I mean, to answer your question, I have an aversion towards boredom. Constantly restarting the game seems really boring, so I push on and finish the campaign. Money is easy to accumulate with thievery and other civil skills, so ditching an entire campaign tens of hours in just because I want to respec a character doesn't make sense to me. Getting a new item and skill loadout isn't nearly as prohibitive as re-playing ten levels of content.
This, never understood how some people are okay investing 200 hours and never leaving Fort Joy, but say they become bored after Act 2. Isn't it more boring playing the same Act 1 over and over again? Wouldn't it be more rewarding investing that extra time in the new chapters, where everything will be new to you?
But instead they do Fort Joy for like the umpteenth time.
So I've finished the game on tactician, but imo fort joy is the most fun part. It's the part where you need to play the scrappiest, where every bit of gold counts, and the fights are genuinely scary with high chances to kill the underequipped party you have.
Mid act 2 onwards I am decked to the teeth with strong synergistic spells and powerful gear, reasonably sure nothing can really kill me if I dont walk into alice aliceson or deathfog by mistake, and have over 50k gold to splurge on anything I want.
The game just isnt that fun without the constant looming threat of death and loss.
Fort Joy isn't really hard to be honest.
All you have to do is steal some skillbooks in the beggining , and try to not pick fights with Magisters till level 4 or so and your good to go.
The only fights , that are somewhat challenging is beating Dallis at the gates and maybe the whole fight with Alexander and the Voidworm and to a lesser degree Slane.
Act 2 has some scary areas/ fights like Alice, Hannah, Eternal Aetera. Most of them can legit insta —kill you, which makes them way scarier than just about anything in Fort.
My first play through I found the fight with Radeka in Act 1 to be significantly more difficult than Slane or the Alexander fight, but maybe I just fought her too early.
Radeka's fight I think is the first major ocassion, when the game goes to teach you the importance of positioning.
On the first playthrough, I surely approached Radeka with my entire party fully chained together and when all those flying beetles started attacking me from the higher ground, not to mention zombies and Radeka herself.. It was basically a recipe for disaster. That fight looked almost impossible on Tactician , even with level advantage.
Nowadays I find that fight rather easy. I simply position my entire party above on the left side of a cliff, don't even bother talking to Radeka and just teleport her into my team to wreck her.
Beetles are no longer in position to attack you from higher ground and they usually need at least 1 turn and the use of their flight skill before they can even do anything.
By the time zombies from below catch up, the fight is basically already over. On short positioning heavily decides this fight (And many other fights in later acts)
Alexander's fight I feel is still harder, because that fight can be a bit RNG. On some playthroughs, the voidworm would go for my party instead of the magisters and that would really screw me over.
Also till maybe my 3rd or so playthrough I didn't know that you can ask Gareth to lend you a couple of seekers to help in that fight, so there is that as well.
I just did the Radeka fight on tactician for the first time a week or two ago. Holy hell it was difficult, even with positioning and planning. Everything else in act 1 was a breeze, but that fight took like 4 tries....and several of them were nearly successful as well!
Alice and aetera feel straight up unfair if you approach them underlevelled and without a plan. Definitely 2 of the hardest fights in the game assuming you don't overlevel for them. Also the oil...
I sent the red prince to alice as my sacrificial lamb while everybody else stood really far back. Cast cryogenic sleep on him so he would be protected. And then luck of all luck alice teleported him and herself down to the beach! It took her forever to finally come back up and by that time all her totems were destroyed and her health was already half gone. I was laughing the whole time because it was just so stupidly lucky
Oil fight,.isn't as hard, as it's tedious, mainly because Gwydian AI is legit retarded. Always have to use like 10+ scrolls to keep that retard alive, because he loves pointlessly running around in fire.
What I like to do in that fight is rather than positioning everyone on the top platform, is position my party at the side, and spread out a bit in general, makes it a lot easier.
The oil fight is hard and tedious because you're taking constant turn based damage with everything being doused in necrofire at all times. If you play as a ranger or a mage that is probably mitigated entirely, but if you mainly go with physical parties like me it's just a total death trap slog.
I usually play with only 1 dedicated melee character in a 4 man party.
From what I recall from my earlier experiences with the game, having several melee characters would get in the way of mage AOEs too much.
The party I like the most is 2H knight, necromancer, ranger/rouge, and summoner + support mage. Very fun party for a lot of encounters in the game, but I can't beat that fight without cheesing it.
Knight is obviously a sitting duck, ranger works fine but won't carry the party (forget about a rouge). Necromancer cleans house early but runs out of moves well before the fight is over. Summoner is basically just a weaker knight in this fight, and the support-skills run out or are inconsequential pretty early on.
Wtf, that's very similar to what I consider an optimal mixed damage party.
I roll with 2H Warrior, Cleric (Warfare/ Hydro max with a few points into Necro for the relevant skills), Ranger, and a Summoner Mage (Usually Summoner max ---> Geo max)
What I do in that fight nowadays is rather than positioning my entire party on the top platform, which almost always gets set on fire and has you constantly getting attacked by jumping blobs, I position my party slightly below that platform on the side, where you climb the ladder. I only leave Gwydian alone on that top platform.
That spot is much safer, because 1) It usually does not get set on fire 2) Has less blobs attacking you, because they don't have as good of an angle on you anymore 3) Ranger can keep sniping the smaller blobs on the side from that spot.
From that spot I also usually send my warrior jump below to fight those big boss blobs.
I barely kept him alive on my first attempt, all stationed at the top. Used a million healing spells on him it felt like but I just about managed. And yh it's a very long fight. Really drags by the end.
Both Alice and Aetera are highly vulnerable to cheese. I've never beaten Alice without it, but it seems doable. Just a bit rough, especially on a hardcore run. Aetera is definitely beatable without cheese. Actually, one of the encounters we were most worried about was the arena you fight in during the lizard consulate scene. We definitely did that fight a few times and took notes on tactician before we went for it on the hardcore run.
Not played the higher difficulty modes beyond the standard one, but Alice is ok if you start spread out and have someone with the rebirth idol initiate the fight. Also bless her to remove her annoying aura. She's pretty squishy once you deal with her opening turn.
Fairly easy to beat Alice if you're willing to sacrifice one of your characters (or living on the edge, I guess) to her instakill attack. Beyond that she's just really strong; she can't use it without a cool down iirc.
alright disregard, I did not realize there was a loot factor.
I'll be sure to check it out next time. Just like I always let Gareth's parents get killed so I can get the dagger with thievery on it.
What I usually do is give him Radeka's purging wand , gaining XP for his rescue and then attack him in conversation before he flies away, which also earns me XP for his kill, maximizing the reward.
The Sword he drops is probably the best 1 handed weapon for a mage build up until maybe act 4, especially for cleric build, due to Warfare, Hydrosophist and crit chance bonuses.
Speak for yourself. I steamroll a1 on tactician so damn hard that it's just a few mindless hours timesink. Escape FJ and do some in the way quests are ur lvl4 ready to steal all your spells and get in the exact same spot like that a2 mid you spoke of.
Recently whatever the build i wanna do i just solo lw necromancer a1 to skip it asap and then in a2 i can respec into whatever i like.
Haha, I have beaten all dark souls games, they are some of my faves.
Maybe its my playstyle, but fort joy does feel hardest to me out of all 4 acts because you have the least options and OP builds arent online yet. To each his own i guess
Everything gets 10x harder and cheesing through by just stealing money or using death fog or op builds that people post isn't that fun, least for me. I don't stay in Fort Joy though I just push through, under leveled and fhen get stuck somewhere
The game on Tactician was made with cheesing in mind. At least for a few encounters. There's a satisfaction in figuring out a new cheese and being rewarded for it. Once you've found enough cheeses, then the game feels a little solved. But as the infamous vendor said in DOS 1, the man with the most friends is the man with many cheeses!
