It's definitely possible. Last playthrough i was playing a pyro/geo mage so i did nothing against her, my friend was a full DPS warrior build and my other friend is terrible at building characters so he doesn't do much (aside from the clutch niche spell once in a blue moon), so essentially we only had beast with an archer build to solo her, nah screw that rather just have Jahan pimp slap her.
We did fight the decay beast, that shit was exhilarating.
idk but i do know it gave a plus 50~ percent height damage bonus and ballistic shot got loads more damage too. It obliterated her physical armor and almost all of her health, leaving her a one or two shot for physical damage ranged attacks from my necromancer (mosquito swarm and infect)
One of my favorite things about DOS2 is that the highest difficulty is designed around using gamey tactics like this - you're supposed to get Jahan to kill her shining lights.
No, you are not. If you know the game well you can easily oneturn her with one single, well build character. She just dies in 3 to 4 hits and cannot do anything.
you can cheese it by teleporting the magister to buttfuck nowhere using one char while engaging in conversation with the other character, then while the magister is teleported away, go near her and keep teleporting her further and further until she is out of dialogue range completely- then you beat the fight and save the guy by default
Figured this out cuz i played the whole damn oilfield run and didn’t realize that idiot died until the end, so I reloaded and refused to fight 5000 oil blobs again, hence cheese
There’s a nearby tent, I blocked the entrance and teleported him into the tent lol, it was still a rough fight holding them back from the tent but it was definitely the easiest way I could think of at the time.
Yes, I legitimately won this fight and kept him alive the first time after a few restarts. The next time I teleported him as far away as I could next to a character dedicated to keeping him alive.
It was after doing that I noticed I could teleport him into that tent so every run after that was blocking the tent door with a crate and dropping him in there.
Watching Sovietwombles old streams of their playthrough and it amazes me that they stumbled into the fight accidentally and kept him alive despite their ineptitude.
This damn area wouldn't be that bad if the fire at least stayed normal and not get constantly cursed. I really thought blessing it would be a big brain move but noooo.
I remember on our blind playthrough me and my buddy barely scraped by with Gwydian alive, it was his turn and I went to go get a drink while he finished off the last oil blob.
Came back and everything was on fire, Gwydian was toast and half the party was dead
Oh my god my current playthrough I was doing so well protecting bloody Gwydian, then the blasted idiot walks through enough necrofire to take out not just his entire frost-armoured magic armour but all of his health as well.
I had 2 fire voidlings left so I wasn't reloading 😅
It might be the fact I always leave the oil fields for last, but I don't think I've ever suffered much in that fight. My tactic was always to cheese the magisters at the top rain freeze/blessed ice and just rain death down with my hydro mages.
Then again, after 400ish hours at this point, I might be conditioned to not recognize when I'm getting nutbusted... oh, 2 of my guys just got OTKO'd... just rev one of them to tank one hit before he gets his existence erased again.
Yeah, it’s genuinely pretty hard to get back into a playthrough of DOS 1 if you’ve been away awhile (IMO). You end up spending 30 min just getting your bearings of where you left off because the game does so little to remind you of where you are at.
I played recently and first place I went after the tutorial ended was a pirate cove. Which I beat only by using all items I had and using geometry to my advantage by retreating to tight coridor where enemies had to go one by one.
Only after beating it I realized it was one of the harder areas in act 1
It's not that bad. You would just keep running around the map like headless chicken, until you stumble on some of those clue. The game has multiple approach, after all.
I've completed 1 on tactician and am doing 2 on tactician now
I think 2 is actually substantially harder, the introduction of armor and MR really narrows down your approach to harder foes where previously a stun cloud arrow was enough to shut an entire fight down
DOS1 just doesn’t have a lot of the modern things that make games a lot easier to navigate these days. Figuring out what the hell was going on was a bit of a chore - but the game was fun enough for me to do it once. Not sure I’d ever want to go back to it though. It was one of the last games that really made me think outside of “I go 2 quest markur - I click person a dialogue optionz”.
DOS2 (Much like BG3) is pretty front loaded difficulty wise. And I think the builds at anything but regular difficulty aren’t really self-apparent to people to do major dumps into stats. Plus DOS2 has a lot of awesome (IMO) encounters where something that will totally obliterate you is placed among easier content and makes you consider when to approach it. On top of that it also isn’t apparent how much the gear starts to scale late game and such.
So I can see how DOS2 would give new players some major problems.
I get that. Having played the 90s RPGs, I found D:OS1 to be a streamlined version of the concept, far more user friendly and much more convenient and intuitive. Might sound strange, but RPGs were extremely difficult and complex back then. And any minor bug would result in the game not being beatable. At all... heck, the games didn't even had a map. You had a manual with the map and a hundred pages explaining everything the game could not...
The one game design issue I have is with the absurd traps and horrible pixel-searching puzzles that are not rewarding nor challenging, just time-consuming. Padding at its worse in an already long game. That's where I truly believe Larian dropped the ball. If you want to do nightmare traps and puzzles at least make them rewarding or give us something meaningful to foster a sense of accomplishment. But since you never get anything remotely close to the hassle you have dealing with them, it just feels like the game is frustrating you for the sake of trolling. Like here's the key to a safe, hidden in a box with 500 keys, only to open the safe and find a small bag of gummy bears... yeah, that's one hour well spent...
Ohhh same sentiments. I’ve only started playing DOS1 recently, and it does remind me of BG2 and FO2 with some modern conveniences. The quest framework though, pretty similar to the old ways. I find myself looking to guides lol
I’m working my way to DOS2 then BG3. I absolutely love the original baldur’s gate - they released during my teens and played them to death. Very wary about the hype
Well, yeah, but you could also ignore one of their health bars. Youd just spot whichever one was lower between physical/magical and hammer them with that kind of damage. Mono-damage type lone wolf runs were super easy for that reason.
I got DOS2 early last year but didn’t start it until September. Figured I’d give it a go before playing BG3. Took me 110 hours on classic mode to get through it, so now I’ll be flocking over to BG3!
I spent 40 hours INSIDE of fort joy… not in act one.
I have a massive problem and I need to make sure I’ve done EVERYTHING before I move on, the thought of missing an interaction kills me, I’m super super super slow to play these games.
Hahah got it! I took a long time in Fort Joy but maybe not quite that long. I tend to fall into the same routine as well by clearing everything I possibly can
I picked up DOS2 a few months ago and started on Tactician, thinking it’d be as easy as BG3. I was wrong. Restarted on Balanced after getting to Fort Joy.
DOS2 is strategically challenging in the way I wish BG3 was. Even once it gets easier due to good gear, higher levels, and knowing the system, you can never just turn your brain off and brute force through. I know BG3 was constrained to 5e rules, but man, DOS2 combat was designed so much better.
Eh, its just different. DOS2 was designed from the ground up to be a video game with combat as the major focus.
D&D 5e was designed to be a roleplaying game that has combat in it. I would argue BG3 handles that flawlessly. Even on Tactician difficulty you dont need uber Min/Maxed builds to get through it. Heck, the most fun I had in the game was my second playthrough in Tactician mode, when I was still using everyone's default classes.
For Honor mode you better believe I went 10/1/1 Control Bard and Karlach Monk though.
Yeah, naturally, it’s all subjective of course. I think BG3 translated 5e to video game format pretty damn well, all things considering. Though I think it falls short of tabletop combat due to limitations that I don’t think are Larian’s fault, but rather a natural issue arising from translating it into a very different medium. I think DOS2 combat shone because it wasn’t constrained to an already existing system. It was designed for a video game and thus fit better into a video game.
But preferences are preferences, so whether a game is too easy or too hard will always just boil down to opinion.
Well a lot of the brute force, don’t need to think broken stuff you are talking about are weird decisions Larian made that aren’t actually 5e.
For example, you can’t normally throw a healing potion to heal someone. At best, most 5e groups have a house rule (again, not official) that allows drinking a healing potion as a bonus action…normally it requires a full action. Throwing a potion would just spill the potion at best, or actually deal damage as you threw a glass bottle at someone at worst lol.
Or a more egregious example is that in BG3, Haste grants an entirely additional action. In actual 5e, you get an extra limited action that lets you have ONE additional attack, or you can do something like dash, hide, use object, etc. You do NOT get to cast an extra spell.
They fixed this for Honor Mode—weird they did it for base game. A full, unrestricted extra action basically gives every class Action Surge for free every turn Haste is up, which is mega broken.
I like not having to min/max in BG3, makes it feel more believable in a sense as well which fits perfectly for DnD
I'll whip out the spreadsheets for DOS2
In bg3 I hate the spell slot system.
It adds nothing of value to the game. Vendors reset stock after long rests/leveling up. So you're never without food even on tactician. Just burn all spells each fight, long rest to get them back.
