side quests.

The gameplay itself is already amazing, but to me what really shone was the brilliant, brilliant writing. I have never read such intensely hued writing in a video game.

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Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I could never get into it, tbh.

Me and my partner at the time figured it’d be amazing for a couch-co-op thing, but it was so chaotic around NPCs due to the spam of random interactions flying off from two interacting characters, we just gave up on it. Breaking combat was a lot of fun though.

I really ought to get back into it and just play it solo.

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- schizohybrid@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I think my most uttered phrase during couch co-op was «opps, sorry!» as I electrified/curse fired yet another surface by accident.
  
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Stereoparallax@sffa.community ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I liked the game but I was a bit disappointed that nearly every fight ends up with everything covered in necrofire. I bet that if you were to just spec into a build that likes being on fire you’ll probably be super overpowered.

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- darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The problem is that loot is random, and it takes a lot of gear support to get to the point where a character isn’t getting hurt by fire, even with the relevant perk.
  
  Cursed surfaces in general were just a massive pain, considering how precious Source was by default. Using a mod to get Source back on rest makes things a lot more reasonable, particularly in the first half of the game.
  
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  - Sallal@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Source on rest should be the default tbh since you can farm it after every fight. I think they added them to the game as an option in the loot bags that they introduced later on.
    
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stooovie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s great but too big and sprawling for me. I got drowned in side AND main quests in the second act and couldn’t get back into it. Probably a me problem but still.

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The single big complaint about DoS2 I have is the dysfunktional quest journal. Instead of giving the player a sense of what to do and where to go next, it just outright confuses me and makes me feel super lost. That quests don´t have a recommended character level makes this mess even worse. I worked around those issues by using [steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=11…](Quests by Levels Guide)
  
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  - stooovie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Thank you, that looks great. Might help me back into the game.
    
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Sanguinius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
500 hours in and a couple of play throughs. There’s so many different ways to progress it’s wild. Every time was different.

Trompdoy forever

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Nonononoki@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Only problem I have with the series is that the average battle takes around half an hour. Wish there was a way to speed that up. But fun games with awesome graphics no doubt.

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- travysh@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I typically play video games for an hour a night. This can be woefully inadequate for DoS as all I may accomplish is a single battle.
  
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AlexisFR@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Quite slow paced and inventory management is a mess, but a very good game otherwise!

I heavily recommend the Explorer difficulty if you aren’t familiar with CRPGs, on Classic the game is quite hard even in Act 1 if you don’t know how to play them.

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iAmTheTot@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wife and I couldn't even finish act one. Hated it, don't get the praise.

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  DoS is a truly outstanding RPG - many CRPG nerds say the best ever - but that is ofc only after getting into the game. Unlike most games that are developed today. DoS2 is not at all a casual game, on the contrary, it´s pretty complex and to make it worse for new players, the game also does not explain much. The consequence is a relatively high threshold to get into the game and an extremely steep learning curve, that can be truly overwhelming for new players, especially those who are not familiar with “hardcore” CRPGs - like me before playing DoS2.
  
  The fact that you could not finish act 1 simply means that you didn’t get over the threshold to get into the game, otherwise finishing act 1 would not have been a problem. Don´t get me wrong, I don´t mean to be arrogant by saying “git gud”. What I mean is that you are missing out on one of the greatest RPGs of all times and that you should consider giving yourself another chance to actually get into the game. I very much recommend using guides, at least on your first playthrough.
  
  To not gimp your chars, use class guides by this guy (DON`T use fextralife builds!) https://steamcommunity.com/id/teesinz/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=435150&p=2
  
  To not get lost, use quest guide by the same guy (thank you Lost Sinner, you are amazing <3) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1139237003
  
  I highly recommend using a two person party and giving both the lone wolf talent on your first run. It is significantly easier to learn (and beat) the game this way than with a full four person party.
  
  Another key factor for a successful first play through of DoS2 is to not split your damage imo. This might be counterintuitive but the dual armor system in DoS2 heavily rewards parties that deal only physical or only elemental damage.
  
  tldr: Yes, the game has a high threshold to get into - that is naturally the case because it is such a deep and complex game - it is very much worth to get into - don´t make yourself miss out on it.
  