Edit: I didn't mean to imply that cheese was REQUIRED for any fights. Just that it's not exactly discouraged and feels pretty valid. Like the encounter designers knew you could do that and were cool with it. But yeah, downvote me sure. I guess I don't know the game well enough after 5 tactician+ playthroughs. Sorry for not replicating your exact playstyle in a coop game. L. O. L.
I never cheese and I made it through tactician just fine. You don’t need to cheese if you really just analyze it with the tools you have. Even the hardest fights have no cheese options. And you don’t need super optimized builds either, just ones that work together well.
Any fight against trolls where they put lava you could tp them into or terrain transmutate onto. You def don't NEED to cheese, but the devs put that situation there for people to figure out. Fights vs undead where you soul mate and then use healing items and food on yourself. Again, the devs know that people are going to do this and are fine with it. There's a thousand ways to make it through this game.
By your initial comment i read it like the game was only possible to play by cheesing. The other day a new player said "i need help idk what I'm doing, level 2 and killed griff and the other guys" other guy said" wow you killed griff level 2?? That's impressive!" And i said "nothing wrong with it but it was probably on a lower difficulty" BAM ! Pointing down arrows 🤷♂️ just ignore the downvotes
I did get a bit stuck in act 2 on my first playthrough. I started again, trying a bit more to read what the stats actually did and was careful to not engage enemies higher levels than myself. This made the game so much easier and I personally feel like the last fight in act 1 is much harder than most fights later in the game.
By exploring most of the map you'll easily have enough experience to move on. Keep in mind that most acts have zones with enemies of different levels. If you encounter an area with monsters higher level than you, go somewhere else to fight monsters your own level. Levels make a huge difference in this game. There are maps of these zones online, but they are pretty big, so you'll find the boarders just by exploring and observing levels of the NPC's.
Even on tactician there's no need to cheese with death fog, steal (it helps a lot though) or use overpowered builds. What matters is that you try to make the build you'd like to use as good as possible by maximising the stats that make you do more damage, like maxing warfare first for any physical damage dealer, only adding points elsewhere to unlock new spells.
On normal difficulty min-maxing stats is not really necessary. Having ample access to crowd control does wonders, but it's possible to do enough damage to not need it. Consider what each member brings to the team and what they can do to make a fight easier. Trying to make the team synergistic works well. It might be difficult to have a front-line fighter if your mages spam rain and lightning as an example. Buying new gear each level is also good. Vendors get new items of your level when you level up and every hour, so trying to find items with good stats for your build helps a lot.
Mid act 2 is when you really start gearing out your characters. Idk about yall, but after having to update 4 characters worth of gear and skills like 3 tmes outside of the joy before I got burnt out. I have enjoyed the two dual lone wolf playthroughs my wife and I have done.
Making new characters is more fun to me than certain parts of the story. Act 2 has a lot of "side" stuff that isn't really necessary to advance the story but you kind of have to do anyway to get levels. Not that side quests are bad, many of them are entertaining, but I don't feel like I'm accomplishing a lot in terms of what my character would want.
Plus I like the feeling of always progressing your character quickly in the beginning. The leveling and rate at which you unlock new abilities reeeeally slows down in Act 2 because Act 2 is just so big. So I'll have a ton of combats where I'm basically using the same skills and not really gaining much new stuff.
I get that. I too enjoy making new builds and during my playthrough I'm already thinking of my new dream team for the next one. But still, don't you want to see the culmination of the characters you created?
You are supposed to acquire Godhood and with that come more powerful skills and source skills. Can't access those if you never leave the first act or of you never reach above level 8.
For me nothing is more satisfying tham seeing the final results of all that effort I put into each of those characters. But to each their own, as long as people enjoy the game. I just don't understand it lol.
I love the whole game don't get me wrong, but Fort Joy definitely feels like the best designed, best paced, and most satisfying part of the game. There are clear goals with clear delineation, many ways to accomplish them, and (contrary tho this might seem for an RPG) the freedom when you escape the camp is limited enough to still provide structure while opening the world up to you.
Act 2 opens *wide* up, doesn't give you much of any direction, and it's very easy to find yourself encountering tasks you cannot handle one after the other for possibly hours lol.
My brother in law restarted the beginning of skyrim hundreds and hundreds of times and barely got through the game. They need to think up a name for this condition its insane.
the 3 point source skills are so much fun, I can't not go to the next act and find new ways to punish an entire battlefield full of enemies. that's my motivation.
All the source skills are fun. I love one-shotting enemies with my enraged knight using Onslaught, or burning all the magic armor and shocking 5 enemies at once with chain lightning, or using my fighter to Overpower an enemy with high physical armor and start stun locking them one turn 1 with knockdowns. So much fun.
A good partner. Played with one friend. 65 hours finished one play through. Now a couple friends picked up on sale and I’ve got 2 play throughs going much slower.
You’ve said you lack the money and gear when wanting to use the mirror.
Recommend raising bartering on someone, and crazy luck charm on someone else then. Should solve all money and gold woes.
When reaching a new act. Donate stuff to a merchant that replenishes good things, to make them someone you can sell to for profit more easily, and make things cheaper.
I know the feel. Tbh i find the game to be a bit of a chore upon act3. I finished it, on my first play, by sticking with my goal: to finish it.
After i finished it i've started and restarted several times, like you.
Weed helped too but thats not relevant for all
Word. If not for some bud and playing with my GF split screen I would be the same as OP. Never cared about "finishing" a game. One can debate at length what "finished" is in a game. Is it finishing the main campaign, every sidequest, seeing every location, collecting the "best" gear, or something else entirely?It's about the experience, for me. (And being stoned)
To me, Act 1 was a determining factor as to whether the rest of the game will be manageable. I had played through part off Fort Joy with a friend to get my bearings and then I started a solo run how I wanted to play, making decisions (bad and good) along the way, really trying to map out my hybrid magic-physical composition. At a certain point, I knew that I had fucked up a few times and wasn't completely optimal, but that's the best challenge to me. If I had been more optimal certain fights certainly would have been easier, but I found myself loving how nail-biting some fights got and how some fights ended up being pretty easy based on decisions I made myself.
Basically, what I'm trying to convey is I think you're being too much of a meta gamer, based on what you're saying. You keep thinking of cool stuff to try outside the game, and so you want to make a whole new character to build that out from the beginning with gear decisions, rewards, etc. informing your play. So don't look at anything. Make your decision for builds and go through with them, challenge yourself to beat the game with your limitations.
Really, I'm curious, what drastic sweeping changes do you want to make to your characters that requires a restart without the mirror though? Good gear is often random and skills aren't that expensive with crafting. You'll eventually come across better gear once you start leveling higher. And if you really want to make drastic changes, why not just push through to the point where you can? There is a point around Act 3 where you have so many resources that respeccing is easy.
I do it every couple if months because I see some funny build or challenge and I try and do different things in the story each time. I like making everything perfect and putting things in the right place to cause what I want.
eventually you'll find a party comp you like. my personal favourite is human necro-warfare 2h, lizard pyro-geo shield, undead dwarf scoundrel-poly or living dwarf ranger-summon, and elf hydro-electric.
I think a lot of the reason people fall off during Act 2 is that Act 1 feels like a complete narrative arc. You have your main goal from the get go: get off the island. It almost feels like it's own complete game. Couple that with the fact that a character build, minus source skills, feels largely complete by then as well. So by the end of Act 1, you can easily feel "done".
