The GWJ CRPG Club - Game 10: Divinity: Original Sin 2

Clumber wrote:
Timespike wrote:

I'll have to try disguising him with his actual mask and see if that makes a difference; I've been leaving his mask off so he can wear headgear.

When Fane is wearing his mask, he literally becomes a member of that race (at least mechanic-wise), not just looks like one. For example, if you need a blood pool he can wear the elf mask and use blood-sacrifice. I am fairly certain this applies to poison/healing potion use as well. Wearing any of the non-undead masks means he will be hurt by poison, healed by healing potions/energies

Hoho! Why am I just learning this now?

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
Clumber wrote:
Timespike wrote:

I'll have to try disguising him with his actual mask and see if that makes a difference; I've been leaving his mask off so he can wear headgear.

When Fane is wearing his mask, he literally becomes a member of that race (at least mechanic-wise), not just looks like one. For example, if you need a blood pool he can wear the elf mask and use blood-sacrifice. I am fairly certain this applies to poison/healing potion use as well. Wearing any of the non-undead masks means he will be hurt by poison, healed by healing potions/energies

Hoho! Why am I just learning this now?

I could've sworn I tried this and didn't work but maybe he was decaying and I didn't notice. Someone is ALWAYS decaying

imbiginjapan wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:
Clumber wrote:
Timespike wrote:

I'll have to try disguising him with his actual mask and see if that makes a difference; I've been leaving his mask off so he can wear headgear.

When Fane is wearing his mask, he literally becomes a member of that race (at least mechanic-wise), not just looks like one. For example, if you need a blood pool he can wear the elf mask and use blood-sacrifice. I am fairly certain this applies to poison/healing potion use as well. Wearing any of the non-undead masks means he will be hurt by poison, healed by healing potions/energies

Hoho! Why am I just learning this now?

I could've sworn I tried this and didn't work but maybe he was decaying and I didn't notice. Someone is ALWAYS decaying :(

I am decaying RIGHT NOW.

And of course I posted and then completely forgot to actually test it last night. Most of my playtime was spent on story stuff last night.

Okay, just did some testing. Turned Fane into a lizard with his multi-mask and cast a healing spell on him. It damaged him as usual. Poisoning him healed him as usual.

Sorry not checked this thread for a while.

Undead are undead and are still undead if using a face mask (topicality not intended) They will be damaged if they are targeted with healing spells.

High lore NPC enemies will also know that and attack Fane with Healing spells. The issue with the game is you’d be amazed how many high lore NPCs there are in the game. There is a mod that fixes that, but I think it’s on nexusmods not the steam workshop.

I had forgotten just how incredibly nasty Bloodmoon Isle is. Yikes...

I think I have to accept defeat with this one. I cannot muster the motivation to return. I really did like it, though. In parts.

The story is sewn together nicely. The characters are well written, and well voiced. Unquestionable improvements to the first game in these regards. I'd honestly like to see how it concludes. If only playability had not tanked! I missed how the first played! The new armor system was quite unpleasant. It hampered the flow and dictated the teamwork of combat. It was workable. It was simply rather drawn out and less fun. I also had less patience for teleportation and exploding environments this go around. Not good times. Things felt slower, too. I never seemed to get enough accomplished. Bah!

I can see where the praise comes from. I see how it betters upon its predecessor. I just do not gel with the combat anywhere close to how I did with the original. It was so good! It pulled me through -- with help from the environments and the soundtrack -- a dull tale told dreadfully. Flip that and I fall after a few hurdles. Gameplay is king, as it were.

I think I may return, possibly, at a later date. It's difficult to say. Perhaps this one just isn't for me.

I just reached The Nameless Isle. Really enjoyed the second main area, and I think I did just about every side quest there, too. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

A few days left for this one, anyone still trying to finish in time?

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

A few days left for this one, anyone still trying to finish in time?

I got stymied on the Nameless Isle. Just kinda lost interest as I couldn't really connect with what I was doing anymore. I ended up blasting through Shadowrun Hong Kong. While very simple and a bit buggy it had a nice tight storyline and power curve.

imbiginjapan wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

A few days left for this one, anyone still trying to finish in time?

I got stymied on the Nameless Isle. Just kinda lost interest as I couldn't really connect with what I was doing anymore. I ended up blasting through Shadowrun Hong Kong. While very simple and a bit buggy it had a nice tight storyline and power curve.

Reaper's Coast got me, when I added Fane with no spell books and combat went from manageable to "I need to fix this and it's going to take some time". Bummer, because the first Divinity was one of my favorite games that we've played so far. I wish I could have ground through that speed bump.

