Let's Play: Divinity II

[Orchomene]

You can read the skill books directly. No special advantage to wait.

You can choose whatever skill seems to be interesting : you will have access later (but not before a third or half of the game) to a NPC that can allow you to respec at a cost (that increases at each use).

Melee is possible in the begining of DKS, but you need to upgrade your weapons quickly and check frequently weapon sellers (restock at each level you go up, I think) to find good weapons with +X damage or magical damage).

 

About mindread skill I chose to skip it in the begining completly and then put all the point I could in the end of ED : at that point, you will have a lot of skill points and XP penalties will become expensive compared to the XP earned by monster. Of course, I've never bothered with wisdom skill.

 

For a melee character I would say to go for dual weapon or two hand weapon fighting depending of what you prefer and develop the associated skill to the max you have access each level.

Then, have at least the first level of rush attack and use it extensively for mage and archer enemies, skipping all melee enemies at the begining of fights. Your essential attribute is strength of course, but intelligence helps for magical damages of your weapons.

As skills, I used mostly rush attack (min), whirlwind (min) for the chests and some moments during fights, bleed (max), regeneration (max), way of the battle mage (max) (for magical damage enhancement), lockpick (but I regret having taken it since rewards were mediocre), mana drain (first level), health drain (max). After that, you can mix mage/rogue skills.

[Majek]

No you can't actively block, that's a minus, so played i Dual wield and two-handed instead.

And i only used Unique Weapons. There's plenty of them around and are quite powerful., especially when you can add +50-100 magic damage or 50-100 melee damage or both at once. So when you can try out disenchant every weapon you won't use.

 

And remember there is NO FALLING DAMAGE in DKS, so you can jump from as high as you wish as long as there is ground to land on.

[sorophx]

very dramatic

I'd feel some righteous anger around here, but this hilarious pseudo-Brit accent everyone in the town uses is cracking me up. One reason to play for yourself sorophyx.

oh, I know what you mean, but Gamebryo is a no-no

[Tigranes]

Gee, that's a lot of threads in C&C lately.

 

I'll update in a few hours, because I ain't no quittah.

[Monte Carlo]

These type of threads are great, because I loved the original and toyed with the idea of eventually trying this one. I can now see that it isn't something I'd probably enjoy so Tigs has saved me time and money.

 

Cheers!

[Tigranes]

Manny, our intrepid hero, continues. I keep wanting to play the game more but must keep a regular pace for the LP. We will stick with melee+fireball, but go dual-wield soon - Manny likes the idea of doubly efficient evisceration.

 

Returning to the cave we couldn't clear earlier, Level 6 Manny now finds it challenging but manageable. However, he makes a mental note to be wary of the three-headed flying demon that they clearly worship. He would probably be less intimidated had he basic knowledge of meso-American cultures, but woe is the lack of state-subsidised education.

 

Going up a ladder, we literally pop out into the bandit's cell. He is clearly uneasy at the prospect of two hairy men in a 4x4 cell together, though we can't imagine why. Does he have bad breath?

 

He's more cheerful once we're out in the green. (Yes, the game really looks that bad, but only on my laptop & low settings.) Manny is suddenly seized by the desire to double-cross Lieutenant Louis, if only to see whether he can. He's not sure if such anarchic impulses are entirely healthy, though.

 

...Okay, not the smartest of bandits. Or he's in a heavy state of denial, as heavy as an abused wife. We also get a first good look at our intrepid hero in the open. The Slayer's silver eyes, the oversized shoulderpads and peasant's trousers all combine for an eclectic yet stylish man-of-the-land look. Look out for variations in green, pink and black in the winter catalogue.

 

Anyway, having received the location of the bandit camp, we decide it's a bit far away at the moment. So we turn to more faction politics, helping an Aleroth (the, ah, 'Old Order' guys) mercenary get hold of the foodstuffs the New Order had requisitioned from the valley to resupply another town. Yes, that means the poor folks we tricked with tales of naked women to set free the pigloteriats.We get an option to bribe them, but I figure now is a good time to test the Mindreading skill...