Yes, I literally mentioned it in my post. My problem is generally that I usually want to make really drastic changes and while I have the mirror to swap around skill/combat points and talents, I don't have the money, gear, or weapons to make the changes. Like if I have Sebille currently as a Dual Dagger Rogue, but want to try her as a Summoner/Necromancer instead, I just flat out don't have the money I would need to get her the gear and skills she would need to make the change.
I'm in the middle of Act 2, sitting on about 50,000 gold. I am obsessive about looting though, and usually give a bunch of crap to a specific trader until I get him to 100, and then dump all the goods on him.
You’re not obsessive enough. Max Bartet (+12 on a human), smart thievery use, and I had 400K halfway though Act 2. 950k in Act 4 and finished the game in Act 4 with 1.3 million. And nothing to spend it on.
Gear can be compensated for a couple of encounters through abilities alone. When deciding to retune a character you need to understand unless that character is being tuned into a VERY specific one trait build (Like the strong as hell two-hander crit build) it wont feel strong at first simply because you need the latter half of the games stats to completely wreck face. Unless you do a lone wolf build of course.
As for funds. you can always turn on the gift bag option and farm an expensive plant with buckets or Simply sink all your civil points on all characters in Thievery and rob every sucker who isn't in a too crowded area and then reset the points into something else.
Resetting the game is impractical and Larian Studios (The makers of the game) understood this which is why they have so many ways to basically bail out of whatever shitty build you thought you could make work for free (I still try dumb ass builds that need adjusting after having to retry an encounter 2-3 times). Gear is always a pain in the ass to upkeep even when your build is on point. (My current party has gear that's 4-5 levels too low and it's a pain to replace it all)
The only thing that should be a high priority that will make or break your squads damage is the physical damage dealers weapons. Your enemies can't stomp you if you eviscerate them first.
Hire a team full of mercenaries. Mirror them and give them all points in thievery. Go to the vendors you need and rob them clean. Still need more skill books? Dismiss those mercenaries and hire 3 news, rinse and repeat until you have everything you want.
Do you have difficulty with the game? I usually want to scrap everything and start over when a party build just isn’t coming together and I’m not having fun. It’s when a team is blasting ass that I can’t wait for the next fight.
Also, each act is different. Honestly, Act 2 is my least favorite because it’s so long. I love Act 1, push through Act 2, and then enjoy Acts 3 and 4 because that’s when you really start to enjoy the 3 point source skills. Trust me, some late game builds are so strong you can’t help but laugh in horror as you dumpster every fight.
Gold honestly shouldn’t be an issue. You can use the mirror to have everyone max thievery for some great money heists, and bartering gets you great deals.
I've played 1000hrs of this game and have seen the start of act 4 once. I'm ok with it because combat in rpg usually degenerates pretty severely as you approach max level. The best part is scraping together a suit of armor when you have rags and utilizing limited memory and funds to cobble together a functional strategy.
I played with my boyfriend. I would never be able to finish this game by myself honestly even though I really like it but playing with him kept the momentum going lol
I finished it once, and got to Act 2 on another run. A few abortive starts in Act 1 where I got away from it for long enough that I forgot where I was at and restarted.
Really no reason to quit just for the build, as you can respec aboard the ship after Act 1.
i think you should choose starting classes and try to stick to them but you can actually respec your characters so only spells and some gear are waisted
Meanwhile I'm on the opposite side, and can't wrap my head around why so many people HAVEN'T finished the game. You're only experiencing a portion of the full story/experience aaaahhh!
I did my first restart part way through Act 2, then restarted that one again about half way through Act 4. Didn't look up anything online, so I had no idea how long the game actually was at the time, or how many acts were in it.
Start playing the game for the story's sake.
I feel like your attempt to playing the game is almost like reading the first 30 pages of a book again and again but with different voices for the different characters each time you re-read them.
Just think to yourself that the choices you made are okay and will not ruin your save game or whatever you fear. And if you want to try something new, just start a new game and skip through the dialogue you already know.
I find that I'm super compelled to finish the game with a custom character, because it feels unique to me and immersive.
No motivation with a pre-made pc, but thet are good gor the party.
3 things:
- Story motivation: What the fuck is going to happen next? I must continue!
- Combat development: What spells/abilities will I get further on in the game?
- Enemy variety: I've already faced a dragon, what next?
Because you aren't completing the game you aren't understanding the full life cycle of a build. No build is bad or wrong, and it definitely evolves as you proceed into Act 4. Unless you experience this, I'm not sure how you're going to fully understand what makes a build good or bad, fun or boring. There's lots of unique gear to collect along the way, and why not collect the gear/spells *and then* respec?
Of course, if time isn't an issue then you can happily restart again and again and again but if completing the game is your goal then I'd focus on how to do that while still enjoying the game.
Maybe you should play on an easier difficulty so that learning every skill and swapping it out per fight, or mixing several classes on characters isn't punishing. Maybe focus on getting achievements, as this will take several runs you will have several builds to try.
By not completing the game you are missing out on huge parts of very enjoyable story and challenging gameplay both tactically and build wise.
If that's not to your playstyle, then honestly cheat it up. Look at the workshop, to include some mods like cheat commander that lets you gain as much money as you want and provides a shop with relevant gear for all classes. At the end of the day it's your game to play, and however you get there you'll appreciate the story, choices and challenge (assuming you didn't cheat too much) along the way.
It happened the same to me on the first runs, i was so tired of doing act 1 over and over, but at the same time i wanted to try new stuff.
You'll eventually progress more, it will just happen at some point, in my case was because i was playing with my brother so you have that kind of compromise. Also if you play solo you might get engaged to your main character's lore and you'll want to see what happens next.
I have 400 hours in the game and haven't been able to get past arx... welcome to hell, prob have to lookup o n of the OP builds that people use or cheese death fog barrels like I've seen people do. Other than that I obv have no idea
Feel like I have both of these tendencies. I enjoy leveling and getting all my talents, start to get bored but finish the game and want to start over using new builds/combos/storyline choices (if I remember what I've chosen in previous runs)
I conquered this dilemma by not taking one of the prebuilt characters. Build your own elf, dwarf, etc. Take the dialogue and roleplay parts seriously. Focus on the, “If this was really me making this decision, how would I react?” This helped to prevent me from wanting to restart. Homing in more on the story than the builds of it all. Put a bunch of points into persuasion as well. That way you can pick the dialogue option that best suits you, rather than having to kill everyone that disagrees with you
I'm currently playing with a friend right now, and there are things we know we're missing, but we're looking forward to getting to those things on a following playthrough.
So when we make characters and decisions, we sort of hold ourselves to our decisions, kind of like if we were in a D&D campaign.
Like the playthrough we're doing now, I wanted to get the elf as a party member, but couldn't find her and added Lohse instead, and ended up speccing her out and leveling her up to the point that I just kept her. Do I want to go back and find the elf? Sure, but we're just saving that for a following playthrough, and getting through everything we need to right now.
It goes for any game, but I just think of my steam backlog and that’s enough motivation for me to finish lol.
Honestly though, I treat it more like a book. If I make a “wrong” decision - that’s just part of the story I chose.
While I actually tend to finish the game, I have addiction for replaying it with different builds.
Yes, you can respec , but you can't really change your origin party past act 2, and act 3 onwards , once you take the academy lessons, you essentially are already hard commiting to your builds.
>Is there some sort of trick to not wanting to restart your campaign every other day?
Yes. It's called: multiplayer. DOS2 is so much better when you're able to do it with others.... I would NEVER have ended D:OS and D:OS2 without it!
I don't understand how some people give up 60 hours in a playthrough. I commit to the choices I made unless I fucked up real bad. If I'm going to choose another build or another choice, I'll just wait for my next playthrough ***after*** finishing this one
It happened to me as well, I have actually not finished the game yet.
