D:OS II

[Nail]

Might I ask what level you were when you finished the game?

21 or so, But I'm sure there is an option to kill every npc for squeezing a bit more experience

Doing it right now - min/maxing everything to complete "for honor"

 

Overall feeling that the game is good, but made in certain template.

Almost in every new chapter / location there is a trader with OP weapon / armor so you will obliterate everybody.

Like this:

One item gives you almost every resist to CC

 

Or, for instance spells like Evasive Aura / Uncanny Evasion give you 90-100% dodge chance if there is no one to hard counter with Glitter Dust (debuff - you can't evade)

These dramatic bounces freak out sometimes.

 

For me it's not as remembering and deep as obsidian products.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Nail

[Humanoid]

I tried to start a new campaign since co-op times are limited and I want to play a little more I currently am. So I figured I'd try a full-party game, led by my usual thief character. Unfortunately this idea was halted pretty much on the character creation screen, because the developers in their infinite wisdom have classified Sneaking - y'know, that pretty iconic thing that thieves do - as a civil skill, and hence it conflicts with the usual practice of the player character wanting to be the Persuade specialist.

 

This makes no sense, as no other class archetype (the novelty Barrelmancer build aside) has their core fighting functionality tied to expenditure of civil skill points, which are gained at a quarter of the rate of combat skill points. You gain so few of them (and they're not doubled for Lone Wolf unlike everything else) such that attempting to split your points will result in you being ineffectual at both. Put half your points into lockpicking and the other half into loremaster and watch as you fail to open every lock in the current zone, and fail to identify any level-appropriate gear ever.

 

I've had a quick look at what values are available through modding and it looks like the only easy solution is to do something like grant a civil skill point every two levels instead of every four. But this of course means the whole party gets double civil skill points that can be used for anything, which is not the intention. Ugh.

[Nail]

I tried to start a new campaign since co-op times are limited and I want to play a little more I currently am. So I figured I'd try a full-party game, led by my usual thief character. Unfortunately this idea was halted pretty much on the character creation screen, because the developers in their infinite wisdom have classified Sneaking - y'know, that pretty iconic thing that thieves do - as a civil skill, and hence it conflicts with the usual practice of the player character wanting to be the Persuade specialist.

 

This makes no sense, as no other class archetype (the novelty Barrelmancer build aside) has their core fighting functionality tied to expenditure of civil skill points, which are gained at a quarter of the rate of combat skill points. You gain so few of them (and they're not doubled for Lone Wolf unlike everything else) such that attempting to split your points will result in you being ineffectual at both. Put half your points into lockpicking and the other half into loremaster and watch as you fail to open every lock in the current zone, and fail to identify any level-appropriate gear ever.

 

I've had a quick look at what values are available through modding and it looks like the only easy solution is to do something like grant a civil skill point every two levels instead of every four. But this of course means the whole party gets double civil skill points that can be used for anything, which is not the intention. Ugh.

 

Yes, this system is weird.

 

Maximum value you can invest in civil is 5 and later on items will often grant some points in civil perks.

Also "All Skilled Up" talent helps.

 

So theoretically you can be good in several civil abilities.

But it's better to focus only at one.

 

As I've done my first run solo - picked the most valuable thing "persuasion"

But I had to pick up and carry locked chests to the respec area

 

I think most of civil abilities are almost useless...

Lucky Charm - it's just more money with pretty low chance

Loremaster - saving some money, but you can almost always identify at vendor

Bartering - again more money

Telekinesis - just quality of life

 

Still I never had money lack.

[Gorgon]

I'm at the halfway point, I think, on the volcano island and I've run out of steam. It's a good game but I can't take anymore. I'll do another run when I have vacation sometime. 

 

Lone wolf makes certain things easier but status effects are much more deadly. You can really ramp up damage though and make several kills on your first turn, which becomes near impossible with a full party. 

 

Also, there is a ring that grants stun immunity on the beginner island, assuming it wasn't random generated, I'm keeping that next time. 