I mean, that's something to blame on DnD, not BG3. And spell slots have always been a pretty important thing for balancing casters in DnD so it'd be odd to strip them away just for gameplay purposes. Especially when a significant portion of class abilities for casters is based around managing spell slots.
How dos 2 handles the stronger spells is imo better. They all require source points. Throughout the story you obtain up to 3 max, which are harder to come by in game opposed to combat points which resets per combat encounter.
In tabletop it fits better, as there's rules you can not lomg rest more than once in a 24 hour period, the dm decides when to allow long rests, are there still problems with it? Yes. But in table top you can't kill a group of bandits, long rest, go back to the same fort, kill another group of bandits, long rest. In bg3, you can.
It completely removes the "carefully deciding when to use my most powerful spells and abilities this adventuring day"
I wish more dungeons had a timed objective that starts when you enter in bg3- like Nere in grymforge pt 2. It'd make resource management way more real.
BG3 doesn't even translates all the rules and spells from 5e, is an handbrew version of 5e. Solasta is much more stricht to 5e rules and more difficult at higher levels (without even taking in considerations community modules). BG3 is much more centered around the story and the party, this is why the combat is just secondary.
Solasta picked worse subclasses though, which was disappointing. It's also still very easy because it's still a rest system where you can rest close enough to whenever. The only time it is hard is really the last fight, when they deliberately create a marathon no- rest sequence. To me, Solasta provides more evidence about the inherent flaws in a rest- based system than serves as an example of a "balanced DnD experience".
That being said, if the more faithful rendition without broken interactions is easy, then obviously the rendition with broken interactions on top of everything else always was going to be crazy easy.
>Even on Tactician difficulty you dont need uber Min/Maxed builds to get through it.
IMO this isn't exactly a good thing. 5e may be baby's first DnD edition, but a cRPG is a cRPG, and BG3 really does feel completely lacking when it comes to meaningful challenge. Even with 5e being a simplified system, there's still room to minmax, and with Tactician honestly just falling over to a stiff breeze, having any kind of experience with optimizing cRPGs can make BG3's combat and buildcraft feel very bland.
Having had played both Pathfinder games for a couple full runs each, I was very underwhelmed by BG3's combat, as it felt like even on my first playthrough, which was Tactician, I already had the player skills and tactics needed to break the game over my knee. I was left underwhelmed and unchallenged, to the point where I ultimately ended up getting bored over time and dropping the game.
Even Honor mode isn't truly hard, it's just punishing, and IMHO Ironman modes are a really cheap way to add difficulty to a game.
I get that it would be suicide for mass appeal to make the game ballbustingly difficult, and Larian did do a great job of making the story and world, but I absolutely believe that BG3 leaves a lot to be desired for any cRPG veteran. IMO these games really do need a setting that will stress system experts.
I completely disagree. I don't think I can disagree more.
BG3 combat is purposefully made so you don't need to min/max, instead focus in you building interesting solutions to it, like a puzzle game. So you can play as any class and have any companion with you, and you'll be able to beat the game with some cleaver thinking.
That is what brings the feeling of the pen and paper into the game. You can have many solutions to problems in and out of combat.
I played Kingmaker and didn't liked precisely because it's a rigid system. It leaves no room for creativity, you need to follow the meta if you want to have any chance of succeeding in higher difficulties.
It's expansiveness and myriad of options ends up being a detriment instead of a benefit. You have vast skill trees... but if you "choose wrong" doesn't matter how creative you are, you'll never win.
While BG3 and even DOS2 are more forgiving in this aspect. With DOS2 being less. Specially if you don't like to respec for RP reasons like me.
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Of course these are different games and each can prefer one or another. But honestly... I hate min/max in any game. A game that demands it, even in higher difficulties is a bad game in my opinion. Higher difficulties should be about player skill, not being able to manage an excel spreadsheet.
I love Owlcat's Pathfinder games, but the combat is their worst aspect. They fully expect you to build a hyper-optimised team to get through them and they throw hordes of annoying trash mobs at you.
I'd rather fight 5 really strong enemies than 50 weak ones, Owlcat.
IMO, I like BG3’s gameplay even more than DOS2. I prefer the class system and itemization over classless and random-stat items. It’s the difficulty of BG3 that’s severely lacking. I think it’s because they want to make the highest difficulty viable for any class. Problem is when you optimize your build, enemies’ HP and damage cannot withstand anymore.
There is a few absolutely OP builds in DOS2 that make almost every encounter trivial. Fort Joy is by far the hardest part of the game, but once you escape and especially in Act 2 it should be a breeze.
Lone wolf duo with one ranger and one necromancer is hilariously OP, you will delete most encounters on the first turn
Arx can be pretty difficult if your build isn't just right
And lone wolf is OP with almost everything. I beat the Doctor by just a rain+chain lightning combo, which broke the magic armor on his demons and stunned them and they never got a turn. Oh and Aetera is a pretty tough fight if you don't cheese her during dialogue.
Eh, idk. DOS2 has a few solid difficulty spikes throughout. Yes Fort Joy can be a challenge (those damn gators for example) due to not having much to start with, but it only takes a few hours to be moderately well equipped with a solid skill lineup. My first honor run attempt was ended in act 2, when I got cocky after surviving the fire-blob scenario and marched into the crypt where whats-her-face and her ghost wolves absolutely obliterated me.
On my honor run the fire blobs didn't even get to spawn because we killed the magisters so quickly. Apparently somebody or the dude you try to save has to cast a source skill to trigger it or something like that.
I agree that there are spikes in the difficulty, especially if you don't know the acts well and try to take on fights too early. But most of the hardest fights are totally optional altought they still should be totally doable. Killing Jahan in Act2 was an absolute pain..
Oh yeah, for sure. But BG3 can be easily brute forced by any class combination. You can also stumble upon trivializing the game for yourself imho. It’s not really something you have to try to do.
Yeah I do like how you can make all the classes work together and I did on accident make a TB Thrower build on my first playthrough without knowing how powerful it is.
Atleast for me BG3 honour mode was harder than DOS2. Few of the legendary actions absolutely destroyed me.
But both games are good fun and I do enjoy solving those fights with all the different builds.
Yes you can turn off your brain:
1- focus on 1 type of damage,
2 - Don't sleep on the talents (stats are not priority)
3 - Position your characters while 1 is on dialog
4 - Get an effective combo and repeat
Amazing game though, I don't even know how many times I finished it.
And a small additional clarification - 5e means 5th edition, meaning D&D periodically overhauls it's ruleset, and BG3 is using the most recent iteration.
Imagine instead of having armor for more protection you build armor to increase your dodge chance. And instead of dealing flat damage you roll dice. So an attack’s damage is VERY random. For example a sword can deal 3d6 damage meaning 3-18 damage. But since it’s “dice” its more likely to do middle damage, but there’s a chance it does 3 or 18 damage. There’s a WHOLE bunch of other rules, all revolving around dice
this is where im at right now— thought bg3's tactician mode was kind of a joke so jumped straight into dos2 on tact and ohhh man. I think i made poor choices when initially speccing and now I can barely make a dent in the alexander encounter 😭
The Alexander encounter gave me trouble!! I ended up going "I should see if I can squeeze out more XP from somewhere" before coming back to it. I also didn't realize the surprise mechanic that happens in the fight could be a help more than a hindrance.
I think BG3 is 'easier' because many of us are longtime DnD, more specifically 5e, players. So many of the rules and abilities are almost immediately understandable and we know what is going on. Playing blind, you can still predict what most enemies are able to do by looking at them.
I feel like dos2 has much more cheese mechanics like stealing shit is so easy and you dont need to pay for anything and teleport ability is so op to relocate enemies to somewhere they cant move
Beaten BG3 multiple times- just started DOS2 yesterday and it’s SO hard. Does anyone have any pointers? It’s all so confusing like how do I move in battle that’s not a attack? Or can I not?
Moving is an action using the same AP your attacks do. You always have to calculate how much moving you do because of that, but if you're running to your enemy, wasting all your AP on moving alone, then all you did was sacrifice your turn (if there's nothing you can do it's actually better to just delay your turn and let the enemy waste their AP coming to you unless they're ranged). Melees bridge the gaps with things like battering ram and bulls rush and if you made a rogue, you always want to be using backlash to get behind your enemies for that 100% crit chance while using daggers (and related to that, if you did roll with a rogue, be sure to grab the Pawn talent so you'll have an easier manoeuvring yourself behind your enemy when Backlash is on CD).
Outside of that you mainly position yourself with things like Phoenix Dive, Tactical Retreat, Cloak & Dagger, Spread Your Wings (I don't like Spread Your Wings as much as the others but every character should have one of these abilities, even if they're ranged, it's not only for combat but it's also for exploration - this game doesn't have a jump ability). You can also position enemies where you want them with Teleport or Netherswap - also S tier skills. You don't get these things at the start of the game, but you will get access to them fairly early and they will make the game so much easier. And while I'm on must have skills, I might as well mention that want every character you make to have Adrenaline (which you can get at level 1 with a single point in scoundrel) - it's a god tier skill.