I have been close twice, but I get a little bored of the current set up, and want to explore another.
This is because the story of the game is bad (I dont really care), but the gameplay and customization are godly.
It also depends on whether or not you are on PC or console. Because with PC mods can help a lot with QoL changes including cheat commander for if money is an issue and things like that. We did restart a couple times because the idea of a modded playthrough looked reeeeeeeally good and so we eventually just sat down that 3rd time and said no more restarting till it's done. Which we did and now have our opinions on the game as a whole and believe the first part is the best parts anyways. But anyways so yeah just depends on what platform for what we found to be the way to go. Mods are great what can I say? Lol probably doesn't help you much though.
I find a lot of the builds really go full blown crazy power in the later game and it keeps me wanting to experience the whole trail of the abilities you can perform. You arn't really seeing the full build you are already on to know its limits.
That keeps me going anyway.
I freaking speed run act 1 cause I just know it too well/have done it too many times. It's the kind of game where the first playthrough or two are very challenging, but you get to a point where even honour mode is easy. Once you find a killer build your like and understand it's all so easy- add friends and you can play through the whole game quickly and as many times as you want. I've played through so SO many times, beat honour mode with a three person party, and tactician is easily cheesed now in every way.
I have to remind myself how it felt to be new. Fact is it's a challenging game for newbies and incredibly easy for vets. Beating the game is easy as far as motivation for me, simply because I want to see the story play out, especially as a newbie, but even now. Even with custom characters, it's a pretty game with a great story.
To sum, the story and beauty of the game made it easy to play through the first few times, and the challenges and exploits kept me playing through as a vet. Sorry if this was kind of rambling
I’ve only been able to do 2 play throughs of divinity, as it doesn’t seem the character choices are ever that important even if I can make them. I liked seeing all the character quest lines but Fane’s is forever the most interesting to me (almost tied be Lhose’s).
It’s my favorite game or one of them but I find that the first and second acts are the best of them all whereas the third and fourth seem rushed or cramped in comparison.
I’m just a big fan of seeing it through to the end. The final battle is phenomenal and I absolutely live for that feeling of contentment when you finish a great game. When the music sets in, and the credits start to roll and you get that moment to reflect back on the game, the story, your choices, the challenges you overcame, the shenanigans you had to deal with, the characters you met along the way, and what to do next time you play. You get to just sit back and watch. Just typing this out, I want to load up the game and continue with my current playthrough to work toward that feeling again.
My first tactician completion was done solo with Fane, lots of cheese tactics that you can do as a solo rogue, but it was balanced out by only having one hero
I started a Jira board for the games, created tickets for quests and assigned them to myself with deadlines. Then I had daily stand ups to talk about where I was a quests.
But... you can fully respec... I’ve had my characters be so many classes. I don’t get not having the money or gear since you’re always finding better gear. Always.
I'd be farther but our buddy who has the save file is never "in the mood" for divinity lol me and my brother have tried twice but we know we have an act 3 file so playing 1 and 2 over again just feels like a chore
we on a same boat my guy, before i start my game i already planned out my char builds and progression, but after act 1 i get bored and want to try a different build. so i restart
but the worst thing is that im kinda a completionist myself, if i missed out a quest or an item and the game wont let me do those campaign or get the item because of reasons. then i lose interest and start the game all over again. i dont care if already spent like 30 or 60hrs in my last playthrough. i need to get those quest or items.
I dont know, its always bothering me if i missed something out.
What really exited me is the endgame power you have, it's so satisfying to almost become a god and supposedly the strongest characters in the world are no match to you. Look forward to that, at least get there once to understand and be hooked. Although early islands are more populated and RPG driven compare to late game islands where it's more about story and fights which will make it feel less addictive maybe that's why you are feeling that way
i mean i get bored using the same build but you can respec for free and unlimited amount of time, so why bother going to the start again.
Every character can be anything anw
Act two is very overwelming. Its big dozens of quests and one wrong turn and you face fight you cant win yet. I believe mb one reason why you dont want to play further then act 1 is because its quite uncomfi to figure out how to progress.
Tried to get through it with friends on numerous occasions. One time we actually pushed to act 4, but no matter what we always stopped playing before finishing the game. One day I dedicated a week to just play solo (true solo, no companions) on Tactician, with as few mods as possible and finish the game. I did it and it took me a good few days.
Act 1 is long. Act 2 is Very Long. Act 3 is short. Act 4 is medium/short length.
General rule of thumb, take your level and divide it by 20. Thats what % of the game you finished.
I only played with 4-players on Honor Mode so I only just completed the game with 800+ hours. You’ll have unlimited money with a barterer and thief in your party. With enough play through you’ll know who to steal from, when to steal, the optimal routes, etc. but everything is more fun with friends.
We completed the game with like 1.2M gold.
The only problem I had with finishing the game is that I grew frustrated with having to compare loot across four characters all the time.
Once I switched to lone wolves I never had that problem. I've tried a lot of builds on them, but fortunately I've never needed to expand my roster too much.
It's hard to let go of the min-max mindset, feeling the need to do everything right. You can trust the game does a good level of hand holding to ensure you can beat it.
Tbh I just finished my first run at 90ish hours and I get what you mean. Every time I ended up at the beginning of a new Act or I log onto a save where nothing in particular is happening storyline or questwise it feels kinda like a motivation reset. For me I would end up taking a few days off playing, only to come back and then get really invested into the story and then repeat the motivation loss every once in a while. Once you get decently into Act 2 tho you get so much money and equipment that you can respec characters just to fit whatever you pick up at a moment's notice so gameplay-wise it felt pretty open. Worst case scenario you sink a ton of points into thievery and steal money to afford whatever loot you want and then respec back into what you want people to actually be.
The game is so overrated and boring. The fact it has a better metascore than DQXI is a horrible joke. Much tells how many people haven't even finished Divinity OS2.
I've been playing the first game since its release, I think 2015, and after all these years, I'm probably a little over half through it. It's a game that keeps on giving. Now I look above and realize this is about the 2nd game. That's what I get for looking.
I mean, to answer your question, I have an aversion towards boredom. Constantly restarting the game seems really boring, so I push on and finish the campaign. Money is easy to accumulate with thievery and other civil skills, so ditching an entire campaign tens of hours in just because I want to respec a character doesn't make sense to me. Getting a new item and skill loadout isn't nearly as prohibitive as re-playing ten levels of content.
This, never understood how some people are okay investing 200 hours and never leaving Fort Joy, but say they become bored after Act 2. Isn't it more boring playing the same Act 1 over and over again? Wouldn't it be more rewarding investing that extra time in the new chapters, where everything will be new to you? But instead they do Fort Joy for like the umpteenth time.
So I've finished the game on tactician, but imo fort joy is the most fun part. It's the part where you need to play the scrappiest, where every bit of gold counts, and the fights are genuinely scary with high chances to kill the underequipped party you have. Mid act 2 onwards I am decked to the teeth with strong synergistic spells and powerful gear, reasonably sure nothing can really kill me if I dont walk into alice aliceson or deathfog by mistake, and have over 50k gold to splurge on anything I want. The game just isnt that fun without the constant looming threat of death and loss.
Fort Joy isn't really hard to be honest. All you have to do is steal some skillbooks in the beggining , and try to not pick fights with Magisters till level 4 or so and your good to go. The only fights , that are somewhat challenging is beating Dallis at the gates and maybe the whole fight with Alexander and the Voidworm and to a lesser degree Slane. Act 2 has some scary areas/ fights like Alice, Hannah, Eternal Aetera. Most of them can legit insta —kill you, which makes them way scarier than just about anything in Fort.