I know I'm a broken record with this, but better to finish an otherwise good game on easy difficulty than get blown up by those speed bumps and never see the expended effort pay off.

ubrakto wrote:

I know I'm a broke record with this, but better to finish an otherwise good game on easy difficulty than get blown up by those speed bumps and never see the expended effort pay off. ;)

For me it was just a loss of interest in the story and mechanics. I didn't really feel like engaging anymore... making it easier would have sped up the combat, but I don't think I would have paid any more attention.

ubrakto wrote:

I know I'm a broke record with this, but better to finish an otherwise good game on easy difficulty than get blown up by those speed bumps and never see the expended effort pay off. ;)

This is good advice for me. In retrospect, I wish I took it.

I just got lost about what to do next and made the mistake of setting it down for some other thing. When I came back, I had even less idea of where I was, if possible, and was unwilling to put in the time to figure it out. I enjoyed my time with it well enough but not enough to put in the effort to pick it back up. Somewhat regrettable but about par for the course for me.

tboon wrote:

I just got lost about what to do next and made the mistake of setting it down for some other thing. When I came back, I had even less idea of where I was, if possible, and was unwilling to put in the time to figure it out. I enjoyed my time with it well enough but not enough to put in the effort to pick it back up. Somewhat regrettable but about par for the course for me.

Agreed. I definitely enjoyed Fort Joy and the 20 hours or so I played, so I'm glad I played what I did. Still kind of gnaws at me that I didn't finish it, but ... onward!

Slackers. The lot of you!

Sorbicol wrote:

Slackers. The lot of you!

You Level 7 Bully, you!

It was a brilliant game and I enjoyed it a whole lot and I’m glad I played it.

But.

It took up every spare entertainment minute I had - for two months. Not doing that again for a while.

I never started :(. Too many other games

New gaming laptop, time to actually play this!

Yoreel wrote:

New gaming laptop, time to actually play this!

Nice! I should come back to this too. I hit the hard part at the same time as I messed up my party composition, and never really got past that sticky point. Was too stubborn to shift to story mode...

I am pretty deep into this one now, actually, just at the end of the third chapter. It's a solid mix of excellent and deeply frustrating. The writing and combat are both really interesting but the consistently obtuse quest and encounter design, terrible logbook and the utterly unforgiving leveling curve is a lot to deal with at times. I have rage quit multiple times due to being underleveled and struggling to find the one quest that I missed which feasible to complete, but always come back as there are some great moments and interesting solutions to problems. It is just that a lot of those solutions have felt unearned to me as I have needed help to complete enormously vague puzzles and quests multiple times. You really have to do pretty much everything to progress, which I think takes the shine off a bit as adopting that completionist mindset is mandatory. If anyone says they completed this on anything other than the easiest level without ever going to a guide, don't believe them!

I would second lots of the frustration that you are feeling, and highly anticipate my joy for this game being so high because someone has done the hard work for me of figuring out all the fun builds. I have no shame in the fact that I scoured the internet and listened to hours of youtube videos to pinpoint how i was going to build my party, with the coolest skills and what not. In fact for games like these, I often times would prefer a give me all the skills path, with the option to tweak only a few things or ALL the things. Having all your skills come from buying books and leaving it 100% open from the start is rough if you don't fully understand the entire system.

For my second playthrough I went with just a two member party both with the lone wolf skill. It made the game so much easier that it felt like I was exploiting a bug &/or poor design choice.

This thread seemed to be more active than the main. I decided to start tackling this for the holiday weekend.

Clumber wrote:

For my second playthrough I went with just a two member party both with the lone wolf skill. It made the game so much easier that it felt like I was exploiting a bug &/or poor design choice.

Saw that recommended. Was thinking about doing it. I'm still unsure when I pick up a 2nd party member... just in tutorial boat. But I met everyone already. I guess they don't have classes until I recruit them?

RnRClown wrote:

Yeah. So. I spent two hours on character creation. I was adding this, subtracting that, changing whatnot, and then went off to read or watch more on character creation. Ha! I somewhat regret the lost time that could've been spent actually playing. I also like digging into said intricacies, though, so it's not a total loss.

*still hasn't settled entirely on character creation*

:grin:

Pretty much this last night. Trying to pick just one character, just one class... and thinking about what party might go with it. I spent a ton of time reading articles and watching a video or two. Sheesh.

People talk about 2nd playthroughs and stuff, but come on, that's very unlikely for me with little kids. No chance I will have enough time. So trying to do it right the first one, and ugh...

This is also the main reason the game has kept me away.
I want to play and enjoy.

I am the father of 3 and run a small business I dont have time for this
Maybe this is not the game for me?

For some people, character creation is half the game. The best half.

But as far as I recall you can just pick pre-generated characters at startup.
And lone wolf is not a bad idea if you want less characters to build and control. However, having less characters on your team in a team-based RPG is its own downside in my opinion. Less character stories etc. to interact with.

Thanks for the advice