Deadfire vs Divinity OS 2

[Hertzila]

My only issue with Original Sin 2 so far has been the camera, more specifically the maximum zoom level. Mostly during exploration, the zoom level seems too close to the ground for a good overview. Since the camera is also tied to the terrain and will follow it up and down, a couple of times the camera has decided to do an extreme close up of my character's face or feet if the elevation change was large enough. Not a big issue and thankfully almost non-existent during combat (at least so far, I'm about 50 hours in), but an issue still.

 

I also don't get the gripes about the armor system. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense in the fiction compared to a damage reduction system like PoE or even ol' D&D Armor Class and conceptually, I still like armor as damage reduction the most. But holy crap does it work for the gameplay.

 

Usually in RPGs, I find most bosses to be completely immune to every status effect under the sun to stop players from cheesing through it, which usually renders most Crowd Control characters mostly pointless since the enemy you'd most want to CC cannot be CC'd. From what I've heard from a couple of friends, in Original Sin 1 the cheese was in full smell and every fight was basically "CC till you win". I'd have expected DOS2 go the route of every other RPG there is with immunities to prevent this, even if status effects and crowd control would then be rendered pointless and non-viable.

 

But thanks to the armor system presenting a direct obstacle to CC that you need to break down first, Original Sin 2 can nerf the cheese without making it pointless. Sure, some enemies still have a few immunities but they are almost never blanket immunities, so crowd control stays useful even against bosses. Since most CC is blocked by armor, you still need to deal enough damage to break through before you can apply it. Maybe after that you can CC the boss to infinity but you still have the challenge of breaking through the armor first before that can happen.

[takamorisan]

Talk about blowing a load prematurely, so far we can only "judge" OS2.

OS2 I accumulated 202 hours , finished the game on tacticia, compared to OS1 it felt like a huge upgrade in every department, story mainly. Its a 9/10 really deserved from the public.

 

As for deadfire I will judge based on PoE 1, what they managed to step further in their game and in their style, have to be really careful and not ending up with a OS3 expectation. Even being both isometric rpgs, the way its presented is really different. Of course Obsidian will probably use the opportunity to observe and extract some ideas from OS2 and improve further PoE: Deadfire.

[Ancelor]

Issues I had with D:OS

-          Story was lacking too basic

-          Characters were too comicy for my taste

-          World aesthetic was not imersive for me

 

Issues I had with POE

-          Too much reading too little voice (especially when voice acting was great were available)

-          Hectic battles, with too much going on at the same time, to notice everything

-          Levelling and crafting need serious rework

 

Overall if I could have a game with PoE’s story, atmosphere and class system but with DOS gameplay I would be so happy J

[Fardragon]

Are you talking about DOS1 or 2? Since I would agree with all 3 of those points for the first one, but say they have all been tackled in the second.

 

As for POE, my only big issue was the pacing, and that was basically because the endless paths broke it. It had about the right amount of spoken lines.

Edited October 7, 2017 by Fardragon

[Madscientist]

I have started D:OS2 on normal, but I have quit it out of frustration and started PoE again.

But I will try it again on easy at some point.

 

Larian was always good in exploration (big maps with lots of things to find), interactivity (take, move or combine everything) and humor ( I can understand if some people find it too silly).

D:OS2 improved also in terms of story and characters compared to the previous games, but it is still not among the best games in this regards.

 

Now come the big downsides that I don´t really like:

- The game is unbalanced as hell. Absolute freedom in character creation and very simple stat system mean, that some builds are complete OP and others are completely useless. If you know the good combos the game is super easy, else it can be very hard. PoE is much better in this field.

- All items are completely random. You want a 2h sword with a bonus in dual wielding, you can have it. A combo of random gear and high gear dependence is not good. I think the problem is that their first game was a "diablo clone" (sorry for that term), at least regarding combat. Random loot may be OK in a single character game with fast combat, but if you want to equip a full party with useful things that have your current level, it is very bad. But for whatever reasons, they sticked with the random "system" of the first game.

- The increase in power per level is too high. This leads to an insane stat inflation later and it increases the gear dependency a lot. So you find epic equipment with lots of random stat and skill bonusses, but a generic weapon 2 levels later does still twice the damage of it.

[Fardragon]

Tip for DOS2: avoid combat at the start. Sneek around, negotiate, explore and if nessassary, run away. Then chose your fights when you are good and ready.

[Sedrefilos]

In contrast to what many say, I found combat encounters early on in DOS2 challenging but not impossible. And, yeah, when you wear rugs, a bucket for helmet and a stick for weapon it usually isn't that a great idea to pick up fights with armed people or giand animals

I believe many just tried to fight everything the saw and got frustrated when then got their asses handed to them :D

I liked that. Changing tactics after a combat failure can also make a great difference to the outcome. It reminded me of BG2.