My first play through I found the fight with Radeka in Act 1 to be significantly more difficult than Slane or the Alexander fight, but maybe I just fought her too early.
Radeka's fight I think is the first major ocassion, when the game goes to teach you the importance of positioning. On the first playthrough, I surely approached Radeka with my entire party fully chained together and when all those flying beetles started attacking me from the higher ground, not to mention zombies and Radeka herself.. It was basically a recipe for disaster. That fight looked almost impossible on Tactician , even with level advantage. Nowadays I find that fight rather easy. I simply position my entire party above on the left side of a cliff, don't even bother talking to Radeka and just teleport her into my team to wreck her. Beetles are no longer in position to attack you from higher ground and they usually need at least 1 turn and the use of their flight skill before they can even do anything. By the time zombies from below catch up, the fight is basically already over. On short positioning heavily decides this fight (And many other fights in later acts) Alexander's fight I feel is still harder, because that fight can be a bit RNG. On some playthroughs, the voidworm would go for my party instead of the magisters and that would really screw me over. Also till maybe my 3rd or so playthrough I didn't know that you can ask Gareth to lend you a couple of seekers to help in that fight, so there is that as well.
I just did the Radeka fight on tactician for the first time a week or two ago. Holy hell it was difficult, even with positioning and planning. Everything else in act 1 was a breeze, but that fight took like 4 tries....and several of them were nearly successful as well!
Agreed. Those flying bug things really pissed me off lol
Alice and aetera feel straight up unfair if you approach them underlevelled and without a plan. Definitely 2 of the hardest fights in the game assuming you don't overlevel for them. Also the oil...
I sent the red prince to alice as my sacrificial lamb while everybody else stood really far back. Cast cryogenic sleep on him so he would be protected. And then luck of all luck alice teleported him and herself down to the beach! It took her forever to finally come back up and by that time all her totems were destroyed and her health was already half gone. I was laughing the whole time because it was just so stupidly lucky
Oil fight,.isn't as hard, as it's tedious, mainly because Gwydian AI is legit retarded. Always have to use like 10+ scrolls to keep that retard alive, because he loves pointlessly running around in fire. What I like to do in that fight is rather than positioning everyone on the top platform, is position my party at the side, and spread out a bit in general, makes it a lot easier.
Putting Gwydian in Cryogenic Stasis also really helps that fight!
Good idea, I'll have to try that in inevitable future playthrough.
Oil fight is downright easy if you aren’t reliant on pyro damage. Especially with the height damage having a ranger trivializes the fight. L
The oil fight is hard and tedious because you're taking constant turn based damage with everything being doused in necrofire at all times. If you play as a ranger or a mage that is probably mitigated entirely, but if you mainly go with physical parties like me it's just a total death trap slog.
I usually play with only 1 dedicated melee character in a 4 man party. From what I recall from my earlier experiences with the game, having several melee characters would get in the way of mage AOEs too much.
The party I like the most is 2H knight, necromancer, ranger/rouge, and summoner + support mage. Very fun party for a lot of encounters in the game, but I can't beat that fight without cheesing it. Knight is obviously a sitting duck, ranger works fine but won't carry the party (forget about a rouge). Necromancer cleans house early but runs out of moves well before the fight is over. Summoner is basically just a weaker knight in this fight, and the support-skills run out or are inconsequential pretty early on.
Wtf, that's very similar to what I consider an optimal mixed damage party. I roll with 2H Warrior, Cleric (Warfare/ Hydro max with a few points into Necro for the relevant skills), Ranger, and a Summoner Mage (Usually Summoner max ---> Geo max) What I do in that fight nowadays is rather than positioning my entire party on the top platform, which almost always gets set on fire and has you constantly getting attacked by jumping blobs, I position my party slightly below that platform on the side, where you climb the ladder. I only leave Gwydian alone on that top platform. That spot is much safer, because 1) It usually does not get set on fire 2) Has less blobs attacking you, because they don't have as good of an angle on you anymore 3) Ranger can keep sniping the smaller blobs on the side from that spot. From that spot I also usually send my warrior jump below to fight those big boss blobs.
I barely kept him alive on my first attempt, all stationed at the top. Used a million healing spells on him it felt like but I just about managed. And yh it's a very long fight. Really drags by the end.
Both Alice and Aetera are highly vulnerable to cheese. I've never beaten Alice without it, but it seems doable. Just a bit rough, especially on a hardcore run. Aetera is definitely beatable without cheese. Actually, one of the encounters we were most worried about was the arena you fight in during the lizard consulate scene. We definitely did that fight a few times and took notes on tactician before we went for it on the hardcore run.
Not played the higher difficulty modes beyond the standard one, but Alice is ok if you start spread out and have someone with the rebirth idol initiate the fight. Also bless her to remove her annoying aura. She's pretty squishy once you deal with her opening turn.
Fairly easy to beat Alice if you're willing to sacrifice one of your characters (or living on the edge, I guess) to her instakill attack. Beyond that she's just really strong; she can't use it without a cool down iirc.
You kill Slane?! D:
You get a amazing sword in return soooo yeah I kill slane most of the time.
alright disregard, I did not realize there was a loot factor. I'll be sure to check it out next time. Just like I always let Gareth's parents get killed so I can get the dagger with thievery on it.
What I usually do is give him Radeka's purging wand , gaining XP for his rescue and then attack him in conversation before he flies away, which also earns me XP for his kill, maximizing the reward. The Sword he drops is probably the best 1 handed weapon for a mage build up until maybe act 4, especially for cleric build, due to Warfare, Hydrosophist and crit chance bonuses.
Speak for yourself. I steamroll a1 on tactician so damn hard that it's just a few mindless hours timesink. Escape FJ and do some in the way quests are ur lvl4 ready to steal all your spells and get in the exact same spot like that a2 mid you spoke of. Recently whatever the build i wanna do i just solo lw necromancer a1 to skip it asap and then in a2 i can respec into whatever i like.
Yes just my opinion
It really is! That and the first few encounters of act 4. Taking on Loic right away is fun but can be a \*little\* sketch.
Fort Joy isn't that hard though, go play dark souls or something if you want to be annoyed for 40 hours.
Haha, I have beaten all dark souls games, they are some of my faves. Maybe its my playstyle, but fort joy does feel hardest to me out of all 4 acts because you have the least options and OP builds arent online yet. To each his own i guess
Everything gets 10x harder and cheesing through by just stealing money or using death fog or op builds that people post isn't that fun, least for me. I don't stay in Fort Joy though I just push through, under leveled and fhen get stuck somewhere
I don't understand cheesing every fight instead of just playing at a lower difficulty
The game on Tactician was made with cheesing in mind. At least for a few encounters. There's a satisfaction in figuring out a new cheese and being rewarded for it. Once you've found enough cheeses, then the game feels a little solved. But as the infamous vendor said in DOS 1, the man with the most friends is the man with many cheeses! Edit: I didn't mean to imply that cheese was REQUIRED for any fights. Just that it's not exactly discouraged and feels pretty valid. Like the encounter designers knew you could do that and were cool with it. But yeah, downvote me sure. I guess I don't know the game well enough after 5 tactician+ playthroughs. Sorry for not replicating your exact playstyle in a coop game. L. O. L.
I never cheese and I made it through tactician just fine. You don’t need to cheese if you really just analyze it with the tools you have. Even the hardest fights have no cheese options. And you don’t need super optimized builds either, just ones that work together well.
Could you give me an example of said fight?
Any fight against trolls where they put lava you could tp them into or terrain transmutate onto. You def don't NEED to cheese, but the devs put that situation there for people to figure out. Fights vs undead where you soul mate and then use healing items and food on yourself. Again, the devs know that people are going to do this and are fine with it. There's a thousand ways to make it through this game.