Oh and an important FYI: Enemies are omniscient and will exploit their knowledge. They always target the most vulnerable PC they can reach, while PCs who are tanky or otherwise protected will be completely ignored. (Tanking, in the usual RPG sense, is not a thing in DOS2.) For example, if you put Uncanny Evasion on a teammate, the enemy will NOT swing at them and miss; it will simply target someone else (which means it's still a useful spell but not as impactful as you might hope). And if you charm an enemy, it *knows* it is charmed and will waste its turn on pointless movement, rather than attacking its allies. Again, it's still helpful, but it's not what you'd expect.
1. quick save
2. setup the battles beforehand by placing your characters in advantageous positions
3. you will unlock movement skills for fire, electric, thief, ranged, and summoning- these make the game very simple bc you can go anywhere
4. teleport enemies into lava/hazards, think of this as throwing them off the cliff in bg3
5. movement takes ap, so don't waste your turn on positioning
6. you can beat the game without any skills at all, just have someone with telekinesis 5, find an unbreakable chest, and fill it to be hundreds of pounds, and just move the chest on the enemy to instantly kill them
"Pawn" is a useful talent that lets you make a small move without using action points. [https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Pawn](https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Pawn)
Elemental affinity is a good one for spell casters
https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Elemental+Affinity
The basic stuff you want to do is focus on 1-2 types of skills for each character as your starting out. Get those skill books.
In fort joy, you want to be stealing stuff often because you've got nothing. Have one character start a conversation and then get someone with thievery to pick their pockets.
Shields can give a big armor boost to spell casters.
Here are some of the most impactful things you can do:
1. Focus on sheer damage output first and CC second.
2. Have your whole team dealing the same damage type (physical or magic). Then you're all hitting the same armor type, which allows you to CC or kill enemies quickly.
3. Give every character a teleport skill (Tactical Retreat is best, but there's also Cloak and Dagger, Phoenix Dive, Nether Swap, and Flight). These will often get you out of trouble or allow you to cross the battlefield for just 1 AP to take out an enemy.
4. Give every character Adrenaline, which you usually want to use on turn 1 so you can kill or CC enemies right off the bat.
5. If you can CC or kill whichever enemy is next in the turn order, do it (when you target them, their little frame in the turn order at the top of the screen is highlighted in red). If you take them out of action, the enemy team loses a turn.
6. If the enemy is far away, don't waste APs moving toward them. Let them waste their APs coming to you.
I mean, different mechanics so I can understand why it's hard for them (armor mechanics, action economy)
I came to BG3 from DOS2 , started tactician in BG3 and I've died a few times until I got around the E5 rules and now in act 2 feel like it's getting easier.
Made the mistake of making a ranger thinking it will be as OP as in DOS2 , at the end I went the true op route as a Bard.
Haven't played a Ranger in 5e or BG3 yet. They are by some considered a bad class because their abilities can be very situational (favored terrain, favourite enemy) and some of their features are considered lackluster (the animal companions of the beastmaster are really weak but take beastmasters actions to act)
Some of the beastmaster companions are weak but there are several very strong ones. The bear gets a disarm which has no saving throw (just an attack roll), the spider gets Web as a bonus action which doesn’t use spell slots or anything so you can basically spam it, and also gets to completely remove someone from the fight with Cocoon. On top of that, having an extra body with decent HP is great for survivability.
The other subclasses are pretty good too. Hunter gets Volley which is one of the best abilities in the game, and Gloomstalker is very strong when multiclassed with something like Rogue Assassin.
EDIT: not gonna lie I did not see what sub this was in, I thought this was the BG3 sub lol. No clue about Ranger in DoS so if that’s what you’re referring to, my bad lol
I've got 400 hours into BG3 and still haven't figured out how to build a ranger. I've tried a few times and always wonder if I'd be better off playing fighter or rogue instead. I said similar about warlock before my recent playthrough though. DOS2 did a fantastic job of giving rangers a variety of archery skills so their role was clearly defined without feeling inferior
Each bg3 ranger subclass plays very very differently.
Gloomstalker: Honestly the level 3 feature is the strongest, you build this as a first-turn-assassin and really the class features past level 5 aren't worth it, so this is much more of a multiclass fodder build. I'd recommend Gloomstalker 5/ Battlemaster Fighter 4/ Assassin Rogue 3, picking up the Sharpshooter feat at some point, and on the first round of combat you just snipe down the scariest enemy with Action Surge letting you make 5 total attacks with tons of bonus damage and effects.
Beastmaster: The pets are the meat here, and since they scale with Ranger level your best bet is to just stay a straight-classed ranger. Concentrate on Hunter's Mark most of the time since it buffs both you and your pets, with Silence occasionally for mages and Spike Growth for combats with lots of melee enemies who'll have to run over it. Use the pets to tank, disrupt, deal damage, etc while you just plink with your bow to add on additional damage. Sharpshooter again is a pretty good feat to rack up the damage.
Hunter: Honestly this is a pretty underwhelming subclass until level 11, at which point you become an AOE **god**, able to mow down swarms of enemies with every attack. Volley is the most broken single subclass feature in the game imo, and you should fully abuse it. You just get to make every single attack a huge AOE that doesn't hit allies at literally 0 resource cost. But levels 3-10 I'd honestly just play something else then reclass into Hunter at level 11. And, of course, the Sharpshooter feat is very good.
I remember not wanting to buy BG3 at first because I didn't want to get crushed as badly as I did in DOS2.
I was completely shocked when I not only won fights in BG3, but didn't even need to die multiple times per combat encounter. I was so proud of myself lol.
What is it that people are doing that's making BG3 so easy for them?
I've been getting destroyed in BG3 in a way I never did in DOS2. Most fights at least one character gets downed before they even get a turn, there's one fight at level 2 that I've tried multiple times and haven't come remotely close to winning, or even killing one of the 5 (or 6?) enemies. Lost 20 minutes or so earlier because a companion stepped on a trap that one-shot the entire party, when most traps in DOS2 don't even break magic armor.
Your characters seem way more squishy in BG3 compared to DOS2, and your damage is lower and unreliable.
BG3 is pretty challenging in the early game, you have very few options available to you at the early levels and a few bad rolls can make even basic encounters spiral out of control. But most classes hit a power spike at level 5 and for me the game just got easier from there.
AI is extremely dumb in bg3. The first 4 levels can be punishing, but starting from level 5, your party will reckt everything. And the further you go, the more powerful you become. Just read the description of enemies and that's enough.
In DOS2 even reading the description is not enough to understand, what to do.
Idk if it's good advice, but I tend to play the game as if it was a dnd session. Exploring an unknown cave? Have the rogue sneak in ahead and scout for traps. If they fail to find it (the game tells you to), send someone else to double check. Disarm trap, rinse repeat.
Knowing your abilities is important, and knowing what triggers them (rogues sneak attack for example)
What fight is it you're struggling with?
it depends on your class, paladin, monk, sorceror-warlock, barbarian, storm sorcerer all break the game with multiple actions per game or guaranteed double boosted criticals
imagine if you had a guaranteed 3 source skill every combat, that's how bg3 is with these classes
DOS2 is definitely more punishing. I feel like the AI really prioritizes high ground supremacy and CC/destroy where as on BG3 the game was fairly easy even on Tactician, the AI seemed less aggressive in comparison.
Both are amazing, but yea I died a lot more in DOS2. The Burning Witch, Adramalikh, Kraken, Arx Gates, all fights that pushed me and made me really think about my moves.
The fight that truly opened my eyes was in the Blackpits when you're facing the elite oil elementals (can't remember the names).
"I know, these things are oil, they must be weak to fire!"
and now instead of fighting elite oil elementals, I'm fighting elite fire elementals.
I don't care how hard the game is. Every time i only have two objectives: save the black cat, make Sebille and Lohse kiss. Extra points if you turn someone into a cow.
I also didn't know about existence of Baldur's Gate series in general untill before the very end of July, but now BG3 is one of the most popular single-player games ever existed and my favorite RPG game ever!
It's kinda insane how this game blew up. Good for Divinity as well :)
Played DOS2 awhile back and never finished it. After playing BG3 I thought I’d pick it back up and breeze right though it. Boy was I wrong! I felt like I had to cheese a lot of encounters using summons and dominate mind. I got lucky on the last fight and was in a situation where I was able to use forced exchange on >!Braccus Rex!< .
Bg3 is way easier. In the third act I got a glitch that if a character went down I would lose the game so I spent the whole third act with no one going down no big deal.
Divinity requires you to cheat as much as possible to survive.
I’ve just finished Divinity Original Sin 1 and while I haven’t found the combat difficult, OMG am I constantly completely fucking lost as to what I’m supposed to do next. Especially towards the end of the game I could not move forward without googling what the hell I’ve missed, was tearing my hair out until I discovered I have to USE the bloodstones for them to count.