 

These aren't the foodstuffs you are looking for.

 

Oh, so not only is he into naked women in the woods, he also has the hots for a certain Elisabeth. His brain must be working overtime to multitask several lusts at once.

 

We now get an option to... well, once again lie to him about a woman, instead of helping him with his courtship in any way. Sorry Lomax, this isn't a Bioware game.

 

Skipping ahead just a little bit, we get the quest reward back in town, then proceed with exploring the fairly large valley. It's filled with several small cave / dungeon areas that you can explore. We entered one cave to find it very nicely polished. Manny sets about looting the place, but can't seem to find the key for one particular chest... ah, there it is, in the bathtub.

 

I would pick you up, my glowing little key, but items are only highlighted if they're right in front of me at exactly the right angle, and it's really hard. Would you help me, glowing little key?

[Tigranes]

Oh, bloody hell, I still can't pick you up. It's almost as if I don't have opposable thumbs or something. This actually took about four minutes of acrobatics, which probably proves I'm not qualified to play ARPGs.

 

Moving on, we discover that the lavish home is just a front for a den of iniquity. We know bad things are happening here because there is some smashing red lighting.

 

Hang on, maybe not. Naberius insists that he studies necromancy for good, not evil, and that the red lighting is just a hangover from the disco party he had the other night. He'll invite me to the next one if I help find some of his runaway creations. Maybe I can choose the setlist, I have all of Phil Collins' albums on vinyl.

 

He can apparently also help us make undead creations, which sounds really cool. We'll have to be on the lookout for some spare parts.

 

Leaving the wizard's cave-home, we come across our old nemesis, the Magic Glowing Ball II. I will have my satisfaction!

 

First we circle the gobbo encampment, picking off mooks that we can aggro away. Soon enough, though, MGB II detects our presence. I suppose you just know when I'm here, MGB II. We were born to fight, you and I.

 

Yes, come. Come, MGB II. Come and face your doom, jumping at you with pointy eyes and squeaky teeth!

 

Bloody real-time games make it hard to screencap things, but MGB II copped it just a bit easier than MGB I. Bloody sequels. We don't get to pick up their magic harness this time, though. We'll have to revise our home decor plans.

 

Moving on, we start entering a different part of the valley, and find a huge pseudo-Roman ruin awaiting us.

 

Here, we find the Dragon Knight that the bosses have been hunting down. Coincidences make the world go round.

[Tigranes]

Suffering from the common yet tragic case of "just one lengthy expository dialogue away from death", the last Dragon Knight tells us that we've been hunting the wrong guys all along, and the REAL EVUL is actually coming up behind us with a giant, pointy stick ready to say 'boo'. Oh, it's just like my 7th birthday!

 

The last Dragon Knight sends us on some crazy dream-like sequence to explain herself, and we get our first taste of playing as a dragon. I typically hate these kind of sequences, because I just get disoriented, but the dragon seems relatively simple to control. Not as fast as you'd expect, but I guess that helps the maneuverability.

 

After a short sequence we get another CGI cutscene. The last Dragon Knight explains that Damian, the old guy packin' steel we saw in the intro, is the real baddie, though we don't know much about his plans yet. It turns out that our dream sequence was not so dreamy: arriving at Damian's stronghold, we are attacked, beaten down, and stamped by Damian's large, armoured foot.

 

...and when we wake up, he's there. Pretty neat trick. It doesn't make too much sense why he would do that, though. Manny's just spent all his life to become a Dragon Slayer, right? Then here comes along his mortal enemy, dying, who suddenly tells him this random 'Damian' person is the real evil for reasons unspecified. What are the chances he'd believe this and drop everything to stop him? Unless, of course, Damian substantiates all of these claims by kicking at us in the face.