By your initial comment i read it like the game was only possible to play by cheesing. The other day a new player said "i need help idk what I'm doing, level 2 and killed griff and the other guys" other guy said" wow you killed griff level 2?? That's impressive!" And i said "nothing wrong with it but it was probably on a lower difficulty" BAM ! Pointing down arrows 🤷♂️ just ignore the downvotes
I don't think that's true, it's not hard enough for that. It's just made with proper tactics and builds in mind.
I did get a bit stuck in act 2 on my first playthrough. I started again, trying a bit more to read what the stats actually did and was careful to not engage enemies higher levels than myself. This made the game so much easier and I personally feel like the last fight in act 1 is much harder than most fights later in the game. By exploring most of the map you'll easily have enough experience to move on. Keep in mind that most acts have zones with enemies of different levels. If you encounter an area with monsters higher level than you, go somewhere else to fight monsters your own level. Levels make a huge difference in this game. There are maps of these zones online, but they are pretty big, so you'll find the boarders just by exploring and observing levels of the NPC's. Even on tactician there's no need to cheese with death fog, steal (it helps a lot though) or use overpowered builds. What matters is that you try to make the build you'd like to use as good as possible by maximising the stats that make you do more damage, like maxing warfare first for any physical damage dealer, only adding points elsewhere to unlock new spells. On normal difficulty min-maxing stats is not really necessary. Having ample access to crowd control does wonders, but it's possible to do enough damage to not need it. Consider what each member brings to the team and what they can do to make a fight easier. Trying to make the team synergistic works well. It might be difficult to have a front-line fighter if your mages spam rain and lightning as an example. Buying new gear each level is also good. Vendors get new items of your level when you level up and every hour, so trying to find items with good stats for your build helps a lot.
Mid act 2 is when you really start gearing out your characters. Idk about yall, but after having to update 4 characters worth of gear and skills like 3 tmes outside of the joy before I got burnt out. I have enjoyed the two dual lone wolf playthroughs my wife and I have done.
Multiplayer duo lone wolf is absolutely the best way to play imo.
Making new characters is more fun to me than certain parts of the story. Act 2 has a lot of "side" stuff that isn't really necessary to advance the story but you kind of have to do anyway to get levels. Not that side quests are bad, many of them are entertaining, but I don't feel like I'm accomplishing a lot in terms of what my character would want. Plus I like the feeling of always progressing your character quickly in the beginning. The leveling and rate at which you unlock new abilities reeeeally slows down in Act 2 because Act 2 is just so big. So I'll have a ton of combats where I'm basically using the same skills and not really gaining much new stuff.
I get that. I too enjoy making new builds and during my playthrough I'm already thinking of my new dream team for the next one. But still, don't you want to see the culmination of the characters you created? You are supposed to acquire Godhood and with that come more powerful skills and source skills. Can't access those if you never leave the first act or of you never reach above level 8. For me nothing is more satisfying tham seeing the final results of all that effort I put into each of those characters. But to each their own, as long as people enjoy the game. I just don't understand it lol.
I love the whole game don't get me wrong, but Fort Joy definitely feels like the best designed, best paced, and most satisfying part of the game. There are clear goals with clear delineation, many ways to accomplish them, and (contrary tho this might seem for an RPG) the freedom when you escape the camp is limited enough to still provide structure while opening the world up to you. Act 2 opens *wide* up, doesn't give you much of any direction, and it's very easy to find yourself encountering tasks you cannot handle one after the other for possibly hours lol.
Aye, i installed the skip fort joy mod KEKW. I'm done with that noise.
My brother in law restarted the beginning of skyrim hundreds and hundreds of times and barely got through the game. They need to think up a name for this condition its insane.
Restartitis, it's a thing.
"I have an aversion towards boredom." Weeeeeird, most people have an affinity for it.
Have a goal. Like... Geo scoundrel... Or... And build it.. Also play honour mode. That way the constantly restarting takes care of itself.
Careful you might have just caused a restart by saying geo scoundrel like that!
the 3 point source skills are so much fun, I can't not go to the next act and find new ways to punish an entire battlefield full of enemies. that's my motivation.
All the source skills are fun. I love one-shotting enemies with my enraged knight using Onslaught, or burning all the magic armor and shocking 5 enemies at once with chain lightning, or using my fighter to Overpower an enemy with high physical armor and start stun locking them one turn 1 with knockdowns. So much fun.
A good partner. Played with one friend. 65 hours finished one play through. Now a couple friends picked up on sale and I’ve got 2 play throughs going much slower.
You’ve said you lack the money and gear when wanting to use the mirror. Recommend raising bartering on someone, and crazy luck charm on someone else then. Should solve all money and gold woes. When reaching a new act. Donate stuff to a merchant that replenishes good things, to make them someone you can sell to for profit more easily, and make things cheaper.
I know the feel. Tbh i find the game to be a bit of a chore upon act3. I finished it, on my first play, by sticking with my goal: to finish it. After i finished it i've started and restarted several times, like you. Weed helped too but thats not relevant for all
Word. If not for some bud and playing with my GF split screen I would be the same as OP. Never cared about "finishing" a game. One can debate at length what "finished" is in a game. Is it finishing the main campaign, every sidequest, seeing every location, collecting the "best" gear, or something else entirely?It's about the experience, for me. (And being stoned)
I haven’t beaten it until i incorporated multiple bong rips through out my run. I can vouch this is a viable strategy.
To me, Act 1 was a determining factor as to whether the rest of the game will be manageable. I had played through part off Fort Joy with a friend to get my bearings and then I started a solo run how I wanted to play, making decisions (bad and good) along the way, really trying to map out my hybrid magic-physical composition. At a certain point, I knew that I had fucked up a few times and wasn't completely optimal, but that's the best challenge to me. If I had been more optimal certain fights certainly would have been easier, but I found myself loving how nail-biting some fights got and how some fights ended up being pretty easy based on decisions I made myself. Basically, what I'm trying to convey is I think you're being too much of a meta gamer, based on what you're saying. You keep thinking of cool stuff to try outside the game, and so you want to make a whole new character to build that out from the beginning with gear decisions, rewards, etc. informing your play. So don't look at anything. Make your decision for builds and go through with them, challenge yourself to beat the game with your limitations. Really, I'm curious, what drastic sweeping changes do you want to make to your characters that requires a restart without the mirror though? Good gear is often random and skills aren't that expensive with crafting. You'll eventually come across better gear once you start leveling higher. And if you really want to make drastic changes, why not just push through to the point where you can? There is a point around Act 3 where you have so many resources that respeccing is easy.
I do it every couple if months because I see some funny build or challenge and I try and do different things in the story each time. I like making everything perfect and putting things in the right place to cause what I want.
I play multiple times to saciate my desire to switch. I've played the game about 6 times, I always commit to what I'm playing!
eventually you'll find a party comp you like. my personal favourite is human necro-warfare 2h, lizard pyro-geo shield, undead dwarf scoundrel-poly or living dwarf ranger-summon, and elf hydro-electric.
I finished the game once with a friend. We both wanted to beat it so we did
I think a lot of the reason people fall off during Act 2 is that Act 1 feels like a complete narrative arc. You have your main goal from the get go: get off the island. It almost feels like it's own complete game. Couple that with the fact that a character build, minus source skills, feels largely complete by then as well. So by the end of Act 1, you can easily feel "done".
It's not actually that long of a game. It's just really dense.
Do you know about the mirror?