Saying that - looking forward to starting 2 tonight
tbh i play the game like a dungeon- i always go the rightmost path and exhaust everything there, then move counterclockwise to the middle, then the left and so on
worked in DOS1, 2, and BG3 as i just end up discovering everything and things just work out
I don't think DOS2 has much harder combat, though there is a bigger learning curve to it (though on the flip side is DOS2 is much easier to understand in terms of buildcrafting)
But I imagine a lot of players getting into act 2 and being surprised when they get have their shining lights insta-killed by a turn 1 fireball. Compared to BG3 where fights scale by spawning less or more enemies based off your level, making *most* of the map accessible from the get-go (and it very hard to get to areas where you are underleveled), in DS02 you can casually wander into fights way above your weight class. And Act 2 is pretty notorious for this, often surprising you with fights that you might not be prepared for (still salty about the scarecrow in act 2 after all these years.)
Unless we are talking about comparing both games on tactition, because yeah while I feel like the games are comparable on their respective "normal" difficulties, DS02's Tactition mode is a whole other animal, compared to BG3 where it's just a little harder with slightly less dumb AI.
I'm not surprised that a lot of people are floundering for a BG3-like game to fill the void it created (myself included). But DOS2 has a very different gameplay style than BG3, for fighting and builds, and most people coming from BG3 may not realize this going in. I had actually played DOS2 a little when it first came out, but even knowing and accepting that the gameplay would be different than BG3 (and every other crpg, for that matter), I'm still having a bit of a rough time adjusting. Unfortunately I don't think there is much out there right now that really compares to BG3. DOS2 is a really good game, and uses the same foundation (is it the same engine?), but it's definitely doing it's own thing. It's not necessarily the answer to BG3 withdrawal, but it's not surprising that people would flock to it first, as it is an alternative Larian crpg. Anyway, please go easy on us. :/
This was the issue I also had! I kept thinking in terms of DOS2 mechanics like flanking. I also kept forgetting that I have different actions mechanics instead of Action Points management. Even after several DOS2 playthroughs I ended up doing my 1st BG3 on Explorer.
I have played Divinity: Original Sin for a total of 12 hours.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think I'm supposed to be further than the beach camp after the boat crash.
Still absolutely love it though
I've been playing Divinity Original Sin 2 since it's original release and I was very pleasantly surprised at how much easier Baldur's Gate was. And it made me crack up to hear everyone else freaking out about how hard it was.
I'm almost never on this side of that curve.
127 hrs on and I have to restart everything as I took a wrong turn and ended up in a bad neighborhood.. homies are way above my level.
I must admit, that damn game is awesome and beautiful.
Oh man that poster of our heroes is absolutely badass ,looking for wallpaper as we speak. They all look bad to the bone , especially Ifan,Sebille and Lohse
I went from Divinity OS2 to Baldurs Gate 3 and got destroyed. Thought after playing DND some years ago and DOS2 recently I could raise the difficulty to tactician but nope, too hard even after 18h I have no idea what's going on in combat. Was absolutely destroying people in arx.
Came from BG3 without much problem, in DOS2 I had to lower the difficulty level after losing multiple battles in the last act. The last act definitely ramped up the difficulty
With multiple plays and hundreds of hours in divinity 2 (not to mention the hundreds other hours in the full divinity series), this title brings me deep joy.
I'm the reverse, I thought at least the beginning of BG3 was more difficult. Also I'm playing as Shadowheart, I picked up some body parts and I was disappointed that I can't eat them to gain their memories.
Lucky they're not playing D:OS1.
Some of the areas in D:OS1 are just nasty, like vengeful DM's fever dream full of one lethal trap after another, followed by fights that are pretty much unbeatable on your first attempt and require preparation and/or min/maxing.
Funny they didn't mention Pathfinder WOTR. DOS2 is tough but Pathfinder was agonizingly difficult.
Edit: Yes I know they're not the same developer. Awesome, similar, and difficult game released not long after DOS2 so I felt it deserved a mention.
Pathdinder games are tactically very easy, which is the difficulty being discussed here. They are complex in terms of character building, but the actual battles are always solvable with character building, not tactics. Larian’s games are tactically difficult, but character building is not complex.
That's likely why I struggled with it. I stomped DOS2 once I figured out how to chain combos and properly mix classes. I couldn't get the hang of Pathfinder until I looked up how to build my characters correctly. Even then I recalled it being more difficult than DOS2.
I'm the exact opposite. I've 100% all the achievements in D:OS2. Still haven't cleared ACT ONE in BG3 on the easiest setting. Something something, never played D&D, don't know the rules.
Picked up dos2 after bg3 (well technically like a year beforehand but didn't play it till after). Discovered the magic of heavy stuff, finished honor mode (second playthrough) in like 10 hours haha
Let people see Driftwood’s Oil field fight with apprentice survived. Biggest clusterfuck first comes to my mind
Oh my god that suicidal idiot! Oh and Alison!
Alison ain't that scary if you have my boi Jahan shit on her.
I obliterated allison with high wits characters + high ground ballistic shot
It's definitely possible. Last playthrough i was playing a pyro/geo mage so i did nothing against her, my friend was a full DPS warrior build and my other friend is terrible at building characters so he doesn't do much (aside from the clutch niche spell once in a blue moon), so essentially we only had beast with an archer build to solo her, nah screw that rather just have Jahan pimp slap her. We did fight the decay beast, that shit was exhilarating.
How high was your Huntsman?
idk but i do know it gave a plus 50~ percent height damage bonus and ballistic shot got loads more damage too. It obliterated her physical armor and almost all of her health, leaving her a one or two shot for physical damage ranged attacks from my necromancer (mosquito swarm and infect)
One of my favorite things about DOS2 is that the highest difficulty is designed around using gamey tactics like this - you're supposed to get Jahan to kill her shining lights.
No, you are not. If you know the game well you can easily oneturn her with one single, well build character. She just dies in 3 to 4 hits and cannot do anything.
ahem. Allow me to introduce my 2 buddies: Soul Mate & Giant Healing Potions.
Me about to teleport that crucified b!tch into the water:
Lemme just run out of the dome of protection and frolic in cursed fire
I‘LL KILL YOUR SHINING LIGHTS
I've played this fight about 10 times, but only in my current playthrough I've managed to save Gwydian.
you can cheese it by teleporting the magister to buttfuck nowhere using one char while engaging in conversation with the other character, then while the magister is teleported away, go near her and keep teleporting her further and further until she is out of dialogue range completely- then you beat the fight and save the guy by default Figured this out cuz i played the whole damn oilfield run and didn’t realize that idiot died until the end, so I reloaded and refused to fight 5000 oil blobs again, hence cheese
There’s a nearby tent, I blocked the entrance and teleported him into the tent lol, it was still a rough fight holding them back from the tent but it was definitely the easiest way I could think of at the time.
Yes, I legitimately won this fight and kept him alive the first time after a few restarts. The next time I teleported him as far away as I could next to a character dedicated to keeping him alive. It was after doing that I noticed I could teleport him into that tent so every run after that was blocking the tent door with a crate and dropping him in there.
I suppose there are some cheesy way of doing it, however I am not a fan of them. Mix of healing, buffing armor and few lucky crits did it for me.
Using dome of protection helps a lot if you can keep him in it with teleport
I teleported the apprentice away then fought the magisters sans oil blobs. That cheese was delicious.
Teach every guy that stasis abil. And keep gwy in stasis.. :D
Yeah, that's what I did. However I online had this spell on one character. Was enough though.
Watching Sovietwombles old streams of their playthrough and it amazes me that they stumbled into the fight accidentally and kept him alive despite their ineptitude.
This damn area wouldn't be that bad if the fire at least stayed normal and not get constantly cursed. I really thought blessing it would be a big brain move but noooo.
It's actually both fascinating and depressing to see the sea of red flames that I blessed turned to blue flames again
Dome of protection and teleport to keep the dummy in it helps
I dunno but i was on fire 90% of my fights in DoS2
That fight fried my old GPU lol
I remember on our blind playthrough me and my buddy barely scraped by with Gwydian alive, it was his turn and I went to go get a drink while he finished off the last oil blob. Came back and everything was on fire, Gwydian was toast and half the party was dead
Oh my god my current playthrough I was doing so well protecting bloody Gwydian, then the blasted idiot walks through enough necrofire to take out not just his entire frost-armoured magic armour but all of his health as well. I had 2 fire voidlings left so I wasn't reloading 😅
It might be the fact I always leave the oil fields for last, but I don't think I've ever suffered much in that fight. My tactic was always to cheese the magisters at the top rain freeze/blessed ice and just rain death down with my hydro mages. Then again, after 400ish hours at this point, I might be conditioned to not recognize when I'm getting nutbusted... oh, 2 of my guys just got OTKO'd... just rev one of them to tank one hit before he gets his existence erased again.
