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Divinity: Original Sin |OT| Sandbox RPG. Co-Op friendly. Bread.

Exuro

Member
31 hours in and I finally reached the second map. Really loving the switch from knight to ranger. Bow/crossbow offers so much utility in fights. Still haven't tried out the steamcloud or smokescreen arrows, but all of the special ones I've tried are pretty awesome.
 

Brakke

Banned
I really wish I had just made a henchman with all non-combat abilities instead of investing my main characters' points on them.

Hopefully I can respec soon, because it should be pretty easy to get all my skills back for my rogue.

Hmm that's not a terrible idea. I only do crafting errands once every couple levels anyway. But I have a belt +1 to smith and craft, and a necklace and ring for each. Put that on top of Scientist and it's pretty cheap, skill-wise, to have one person cover your crafting / smithing, just gotta lug some gear. Of course, that only works if you get the gear drops I did...
 

rakhir

Member
I've just had a really badass moment:
(first map spoilers)
Every boss from the map was problematic for me, but then i went to fight Braccus... And he has all three of them as his guardians.
But I totally destroyed them this time on the first try! It was awesome to use every trick imaginable: i've left my team outside the room and blocked the way with my two warriors, rained fire untill the ghoul and the skeleton baron died while fire elemental was tanking the dmg, than just stunned the big elemental and poisoned Braccus.
I was really proud.
 

shiroryu

Member
Somebody needs to make a mod where Spiderbro (sis?) leaves after the summoning expires the same way he came in. Dying is not cool.
 

danthefan

Member
I've just had a really badass moment:
(first map spoilers)
Every boss from the map was problematic for me, but then i went to fight Braccus... And he has all three of them as his guardians.
But I totally destroyed them this time on the first try! It was awesome to use every trick imaginable: i've left my team outside the room and blocked the way with my two warriors, rained fire untill the ghoul and the skeleton baron died while fire elemental was tanking the dmg, than just stunned the big elemental and poisoned Braccus.
I was really proud.

I was delighted with myself after that fight too.
I snuck in with Scarlett who put a load of oil down where the poison guy goes, summoned my spider, and waited for just the right moment to initiate the fight. There was a wall between Scarlett and Braccus so he spammed his fireballs at her... all of which hit the wall. I used the AOE fire immediately on the poison guy (poison + oil = huge explosion and burning) and then my spider just chased him about the place until he died. Meanwhile I just used ice spells on on the fire dude and my warriors took down the melee dude. So was quickly just left with Braccus who went down handily enough.

Took me a couple of turns to get my strategy right but when I had it down it went off without a hitch. I think that was one of my favourite things about this game, the satisfaction of coming up with a plan and seeing it work.
 
Sometimes when I ask "What's the latest gossip" instead of moving to the next answer the game repositions itself on the character with the dialogue option to ask "What's the latest gossip" among others again.

Why is that?
 

Labadal

Member
This game is still the second best seller on Steam. I am very happy for Larian, even more so than I was yesterday and the day before that.

I hope Pillars of Eternity has the same success.
 
This game is still the second best seller on Steam. I am very happy for Larian, even more so than I was yesterday and the day before that.

I hope Pillars of Eternity has the same success.

PC gamers have been starved for these kind of games for many many years now. I'm sure Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2 will sell a lot too.
 
PC gamers have been starved for these kind of games for many many years now. I'm sure Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2 will sell a lot too.

It's going to be really interesting to see which one reviews best and sells the most, because Divinity's getting lots of "best RPG in years, 9/10" which makes no sense to me at all.

Like, what does it need for a 10/10 - a $50 million dollar marketing campaign? That gets you the first six points easily enough, but I like to think that reviewers have morals that they adhere to, reserving that final point for something that's actually good... like Divinity: Original Sin.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
the game finally arrived.
any advice for the most useful skills or similar stuff? I'd like to avoid to respec.

Don't even ask. Take whatever you want, the classes are just templates and can be edited how you see fit.

As long as you spread your stats intelligently (ie: don'tinvest in strength for a Mage, or intelligence for a full on warrior, etc...) there is very little that can go wrong with your build.

A massive part of the fun, at least IMO, is exploring all of this yourself.

There are two companions you can obtain In the first town,
a water/air Mage and a warrior
, so this may affect your starting choices if you want a balanced party, but all party types are viable. Also, you unlock henchmen later for all classes, but they don't have dialogue like the companions.

-

Destiny beta is done with, looking forward to getting back into Divinity tonight!

Potential for D related jokes here, I hope you can resist.
 
So I'm curious about this game. How long does it take to beat approximately, sticking to the main quest (if that's how it works)?