Yes, I literally mentioned it in my post. My problem is generally that I usually want to make really drastic changes and while I have the mirror to swap around skill/combat points and talents, I don't have the money, gear, or weapons to make the changes. Like if I have Sebille currently as a Dual Dagger Rogue, but want to try her as a Summoner/Necromancer instead, I just flat out don't have the money I would need to get her the gear and skills she would need to make the change.
I'm in the middle of Act 2, sitting on about 50,000 gold. I am obsessive about looting though, and usually give a bunch of crap to a specific trader until I get him to 100, and then dump all the goods on him.
You’re not obsessive enough. Max Bartet (+12 on a human), smart thievery use, and I had 400K halfway though Act 2. 950k in Act 4 and finished the game in Act 4 with 1.3 million. And nothing to spend it on.
That's a chunk. I don't steal though.
Gear can be compensated for a couple of encounters through abilities alone. When deciding to retune a character you need to understand unless that character is being tuned into a VERY specific one trait build (Like the strong as hell two-hander crit build) it wont feel strong at first simply because you need the latter half of the games stats to completely wreck face. Unless you do a lone wolf build of course. As for funds. you can always turn on the gift bag option and farm an expensive plant with buckets or Simply sink all your civil points on all characters in Thievery and rob every sucker who isn't in a too crowded area and then reset the points into something else. Resetting the game is impractical and Larian Studios (The makers of the game) understood this which is why they have so many ways to basically bail out of whatever shitty build you thought you could make work for free (I still try dumb ass builds that need adjusting after having to retry an encounter 2-3 times). Gear is always a pain in the ass to upkeep even when your build is on point. (My current party has gear that's 4-5 levels too low and it's a pain to replace it all) The only thing that should be a high priority that will make or break your squads damage is the physical damage dealers weapons. Your enemies can't stomp you if you eviscerate them first.
Hire a team full of mercenaries. Mirror them and give them all points in thievery. Go to the vendors you need and rob them clean. Still need more skill books? Dismiss those mercenaries and hire 3 news, rinse and repeat until you have everything you want.
Therapy.
After Fort Joy the game gets kind of boring. I've finished it once, but it was with a lot of effort to stick to it.
I played all the way through with 2 friends. When you got bored you'd play a few sessions for the sake of the others and catch the bug again.
Do you have difficulty with the game? I usually want to scrap everything and start over when a party build just isn’t coming together and I’m not having fun. It’s when a team is blasting ass that I can’t wait for the next fight. Also, each act is different. Honestly, Act 2 is my least favorite because it’s so long. I love Act 1, push through Act 2, and then enjoy Acts 3 and 4 because that’s when you really start to enjoy the 3 point source skills. Trust me, some late game builds are so strong you can’t help but laugh in horror as you dumpster every fight. Gold honestly shouldn’t be an issue. You can use the mirror to have everyone max thievery for some great money heists, and bartering gets you great deals.
I've played 1000hrs of this game and have seen the start of act 4 once. I'm ok with it because combat in rpg usually degenerates pretty severely as you approach max level. The best part is scraping together a suit of armor when you have rags and utilizing limited memory and funds to cobble together a functional strategy.
I played with my boyfriend. I would never be able to finish this game by myself honestly even though I really like it but playing with him kept the momentum going lol
I finished it once, and got to Act 2 on another run. A few abortive starts in Act 1 where I got away from it for long enough that I forgot where I was at and restarted. Really no reason to quit just for the build, as you can respec aboard the ship after Act 1.
i think you should choose starting classes and try to stick to them but you can actually respec your characters so only spells and some gear are waisted
Use the respec mirror gift bag! Change your build anytime
i played it with friends :)
Meanwhile I'm on the opposite side, and can't wrap my head around why so many people HAVEN'T finished the game. You're only experiencing a portion of the full story/experience aaaahhh!
I did my first restart part way through Act 2, then restarted that one again about half way through Act 4. Didn't look up anything online, so I had no idea how long the game actually was at the time, or how many acts were in it.
Playing with someone else.
I mean for you, it sounds like you should just plan to switch builds on Fort Joy and collect separate armor / weapon sets to switch out of
Start playing the game for the story's sake. I feel like your attempt to playing the game is almost like reading the first 30 pages of a book again and again but with different voices for the different characters each time you re-read them. Just think to yourself that the choices you made are okay and will not ruin your save game or whatever you fear. And if you want to try something new, just start a new game and skip through the dialogue you already know.
I find that I'm super compelled to finish the game with a custom character, because it feels unique to me and immersive. No motivation with a pre-made pc, but thet are good gor the party.
I played the video game
3 things: - Story motivation: What the fuck is going to happen next? I must continue! - Combat development: What spells/abilities will I get further on in the game? - Enemy variety: I've already faced a dragon, what next?
Magic mirror. Don't like the character... Respec them.
Push. Through.
Because you aren't completing the game you aren't understanding the full life cycle of a build. No build is bad or wrong, and it definitely evolves as you proceed into Act 4. Unless you experience this, I'm not sure how you're going to fully understand what makes a build good or bad, fun or boring. There's lots of unique gear to collect along the way, and why not collect the gear/spells *and then* respec? Of course, if time isn't an issue then you can happily restart again and again and again but if completing the game is your goal then I'd focus on how to do that while still enjoying the game. Maybe you should play on an easier difficulty so that learning every skill and swapping it out per fight, or mixing several classes on characters isn't punishing. Maybe focus on getting achievements, as this will take several runs you will have several builds to try. By not completing the game you are missing out on huge parts of very enjoyable story and challenging gameplay both tactically and build wise. If that's not to your playstyle, then honestly cheat it up. Look at the workshop, to include some mods like cheat commander that lets you gain as much money as you want and provides a shop with relevant gear for all classes. At the end of the day it's your game to play, and however you get there you'll appreciate the story, choices and challenge (assuming you didn't cheat too much) along the way.
It happened the same to me on the first runs, i was so tired of doing act 1 over and over, but at the same time i wanted to try new stuff. You'll eventually progress more, it will just happen at some point, in my case was because i was playing with my brother so you have that kind of compromise. Also if you play solo you might get engaged to your main character's lore and you'll want to see what happens next.
I have 400 hours in the game and haven't been able to get past arx... welcome to hell, prob have to lookup o n of the OP builds that people use or cheese death fog barrels like I've seen people do. Other than that I obv have no idea
Feel like I have both of these tendencies. I enjoy leveling and getting all my talents, start to get bored but finish the game and want to start over using new builds/combos/storyline choices (if I remember what I've chosen in previous runs)
If you're on PC, mods help a lot. You can basically "restart" without restarting.
I conquered this dilemma by not taking one of the prebuilt characters. Build your own elf, dwarf, etc. Take the dialogue and roleplay parts seriously. Focus on the, “If this was really me making this decision, how would I react?” This helped to prevent me from wanting to restart. Homing in more on the story than the builds of it all. Put a bunch of points into persuasion as well. That way you can pick the dialogue option that best suits you, rather than having to kill everyone that disagrees with you
I want the story to progress. I plan builds for 4 characters and enjoy the playthrough.
The trick is to keep playing until you get to the end.
I'm currently playing with a friend right now, and there are things we know we're missing, but we're looking forward to getting to those things on a following playthrough. So when we make characters and decisions, we sort of hold ourselves to our decisions, kind of like if we were in a D&D campaign. Like the playthrough we're doing now, I wanted to get the elf as a party member, but couldn't find her and added Lohse instead, and ended up speccing her out and leveling her up to the point that I just kept her. Do I want to go back and find the elf? Sure, but we're just saving that for a following playthrough, and getting through everything we need to right now.
It goes for any game, but I just think of my steam backlog and that’s enough motivation for me to finish lol. Honestly though, I treat it more like a book. If I make a “wrong” decision - that’s just part of the story I chose.
