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prototypelq · 6 months

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Divinity Original Sin 2 has spoiled me

I’ve played my fair share of this wonderful game before, but this year’s BG3 hype had my interest pique again, so I’ve given it another go (this time with mods, which I’ve definitely spent too much time learning how to install and make work together). And boy, oh boy, this game might just have spoiled the RPG’s for me forever.

First of all, this game has no class system. While the character creator offers you some options to choose from, those are just pretty suggestions for the beginning of the game, and even those beginner’s setups are very creative. For example, the Inquisitor preset offers you options from the Necromancy and Warfrare skilltrees (Warfare is focused on dealing physical damage, and the Necromancer has an array of ranged magic and skills to stay alive in battle longer), or a Shadowblade preset, which offers you skills from Scoundrel and Polymorph trees (Scoundrel is your rogue build skills focused on backstabbing, and Polymorph offers you abilities to morph your body into different animal-themed parts, like Chamelon Skin spell which will, predictably, make you invisible). You also, obviously, have more typical options like Enchanter (lightning abilities from Aerotheurge tree and water spells from Hydrosophist) or a Fighter (Warfrare plus armour buffs from Geomancer tree), and they are no less effective than the previously mentioned more exotic combinations.

The character-building, combined with clever enemy AI in this game makes the build-creation process extremely robust. For example, the standard Tank-Healer-DamageDealer holy triad is completely useless in this game, as the AI is clever enough to ignore the characters with the most HP and go for the low-health targets first. This simple change completely breaks the standard mould, and now the best strategy you can have is either outdamage your enemies, or dictate your own rules over the battlefield to control them.

The diversity in building is only intensified by the skills inside different trees, because almost every skilltree in this game will have its own abilities for healing, crowd control and movement. Huntsman (the ranged bow skilltree) tree has Tactical Retreat, Warfrare has Phoenix Dive, Aerotheurge has Teleport, Polymorph has Wings – all of these abilities serve the same function of assuming a better position for your character on the battlefield (which is critical in this game). This means that specializing into any skilltree will also grant you access to a lot of self-sustaining abilities and options. Plus, levelling up any skilltree will grant you additional perks, like levelling up Necromancer will give you bonus % of healing from all the damage you deal (which is an awesome trait for ANY character build really), levelling Hydrosophist will give you a bonus to all the healing and magic armour restoration you receive, or the Huntsman levels give you a damage bonus if you're on the high ground, which is great for ranged units of any kind, so there is incentive to spend some levels on those skilltrees even if you aren’t really using any skills from them. Which destroyes the rpg-triad even further.

(my mage gets shamed by the party, because she is the only one without points in Polymorph for the Wings ability, she makes do with the Huntsman's Tactical Retreat instead, because she needs the high ground damage boost)

For example, the Warfrare tree, which is crucial for any close-range build, has a lot of abilities to control your enemies, because they can Knock Down enemies with their first-level skills from the get-go, and this means the enemy loses their turn on that round of combat. Now your typical damage-warrior is actually your second-best source of crowd control abilities, and not just a monkey with a club. While your ranged-mage builds will be controlling one, two at best character from their range, your properly positioned melee fighter can make an entire crowd of enemies lose their turn. And getting your enemies to lose a turn is the only thing better than doing massive damage to them, in time you will learn how to do both and it’s great fun.

Speaking of what works wonderfully in this game, it’s time to mention the elemental system! I don’t think I’ve played Big RPG Game with an elemental system as robust as the one DOS2 has. I believe someone on the Noclip Podcast mentioned how, each battle in this game feels like it’s not just a battle against different enemies and their damage numbers, but it is also a battle for the terrain that you control. So I guess, this makes DOS2 a Splatoon predecessor?...Moving on.

For example, in the first act of the game you will stumble upon an ambush from a bunch of skeletons, problem is – there are Poison puddles all over the place. And DOS2 skeletons have ‘reverse’ healing mechanic, which means they will get damaged by normal healing spells, but they do receive healing from poison. It means that fighting skeletons with a party of not-undead/living characters can be much fun, as you can constantly cast chain healing, or Bless a big water surface to heal your party, and if the spell jumps to the undead they will be damaged constantly. The Rain spell is, arguably, the most important spell in the entire game, and it is crucial to keeping control of the elemental battlefield.

Rain will create a big water surface, and which you can use to your advantage – freeze it with Global Cooling and isolate your enemies, because walking on Icy surface can and will make them (and you) slip and fall if they try to move, and they will lose their turn.

You’re playing Lone Wolf (=solo buffed character, without companions) and YOU’RE the undead? Cast Rain and Contamination and convert the entire battlefield into a poisonous swamp that will heal you.

You’re not undead? Well, blow that poison basin with any Pyrokinetic skill and watch everything standing in it get converted into ash by the resulting explosion! The battlefield is already on fire? Add some more by creating an Oily surface with Geomancer skills to have it instantly blow up in your enemy’s face. Having trouble with your battlefield Constantly Being On Fire and losing heath fast? Reset the battlefield with Rain and create a cover for everyone, as the resulting Smoke will make it impossible to target anything farther than touch-range skills.

Blood is also a surface in this game, and extremely powerful at that. Every attack that damages the character’s health directly (meaning it bypasses their physical and/or magic armor or they have none left) creates a blood puddle under them, which you can also use.

This surface-elemental madness can also be improved upon with mods made by the community, the most noticeable example here would be Odinblade’s skilltree reworks, which rebalance the original skills a lot and add a lot of very fun additional ones. For example, the Aerotheurge tree gets an additional Conductive debuff to place on your enemies, which will increase all the lightning damage they get and will spread any electric damage to enemies around them, or the Necromancy tree gets a Hex bonus damage dealt to any enemy if their magic armour is gone. Etc, etc, please install Odinblade’s mods they level up the gameplay to new hights.

I’ll also admit here that, while I’ve spent a lot of hours in this game, and was quite invested in the story of my companions and the main quest, it’s…not the best way to play the game. Don’t play this game for story. The story is very good when it gets going, but it will be spread like extremely uneven butter of maybe 2-3 final hours over a 20+ hours of each Act as your bread. Play this game for the extremely versatile gameplay and the amazing systemic nature of it, then exploit the game to hell and back.

Sneak into an arena of magic golems and pickpocket their energy cores, so they die immediately. Use Surface transmutation to move a bunch of lava to a boss arena and place it under his feet to kill it instantly. Talk to a turtle in a dungeon, to learn that she is in love with her neighbor – a rat, and find a way to bring them together. Equip a new ring, only to find out it’s cursed, it sets debuffs on you, you cannot unequip it as it became smaller around the finger and search for a solution.

This game is about finding clever and funny ways to solve problems/quests, and that is super fun to do in DOS2. Also, really, the elemental and class-less rpg system of this game spoiled me so hard, I think I might have some trouble in the future adapting to another class-based rpg game after this xD. Anyway, talk to animals, upgrade your persuasion and take Beast into your party, he is hilarious.

#wheeeeee finally done this post #like I have games i want to play but instead i suddenly spent what around 70 hours into dos2???#no regrets #guys i love the magic system of dos2 so much #seriously dos2 is great check it out if rpgs interest you in any way shape or form #(gently holds your hand) isometric view is not that bad I will guide you through to acclimate to it easier let's go #im super glad i revisited it with mods too! modding my beloved I will shape the game to highlight my favourite parts in it #this is not my code but the game is my copy and my playground xD #dos2 #divinity original sin 2 #beast is the best companion i take no criticism #sebille is second best she's a great murder elf bff #lohse is the top player character pick her lines Rule #larian studios

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