It could be anywhere between 60-90 hours, depending on how you play games.

Divinity: Original Sin is all about adventure, so you'll stumble upon a lot of stuff you'll probably want to investigate during the main quest. The game doesn't have handholdy checklists or world structure - all of the game's info is presented in-universe through journals and such, and so, too, is the world. With the way to proceed not always being obvious and interersting stuff all around you, this leads to a wide range in the game's length.
 
Question about the Cyseal area. I came across those two rooms under trapdoors that have those 4 switches linked to the elements. Can't exactly figure out what I'm supposed to do there. Anyone care to give me a hint?
 

Dunkelgrau

Member
Now, count the black(y) sheep until you fall asleep!
Thanks for your help!

How important is it to have a pyro-staff equipped, when you cast pyro-spells? I mean, how negative is the effects when you don't use the correct staff?

Are there any other useful combos like fire and oil?

Game is difficult even on normal. :-S
 
Question about the Cyseal area. I came across those two rooms under trapdoors that have those 4 switches linked to the elements. Can't exactly figure out what I'm supposed to do there. Anyone care to give me a hint?

One or both of the areas has a sign nearby. Read it and become enlightened!

Edit
]blacky[;123004363 said:
Thanks for your help!

How important is it to have a pyro-staff equipped, when you cast pyro-spells? I mean, how negative is the effects when you don't use the correct staff?

Are there any other useful combos like fire and oil?

Game is difficult even on normal. :-S
The staff is entirely separate from your spells. I would say it's more useful for the element it has and the buffs the staff gives rather than its actual damage itself. Keep in mind that the elemental damage from a weapon (including a staff) can still cause environmental effects. For example, a fire staff's blast can ignite oil.

  • Fire used on oil/poison ignite.
  • Electricity used on water/blood paralyze.
  • Fire used on water creates a steam cloud, which can also be electrified.
  • Water and (I think) Air can put out fires.
  • Freezing spells overrides fire, and creates ice that running characters can slip on.
  • There's probably more that I can't recall right now, but that's a decent primer on environmental interactivity.

To be honest, I haven't found any use for earth or air damage, as far as environmental interactivity is concerned.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
]blacky[;123004363 said:
How important is it to have a pyro-staff equipped, when you cast pyro-spells? I mean, how negative is the effects when you don't use the correct staff?

That actually is a good question - is there any reason to upgrade staves other than the modifiers on it? I don't really physically attack with them, so I just stick with ones that provide INT+x and other useful stuff.

]blacky[;123004363 said:
Are there any other useful combos like fire and oil?

Game is difficult even on normal. :-S
Fire on poison...
Ice on puddles...
Lightning on puddles...
Rain on patches of fire...
Lightning on steam clouds...

There's a bunch.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
]blacky[;123004363 said:
Thanks for your help!

How important is it to have a pyro-staff equipped, when you cast pyro-spells? I mean, how negative is the effects when you don't use the correct staff?

Are there any other useful combos like fire and oil?

Game is difficult even on normal. :-S

I may be wrong but isn't the only important thing on a staff the stats like Int, con, willpower, etc and not damage and the X% chance to stun/knockdown/poison when it comes to spell damage? Staff damage seem to only be good for that magus spell thing everyone gets, and physical staff hits which is where the staff element comes into play.
 

marrec

Banned
Me and my co-op guy are still slogging through this amazing game.

Got to the
Evelyn fight
and man was that rough. The summoned Char-Boned Lieutenant was wrecking our shit and hitting for like, 138 damage with each swing. And that was on Madora. It took us a couple tries and a few spectacular failures to get this one done, eventually we had to charm the Lieutenant which helped immensely. I'm still amazed by the chain-reactions you can set off with the elemental interactions. Dropping a flame-elemental into a poison ooze pool via teleport never ever gets old.

20 hours in and the game hasn't lost a bit of luster.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
I did actually. The tombstone mentioned the order in which the buttons are to be pressed and I assume the actions in one chamber affect the other but I couldn't see any such thing.

What I do for this is split my party up, 2 people at each one. There's no loading when switching between them. I press a button that should be pressed and I get immediate reactions on if I'm doing something correct. I try to light one flame at a time ending in one group finishing then sending a person from the finished team over to the side that didn't finish yet just to help out.
 
I did actually. The tombstone mentioned the order in which the buttons are to be pressed and I assume the actions in one chamber affect the other but I couldn't see any such thing.

This is definitely how you go about solving it, so I don't know what to add. Perhaps I lucked through it somehow - I only vaguely recalled the sign when I attempted it.