Pillars didn't have that in normal difficulty unfortunately. Most of the time I didn't care about enemy resistances etc, I just followed a basic combat tactic and most of the times it worked. If a challenge was too difficult, I just came back later at higher level and finish it off. The game was lacking a bit on the tactical level (in normal diff) and this makes more interesting, for me, the reduction of party size to 5. It might be more tactically challenging.

[Archaven]

I bought DOS2 day1 but has yet to install it. Still playing PoE and having so much fun. However, i'm grateful seeing the success of DOS2 as they are setting the bar higher for good old RPGs and that will discourage lazy devs and no cutting corners from Obsidian. To get an average score of 8.5 - 9 on critics or reviews for Deadfire, Obsidian really need to deliver and excellent sequel which includes quality content, gameplay, depth, memorable experiences and replay values. Hoping they don't drop the ball on the release by saving some of the quality content for the expansions.

[Sedrefilos]

The best thing is that they'll no longer be called "good old" rpgs. All newer games (DOS2, Deadfire, Wasteland 3, Expeditions Viking and many other), after their initial success, they raised their technical level to modern. Graphics, gameplay etc all look modern now and the genre is revived and it's here to stay. I believe the term "classic" or "old school" will drop from the media and they'll use the more general iso-rpgs or crpgs, since they already got new/young people to their fandom. At least that's what I hope

Edited October 14, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[Archaven]

The best thing is that they'll no longer be called "good old" rpgs. All newer games (DOS2, Deadfire, Wasteland 3, Expeditions Viking and many other), after their initial success, they raised their technical level to modern. Graphics, gameplay etc all look modern now and the genre is revived and it's here to stay. I believe the term "classic" or "old school" will drop from the media and they'll use the more general iso-rpgs or crpgs, since they already got new/young people to their fandom. At least that's what I hope

 

Seeing that Deadfire, many of the assets are 3D do you think PoE3 (if it's ever get made?) will go fully to 3D environments? Earlier days everyone used to argue that they love hand drawn environments as they were more beautiful. This is true when 15 years ago where the graphics and visual technology weren't good enough. 

[Wormerine]

 

The best thing is that they'll no longer be called "good old" rpgs. All newer games (DOS2, Deadfire, Wasteland 3, Expeditions Viking and many other), after their initial success, they raised their technical level to modern. Graphics, gameplay etc all look modern now and the genre is revived and it's here to stay. I believe the term "classic" or "old school" will drop from the media and they'll use the more general iso-rpgs or crpgs, since they already got new/young people to their fandom. At least that's what I hope

 

 

Seeing that Deadfire, many of the assets are 3D do you think PoE3 (if it's ever get made?) will go fully to 3D environments? Earlier days everyone used to argue that they love hand drawn environments as they were more beautiful. This is true when 15 years ago where the graphics and visual technology weren't good enough.

I still prefer 2d backgrounds. I would certainly prefer PoE to stay isometric instead of top down full 3D. As far as 3D is concerned i have only seen really big budget games reach variety of locals and art design of 2d backgrounds. Also prerendered 2d background are much less demanding without sacrificing quality. Unless the 2d limits Onsidian in some significant way (not as interactive as 3D could be) I don’t see a reason to switch tech.

[Sedrefilos]

@Archaven and Wormerine,

In terms of backgrounds I don't believe it matters that much eye-candy-wise nowadays if they're gonna be 2D or 3D since they're good either way. I mean see how many 2D gsmes are out there with great graphics. Even pixel graphics are considered good now. Thing is, there are no bad graphics anymore only art style. Of course when you have full 3D environment you can intrigue more people who are of the blockbuster side into looking at your game but with so many others playing games in old pcs (like me), tablets, mac (because they use it mostly for work and enjoy some games here and there) I don't think there's that much of a problem. You don't have to be a blockbuster to be considered a good and successful game and a genre can be all about that and live on.

 

Now, as far my personal pereferences go, DOS2 has changed my view about 2D and 3D backgrounds, tbh. 2D backgrounds were great in Pillars but in DOS2 they are equal if not better with the new engine and the fact that they are so interactive now (you can navigate though the environment, move thing, toss them here and there, open stuff, destroy stuff, put them on fire etc) makes the background part the experience and not just a background image. Makes everything even more alive. Basically, it's not even a "background" anymore. But this is the DOS2 "thing", that's what Larian chose to do with the backgrounds: they made the game fully 3D and used it to the limit. If you compare with, say, Wasteland 2, it is fully 3D but the environment is not more interactive than Pillars' 2D backgrounds. So, I guess, I prefer 3D backgrounds if it's made the Larian way and whatever background fits the game if it's not to be fully interactive.