[Nail]

I'm at the halfway point, I think, on the volcano island and I've run out of steam. It's a good game but I can't take anymore. I'll do another run when I have vacation sometime. 

 

Lone wolf makes certain things easier but status effects are much more deadly. You can really ramp up damage though and make several kills on your first turn, which becomes near impossible with a full party. 

 

Also, there is a ring that grants stun immunity on the beginner island, assuming it wasn't random generated, I'm keeping that next time. 

Ring or necklace? I only found unique necklace with stun immunity in first act, drop from Void Woken Deep Dweller... but not a ring.

Another stun immune thing is Armour of the Eternals, but it's other story...

[Humanoid]

Doesn't make sense that loot is randomly generated when the levels aren't, but that's how it is, which is a shame.

[Tigranes]

Not that sneaking is really very useful within combat, as opposed to positioning outside it, because AP cost is high for early game and in general Scoundrel gives you so many options for movement. I don't think sneaking in combat + GUerilla is really worth the trouble.

[Gorgon]

It's mostly for non combat use, income booster. However you can have someone else attack and have the rouge remain hidden while they engage. You lose your first turn though. Still useful if in certain situations, choke points in corridors and whatnot.

[Humanoid]

Yeah I admit I don't know how stealth interacts with the turn order. e.g. if I open an engagement by sneak attacking with a rogue, does that count as the rogue's first turn? Likewise if another character initiates combat, then you move the rogue in real time and then join combat using backstab, where do you join in the initiative order? Unfortunately since you only get one character in the tutorial unless playing multiplayer, you have to go a fair ways into the game before being able to test the mechanics.

[Labadal]

I read that their big patch has gone live. Fixes some bugs and nerfs some abilities. Luckily, none that I use.

[Tigranes]

Initiative is broken to begin with and it gets further confused when you have party members enter the combat separately. Don't worry about it so much - I tend to just walk up to enemies, or position specifically then alpha strike.

[Agiel]

I read that their big patch has gone live. Fixes some bugs and nerfs some abilities. Luckily, none that I use.

Didn't really get why they decided to nerf the Bone Spider. It costs 3 AP to cast and the thing has no magical armour.

[smjjames]

 

I read that their big patch has gone live. Fixes some bugs and nerfs some abilities. Luckily, none that I use.

Didn't really get why they decided to nerf the Bone Spider. It costs 3 AP to cast and the thing has no magical armour.

 

 

The incarnate is actually more useful. Also, the bone spider only lasts 4 turns, not enough time to do much of anything.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, everything I've heard suggests Summons are the big fat Win button? Which is why I haven't used them. 

[Harry Easter]

 

 

I read that their big patch has gone live. Fixes some bugs and nerfs some abilities. Luckily, none that I use.

Didn't really get why they decided to nerf the Bone Spider. It costs 3 AP to cast and the thing has no magical armour.

 

 

The incarnate is actually more useful. Also, the bone spider only lasts 4 turns, not enough time to do much of anything.

 

 

Hmm, I found it quite useful. It does make a decent amount of damage and it can take it. I'm now in the last fourth of the game and the spider is still valuable companion against stronger voidvoken.

[omphaloskepsis]

Finished it.

I generally agree with your post, and if I'd read a few posts like that I would have been sure that the game wasn't for me.  But I'm really enjoying it.

 

Also, FWIW, I feel like the writing has improved significantly.  It turned me off in DOS1, but I'm at least enjoying the different origin characters so far.   I'd be more informed, but I've restarted Fort Joy about 20 times and keep switching between different characters.

 

I think most of civil abilities are almost useless...

Lucky Charm - it's just more money with pretty low chance

Loremaster - saving some money, but you can almost always identify at vendor

Bartering - again more money

Telekinesis - just quality of life

 

Still I never had money lack.

Lucky Charm occasionally throws magic items your way, and extra money is really useful in Act 1.

Loremaster gives info when Examining enemies.  For practical purposes it also speeds up item acquisition (not having to wait), which can be nice if you recently leveled up.

 

Also, you're exploiting the respec system, and then saying that money isn't a problem.  I'm not complaining, just pointing out that if you played differently you'd have more need for cash.