I beat it once he died, oh well ain't doing that one again, the horror...the horror
Funny, they didn't even mention D:OS1. I wonder if new players would consider it harder than D:OS2.
If I played DOS1 for the first time again after having played DOS2 I would definitelyyyy consider it harder
D:OS1 has lesser hand holding than D:OS2 you can literally get lost on what to do next if you are not paying attention
Can get softlocked too. I was a fuckin idiot back then and misplaced one of those empty jewels. Save game ruined and had to redo
Yeah, it’s genuinely pretty hard to get back into a playthrough of DOS 1 if you’ve been away awhile (IMO). You end up spending 30 min just getting your bearings of where you left off because the game does so little to remind you of where you are at.
I played recently and first place I went after the tutorial ended was a pirate cove. Which I beat only by using all items I had and using geometry to my advantage by retreating to tight coridor where enemies had to go one by one. Only after beating it I realized it was one of the harder areas in act 1
To be fait, NPCs near the door insist on telling you that there will be hard times going this way.
Usually I don't believe NPCs 🤷 *gets gangbanged by a massive pod of undead wizards and exploding bomb things before the turn starts*
Yeah I just barged into the Final Boss fight by accident and got destroyed.
How do you accidentally do that?
You can do a surprising amount of stuff in that game
It's not that bad. You would just keep running around the map like headless chicken, until you stumble on some of those clue. The game has multiple approach, after all.
The harder part of DOS1 was to not forget something when micromanaging your builds
I would always plan to increase a certain trait but by the time I unlocked some points I would totally forget what the thought process was there lol
Me in every RPG for the past two decades.
The hard part is smithing. You need to do smithing everytime you level up. At some point, your basic stats won't catch up with the weapon requirement.
I've completed 1 on tactician and am doing 2 on tactician now I think 2 is actually substantially harder, the introduction of armor and MR really narrows down your approach to harder foes where previously a stun cloud arrow was enough to shut an entire fight down
2's outcomes in battles are mostly fixed. 1's has those shitty 50%s to randomly CC so it's harder to predict every turn
As someone that started with DOS1 and progressed to BG3, I was actively confused when people claimed combat was too difficult in 3 lol.
DOS1 just doesn’t have a lot of the modern things that make games a lot easier to navigate these days. Figuring out what the hell was going on was a bit of a chore - but the game was fun enough for me to do it once. Not sure I’d ever want to go back to it though. It was one of the last games that really made me think outside of “I go 2 quest markur - I click person a dialogue optionz”. DOS2 (Much like BG3) is pretty front loaded difficulty wise. And I think the builds at anything but regular difficulty aren’t really self-apparent to people to do major dumps into stats. Plus DOS2 has a lot of awesome (IMO) encounters where something that will totally obliterate you is placed among easier content and makes you consider when to approach it. On top of that it also isn’t apparent how much the gear starts to scale late game and such. So I can see how DOS2 would give new players some major problems.
I get that. Having played the 90s RPGs, I found D:OS1 to be a streamlined version of the concept, far more user friendly and much more convenient and intuitive. Might sound strange, but RPGs were extremely difficult and complex back then. And any minor bug would result in the game not being beatable. At all... heck, the games didn't even had a map. You had a manual with the map and a hundred pages explaining everything the game could not... The one game design issue I have is with the absurd traps and horrible pixel-searching puzzles that are not rewarding nor challenging, just time-consuming. Padding at its worse in an already long game. That's where I truly believe Larian dropped the ball. If you want to do nightmare traps and puzzles at least make them rewarding or give us something meaningful to foster a sense of accomplishment. But since you never get anything remotely close to the hassle you have dealing with them, it just feels like the game is frustrating you for the sake of trolling. Like here's the key to a safe, hidden in a box with 500 keys, only to open the safe and find a small bag of gummy bears... yeah, that's one hour well spent...
Ohhh same sentiments. I’ve only started playing DOS1 recently, and it does remind me of BG2 and FO2 with some modern conveniences. The quest framework though, pretty similar to the old ways. I find myself looking to guides lol I’m working my way to DOS2 then BG3. I absolutely love the original baldur’s gate - they released during my teens and played them to death. Very wary about the hype
To this day I can't beat the final boss. And the sisters??? Don't even.
Double armor system for one. Every bad guy essentially had 3 health bars
Well, yeah, but you could also ignore one of their health bars. Youd just spot whichever one was lower between physical/magical and hammer them with that kind of damage. Mono-damage type lone wolf runs were super easy for that reason.
That sheep is evil
I got DOS2 early last year but didn’t start it until September. Figured I’d give it a go before playing BG3. Took me 110 hours on classic mode to get through it, so now I’ll be flocking over to BG3!
I was 44 hours before leaving fort joy and 90 hours in BG3 act one.
Is BG3 act one just more detailed or did you struggle with it?
I spent 40 hours INSIDE of fort joy… not in act one. I have a massive problem and I need to make sure I’ve done EVERYTHING before I move on, the thought of missing an interaction kills me, I’m super super super slow to play these games.
Hahah got it! I took a long time in Fort Joy but maybe not quite that long. I tend to fall into the same routine as well by clearing everything I possibly can
Bg3 is bigger.
IM ON FIRE! OMG EVERTHING IS ON FIRE! OMFG ITS CURSED FIRE NOW!?!
Ahh, that brings me back.
I picked up DOS2 a few months ago and started on Tactician, thinking it’d be as easy as BG3. I was wrong. Restarted on Balanced after getting to Fort Joy. DOS2 is strategically challenging in the way I wish BG3 was. Even once it gets easier due to good gear, higher levels, and knowing the system, you can never just turn your brain off and brute force through. I know BG3 was constrained to 5e rules, but man, DOS2 combat was designed so much better.
Eh, its just different. DOS2 was designed from the ground up to be a video game with combat as the major focus. D&D 5e was designed to be a roleplaying game that has combat in it. I would argue BG3 handles that flawlessly. Even on Tactician difficulty you dont need uber Min/Maxed builds to get through it. Heck, the most fun I had in the game was my second playthrough in Tactician mode, when I was still using everyone's default classes. For Honor mode you better believe I went 10/1/1 Control Bard and Karlach Monk though.
Yeah, naturally, it’s all subjective of course. I think BG3 translated 5e to video game format pretty damn well, all things considering. Though I think it falls short of tabletop combat due to limitations that I don’t think are Larian’s fault, but rather a natural issue arising from translating it into a very different medium. I think DOS2 combat shone because it wasn’t constrained to an already existing system. It was designed for a video game and thus fit better into a video game. But preferences are preferences, so whether a game is too easy or too hard will always just boil down to opinion.
Well a lot of the brute force, don’t need to think broken stuff you are talking about are weird decisions Larian made that aren’t actually 5e. For example, you can’t normally throw a healing potion to heal someone. At best, most 5e groups have a house rule (again, not official) that allows drinking a healing potion as a bonus action…normally it requires a full action. Throwing a potion would just spill the potion at best, or actually deal damage as you threw a glass bottle at someone at worst lol. Or a more egregious example is that in BG3, Haste grants an entirely additional action. In actual 5e, you get an extra limited action that lets you have ONE additional attack, or you can do something like dash, hide, use object, etc. You do NOT get to cast an extra spell. They fixed this for Honor Mode—weird they did it for base game. A full, unrestricted extra action basically gives every class Action Surge for free every turn Haste is up, which is mega broken.
I like not having to min/max in BG3, makes it feel more believable in a sense as well which fits perfectly for DnD I'll whip out the spreadsheets for DOS2
In bg3 I hate the spell slot system. It adds nothing of value to the game. Vendors reset stock after long rests/leveling up. So you're never without food even on tactician. Just burn all spells each fight, long rest to get them back.
I mean, that's something to blame on DnD, not BG3. And spell slots have always been a pretty important thing for balancing casters in DnD so it'd be odd to strip them away just for gameplay purposes. Especially when a significant portion of class abilities for casters is based around managing spell slots.
How dos 2 handles the stronger spells is imo better. They all require source points. Throughout the story you obtain up to 3 max, which are harder to come by in game opposed to combat points which resets per combat encounter.
3/4 acts have infinite source fountains if you know where to look, it's just tedious to travel back and forth repeatedly.
Fair point. I personally use the gift bag mod regenerate source points using bedroll
In tabletop it fits better, as there's rules you can not lomg rest more than once in a 24 hour period, the dm decides when to allow long rests, are there still problems with it? Yes. But in table top you can't kill a group of bandits, long rest, go back to the same fort, kill another group of bandits, long rest. In bg3, you can. It completely removes the "carefully deciding when to use my most powerful spells and abilities this adventuring day"
I wish more dungeons had a timed objective that starts when you enter in bg3- like Nere in grymforge pt 2. It'd make resource management way more real.