 

PS. The more I play DOS2 the more I like it. I believe it deserves all the praise it got by the media. It's truly a remarkable RPG in all points that matter and far better that I imagined; and I'm maybe not even half way through.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[Quillon]

PS. The more I play DOS2 the more I like it. I believe it deserves all the praise it got by the media. It's truly a remarkable RPG in all points that matter and far better that I imagined; and I'm maybe not even half way through.

 

The opposite for me, the more I played the more I started to dislike it. Too much design flaws, the game is in between single player and co-op and not catering fully to any side. Its never explained why you can control companions in dialogue. Straightforward quests, pointless features(why is there a big ass ship?) very few on board. Too many useless items and gear. Mostly boring companions who are too isolated from each other just to make playing as any of them could work. Too much power gap between levels it becomes a chore just to keep party's equipment on par during the last 3rd of the game.(managing inventory is pure chore right from the start) Act 3 was also pure chore to just to get to the end which was buggy as hell. It certainly doesn't deserve all the praise it got. Just the first 10-15 hours of it is really fun then its downhill from there which I imagine the only part of it the joke that is "media" got to play before declaring it instant all time classic.

[Sedrefilos]

 

PS. The more I play DOS2 the more I like it. I believe it deserves all the praise it got by the media. It's truly a remarkable RPG in all points that matter and far better that I imagined; and I'm maybe not even half way through.

 

The opposite for me, the more I played the more I started to dislike it. Too much design flaws, the game is in between single player and co-op and not catering fully to any side. Its never explained why you can control companions in dialogue. Straightforward quests, pointless features(why is there a big ass ship?) very few on board. Too many useless items and gear. Mostly boring companions who are too isolated from each other just to make playing as any of them could work. Too much power gap between levels it becomes a chore just to keep party's equipment on par during the last 3rd of the game.(managing inventory is pure chore right from the start) Act 3 was also pure chore to just to get to the end which was buggy as hell. It certainly doesn't deserve all the praise it got. Just the first 10-15 hours of it is really fun then its downhill from there which I imagine the only part of it the joke that is "media" got to play before declaring it instant all time classic.

 

If there were a couple of big sites praising it and if it was ablockbuster, meaning the company could easily have paid for reviews, I'd wouldn't care either. But the game is being praised by all the media and by the vast majority of players. Of course only you can decide wether the game is good for you or not, but the collective thoughts usually tag games as classic and, imo, DOS 2 deserves to be called one. Many of the points you mention are not included to those that matter for me and with others I just disagree.

[Fardragon]

Yup. Saying "I don't like it personally" is fine. Saying other people are wrong for praising it is just another way of saying "everyone is stupid apart from me."

[Quillon]

There is a difference between praising something and declaring it instant classic and such; giving it 94 metacritic etc with all its flaws. Bugs alone should have taken at least 10 points from that score. And I was thinking critics were far too generous to Pillars 1, seems I hadn't seen nothing then. DOS2's standing on its combat and production quality for its sheer scope, I don't see people praising its story, reactivity, characters etc. all time classic alright. I guess I have to add IMO or such at the end of every sentence otherwise I'm speaking for everyone.

[Karkarov]

I don't know I concur with Quillon, once I got past the initial stages and all the characters I wasn't using died I just started to get bored with it.  Much like D:OS 1 after the first chapter.  I will probably try to push through but it isn't "best RPG ever" or even close.

I said it earlier in the thread, and I will say it again.

 

Anyone can like both games.  But Eternity and D:OS are not really competitors.  OS is far more about the combat than it is the story, or the world.  Eternity is the opposite, the combat is "good enough, not bad", but the game is really about the setting and plot.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Karkarov

[Archaven]

@Seredflios

 

I recall playing the original Divinity Original Sins many years ago and the graphics were really beautiful. Saying that 2D background and art looks more beautiful than 3D in 2017 is plain wrong. I would say that going 2D budget-wise would be more cheaper for Obsidian and they could focus solely on delivering the content and gameplay. I love seeing the game in full 3D just like Wasteland 2. I've seen couple of screenshots of Wasteland 3 and it looks outright gorgeous.

 

Going 3D doesn't mean i want a first person game. Hell no. If i want to play a first person RPG game i play The Witcher. I don't really care if the PoE3 will be 3D or not. But i'm not sure without considering technological and visual jump, how can they improve the game further in terms of gameplay and content in PoE3 (if it's going to get make one day)?  If it will be more likely the same, it's hard to retain the score of 9/10 crown.