 

But yeah, despite what I said above, civil abilities are pretty meh, and Larian could do better.  I just think they're a more useful than you implied, especially in the early game.

[Gorgon]

Initiative is broken to begin with and it gets further confused when you have party members enter the combat separately. Don't worry about it so much - I tend to just walk up to enemies, or position specifically then alpha strike.

How can people get more than one go during a combat turn. It must be because initiative = an opportunity to use your action points and receiving a helping of recovery ap. i.e. Initiative = number of turns you will have. 

 

 

An initiative 30 has twice the ammount of turns as an initiatiive 15, that's why his card shows up twice in the same turn. 

[Zoraptor]

People can have more than one go during a round via Fane's (and I guess potentially others) source power at least. Never noticed it happen otherwise though the system definitely has quirks. Unlike in the first game initiative is pretty useless because no matter how much you have you're going to alternate turns with the enemy, and have trouble applying status effects if you go first anyway due to the new ray and particle shields. Indeed, so much of effective character progression now is gear/ force field based that I could easily imagine a dual lone wolf set up being easier than a full party. My level 13 party still has people wearing occasional level 6 (!) gear as there hasn't been enough replacement stuff for all of them, and it really tells.

 

Thing is, they've introduced the initiative, AP and shields for balance and the game isn't balanced all that well anyway. Summoners are massively overpowered. Even crap summons like those totems do extra damage and most importantly take half a turn to destroy which isn't being spent taking out a 'proper' enemy.

[Tigranes]

 

Initiative is broken to begin with and it gets further confused when you have party members enter the combat separately. Don't worry about it so much - I tend to just walk up to enemies, or position specifically then alpha strike.

How can people get more than one go during a combat turn. It must be because initiative = an opportunity to use your action points and receiving a helping of recovery ap. i.e. Initiative = number of turns you will have. 

 

 

An initiative 30 has twice the ammount of turns as an initiatiive 15, that's why his card shows up twice in the same turn. 

 

 

AFAIK this is not how it works. High initiative (e.g. via Wits) determines your starting turn: e.g. if you have more Initiative than all allies and enemies, you'll go first. But then, after that, it's hardcoded to make sure enemies and allies interchange turns. So e.g. 

 

Player 1 (I=30)

Enemy 1 (I=27)

Player 2 (I=29)

Enemy 2 (I=16)

Player 3 (I=20)

Enemy 3 (I=10)

Enemy 4 (I=9)

Enemy 5 (I=7)

 

And so on. So this is the first sense in which it is obviously ludicrous, because initiative only matters in a very partial sense.

 

However, no amount of initiative would give you a free extra turn within that round. There seem to be a few known places where initiative order gets weird, and this is probably where that ends up happening:

• One of player characters enters combat midway, in which case usually they'll get the alpha strike that they manually executed to enter combat, but then they wouldn't get a turn, their turn will be filed in the appropriate place in turn order
• Fane's ability would give you an extra turn straightaway
• When you summon something it gets a turn immediately after the summoner's turn ends, no matter what. And then it goes into the turn order normally.

So some shenanigans/bugs in that process may result in something getting extra turns, though I haven't really seen it myself.

 

Ultimately neither DOS1 nor 2 are well balanced games in any sense of the word. It's always been a game where you use the barrels and elements etc at hand to wreak havoc with supercheese tactics and have fun doing it. I certainly enjoy that, but the mechanics are just too broken and threadbare to allow the kind of theorycrafting that you can do with IE games, NWN2 or POE.

Edited October 8, 2017 by Tigranes

[Orogun01]

People can have more than one go during a round via Fane's (and I guess potentially others) source power at least. Never noticed it happen otherwise though the system definitely has quirks. Unlike in the first game initiative is pretty useless because no matter how much you have you're going to alternate turns with the enemy, and have trouble applying status effects if you go first anyway due to the new ray and particle shields. Indeed, so much of effective character progression now is gear/ force field based that I could easily imagine a dual lone wolf set up being easier than a full party. My level 13 party still has people wearing occasional level 6 (!) gear as there hasn't been enough replacement stuff for all of them, and it really tells.