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  - iAmTheTot@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I didn't say we were bad at it mate, I said we didn't like it. A game shouldn't have a "threshold" to get into it. It should just be fun. We stopped playing because it wasn't fun.
    
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claycle@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
A friend and I tried this game and enjoyed it up to a point, a particular fight we could not get past.

Finally looking online for a guide, we discovered that every guide we could find suggested cheesing the fight in various ways.

We both decided that any game that required the player to both know a fight was about to happen (when it was impossible from context to predict) and cheese the fight to win was a bad game. Even if this was only one fight, it was a fight that blocked all progress. We quit and neither of us have wanted to play the game again.

Note: We have, either together or on our own, completed other games - like BG 1-2, NWN, PoE, DOS1 - without resorting to guides, cheats, foreknowledge, or cheese.

We were, and remain, very disappointed with DOS2 because of this, and we’re “suspicious” of BG3 (charitably, perhaps Larian made a mistake in DOS2 and won’t repeat it in BG3).

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- dfc09@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Without knowing what fight you stopped at it’s hard to really talk about your experience, but I promise you don’t need to know a fight is coming or cheese the fight. There’s a point where the fights just click for you and become easier. There’s also plenty of content you can go to instead to level up, if you’re under leveled.
  
  There’s only 1 fight I can think of that’s balls to three weeks nuts (the Blackpits) and my brother and I still beat it legitimately, just took like 6 attempts.
  
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  - claycle@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    See EDIT.
    
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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You are wrong, you can cheese in DoS2 but you don´t have to. It is an option, not a requirement. Source: I (as probably many others did too) finished the game without using any cheese.
  
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  - claycle@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I suspect you reflexively cheesed the game, mainly because I absolutely recall that when we gave-in and looked up guides for this fight, every single one of them that we found at the time advised us to cheese the fight. Not one simply presented a strategy or alternative. They were all like, “Oh, yeah, that fight. You gotta cheese it.” We both found the idea of having to cheese a fight to win distasteful, so we just quit with a shrug.
    
    That was our experience. It was a bad game for us because of that, and I thought I had made that clear.
    
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- let_it_gogh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Which fight was this?
  
  I knew getting into the game that the combat was punishing - especially in Act 1 before you built your team. But I don’t recall having to cheese a fight to get pass it.
  
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  - claycle@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    See EDIT.
    
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- ArgentRaven@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I found that lowering the difficulty was just required. The early game, you have a LOT stacked against you. When you level up, get more abilities, better gear - then you don’t have to pull them behind a doorway or something.
  
  It made sense that you were completely outgunned in the start, but as you progress, it’s a little easier.
  
  However, the emphasis on surfaces was bad. It was way too easy to make necrotic fire that was 2 turns to dispel a small portion of. And in the beginning, it’s very hard to get rid of it. Late game, you can turn it into a healing fire.
  
  But other than those gripes, it was a fantastic game. Well with the time invested to learn it. Just, lower the difficulty.
  
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curryandbeans@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Speaking of CRPGs, I just played Baldur’s Gate 1 for the first time, funnily enough. It was a great game which is not exactly a controversial opinion but I wasn’t expecting it to be so fucking funny also. It was very very very hard though.

I also downloaded DOS2 but it felt like I needed a breather after BG so I’ll get to it when I can commit some time to it.

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- rambaroo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Have you tried BG2 yet? It’s on another level entirely. BG1 is more of an action RPG. BG2 takes same amount of action and throws on a great story, much more developed characters, and some of the best side questing in any CRPG
  
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  - Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I like BG1 and all, and it has some great moments, but in my opinion it pales in comparison to the second. Just don’t be put off by the length of the starting dungeon.
    
    Irenicus is one of the best video game antagonists ever and David Warner put in an all-time great VA performance, too.
    
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specseaweed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The co-op is wildly underrated. Amazing game to play together.

My wife is not an RPG player and it’s her favorite game of all time.

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tissek@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I wish I would love it. It is a really great game but I cannot make it click for me. Looks great, sounds great, feels great.