 

Ah, poetry. Truly, it is rich and thick like clotted blood, is it not?

 

Damian leaves us vaguely threatening that should we now pursue the threat that his own appearance has clearly substantiated, rich and thick blood shall flow. Then, of course, a wizard from a saturday morning cartoon teleports in and helps us up. Next in queue is the big-busted, tough yet vulnerable heroine, the snarky black dude and the stupid good-natured sidekick. Together, we will save the world, and monopolise its fetch quest economy!

 

....Okay, so that doesn't happen, and we're told to seek a certain Lord Lovis. Fair enough. It's quickly looking like while Div 2 is a bloody fun ARPG romp filled with lots of quests, it ain't gonna make you shed tears and stare into the rain.

 

And so we continue our romping. We are finally spared the gobbos and introduced to a new creature - the troll.

 

It's several levels higher than us, and does ~50 damage per hit. I have 173hp. However, mashing the attack button like usual seems to make Manny do Mario double jumps, which is pretty cool. I think if you time it well you can avoid getting hit for a long time, but I can't manage too well.

 

So after several potions and fireballs, we decide to whip out our bow - Div2 lets you use hotkeys to swap between weapon sets. Without investment it does an amazing 2 damage per shot, but at least I don't need to aim, at all.

 

You were a worthy opponent, but you ain't no MGB.

[Tigranes]

At this stage I'm also happy to hear what you want to see from the LP if you're reading. I much prefered IWD/2 where I could pause for good screenies and also pack a lot of info on the screen - here I'm leaving nearly half the SS I take in the interests of space. Also trickier to do the running commentary without a party, but I can provide more detail on how the game works and such for those that won't buy it.

[HoonDing]

...and when we wake up, he's there. Pretty neat trick. It doesn't make too much sense why he would do that, though. Manny's just spent all his life to become a Dragon Slayer, right? Then here comes along his mortal enemy, dying, who suddenly tells him this random 'Damian' person is the real evil for reasons unspecified. What are the chances he'd believe this and drop everything to stop him?

After what was established in Divine Divinity & Beyond Divinity, Damian is hardly random. For the Dragon slayers, he's next in line after they wipe out the last Dragon knight.

 

EDIT: you can actually pause the game during combat.

Edited February 10, 2011 by virumor

[sorophx]

I can provide more detail on how the game works and such for those that won't buy it.

that'd be nice

[Majek]

You have an ACTIVE PAUSE in this game. And a CROSSHAIR to aim and if you want to pick up things get them in your reticle.

[Tigranes]

Yep, it's mostly my fault on control clunkiness - I'm too busy to use the pause most of the time. Also the crosshair doesn't seem to correspond well with highlighting things to pick up, but again, that ight just be me.

[sorophx]

:insert witty comment here:

[HoonDing]

Speaking of witty, what happened to your NWN playthrough?

[sorophx]

my friend had to borrow my laptop, so I can't continue the two-players run. but I will remedy that soon.

[Tigranes]

I've played a good 3 or 4 hours today, so we must soldier on to catch up. The game is good stuff and getting more fun as we go.

 

Welcome back to Manny's Slayin' Dragons. Last time out we felled our very first troll, thanks to some shameless kiting and running away. All that has rewarded us with a new level and a new ability - Charm. This essentially allows us to arrange our very own, on-the-spot, twenty-second gladitorial combat. We're mildly excited by the gazilion business opportunities this opens up.

 

As we are still rubbish at ARPGs and this is on Hard, we will have to charm our way through most battles, so it's quite life-threatening when the odd bugger resists it. You don't have tow ait for cooldown if the spell fails though.

 

This particular Random Dungeon is quite clever. See the switches? The first time we stepped on one it gave us a nice treasure chest, but as far as I can tell, all the rest are traps. But Manny is a learning animal and will not fall for it the seventh time.

