Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Out Now on PC

kime

iirc, the classes are really just templates for what you start with. There's no actual in-game difference, you can bump the stats you want and learn whatever abilities you want (if you have the prerequisites). Partway into the game, you also get a way to respec your stats, too, although you can't unlearn abilities. (Unlearning abilities isn't really a big deal except that it costs money to learn them, so it'd just be annoying if you wasted money on something you didn't actually use.)

So, don't stress too hard about it.

McHoger

The best way I heard it explained was to think of the classes as
1. Warfare (Str)
2. Scoundrel (Dex)
3. Huntsman (Dex)
4. Mage (Int)
5. Summoner
Then to focus on your classes primary stat.

Also, for abilities AP Gain > Movement > Buffs/Debuffs/Crowd Control > Damage.

Brolo

Yeah the only real difference between the characters in combat gameplay is their special racial ability and their unique character skill. Otherwise you can spec any character into any build, pretty much at any time.

Iolo

And the game tends to reward specialization (with the caveat that everyone needs some repositioning skills/abilities).

Thirith

Sorry to revive this thread, but I wanted to hear the opinions of people here.

I've been playing DOS2 for the last few weeks, and while I enjoyed it better than the first game there were some niggling annoyances that over time have grown into big frustrations. Like many, I dislike that the party rarely ever feels like a party - there's precious little interaction between the characters, and obviously I'm annoyed that I can't switch characters on the fly while in dialogue in order to use the one best suited to a situation.

What annoys me even more, though, is the way the game doesn't even try to hint at doing certain things with a different character. It really bothers me that I can trigger a conversation while Lohse is active and it inevitably ends up with a combat encounter, while if Fane had been active I would've had the option to resolve the situation peacefully - but Fane is right there, standing next to Lohse, and it's about whether I perceive something about a character or not! It's not just that I miss out on interesting moments and storylines, it's that the game makes this feel utterly random. It makes me feel that I should replay every encounter four times, once with every character, in order to see if there's something I'm missing - and this actively makes me feel like the game is wasting my time and giving me little reason to trust it. I think it's fair for the game to hide things from me, but not in such bullshitty ways that, as far as I'm concerned, disincentivise roleplay.

And while I've been enjoying Act 2 reasonably well, I'm now at a point where I don't feel like doing anything in the game, because of how it uses, or fails to use, the party. It makes me feel like the game is jerking me around.

Is there anything in-game to mitigate this? I'm at a point at which I don't really want to continue, but at the same time I keep reading things from people for who DOS2 really clicked, people that talk about all these cool encounters and roleplaying options. If there's something I'm missing, is there a way for me to find it? Or should I just go back to my Planescape Torments and Disco Elysiums, because DOS2 and I will never really be friends?

EspantaPajaro

Honestly I just initiate conversations with whoever is the persuasion character that run. And that helps with being able to pass most checks. If the conversation is important to another party member they will tell you to let them talk to the npc but this mostly happens in their personal quest.

Thirith

Thing is, in my experience there are encounters where that's not the case. There was one encounter where, if I'd used a scholar character, I would have realised something about an NPC, leading to a non-violent resolution. If a scholar character is present but not active, the situation always leads to a fight where I have to kill the NPC. There was another situation where (again) a scholar would've understood a certain language, but they have to be the ones initiating the action - and it can't be repeated, so if someone else initiates the action that's it. Such encounters and situations make me wonder what else I missed because the game wasn't designed to have party members interact except in very few situations, and going forward it makes me feel like I'd really need to play each situation four times to see if Lohse or Fane or whoever have something to say. I come from RPGs like the ones by Black Isle, old-school Bioware and Troika, where the party feels like a party, with banter and interactions and comments if one of the party members has something to add - and all of that seems to be largely absent in DOS2.

Jealous Deva

Divinity original sin 2 is wierd about a lot of things like that. They needed to have something like happens in other games (most recently I noticed it a lot in starfield) where every once in a whole there is an option in dialogue to say “hey, you party member, deal with this one.”