But somehow it doesn’t work for me. Half the time I feel I have no control and have no idea of how to get it, other half I’m steamrolling things. Worst part is winning fights and it feeling undeserved, like a sloppy brawl.

Still a great game.

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SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I really wanted to like this game. But Man it was too linear for me and also too hard. I had to google every quest to know where the fuck is X to finish it. It was just too daunting. And I like hard games. But this one was frustrating for some reason.

Otherwise its probably an awesome game. Not for me.

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Kerred@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I think the only dumb reason I stopped playing after 25 hours was just not having a convenient storage chest as I tend to be a hoarder in games.

I even went as far as figuring out how to make a mod to improve the storage chest.

My thought was to see if I could edit the ship’s chest to show a bigger screen of items and have either tabs or separaters for the name type.

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Now that you say it. Item management is my second big complaint about DoS2 - right after the nearly useless quest journal - it is truly horrible and the “improved organization” gift bag sadly does not fix the problem but makes it even worse imo.
  
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  - Soupbreaker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah, I just finished the game, and inventory management was probably my number one gripe. Hours were spent micromanaging all the luggage. I had the same experience with the gift bag. If I had it to do over, I’d have done it in Lone Wolf, just to simplify the logistics.
    
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cyd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I liked the first game more. The introduction of armour bars in DOS2 made each fight a huge slog; I understand the intention of promoting strategic thinking, but it just felt un-fun to me. Also, I liked the light hearted nature of DOS1’s story more.

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- Penta@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  For me it was the other way around, I liked the combat in 2 a lot more, because 1 felt way more random. In DOS2, status effects are more predictable, in 1 you can get really lucky or unlucky with status effects hitting or missing, leading to more reloading and “save-scumming” (or maybe we were just bad lol)
  
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Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I agree with you. DoS2 is the best RPG I have ever played. The quality and depth of gameplay mechanics, character builds, story line and atmosphere is unmatched and seems to simply be out of reach for other studios than Larian. I will definitely play BG3 - simply because Dos2 is so unique and great.

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crius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is a game for which the developers said “you have to cheese it, we made it that way intentionally”.

You have to do fights trying to cheese it as much as possible, guess the correct order based on your level as well and often end up in situations that are impossible to resolve unless you do something that doesn’t make sense.

And let’s not forget the “kill everything that moves to get the most xp possible” because that’s the way it’s intended to be played.

If it was just a straight up “combat - cutscene - combat” I would agree with the “great game” opinion because the game only shines for the combat system.

Everything else is below average when not straight out broken.

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  This is a game for which the developers said “you have to cheese it, we made it that way intentionally”.
  
  This is a rumor, the game is perfectly playable without cheese, it´s just harder then.
  
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Tangent5280@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Me and another, took so long to get through the tutorial. Neither of us could figure out the quests that ended with us outside the fort, so we both somehow learned teleport - I’d teleport them a distance to some unreachable nook, and then they’d teleport me to some other farther unreachable nook from there and so on till we leapfrogged our way out. It was a fun time all things considered.

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5in1k@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
3 friends and I played this. They all liked it I did not. It felt like a shopping simulator.

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- Taliesin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  How quickly gear became obsolete in DOS2 is a super valid criticism. No loot, no matter how unique, ever felt special because you knew as soon as you leveled up there’d be better at the merchants.
  
  Since Baldur’s Gate 3 is built on a framework of D&D 5e, however, there should be a lot less shopping - upgrades are rare in 5th edition and almost always found while adventuring instead of bought from stores. Good news for anyone who hates shopping!
  
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  - Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    How quickly gear became obsolete in DOS2 is a super valid criticism. No loot, no matter how unique, ever felt special because you knew as soon as you leveled up there’d be better at the merchants.
    
    I felt the same, it´s really frustrating to find a cool piece of gear but having to replace it after just a few level ups. Because of that I activated the Sorcerous Sundries giftbag that allows you to increase the level of an item to your character level and it completely fixed the issue. Is there a reason you don´t want to use Sorcerous Sundries?
    
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  - Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s not just the shopping part of it but also the way unique items with unique effects get deprecated so fast you barely get any use out of them. It’s a damn shame.
    