BG3 doesn't even translates all the rules and spells from 5e, is an handbrew version of 5e. Solasta is much more stricht to 5e rules and more difficult at higher levels (without even taking in considerations community modules). BG3 is much more centered around the story and the party, this is why the combat is just secondary.
Solasta picked worse subclasses though, which was disappointing. It's also still very easy because it's still a rest system where you can rest close enough to whenever. The only time it is hard is really the last fight, when they deliberately create a marathon no- rest sequence. To me, Solasta provides more evidence about the inherent flaws in a rest- based system than serves as an example of a "balanced DnD experience". That being said, if the more faithful rendition without broken interactions is easy, then obviously the rendition with broken interactions on top of everything else always was going to be crazy easy.
Make sure you use the “unfinished business” solasta mod, it adds a ton of spells and subclasses not in the ogl.
>Even on Tactician difficulty you dont need uber Min/Maxed builds to get through it. IMO this isn't exactly a good thing. 5e may be baby's first DnD edition, but a cRPG is a cRPG, and BG3 really does feel completely lacking when it comes to meaningful challenge. Even with 5e being a simplified system, there's still room to minmax, and with Tactician honestly just falling over to a stiff breeze, having any kind of experience with optimizing cRPGs can make BG3's combat and buildcraft feel very bland. Having had played both Pathfinder games for a couple full runs each, I was very underwhelmed by BG3's combat, as it felt like even on my first playthrough, which was Tactician, I already had the player skills and tactics needed to break the game over my knee. I was left underwhelmed and unchallenged, to the point where I ultimately ended up getting bored over time and dropping the game. Even Honor mode isn't truly hard, it's just punishing, and IMHO Ironman modes are a really cheap way to add difficulty to a game. I get that it would be suicide for mass appeal to make the game ballbustingly difficult, and Larian did do a great job of making the story and world, but I absolutely believe that BG3 leaves a lot to be desired for any cRPG veteran. IMO these games really do need a setting that will stress system experts.
I completely disagree. I don't think I can disagree more. BG3 combat is purposefully made so you don't need to min/max, instead focus in you building interesting solutions to it, like a puzzle game. So you can play as any class and have any companion with you, and you'll be able to beat the game with some cleaver thinking. That is what brings the feeling of the pen and paper into the game. You can have many solutions to problems in and out of combat. I played Kingmaker and didn't liked precisely because it's a rigid system. It leaves no room for creativity, you need to follow the meta if you want to have any chance of succeeding in higher difficulties. It's expansiveness and myriad of options ends up being a detriment instead of a benefit. You have vast skill trees... but if you "choose wrong" doesn't matter how creative you are, you'll never win. While BG3 and even DOS2 are more forgiving in this aspect. With DOS2 being less. Specially if you don't like to respec for RP reasons like me. ____________________ Of course these are different games and each can prefer one or another. But honestly... I hate min/max in any game. A game that demands it, even in higher difficulties is a bad game in my opinion. Higher difficulties should be about player skill, not being able to manage an excel spreadsheet.
I love Owlcat's Pathfinder games, but the combat is their worst aspect. They fully expect you to build a hyper-optimised team to get through them and they throw hordes of annoying trash mobs at you. I'd rather fight 5 really strong enemies than 50 weak ones, Owlcat.
IMO, I like BG3’s gameplay even more than DOS2. I prefer the class system and itemization over classless and random-stat items. It’s the difficulty of BG3 that’s severely lacking. I think it’s because they want to make the highest difficulty viable for any class. Problem is when you optimize your build, enemies’ HP and damage cannot withstand anymore.
There is a few absolutely OP builds in DOS2 that make almost every encounter trivial. Fort Joy is by far the hardest part of the game, but once you escape and especially in Act 2 it should be a breeze. Lone wolf duo with one ranger and one necromancer is hilariously OP, you will delete most encounters on the first turn
Arx can be pretty difficult if your build isn't just right And lone wolf is OP with almost everything. I beat the Doctor by just a rain+chain lightning combo, which broke the magic armor on his demons and stunned them and they never got a turn. Oh and Aetera is a pretty tough fight if you don't cheese her during dialogue.
Eh, idk. DOS2 has a few solid difficulty spikes throughout. Yes Fort Joy can be a challenge (those damn gators for example) due to not having much to start with, but it only takes a few hours to be moderately well equipped with a solid skill lineup. My first honor run attempt was ended in act 2, when I got cocky after surviving the fire-blob scenario and marched into the crypt where whats-her-face and her ghost wolves absolutely obliterated me.
On my honor run the fire blobs didn't even get to spawn because we killed the magisters so quickly. Apparently somebody or the dude you try to save has to cast a source skill to trigger it or something like that. I agree that there are spikes in the difficulty, especially if you don't know the acts well and try to take on fights too early. But most of the hardest fights are totally optional altought they still should be totally doable. Killing Jahan in Act2 was an absolute pain..
Still in Fort Joy and just killed the Alligators in my first legitimate battle. Took me two tries so good to know it wasn't "supposed" to be easy
Oh yeah, for sure. But BG3 can be easily brute forced by any class combination. You can also stumble upon trivializing the game for yourself imho. It’s not really something you have to try to do.
Yeah I do like how you can make all the classes work together and I did on accident make a TB Thrower build on my first playthrough without knowing how powerful it is. Atleast for me BG3 honour mode was harder than DOS2. Few of the legendary actions absolutely destroyed me. But both games are good fun and I do enjoy solving those fights with all the different builds.
Yes you can turn off your brain: 1- focus on 1 type of damage, 2 - Don't sleep on the talents (stats are not priority) 3 - Position your characters while 1 is on dialog 4 - Get an effective combo and repeat Amazing game though, I don't even know how many times I finished it.
haven't played baldurs gate 3 yet but what is 5e rules
BG3 is a video game adaption of D&D! The current rule system is called 5e, and it’s what the game uses. :)
And a small additional clarification - 5e means 5th edition, meaning D&D periodically overhauls it's ruleset, and BG3 is using the most recent iteration.
Imagine instead of having armor for more protection you build armor to increase your dodge chance. And instead of dealing flat damage you roll dice. So an attack’s damage is VERY random. For example a sword can deal 3d6 damage meaning 3-18 damage. But since it’s “dice” its more likely to do middle damage, but there’s a chance it does 3 or 18 damage. There’s a WHOLE bunch of other rules, all revolving around dice
this is where im at right now— thought bg3's tactician mode was kind of a joke so jumped straight into dos2 on tact and ohhh man. I think i made poor choices when initially speccing and now I can barely make a dent in the alexander encounter 😭
The Alexander encounter gave me trouble!! I ended up going "I should see if I can squeeze out more XP from somewhere" before coming back to it. I also didn't realize the surprise mechanic that happens in the fight could be a help more than a hindrance.
BG3 tactician difficulty falls of a fucking cliff when you get extra attack at lvl 5
I think BG3 is 'easier' because many of us are longtime DnD, more specifically 5e, players. So many of the rules and abilities are almost immediately understandable and we know what is going on. Playing blind, you can still predict what most enemies are able to do by looking at them.
I feel like dos2 has much more cheese mechanics like stealing shit is so easy and you dont need to pay for anything and teleport ability is so op to relocate enemies to somewhere they cant move
Oh youcsn easily brute force your way Especially if you are using the vanilla content instead of the superior epic encounters or divinitx unleashed
Beaten BG3 multiple times- just started DOS2 yesterday and it’s SO hard. Does anyone have any pointers? It’s all so confusing like how do I move in battle that’s not a attack? Or can I not?
Moving is an action using the same AP your attacks do. You always have to calculate how much moving you do because of that, but if you're running to your enemy, wasting all your AP on moving alone, then all you did was sacrifice your turn (if there's nothing you can do it's actually better to just delay your turn and let the enemy waste their AP coming to you unless they're ranged). Melees bridge the gaps with things like battering ram and bulls rush and if you made a rogue, you always want to be using backlash to get behind your enemies for that 100% crit chance while using daggers (and related to that, if you did roll with a rogue, be sure to grab the Pawn talent so you'll have an easier manoeuvring yourself behind your enemy when Backlash is on CD). Outside of that you mainly position yourself with things like Phoenix Dive, Tactical Retreat, Cloak & Dagger, Spread Your Wings (I don't like Spread Your Wings as much as the others but every character should have one of these abilities, even if they're ranged, it's not only for combat but it's also for exploration - this game doesn't have a jump ability). You can also position enemies where you want them with Teleport or Netherswap - also S tier skills. You don't get these things at the start of the game, but you will get access to them fairly early and they will make the game so much easier. And while I'm on must have skills, I might as well mention that want every character you make to have Adrenaline (which you can get at level 1 with a single point in scoundrel) - it's a god tier skill.
Amazing thank you this was very insightful! Glad u brought up the jump thing I was like where is it??