[Sedrefilos]

@Seredflios

 

I recall playing the original Divinity Original Sins many years ago and the graphics were really beautiful. Saying that 2D background and art looks more beautiful than 3D in 2017 is plain wrong. I would say that going 2D budget-wise would be more cheaper for Obsidian and they could focus solely on delivering the content and gameplay. I love seeing the game in full 3D just like Wasteland 2. I've seen couple of screenshots of Wasteland 3 and it looks outright gorgeous.

 

Going 3D doesn't mean i want a first person game. Hell no. If i want to play a first person RPG game i play The Witcher. I don't really care if the PoE3 will be 3D or not. But i'm not sure without considering technological and visual jump, how can they improve the game further in terms of gameplay and content in PoE3 (if it's going to get make one day)?  If it will be more likely the same, it's hard to retain the score of 9/10 crown.

I think you got me wrong

I usually prefer 3D over 2D too. What I was saying is that 2D is no longer considered a thing of the past and that if Obsidian feels they can have their game easier with 2D backgrounds instead of 3D, especially if the 3D isn't gonna change much apart from the thing that you can rotate the camera (DOS2 utilises its 3D in gameplay - combat/interactivity, Wasteland 2 did not, this diesen;t mean I dodn't liked it being 3D) then let be it. I don't think people will say "oh, I won't play this it's 2D". 

I think these games "scare" people mostly because of their design rather than their looks. Complicated, non-linear, multi-tasky, ready etc.

[Madscientist]

Those who want to have everything in full 3D should consider 2 things:

 

- Many 3D games have a problem with the camera. Some people complained about the camera in D:OS2 (not me, but I wish you could zoom out more). NWN2 was a good game, but sometimes the camera was terrible. I remember a cutscene where the king talks to me and the camera was inside the wall and all I see is the backside of the carpet on the wall.

 

- Modeling and animation of each object is much more complicated. It can be done, but it requires time and money. Time and money could also be spend on other things, like more and better content.

OK, Larian did manage to make a big game in full 3D where you can move or destroy almost every object and the game has full voice acting, so it is possible.

 

PS:

I play computer/console RPGs since the mid 90s and I also enjoy pixel art games today. So I am one of the people who care very little about graphics.

[MaxQuest]

Me sitting at DoS2 Character Creation screen, and comparing (without any prior knowledge) base numbers for phys attacks, damaging spells and heals:

 

Crippling Blow 50-56 dmg; Electric Discharge 7-8...

 

Also me, 5 minutes later: my knight hits like a little girl. Where do I get a two-hander on this ship?

Edited October 15, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Tigranes]

They have very different art styles, it's not about which one has more polygons or whatever. DOS1 has a very cartoony/Blizzardy look with gigantic pauldrons, three or four massive rock pieces filling up a rock outcropping like it's some kind of stage prop (exhibit A), and superbright colours. POE goes for more sombre and realistic in all those regards. (DOS2 is slightly more in that direction.)

 

Never understood why people like big blocky superbright things, but it seems to be very popular for gamers.

 

[

 

[Sedrefilos]

- Modeling and animation of each object is much more complicated. It can be done, but it requires time and money. Time and money could also be spend on other things, like more and better content.

OK, Larian did manage to make a big game in full 3D where you can move or destroy almost every object and the game has full voice acting, so it is possible.

 

PS:

I play computer/console RPGs since the mid 90s and I also enjoy pixel art games today. So I am one of the people who care very little about graphics.

You do know that backgounds of Pillars are first made in 3D, then get rendered then they got hand painted over screen by screen. It sounds more time consuming to me. The transition from 2D to 3D was not made solely for aesthetics but for time saveing also. In a 3D game you make the assets and then put them wherever you want. Obsidian chose that approach for notsalgia purposes. That's why they put more "3D stuff" in Deadfire. Makes everything more alive and you have to hand-paint less stuff since you just place them over the rendered screen

 

I play games from the mid 80s and as tolerable I'm with graphics, I do appreciate when there is effort in them and they compliment the game atmospherically and aesthetically (andy not mechanically too) to the max.

[Sedrefilos]

 

Never understood why people like big blocky superbright things, but it seems to be very popular for gamers.

 

I thought about that too - the development of XCOM answered my curiosity, though: they stand out from afar. In isometric games it makes sense.

[draego]

Me sitting at DoS2 Character Creation screen, and comparing (without any prior knowledge) base numbers for phys attacks, damaging spells and heals:

 

Crippling Blow 50-56 dmg; Electric Discharge 7-8...

 

Also me, 5 minutes later: my knight hits like a little girl. Where do I get a two-hander on this ship?

 

I built a spear with rope/rod/knife on the ship something like that but it doesnt scale with strength so.....

Edited October 15, 2017 by draego