2y ago

Divinity Original Sins 2: An unbelievably awesome game

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.

Please share your experience with DOS2 and whether or not you have fully completed the game!

71 comments

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!:)
- Same here
  DOS 1 is also good but obviously the second one is better

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.
- 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.

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.
- 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.

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.

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. 🤔
- I think my most uttered phrase during couch co-op was «opps, sorry!» as I electrified/curse fired yet another surface by accident.

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.
- 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.
  
  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.

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.

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

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.
- 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.

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.
- 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)

It's an incredible game, but it took me something like 20 hours just to finish the first act, and I just don't have the patience anymore for a 100+ hour long RPG. The combat is really good overall, but I didn't like that movement and attacks use the same pool of AP. Compared to something like XCOM, this forces you to be very static since moving is basically wasting an attack, or it makes movement abilities like jump and the likes extremely OP.
- Speaking as someone who really enjoyed DOS2, I do have plenty of issues with its mechanics, with the movement ability problem you mention right in the thick of it.
  Once you learn the game systems a bit, you will always gravitate towards a similar set of skills. Mobility is so important in the game that you will frequently find yourself in situations where your character's survival depends on it (and the AI abuses these skills constantly). So everyone gets a jump skill, two if it fits the build - and many of the jump skills are just teleports with rider effects, so everyone's teleporting around. All builds tend to gravitate towards more damage, because you can't apply CC without nuking their armour down first, and CC trivialises fights when it comes into play. Optimisation isn't straightforward, and skills aren't really on an equal footing. Maximising Warfare is how you become the best Necromancer, and the best Rogue, and the best Warrior, and the best Archer. Meanwhile, all the other skills (with the notable exception of Summoning) you can generally just leave between 2-5 to unlock their respective abilities, regardless of your build.
  The ultimate end-game of this is that loads of characters end up feeling very similar, even if they appear to do very different things on the surface. Once you get past much of Act 2 there's very little variation in how you play the game and approach combat, and the story becomes the main driver for completion even as the core gameplay loop stagnates. I think I completed the game on my fourth attempt, but that was largely through my stubbornness rather than other factors.

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.

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.
- 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
  
  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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
Anyways if I were to replay it knowing that I shouldn't just try to pick up every crate and scrap I see I would likely get farther.

Wife and I couldn't even finish act one. Hated it, don't get the praise.

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 because of DOS2 (but, charitably, perhaps Larian made a mistake in DOS2 and won't repeat it in BG3).
EDIT: Please don't ask me what fight this was, because I really don't remember as it was now years ago. We were pretty deep into the game, bopping along pleasantly and thinking we were succeeding. As I recall, we had no side-quests to do (so no way to level IF we were under-leveled - I remember looking to see if we had missed some corner and needed to quest there). We basically entered a room in some dungeon/temple with no other direction on the map to go and experienced TPK. Over and over until we finally gave up. Looking at Steam, it says we were ~~93.3~~ 118 hours into the game.
- 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.
  
  See EDIT.
- 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.
  
  See EDIT.
- 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
- 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.

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.

I have the first game and ... ive only played through the combat tutorial. I guess its a bit too slow paced for me. But maybe i should give it a whirl at some point

3 friends and I played this. They all liked it I did not. It felt like a shopping simulator.
- 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!
  
  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.

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

Meh, D:OS2 is a great game until the latter 1/4th in my opinion. Act 1/2 are fantastic, act 3 drags a bit and act 4(arx) is the absolute worst in my opinion. I sincerely hope BG3 doesn't have the same problem, since D:OS1 had a similar issue where it was great until the very end for me(scavenger hunt.) Sadly i dislike the latter parts of each game enough i'm just not inclined to ever replay them. It really soured the whole experience for me unfortunately.
Arguably the definitive edition makes D:OS2 worse too, since it makes side quests damn near mandatory or else you'll be constantly underleveled.

I only played it for 2 hours or so, but wasn't at a time where I can play long hours on PC so I dropped it..
Now with my steam deck arriving, time to give it another go..!
I do recall things being hectic as others have said in here tho..

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.

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 worth mentioning if this game wasn't on every top-rpgs-of-all-time list... I honestly don't get it and I am confused.
- Personal taste is always a factor. I'm curious, though - which CRPGs do you consider less tedious/more interesting?
  
  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.
  
  @Taliesin @solidstate Legend of Grimrock has its moments.
- How far into the game did you get? I know it took me a couple tries to actually get hooked, but that involved doing a good portion of the tutorial island multiple times
  
  Steam says I got roughly 25 hours in. I remember that I really wanted to enjoy it, but it didn't come, so I put it away.

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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