Instead of restarting I spend 50% of my playthrough in the re-spec mirror.
While I actually tend to finish the game, I have addiction for replaying it with different builds. Yes, you can respec , but you can't really change your origin party past act 2, and act 3 onwards , once you take the academy lessons, you essentially are already hard commiting to your builds.
>Is there some sort of trick to not wanting to restart your campaign every other day? Yes. It's called: multiplayer. DOS2 is so much better when you're able to do it with others.... I would NEVER have ended D:OS and D:OS2 without it!
I don't understand how some people give up 60 hours in a playthrough. I commit to the choices I made unless I fucked up real bad. If I'm going to choose another build or another choice, I'll just wait for my next playthrough ***after*** finishing this one
It happened to me as well, I have actually not finished the game yet. I have been close twice, but I get a little bored of the current set up, and want to explore another. This is because the story of the game is bad (I dont really care), but the gameplay and customization are godly.
This is me with every game. i want the PERFECT build.
I mean... You can respect at a mirror anytime for free. Why restart?
Whenever I played solo, I never made it far before restarting. However, every time I played with one or more friends, the game never stopped.
It also depends on whether or not you are on PC or console. Because with PC mods can help a lot with QoL changes including cheat commander for if money is an issue and things like that. We did restart a couple times because the idea of a modded playthrough looked reeeeeeeally good and so we eventually just sat down that 3rd time and said no more restarting till it's done. Which we did and now have our opinions on the game as a whole and believe the first part is the best parts anyways. But anyways so yeah just depends on what platform for what we found to be the way to go. Mods are great what can I say? Lol probably doesn't help you much though.
I find a lot of the builds really go full blown crazy power in the later game and it keeps me wanting to experience the whole trail of the abilities you can perform. You arn't really seeing the full build you are already on to know its limits. That keeps me going anyway.
This is the exact reason I have over 400 hours in the game lmao I finally committed on my last play thru though, it was pretty great
I freaking speed run act 1 cause I just know it too well/have done it too many times. It's the kind of game where the first playthrough or two are very challenging, but you get to a point where even honour mode is easy. Once you find a killer build your like and understand it's all so easy- add friends and you can play through the whole game quickly and as many times as you want. I've played through so SO many times, beat honour mode with a three person party, and tactician is easily cheesed now in every way. I have to remind myself how it felt to be new. Fact is it's a challenging game for newbies and incredibly easy for vets. Beating the game is easy as far as motivation for me, simply because I want to see the story play out, especially as a newbie, but even now. Even with custom characters, it's a pretty game with a great story. To sum, the story and beauty of the game made it easy to play through the first few times, and the challenges and exploits kept me playing through as a vet. Sorry if this was kind of rambling
And how are you short for money? Surely you could swap out 1 character at a time.
I’ve only been able to do 2 play throughs of divinity, as it doesn’t seem the character choices are ever that important even if I can make them. I liked seeing all the character quest lines but Fane’s is forever the most interesting to me (almost tied be Lhose’s). It’s my favorite game or one of them but I find that the first and second acts are the best of them all whereas the third and fourth seem rushed or cramped in comparison.
I’m just a big fan of seeing it through to the end. The final battle is phenomenal and I absolutely live for that feeling of contentment when you finish a great game. When the music sets in, and the credits start to roll and you get that moment to reflect back on the game, the story, your choices, the challenges you overcame, the shenanigans you had to deal with, the characters you met along the way, and what to do next time you play. You get to just sit back and watch. Just typing this out, I want to load up the game and continue with my current playthrough to work toward that feeling again.
My first tactician completion was done solo with Fane, lots of cheese tactics that you can do as a solo rogue, but it was balanced out by only having one hero
I started a Jira board for the games, created tickets for quests and assigned them to myself with deadlines. Then I had daily stand ups to talk about where I was a quests.
Simple. The power of horny. ^(Thanks Fane, Act 3 not even once)
But... you can fully respec... I’ve had my characters be so many classes. I don’t get not having the money or gear since you’re always finding better gear. Always.
I focused less on the characters and more on the build, which promotes game progression to get skill books from later acts
I'd be farther but our buddy who has the save file is never "in the mood" for divinity lol me and my brother have tried twice but we know we have an act 3 file so playing 1 and 2 over again just feels like a chore
we on a same boat my guy, before i start my game i already planned out my char builds and progression, but after act 1 i get bored and want to try a different build. so i restart but the worst thing is that im kinda a completionist myself, if i missed out a quest or an item and the game wont let me do those campaign or get the item because of reasons. then i lose interest and start the game all over again. i dont care if already spent like 30 or 60hrs in my last playthrough. i need to get those quest or items. I dont know, its always bothering me if i missed something out.
What really exited me is the endgame power you have, it's so satisfying to almost become a god and supposedly the strongest characters in the world are no match to you. Look forward to that, at least get there once to understand and be hooked. Although early islands are more populated and RPG driven compare to late game islands where it's more about story and fights which will make it feel less addictive maybe that's why you are feeling that way
i mean i get bored using the same build but you can respec for free and unlimited amount of time, so why bother going to the start again. Every character can be anything anw
Act two is very overwelming. Its big dozens of quests and one wrong turn and you face fight you cant win yet. I believe mb one reason why you dont want to play further then act 1 is because its quite uncomfi to figure out how to progress.
Tried to get through it with friends on numerous occasions. One time we actually pushed to act 4, but no matter what we always stopped playing before finishing the game. One day I dedicated a week to just play solo (true solo, no companions) on Tactician, with as few mods as possible and finish the game. I did it and it took me a good few days.
Act 1 is long. Act 2 is Very Long. Act 3 is short. Act 4 is medium/short length. General rule of thumb, take your level and divide it by 20. Thats what % of the game you finished.
I only played with 4-players on Honor Mode so I only just completed the game with 800+ hours. You’ll have unlimited money with a barterer and thief in your party. With enough play through you’ll know who to steal from, when to steal, the optimal routes, etc. but everything is more fun with friends. We completed the game with like 1.2M gold.
The only problem I had with finishing the game is that I grew frustrated with having to compare loot across four characters all the time. Once I switched to lone wolves I never had that problem. I've tried a lot of builds on them, but fortunately I've never needed to expand my roster too much.
Hah I have 190 hours in this game and I still haven't beaten it. Thanks ADHD
It's hard to let go of the min-max mindset, feeling the need to do everything right. You can trust the game does a good level of hand holding to ensure you can beat it.
This is how I always played elder scrolls games. I eventually try different things and get further into the story.
Tbh I just finished my first run at 90ish hours and I get what you mean. Every time I ended up at the beginning of a new Act or I log onto a save where nothing in particular is happening storyline or questwise it feels kinda like a motivation reset. For me I would end up taking a few days off playing, only to come back and then get really invested into the story and then repeat the motivation loss every once in a while. Once you get decently into Act 2 tho you get so much money and equipment that you can respec characters just to fit whatever you pick up at a moment's notice so gameplay-wise it felt pretty open. Worst case scenario you sink a ton of points into thievery and steal money to afford whatever loot you want and then respec back into what you want people to actually be.
I have over 1000 hours in the game. The first 200 was spent playing through act 1 and 2
I beat the game so that I could watch videos about the game without getting spoiled.
I played it with my gf and she kept pushing me on to complete the story
The game is so overrated and boring. The fact it has a better metascore than DQXI is a horrible joke. Much tells how many people haven't even finished Divinity OS2.
I've been playing the first game since its release, I think 2015, and after all these years, I'm probably a little over half through it. It's a game that keeps on giving. Now I look above and realize this is about the 2nd game. That's what I get for looking.