There are some people out there that a absolutely love dos2 and that is great, but I felt like it was almost a really great game. Like the peices are there but somehow they never quite tied everything together. It has great ideas that just don’t quite make it in execution.

Brolo

DOS2 definitely felt like they wrote the individual story lines but didn't have the extra time to add reactivity between different party members, I think there's really only a handful of times where they'll talk to each other.

I think a big part of that is making the game completely multiplayer coop as well, so sometimes you can't always rely on party members being nearby for conversations.

Thirith

Yeah, I've read that too, but the explanations never rang true for me. For one thing, there would've been ways of handling it in single player, for another, there would've been ways of mitigating this by simple means. I don't necessarily expect a perfect solution, but to me it seems that since they couldn't find the perfect way of handling this they decided that it's a non-issue - except it's what in effect is ruining my enjoyment of the game. It doesn't feel like an RPG because my party might as well not exist as a party.

HeavyVillain

I bounced off dos 2 first (didnt HATE it, just didn't see in it what friends did) and I think part of it was that feeling that it's you + one character at a time yeah not a party. (By that I mean that the game would play out same if it was only you +1 team mate at a time, considering they only rly have things to say in their own quests)

But on the point of not seeing other characters options, its a very weird game in that sense with the coop/origin thing. idk how to say this but the game feels like its built around being 1 origin character at a time, even though technically you could 'be' all of them by swapping carefully and seeing all their options and dialog at the right times. I kind of made my peace with that but its def not for everyone

for example in singplayer I saw red prince's private love scene with his betrothed (i think, I forget) because i selected him accidentally when it started but the game acted like I wasnt supposed to and things got weird with my (that is, main char) convo with him after, I think poss because AI/team mate prince scripted to do certain thing but I was able to do something different when I hijacked him? Weird but anyway I guess my point is that you shouldnt stress missing those convo choices because in a normal rpg they wouldnt have been there in the first place (if that even makes sense?) because a normal game would just have those options based off the pc's build

But yeah for the record the lack of shared persuasion+barter is undefensable. I always mod that

Thirith

HeavyVillain wrote: »

for example in singplayer I saw red prince's private love scene with his betrothed (i think, I forget) because i selected him accidentally when it started but the game acted like I wasnt supposed to and things got weird with my (that is, main char) convo with him after, I think poss because AI/team mate prince scripted to do certain thing but I was able to do something different when I hijacked him? Weird but anyway I guess my point is that you shouldnt stress missing those convo choices because in a normal rpg they wouldnt have been there in the first place (if that even makes sense?) because a normal game would just have those options based off the pc's build

I think this is a large part of my disconnect: the majority of RPGs I played has been party-based, and they would offer such options, because the party is as much of a main character as the PC. By having certain characters in my party, certain situations and storylines would be available, i.e. that's the 'normal' I'm working from. If I hadn't grown to love the genre with these games, I might feel different - but it would still feel off. To me it really sounds like Larian had two things they wanted to do that are at odds with each other: they want a party for the combat, because having four characters with different strengths and weaknesses makes for more interesting combat encounters; but they also wanted to tell a story where it's very much every character for themselves, and they had an engine built around this. I see how this works well in coop, but in single player it feels like a big drawback to me.

HeavyVillain

yeah I do think thats the problem, but if it was their design plan from the start maybe they dont even see it as a problem: that you either play coop or youre basically a solo act with henchmen, hence things like the lone wolf perk to support that. Once I understood that I was able to enjoy it a bit more but it was still disappointing, a bit like how I bounced off icewind dale because it's a fighty rpg and not a talk to your crew of party members rpg

I remember Dragon Age origins (at least I think it was the first one) had opportunities for your party to chime in or take over, and I mean in th sense that theyd talk and have unique char moments not just things tied to the background or class they shared with the pc.