 

The dungeon turns out to be a very long one, turning weirder and weirder as we go. It seems that it was some sort of derelict mine with lots of dead citizens, and now mostly taken over by a combination of gobbos and skeletons (each with their own habitat area). We also find some talismen that are quest items for a yet un-found quest.

 

After a couple dozen dead skellies we come across a particularly difficult battle where we had to jump around a lot. Cool thing is, if you run over that bonfire, you get quite a lot of damage; even cooler thing is, your enemies do too. Bones On Fire saves the day.

 

We meet our first human being inside the dungeon - a bandit doing some stock take. He's probably one of those loners who always get stuck doing it every month.

 

Manny's existentialism confuses Loner Bandit.

 

Don't worry, it's all a bit like blood in the end, thick and clotted.

 

The unhappy loner bandit responds to our philosophy with some brawl. This guy packs a punch - he keeps rushing us and doing a lot of damage, knocking us down at the same time, then pounding us some more. Get caught by that a couple of times and we're dead. Took about six or seven tries in the end...

 

The Power of Reload is with me, little one.

[Tigranes]

Now it's time to stop back at the village and take stock. It turns out that the Magic Glowing Ball that was our first nemesis was some kind of neighbourhood terroriser with a bounty on 'im. Returning the magic harness, we are given the option to choose our reward... a tankard. I guess it's better than a spoon.

 

No, wait, the bandit we just killed is worth a bottle. Praise be the Gods! A bottle! Now I can quench my nonexistent thirst while on the move!

 

...OK, fine, so we don't actually have to choose those ones. Taking the XP we return to the field, and progress further down the valley. Our plan is to hit the bandit camp whose secret location we had learned before - I'm guessing there are some quests we can do there and it'd be a pity to turn them in to the lieutenant before that. However, the path there is lined with many bandits. The notable difference is that any bandit type can cast magic missile as well as melee or ranged, making it much harder to sit back and kite.

 

Several reloads later, we're there. The whole place is quite cleverly designed: the entrance is hidden behind a bunch of houses pretending to be a lumber camp, and behind that a large rock-face. We pass the requisite rotting bodies hanging off a bridge...

 

...and also find some bandits quarreling over their share of the loot. As I say, quite nicely done. It's not possible for me to screencap everything I do, but we do pick up a couple of quests here - to find some bandit's axe, to aid a highway robbery. We also help a pregnant bandit escape the life of, well, banditry, by mindreading the gatekeeper and bribing him with rum. Finally, we'll come back later to gain entrance to a temple that the bandit camp is guarding - the word is that they are actually in service of an eeeevulll necromancer (as opposed to our good necromancer friend, still waiting for his runaway creations).

 

And so we're back out in the valley. Near the camp, we find what appears to be a shell of a fortress....

 

...that the bandits are busy blowing up, apparently. It seems ironic that the bandits are the most resourceful faction we've seen so far, equipped with explosives as they are.

 

Sadly, it's not enough to stop the bad guys, uh, the guys badder than cutthroat bandits with explosives.

 

At this point, our Dragon Knight lady, who lives on as the mentor-****-snarky commentator in our brain, warns us to retreat. Of course, Manny knows that when a woman tells a man to retreat, she really wants him to keep going. So we do. Then we reload, and then we run away.

 

...and straight into the path of Viper, who appears to lead a breakaway bandit camp. That's alright, we've killed bandits before...

[Tigranes]

...but not five (six?) archers at once, all of whom fire poison arrows at you simultaneously. Viper himself can hit you for a maximum of 116 + poison damage, in my experience. I tried the old tactic of charming one, running away, then slashing them up while they're fighting each other, but they just have too much firepower. Brave Sir Manny ran away.

 

So, we can't check out the fortress, and we can't check out the bandits' quests. Brave Sir Manny decides to make several U-turns and try and visit the big tower in the centre - the one that we need to get to to advance the main plot. Climbing up some rickety ladders we spot what might be an entrance,but are immediately manhandled by about fifty skeletons.

 

Run away!