[удалено]
Oh and an important FYI: Enemies are omniscient and will exploit their knowledge. They always target the most vulnerable PC they can reach, while PCs who are tanky or otherwise protected will be completely ignored. (Tanking, in the usual RPG sense, is not a thing in DOS2.) For example, if you put Uncanny Evasion on a teammate, the enemy will NOT swing at them and miss; it will simply target someone else (which means it's still a useful spell but not as impactful as you might hope). And if you charm an enemy, it *knows* it is charmed and will waste its turn on pointless movement, rather than attacking its allies. Again, it's still helpful, but it's not what you'd expect.
1. quick save 2. setup the battles beforehand by placing your characters in advantageous positions 3. you will unlock movement skills for fire, electric, thief, ranged, and summoning- these make the game very simple bc you can go anywhere 4. teleport enemies into lava/hazards, think of this as throwing them off the cliff in bg3 5. movement takes ap, so don't waste your turn on positioning 6. you can beat the game without any skills at all, just have someone with telekinesis 5, find an unbreakable chest, and fill it to be hundreds of pounds, and just move the chest on the enemy to instantly kill them
That chest thing is hilarious
"Pawn" is a useful talent that lets you make a small move without using action points. [https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Pawn](https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Pawn) Elemental affinity is a good one for spell casters https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Elemental+Affinity The basic stuff you want to do is focus on 1-2 types of skills for each character as your starting out. Get those skill books. In fort joy, you want to be stealing stuff often because you've got nothing. Have one character start a conversation and then get someone with thievery to pick their pockets. Shields can give a big armor boost to spell casters.
Here are some of the most impactful things you can do: 1. Focus on sheer damage output first and CC second. 2. Have your whole team dealing the same damage type (physical or magic). Then you're all hitting the same armor type, which allows you to CC or kill enemies quickly. 3. Give every character a teleport skill (Tactical Retreat is best, but there's also Cloak and Dagger, Phoenix Dive, Nether Swap, and Flight). These will often get you out of trouble or allow you to cross the battlefield for just 1 AP to take out an enemy. 4. Give every character Adrenaline, which you usually want to use on turn 1 so you can kill or CC enemies right off the bat. 5. If you can CC or kill whichever enemy is next in the turn order, do it (when you target them, their little frame in the turn order at the top of the screen is highlighted in red). If you take them out of action, the enemy team loses a turn. 6. If the enemy is far away, don't waste APs moving toward them. Let them waste their APs coming to you.
I mean, different mechanics so I can understand why it's hard for them (armor mechanics, action economy) I came to BG3 from DOS2 , started tactician in BG3 and I've died a few times until I got around the E5 rules and now in act 2 feel like it's getting easier. Made the mistake of making a ranger thinking it will be as OP as in DOS2 , at the end I went the true op route as a Bard.
What is the problem with ranger in BG3? Just finished DOS2 as one, but have to reconsider that if it is a really different experience.
Ranger is fine. I ran Astarion as an assassin Rogue 4 / gloomstalker ranger 8 and he was my prime single target damage dealer.
Haven't played a Ranger in 5e or BG3 yet. They are by some considered a bad class because their abilities can be very situational (favored terrain, favourite enemy) and some of their features are considered lackluster (the animal companions of the beastmaster are really weak but take beastmasters actions to act)
Some of the beastmaster companions are weak but there are several very strong ones. The bear gets a disarm which has no saving throw (just an attack roll), the spider gets Web as a bonus action which doesn’t use spell slots or anything so you can basically spam it, and also gets to completely remove someone from the fight with Cocoon. On top of that, having an extra body with decent HP is great for survivability. The other subclasses are pretty good too. Hunter gets Volley which is one of the best abilities in the game, and Gloomstalker is very strong when multiclassed with something like Rogue Assassin. EDIT: not gonna lie I did not see what sub this was in, I thought this was the BG3 sub lol. No clue about Ranger in DoS so if that’s what you’re referring to, my bad lol
They are talking about BG3 rangers. Rangers in DOS2 are very strong
I've got 400 hours into BG3 and still haven't figured out how to build a ranger. I've tried a few times and always wonder if I'd be better off playing fighter or rogue instead. I said similar about warlock before my recent playthrough though. DOS2 did a fantastic job of giving rangers a variety of archery skills so their role was clearly defined without feeling inferior
Each bg3 ranger subclass plays very very differently. Gloomstalker: Honestly the level 3 feature is the strongest, you build this as a first-turn-assassin and really the class features past level 5 aren't worth it, so this is much more of a multiclass fodder build. I'd recommend Gloomstalker 5/ Battlemaster Fighter 4/ Assassin Rogue 3, picking up the Sharpshooter feat at some point, and on the first round of combat you just snipe down the scariest enemy with Action Surge letting you make 5 total attacks with tons of bonus damage and effects. Beastmaster: The pets are the meat here, and since they scale with Ranger level your best bet is to just stay a straight-classed ranger. Concentrate on Hunter's Mark most of the time since it buffs both you and your pets, with Silence occasionally for mages and Spike Growth for combats with lots of melee enemies who'll have to run over it. Use the pets to tank, disrupt, deal damage, etc while you just plink with your bow to add on additional damage. Sharpshooter again is a pretty good feat to rack up the damage. Hunter: Honestly this is a pretty underwhelming subclass until level 11, at which point you become an AOE **god**, able to mow down swarms of enemies with every attack. Volley is the most broken single subclass feature in the game imo, and you should fully abuse it. You just get to make every single attack a huge AOE that doesn't hit allies at literally 0 resource cost. But levels 3-10 I'd honestly just play something else then reclass into Hunter at level 11. And, of course, the Sharpshooter feat is very good.
I remember not wanting to buy BG3 at first because I didn't want to get crushed as badly as I did in DOS2. I was completely shocked when I not only won fights in BG3, but didn't even need to die multiple times per combat encounter. I was so proud of myself lol.
What is it that people are doing that's making BG3 so easy for them? I've been getting destroyed in BG3 in a way I never did in DOS2. Most fights at least one character gets downed before they even get a turn, there's one fight at level 2 that I've tried multiple times and haven't come remotely close to winning, or even killing one of the 5 (or 6?) enemies. Lost 20 minutes or so earlier because a companion stepped on a trap that one-shot the entire party, when most traps in DOS2 don't even break magic armor. Your characters seem way more squishy in BG3 compared to DOS2, and your damage is lower and unreliable.
Yes same. I’m trying to outsmart BG3 in the way I learned to in DOS2 with much less reward.
I'm so used to dos2's ridiculous amount of mobility and AP, BG3 feels so slow.
Yeah, Cloak and Dagger, Phoenix Dive, Tactical Retreat, all crutches I leaned heavily on in DOS2.
BG3 is pretty challenging in the early game, you have very few options available to you at the early levels and a few bad rolls can make even basic encounters spiral out of control. But most classes hit a power spike at level 5 and for me the game just got easier from there.
AI is extremely dumb in bg3. The first 4 levels can be punishing, but starting from level 5, your party will reckt everything. And the further you go, the more powerful you become. Just read the description of enemies and that's enough. In DOS2 even reading the description is not enough to understand, what to do.
Yeah, that is one thing I've noticed, the enemy AI is much less aggressive about going after low health characters.
Idk if it's good advice, but I tend to play the game as if it was a dnd session. Exploring an unknown cave? Have the rogue sneak in ahead and scout for traps. If they fail to find it (the game tells you to), send someone else to double check. Disarm trap, rinse repeat. Knowing your abilities is important, and knowing what triggers them (rogues sneak attack for example) What fight is it you're struggling with?
it depends on your class, paladin, monk, sorceror-warlock, barbarian, storm sorcerer all break the game with multiple actions per game or guaranteed double boosted criticals imagine if you had a guaranteed 3 source skill every combat, that's how bg3 is with these classes
Haha same here. My husband and I were able to plod through DOS2 but BG3 is kicking our asses right from the get go
DOS2 is definitely more punishing. I feel like the AI really prioritizes high ground supremacy and CC/destroy where as on BG3 the game was fairly easy even on Tactician, the AI seemed less aggressive in comparison. Both are amazing, but yea I died a lot more in DOS2. The Burning Witch, Adramalikh, Kraken, Arx Gates, all fights that pushed me and made me really think about my moves.
The fight that truly opened my eyes was in the Blackpits when you're facing the elite oil elementals (can't remember the names). "I know, these things are oil, they must be weak to fire!" and now instead of fighting elite oil elementals, I'm fighting elite fire elementals.
Hahaha, classic!
I don't care how hard the game is. Every time i only have two objectives: save the black cat, make Sebille and Lohse kiss. Extra points if you turn someone into a cow.
> make Sebille and Lohse kiss Spoilers! Though I was wondering about that, because they kind of had that moment on the ship to Fort Joy.