All I can think to add is, be sure to visit both areas again after you have attempted to solve it.

NinjaEdit: Ploid 3.0 is a genius.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Me and my co-op guy are still slogging through this amazing game.

Got to the
Evelyn fight
and man was that rough. The summoned Char-Boned Lieutenant was wrecking our shit and hitting for like, 138 damage with each swing. And that was on Madora. It took us a couple tries and a few spectacular failures to get this one done, eventually we had to charm the Lieutenant which helped immensely. I'm still amazed by the chain-reactions you can set off with the elemental interactions. Dropping a flame-elemental into a poison ooze pool via teleport never ever gets old.

20 hours in and the game hasn't lost a bit of luster.
Teleport is by far one of my favorite spells so far in this game. For that fight specifically I managed to drop some poison in the middle of the group, and then drop one of the dogs on top of the other one, causing them to explode and deal a ton of damage to everyone. It was awesome.
 

owlbeak

Member
32 Hours in, still roaming around the first map area of Cyseal. Loving every second of it! :) Just finished up some stuff at the Lighthouse. Love this game!
 

NIN90

Member
So I finished the game last week with 93 hours (at least 10 hours of idle time though) on the clock according to Steam. I really, really enjoyed it even if it kinda lost steam by the end.

I gotta say though that there a couple issues that hinder it from reaching the same pantheon as the great CRPGs of yore like BG2.

• The loot - The randomized loot really put a damper on my enjoyment. At some point I just stopped identifying items even though I could do it for free. Even legendary or unique items. I can't really describe why but I feel it's due to the large amount of totally useless loot. For example, my fire/earth mage used a +1 intelligence staff for about 50% of the entire game until I found something to replace it. I would have preferred handpicked loot.

• The dialogue - This is not about the writing style (which is fine by me) but about the way the conversations are handled. This is something that I only just noticed when I watched the recent PoE footage but in Divinity it's pretty much always possible to just keep hitting the 1 key until all dialogue is exhausted, occasionally choosing between 1 or 2 when a (pretty binary) choice comes up. The dialogue feels like just something to click through instead of something engaging. It overall feels very streamlined.
And yeah, the RPS system (and the autoresolve) sucks balls.
 
A great tactic against melee-heavy enemy groups is to make an oil slick that blocks most of the path. Do it before you enter combat, just out of range, then set fire to it.
The enemies will rush you via the fastest route and cluster at a chokepoint. Now you can cast more oil slicks and extend the fire into the choke point setting everyone on fire.

You can rain the flaming oil-slick away and make an LOS-blocking steam cloud when you want to counter-charge any enemy archers. And you can electrify the steam if enemy archers start hiding in it.
 

Finalow

Member
I started with a rogue and a ranger. the ranger sucks pretty hard at the beginning of the game *just reached the first town*, you need a lot of APs to just shoot one arrow from the distance and also special arrows are consumable.

by the way, companions that you can recruit, do they stay with you forever if you don't dump them?
 

danthefan

Member
I started with a rogue and a ranger. the ranger sucks pretty hard at the beginning of the game *just reached the first town*, you need a lot of APs to just shoot one arrow from the distance and also special arrows are consumable.

by the way, companions that you can recruit, do they stay with you forever if you don't dump them?

Mine did anyway. I've read they can get pissed off at you and leave but it's not something I experienced, so not sure it's actually true. Definitely gather the two companions from the town before going anywhere.
 
I started with a rogue and a ranger. the ranger sucks pretty hard at the beginning of the game *just reached the first town*, you need a lot of APs to just shoot one arrow from the distance and also special arrows are consumable.

by the way, companions that you can recruit, do they stay with you forever if you don't dump them?

Getting the same with the ranger

Unless starting close to the enemy, her hit percentage us so low I can only get one hit in since I have to spend the first 2-4 AP closing the distance


By the way, I've got a quest
where I have to answer questions based on a book, and he says the book is in every library, but I went to Cecil's library and it wasn't in there, unless it's in a container that I'm not supposed to open. Is it in a different library?

Would be pretty cool if you could sneak up on NPCs and knock them out, leaving you free to steal as long as nobody notices you and until they wake up.

What exactly are the conditions to not being noticed? Even at a distance of say 15 metres and behind an NPC's back, I get caught :(
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Picked up a henchman with a point already in Blacksmithing. I'm level 11, and I was able to bump him up to 5 Crafting and 5 Blacksmithing easily. So glad I did that.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Can someone explain to me the point of Blacksmithing? I have a Blacksmith Lv5 and the weapons/armor I am creating (granted, I'm only Lv 11) aren't that great. What am I missing? A complete run-down of the skill would be great- thanks.
 