 

Thing is, they've introduced the initiative, AP and shields for balance and the game isn't balanced all that well anyway. Summoners are massively overpowered. Even crap summons like those totems do extra damage and most importantly take half a turn to destroy which isn't being spent taking out a 'proper' enemy.

Yeah, we wouldn't want to make it too hard on the enemies that have no party limit.

[Labadal]

I'm at the Nameless Isle, and the design is annoying. I don't like it as much as Fort Joy and Reaper's Coast.

[HoonDing]

It will be a fun game once it's properly nerfed and balanced.

[smjjames]

Speaking of balance and nerfing, how do I do that final (multistage) boss fight? Seems rather hard, and I'm on explorer mode. Though I've seen that you have to be strategic somewhat, but still....

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, we wouldn't want to make it too hard on the enemies..

 

 

That's actually what I disliked about Sword Coast Stratagems as Baldur's Gate mods- with it every encounter was designed as if the mob was there only to fight that encounter. I don't really enjoy gaming the system as a player, it's doubly annoying when the enemy is doing it to you because it makes cheesey tactics mandatory.

 

Which reminds me of the boss fights. They seem to start with a mandatory first turn to the boss, and the boss seems to have above maximum AP as well. If you're forced to start close due to being in a building or via a dialogue they can do an insane amount of damage and there's nothing (well, little) you can do about it. If you've got more space you have more options, but they're scarcely dairy free options. eg with the first boss fight

 

 

versus Alexandar (sic). Go in in a non cheesey way and you'll lose as most of your party will be blind after the first round as they'll be beautifully grouped for his cloak ability. It's pretty easy if you're a gruyère afficionado though. Send in one character who can go invisible to trigger the conversation from a distance, go invisible, get out los, wait a couple of turns, teleport (a really unbalanced power, especially at low level) Alexandar over to the rest of your waiting party while the rest of his group fights the voidworm. Alex at that point is down to his normal number of AP, can't reduce your armour enough to blind everyone and you can space your party enough to avoid it anyway. Two of his group will stay on their elevated terrain and never come to fight you, the rest only come once the worm is dead, and come piecemeal, and with reduced armour/ health.

 

[smjjames]

 

Yeah, we wouldn't want to make it too hard on the enemies..

 

 

That's actually what I disliked about Sword Coast Stratagems as Baldur's Gate mods- with it every encounter was designed as if the mob was there only to fight that encounter. I don't really enjoy gaming the system as a player, it's doubly annoying when the enemy is doing it to you because it makes cheesey tactics mandatory.

 

Which reminds me of the boss fights. They seem to start with a mandatory first turn to the boss, and the boss seems to have above maximum AP as well. If you're forced to start close due to being in a building or via a dialogue they can do an insane amount of damage and there's nothing (well, little) you can do about it. If you've got more space you have more options, but they're scarcely dairy free options. eg with the first boss fight

 

 

versus Alexandar (sic). Go in in a non cheesey way and you'll lose as most of your party will be blind after the first round as they'll be beautifully grouped for his cloak ability. It's pretty easy if you're a gruyère afficionado though. Send in one character who can go invisible to trigger the conversation from a distance, go invisible, get out los, wait a couple of turns, teleport (a really unbalanced power, especially at low level) Alexandar over to the rest of your waiting party while the rest of his group fights the voidworm. Alex at that point is down to his normal number of AP, can't reduce your armour enough to blind everyone and you can space your party enough to avoid it anyway. Two of his group will stay on their elevated terrain and never come to fight you, the rest only come once the worm is dead, and come piecemeal, and with reduced armour/ health.

 

 

 

 

 

One strategy is to leave the area and just let the voidworm kill Alexandar and his group, then come back and finish off the voidworm (and whoever got left behind). And 'Alexandar' is how his name is intentionally spelled ingame.

 

 

I'm still wondering about the final boss fight though. It's possible it may be the strategy I was using.