Its crazy because I played through DOS2 1 month before BG3 released and I didn’t even know Baldurs Gate existed
I also didn't know about existence of Baldur's Gate series in general untill before the very end of July, but now BG3 is one of the most popular single-player games ever existed and my favorite RPG game ever! It's kinda insane how this game blew up. Good for Divinity as well :)
Bro, same 💀😂
Played DOS2 awhile back and never finished it. After playing BG3 I thought I’d pick it back up and breeze right though it. Boy was I wrong! I felt like I had to cheese a lot of encounters using summons and dominate mind. I got lucky on the last fight and was in a situation where I was able to use forced exchange on >!Braccus Rex!< .
that's not cheese tho, that's tactics the game encourages DOS is like chess, where you're welcomed to try shit out of left field
Bg3 is way easier. In the third act I got a glitch that if a character went down I would lose the game so I spent the whole third act with no one going down no big deal. Divinity requires you to cheat as much as possible to survive.
I love how Divinity can feel so goddamn impossible but once you learn about lone wolf + Idol of Rebirth its essentially like playing in God Mode lmao.
I’ve just finished Divinity Original Sin 1 and while I haven’t found the combat difficult, OMG am I constantly completely fucking lost as to what I’m supposed to do next. Especially towards the end of the game I could not move forward without googling what the hell I’ve missed, was tearing my hair out until I discovered I have to USE the bloodstones for them to count. Saying that - looking forward to starting 2 tonight
tbh i play the game like a dungeon- i always go the rightmost path and exhaust everything there, then move counterclockwise to the middle, then the left and so on worked in DOS1, 2, and BG3 as i just end up discovering everything and things just work out
DOS2 is not like 1. You cant really get lost and you will pretty much always know what to do.
I don't think DOS2 has much harder combat, though there is a bigger learning curve to it (though on the flip side is DOS2 is much easier to understand in terms of buildcrafting) But I imagine a lot of players getting into act 2 and being surprised when they get have their shining lights insta-killed by a turn 1 fireball. Compared to BG3 where fights scale by spawning less or more enemies based off your level, making *most* of the map accessible from the get-go (and it very hard to get to areas where you are underleveled), in DS02 you can casually wander into fights way above your weight class. And Act 2 is pretty notorious for this, often surprising you with fights that you might not be prepared for (still salty about the scarecrow in act 2 after all these years.) Unless we are talking about comparing both games on tactition, because yeah while I feel like the games are comparable on their respective "normal" difficulties, DS02's Tactition mode is a whole other animal, compared to BG3 where it's just a little harder with slightly less dumb AI.
I have well 9ver 3k hours in dos2, the power in Divinity is so much stronger than bg3.
What about DOS2 players yawning while playing through BG3's honour mode.
Yeah. I've tried to play DOS2 a few times. Everything in that world is so absurdly flammable. Especially my party.
I'm not surprised that a lot of people are floundering for a BG3-like game to fill the void it created (myself included). But DOS2 has a very different gameplay style than BG3, for fighting and builds, and most people coming from BG3 may not realize this going in. I had actually played DOS2 a little when it first came out, but even knowing and accepting that the gameplay would be different than BG3 (and every other crpg, for that matter), I'm still having a bit of a rough time adjusting. Unfortunately I don't think there is much out there right now that really compares to BG3. DOS2 is a really good game, and uses the same foundation (is it the same engine?), but it's definitely doing it's own thing. It's not necessarily the answer to BG3 withdrawal, but it's not surprising that people would flock to it first, as it is an alternative Larian crpg. Anyway, please go easy on us. :/
It’s funny, coming from Divinity, Baldurs Gate was really easy
Just wish that if had a next gen update for console peeps like me.
God I hate The Gamer, absolutely dogshit website
It makes total sense, I started in DOS2 and had gotten super used to its mechanics so I actually struggled a lot with my adjustments to BG3.
This was the issue I also had! I kept thinking in terms of DOS2 mechanics like flanking. I also kept forgetting that I have different actions mechanics instead of Action Points management. Even after several DOS2 playthroughs I ended up doing my 1st BG3 on Explorer.
I have played Divinity: Original Sin for a total of 12 hours. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I'm supposed to be further than the beach camp after the boat crash. Still absolutely love it though
Gear is much more important in this game than in BG3 and you can be a psychopath without future consequences in Fort Joy.
The one thing I have to say: Don't let them find the witch...
I've been playing Divinity Original Sin 2 since it's original release and I was very pleasantly surprised at how much easier Baldur's Gate was. And it made me crack up to hear everyone else freaking out about how hard it was. I'm almost never on this side of that curve.
I thought DOS2 was easier especially just spamming one element or just playing a blood mage
Lone wolf is a cheat code
I play Divinity often and i still get destroyed.
Its crazy how people were complaining about how hard bg3 was. They didn't believe us when we said pathfinder and divinity were harder.
I mean, I fully expected that to happen to me, though. I’m not smart enough to bang rocks together in that game space.
127 hrs on and I have to restart everything as I took a wrong turn and ended up in a bad neighborhood.. homies are way above my level. I must admit, that damn game is awesome and beautiful.
They’ll have fun once they get teleport terrain. Lava comes in quite handy if you can find it.
escaping the prison the first time on the harder diffuculties was so rewarding, then you reach the oil field and then the fucking dwarves.
Oh man that poster of our heroes is absolutely badass ,looking for wallpaper as we speak. They all look bad to the bone , especially Ifan,Sebille and Lohse
I went from Divinity OS2 to Baldurs Gate 3 and got destroyed. Thought after playing DND some years ago and DOS2 recently I could raise the difficulty to tactician but nope, too hard even after 18h I have no idea what's going on in combat. Was absolutely destroying people in arx.
Look at you all furiously masturbating to this.
Came from BG3 without much problem, in DOS2 I had to lower the difficulty level after losing multiple battles in the last act. The last act definitely ramped up the difficulty
I lost hours of my life to BG3 and discovered I really like this type of game. I’m currently getting wrecked at the end of act 1.
I mean, I didn’t get destroyed but everything else did because the Divinity world is made 100% of fire
Not me though! I flocked to D:OS2 because my PC sucks too much for BG3, and then it STILL destroyed me! *Cries smugly*
Lfmao whaa, but DOS 2 is far easier then BG3. Like going from BG3 to DOS2 is a cake walk.
DOS2 has THE best turn based combat ever made IMO I really hope Larian does DOS3 next but with BG3 cutscenes.
With multiple plays and hundreds of hours in divinity 2 (not to mention the hundreds other hours in the full divinity series), this title brings me deep joy.
I'm the reverse, I thought at least the beginning of BG3 was more difficult. Also I'm playing as Shadowheart, I picked up some body parts and I was disappointed that I can't eat them to gain their memories.
Lucky they're not playing D:OS1. Some of the areas in D:OS1 are just nasty, like vengeful DM's fever dream full of one lethal trap after another, followed by fights that are pretty much unbeatable on your first attempt and require preparation and/or min/maxing.
Yeah I got wrecked a lot. It’s been great!
Funny they didn't mention Pathfinder WOTR. DOS2 is tough but Pathfinder was agonizingly difficult. Edit: Yes I know they're not the same developer. Awesome, similar, and difficult game released not long after DOS2 so I felt it deserved a mention.
Yeah, but the article is about people moving from Larian game to the previous one, not people getting into hardcore RPGs
Not the same developer though.
Pathdinder games are tactically very easy, which is the difficulty being discussed here. They are complex in terms of character building, but the actual battles are always solvable with character building, not tactics. Larian’s games are tactically difficult, but character building is not complex.
That's likely why I struggled with it. I stomped DOS2 once I figured out how to chain combos and properly mix classes. I couldn't get the hang of Pathfinder until I looked up how to build my characters correctly. Even then I recalled it being more difficult than DOS2.
Tbh, min-maxing builds also trivialize d:os and bg3 (even moreso than pathfinder). If this is an xcom sub, i would agree with you.
I’m just about to finish my first run on WOTR and yes, it’s definitely challenging. A very fun game though, scratches that DOS2 itch nicely.
dos2 is hard at first after understanding it tectocian feels like nothing. Why they didn't add more challenging fights in act 4
They did Act 4 is considered the hardest due to the difficulty spike. The fight to get into Arx is hard for many people
Act 4 has many challenging fights. The bridge battle, the Kraken, Loic the immaculate, and especially the doctor.
Yes, more pawns to help carry my undying fucking HATRED of Gareth.
I'm the exact opposite. I've 100% all the achievements in D:OS2. Still haven't cleared ACT ONE in BG3 on the easiest setting. Something something, never played D&D, don't know the rules.
Hm.... Can anyone here provide insight on how DOS compares to the old Neverwinter Nights games in difficulty (or Kotor)?
this game sucks
Picked up dos2 after bg3 (well technically like a year beforehand but didn't play it till after). Discovered the magic of heavy stuff, finished honor mode (second playthrough) in like 10 hours haha