Torraz

Member
What are some good ways to
a) make money (besides stealing all the paintings)
b) get +intelligence items

Getting sick of quick save scumming treasure chests for + intelligence items
 
What are some good ways to
a) make money (besides stealing all the paintings)
b) get +intelligence items

Getting sick of quick save scumming treasure chests for + intelligence items

Once you get to the second area you can start selling even white loot for 2k gold each. It is a problem that solves itself.

As far as +int items go, I have basically just taken to buying them from vendors because I haven't found any good ones.
 

StMeph

Member
Can someone explain to me the point of Blacksmithing? I have a Blacksmith Lv5 and the weapons/armor I am creating (granted, I'm only Lv 11) aren't that great. What am I missing? A complete run-down of the skill would be great- thanks.

Rank 5 is all you need, and max for smithing and crafting.

You always make items equal to the crafter's level, so if you're 11, you make level 11 items. The advantage is that the raw stats are better, and when you enhance them (like weapons on a whetstone), the damage range is better than any legendary or unique that could drop. They're additionally customizable by adding other +enchantment items, but at low levels I don't really think it's necessary or worthwhile.

This is the reference I use for crafting recipes: http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=511616
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
37 hours in, level 16 and just entered the third area.

There is definitely an addictive quality to the minute-to-minute gameplay, but man... the main story in this game is just not interesting at all. There have been some interesting bits of story in sidequests, but for the most part, it feels like the narrative aspect just does not match the quality of the rest of the game.

I'm going to play to the end because the combat is so enjoyable, but I think the lackluster story will prevent this from becoming the classic CRPG that it deserved to be.
 
I quite like the grounded nature of the main quest so far

None of this 'you are the one, you must save the world' so far, anyway. Prefer this to being thrown into the story as humanity's last hope


edit: Wait, I thought he West Gate is the
cave orcs
?
 
I quite like the grounded nature of the main quest so far

None of this 'you are the one, you must save the world' so far, anyway. Prefer this to being thrown into the story as humanity's last hope


edit: Wait, I thought he West Gate is the
cave orcs
?

Tee-hee. I think that's all I can say at this point.

As to your edit, directly West is the beach and there's a more West-Northwest gate in Cyseal that leads into the grassy area just beyond the beach.
 

Brakke

Banned
Mine did anyway. I've read they can get pissed off at you and leave but it's not something I experienced, so not sure it's actually true. Definitely gather the two companions from the town before going anywhere.

Yeah, I accidentally drove off Jahan by Teleporting him one too many times before getting Featherfall. Reloaded him back onto my team, but am super nervous about casting AOE spells anywhere near him now.

Found a switch in the trap-infested building in the Withered Garden, but haven't really been able to tell exactly what using it does.

Could someone enlighten me, perchance? It's the one with the white-higlight on the wall, and toggling it causes the cross on the top to rotate somewhat (I hope this link works):

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/575651003291762262/03058D58C6BAF1A9F882CB3A41E2CA7508DCAEC2/

I'm pretty sure that just opens the door into the courtyard. On my first--ultimately discarded--party, I got into that room by breaking down the door so I wasn't sure what it did, but on my second, I entered the house from the back. There are too routes to that lieutenant fight.

I quite like the grounded nature of the main quest so far

None of this 'you are the one, you must save the world' so far, anyway. Prefer this to being thrown into the story as humanity's last hope

You might want to sit down... I have some bad news...

edit: Wait, I thought he West Gate is the
cave orcs
?

There's two gates to the west, one in the Harbor section and one in the upper town section. Harbor goes to orcs, town goes to undead.
 
Doesn't really matter, you'll want to clear everything anyway. I went to the lighthouse first cause that's kinda the gate I picked, felt like the right place to start anyway but you could probably start north depending on your team and stuff. East is the higher level stuff so that's the only part I'd recommend not starting in.
 

Brakke

Banned
Should I take the orcs one or the undead one then? :p

Undead one took me to the lighthouse quest part

Follow your levels. In short, undead area is working toward the main quest, orcs is working toward a big, worthwhile, don't-miss-it sidequest.

You might pursue the undead track until you level even with or ahead of the orc zone.
 
Yeah, I accidentally drove off Jahan by Teleporting him one too many times before getting Featherfall. Reloaded him back onto my team, but am super nervous about casting AOE spells anywhere near him now.

I've pissed Madora enough that she left my party for a total of 5 times now and every single time she was at Homestead waiting for me to call her up on an adventure again, no need to reload. :)
 
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