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hotwarioinyourarea@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I want to go back to this game so bad. I played for about 15 hours and loved it but got distracted with something else. Ive tried to start over a couple of times but I just can’t get into it again in the same way. Once I’ve finished Pikmin 4 I might try again.

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Do it - it is absolutely worth it
  
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dan1101@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s a great game, very cool and crazy interactions can happen. But I never got totally invested in the map and story. That may be because I was playing coop. The difficulty is a bit tricky, at one level constantly retreating and throwing barrels is the only way to barely win. Go one notch down on difficulty and I never lose a battle.

Also it irks me that physical armor prevents me from knocking someone over.

But even thought I may never finish it, it’s a very unique game.

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ExcessivelySalty@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I enjoyed DOS2 quite a lot even though I didn’t make it out of the first act, I should probably try playing it again although I don’t really have the time or patience for 100+ hour games anymore.

That being said I’m pretty hyped for BG3.

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verysoft@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Its a great game, its funny trying to break it as its quite arbitrary at some places. Also it needed a few more QOL passes as things like an invisible oil spill will randomly slow your character down and ruin the turn.
Also the ending was very unsatisfying. All this talk about being divine, then it just ends with a book reading.

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GataZapata@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I played on the switch and that made it take ages. I got until about act 4 or 5, I can't remember, with a kraken? But I noticed a harsh spike in difficulty at that point. Coupled with the very tedious controls on switch that made me stop playing.

Was a great game until that point

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- Nacktmull@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  In DoS2, when difficulty spikes, that often means that you need to bring your items up to your character level. DoS2 is very much a constant race to keep your items up to date. I recommend playing on a pc nect time.
  
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forgotaboutlaye@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I started playing D:OS2 in 2020, but eventually got distracted around 15hrs in. I started a new playthrough to test out the gameplay again, and have really fallen in love with it all over again. I'm really terrible at the combat, but everything surrounding it is extremely engrossing.

I do plan to pick up BG3, and I've read that the combat is a little more quick-paced and hopefully forgiving, so I'm really looking forward to the release this week.

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- yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I do plan to pick up BG3, and I’ve read that the combat is a little more quick-paced and hopefully forgiving, so I’m really looking forward to the release this week.
  
  Mh, I don’t know. So I’m what’s (rightfully so) considered a filthy casual, I suck at builds, and I suck at strategy and tactics. I played D:OS2 on easy mode, and loved it. BG3 only has one mode at the moment, and I loved the main plot until here, especially since you can sneak around or negotiate with people to avoid direct conflict and still get the mission done. I feel D:OS2 had much more fighting than BG3.
  
  That being said, there was one fight where I did not find any another solution outside of outright violence, and what initially was just my party against a similar sized group rather quickly escalated into a stand-off that had us outnumbered at least 3:1 and took hours. It was nice, everybody made it through, but it was a bit tedious tbh.
  
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solidstate@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I love CRPGs and was excited when I got recommended this game - it got a lot of praise. Unfortunately, I found it to be tedious and overall uninteresting. That wouldn’t be with mentioning if this game wasn’t on every top-rpgs-of-all-time list… I honestly don’t get it and I am confused.

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- Taliesin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Personal taste is always a factor. I’m curious, though - which CRPGs do you consider less tedious/more interesting?
  
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  - solidstate@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I enjoyed both Baldur’s Gates, Planescape Torment, Pillars of Eternity, Arcanum, Gothic, I don’t know, pretty much RPGs across the board I think.
    
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  - Extrems@mastodon.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    @Taliesin @solidstate Legend of Grimrock has its moments.
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Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I still think DOS2 is one of the best games I have ever played, and I played it on release when 80% of the 4th act just broke for me. It gives a ton of freedom, interestingly written characters, and once you get the hang of the combat system it’s easy to dominate even with weird builds.

I understand why people aren’t it’s biggest fans, but giving this one a chance is worth it. Overall, I would say BG3 (played a ton in early access) might be the more accessible game. It’s less weird, more cinematic etc. Though, I would expect it to be exceedingly buggy on release so keep that in mind.

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