 

For Brave Sir Manny, even gravity is no danger.

 

Faced with black ring (the fortress guys) mobs that are too high level for us, or Viper and his poison bandits, we end up running around the valley exploring and grinding for an hour or so. After several reloads and so forth, we are a bit stronger, and also stumble upon this happy place.

 

Brave Sir Manny sure comes across a lot of dead or nearly dead NPCs, but it only inspires him to spread his unique style of humour to the world.

 

Turns out this is where the necromancer's creations had got to. They are tough, but it appears even psychotic, undead-ish creations can be charmed. That's just how good Manny is. WHen he twirls his moustache it sends ya to heavan.

 

Having dispatched the creatures, we conveniently find a crystal skull on one, which we conveniently find out will help the necromancer control his minions better, which conveniently means he can now create our own Creature. We don't have all the body parts right now, but we will come back when we do.

 

--------------------------------

 

A little disjointed, but I've stuck to all the funny or major quests, and any particularly tough fights. Tomorrow's update, we will continue to explore the valley area and reveal even more exciting quest rewards.

[sorophx]

and here's the fifteenth comment of this page, hoping to see more epic dragon stuff on the next page

[entrerix]

i think reading this lets play is probably more fun than playing, but tig is also making the game sound fun so.... maybe I'll buy it next steam sale.

[HoonDing]

Manny seems to be lacking in potions. With level 4 Fireball, those skeletons shouldn't have been a problem.

[Tigranes]

Manny suffers from a chronic potion shortage. It may have to do with how he guzzles them down as soon as he gets them, but he thinks there be more sinister causes afoot. Perhaps commando ****roaches with bottle-piercing instruments.

 

Due to certain short-sighted goverment policies in the past few decades including dubious tax cut categories, the Broken Valley sports a higher than average population of crazed wizards with unlimited funds. This Bellegar has seemingly constructed three ruins for us to stumble on, just so he can...

 

well, give us some free xp. I thought something would happen once we got the final group here, but nothing doing. You've let us down, crazy mage.

 

Nearby, we come across some sleeping beauties. Notice the realistic design which has the woman use the shade to protect herself from sunburn, whereas the guy on the left will probably end up like some sort of half-Black half-White frankenstein.

 

Use Sunblock. It's The Right Thing.

 

Once again mindreading, we learn that each sleeper is trapped in their dream because they are missing something. As far as fetch quests go, this is pretty cool... we get a gem for helping out. I haven't really mentioned it, but Div2's world is full of gems, ores, herbs and the like. Apparently you can use these things to mix potions, enchant items, etc. later on in the game.

 

In line with the previously discussed crazy demographic, we then find a schizophrenic, half bloodthirsty axeman and half goody two-shoes welded together in some sort of Disneysque magic spell.

 

Our journey for a cure takes us back to the village tavern, where Manny meets more interesting people. we have to give credit to all the guards in this valley, it can't be easy keeping law and order when the entire population is largely composed of pigloteriat growers, schizophrenic axemen, gullible mercenaries and a tinfoil hat doctor.

 

We are told that we can separate the personalities, but with only one body at hand, we can only save one. What is this? Can it be? Have we stumbled across... choice and consequences? We'll find out after a few images.

 

While we're back in town, we explore the place a little more. Contrary to my earlier observation the village is actually quite packed with things to do and people to see - one nice touch is that every NPC seems to be named, even individual guards. The tavern was repopulated with guests after I kicked the mercenaries out back in the first update. Here we win a one-upmanship battle with a boastful hunter (named... Brave Sir Robin), and have the privilege of obtaining The Lettuce. It's about time we moved up from cutlery.

 

We also find a new merchant, Locke, who asks me to get a guard to fess up with the rabbit he was paid to hunt. The guard insists that Manny is being played for a fool, however.

[Tigranes]

Manny does not like being played a fool. Immediately he trots back to Locke and demands satisfaction, to which he receives a Quest Failed and a bugger off. If we actually bothered to investigate the guard's claims a bit more we might have had a different result... Bereft of more lettuce, Manny returns to the guard to see if there's anything to salvage out of the mess.

 

Aha. And so we return full circle to the mysterious cart.

 

Inside which we find... a ledger and twenty-five gold. Seriously? You enchant a password-protected magic cart for twenty five gold? Manny would chop apart the merchant into little bits for the insult, but next-gen RPGs have incorporated the Geneva Convention.

 

aaaaand we're back with psychology 101. Being a servant of Chaotic Neutral, Manny decides to keep the crazy axe dude. You can't deny the demographic, baby.

 

We'd feel bad about this behaviour, but then he immediately reminds us why it was worth it.

 

Alright. Now we're back in the bandit camp - enough questing, more dungeoneering. We'll clean up here and then finally go after Lord Lovis' tower to advance the main plot. Having completed a couple of small quests without trouble, we enter the Temple - apparently the bandit leader is the only one who has passed its obstacle course to gain audience with the necromancer / Dragon Knight / fluffy bunny behind.

 

Manny copped it something like twenty times in this place. Wherever you walk you get continuously poisoned. At first I thought it was silly design that you'd have dead bandits right in front of the door (because, you know, they're that useless), but it seems the entire room is poison-trapped, pretty much. I'd question the resources that would have to go into keeping something like that maintained, but then bandits aren't known for environment-friendly policies. We can follow the trail of bodies and blood for the only safe path.

 

The whole place is complicated by several magic-firing skeletons that are hard to dodge unless you dodge into the poison. Thankfully, having hit level 12 I can use a unique bow that I picked up - it does +50 damage per hit even though I have invested literally nothing in related attributes/skills. Our trail of blood finally takes us to this area. We'd jump, but to our left we can see Jagon waiting.

 

So instead, we jump, immediately pause, and lob a fireball. I was going to jump back and forth doing this, but apparently that's enough to scare him off.

 

The other side also has high-speed fireballs coming out of the walls. My great-aunt Lara used to tell me stories about these kind of places, but unfortunately we don't have any giant breasts to plug the traps with at the moment.

[Tigranes]

Moving on, we find another room where there are about five skellies chucking magic from beneath (sorry, they're hard to see in the distance on my low settings). With our trusty bow and our beloved jumping skills, they aren't as difficult - no more poison.

 

The previous screenshot showed a part of the giant bust of a Dragon in the middle of that room. Climbing it up, we emerge above a waterfall and into an area with lots of lava.

 

When you try to walk on the lava rock to get to the other side, it kills you. Fast. At first I was stumped, but then we realised that the water is safe to wade through, despite being surrounded on all sides by flowing lava. Protip: Water and lava don't mix.

 

Finally, Jagon the bandit leader has run out of tricks, and must fight. His bow can kill me in 2-3 shots, though, so we drink a dexterity potion...

 

... and bull-rush him. One fireball and a few chops later, he's down quick. Little Manny is growing up to be vewy stwong, yes he is!

 

Some nice loot. We pick up his legs, to use for our Creature, apparently, and a spiffy necklace.

 

The portal to the man behind it all.

 

He appears to have been commandeering the bandits for his own purposes, only requiring that they bring to him a regular stream of bodies. Preferably young women. I think we know what you need those bodies for, amirite?

 

Unfortunately, after a short conversation, he uses his jedi powers to push us back through the portal, then remotely collapses it on this side with his magic. That is some power you have there, Johnny.

 

Having concluded our business with the bandits, we now proceed to reveal their hideout and password to the Lieutenant. We might visit later, to see if the game has reflected our choice with consequences.

 

------------------------------

 

Manny is now level 12, and finally does some decent damage. He seems to be able to stand up to Black Ring mobs now, which means we can now explore the areas of the valley that were too tough for us before. But first, tomorrow's update, we'll check out that Main Quest Tower.