how difficult is the game?

[Kyzonu]

a lot of these "old school" style RPGs have tight character/party building and if you put points into the wrong abilities, you might find yourself unable to progress through the game.

with games like these being so dialog heavy, it's unbearable for me to start over, but making good choices in your first playthrough is kind of paradoxical since you need to know the game before having played it - and i prefer to do my own thing rather than following guides

i started playing on normal difficulty - or whatever its called - and had a somewhat challenging time exploring the first area out of the city, which i imagine will only get worse from there. i know i can change to easy if i find myself struggling, but i don't enjoy games that are too easy either.

all this build-up to ask the following question: can i play through the game (on normal) without reading guides, assuming i don't spend points on silly things (like int on a warrior or str on a mage)? my characters were a 1h+S warrior, a summoner, the archer ally and the mage ally (still don't know how to write their names).

as a follow-up question: is quick-loading supposed to be used often as you play through the game? using it so much feels like an exploit, but it seems unavoidable with so many random mechanics and traps that one-shot your characters

[HEX: SOLO QUEUE]

I'm playing on the lowest difficulty and there are still tons of ways to ♥♥♥♥ up, block progression, get 1 shot with traps, etc. I've spent quite a bit of time looking ♥♥♥♥ up, especially videos for some of the puzzles.

[Leoscar]

You should quick save as often as possible. Never know when you'll encounter overleved ennemies.

[JCourtney]

First playthrough on Tactican for me. You might as well make it a challenge.

[Koboldshark]

I've always been pretty bad at these kinds of games (getting stuck in KOTOR...) but I'm level 15 right now and haven't been having too much trouble. Or rather, when I do have trouble, I don't ever feel like I'm stuck. Most encounters and bosses have some trick you can use to defeat them that you can figure out without having to use a guide. I save before every fight but try not to load over and over when things go wrong. The thing I do find myself using a guide for is crafting, and I looked up some basic ideas for builds but that's all.

[Dragon]

A lot of the puzzles & traps of this game are very obscure, so for those reasons, I doubt you will be able to get through the whole game without consulting with guides from time to time.

However, you don't need to read guides 24/7 while playing the game. You can just play normally, and then consult a guide during the times when you become really stuck.

Misspending your points is definitely a very bad thing to do in this game, as respeccing comes really late in the game, and is way too expensive to do. So best to research what your points do before you spend them.

As for quickloading too much: if you get one-shotted by traps, then yes, that's normal to quickload all the time for that reason. That's typical.

However, what isn't typical is: some players take quickloading to an unhealthy extreme, such as by quickloading every time a strike or spell fails during combat. That is not a good thing to do, nor is it necessary. For players who feel the need to do that, it's because they don't understand the game's mechanics properly.

[Y8S8]

I spent a lot of time theorycrafting builds in my first playthrough but felt it wasn't worth it in the end. There's a limited number of fights and things like environmental damage and Master-tier skills/spells trivialized many of these encounters.

IMO for your first playthrough just do whatever you want. Lower the difficulty if you need to. You shouldn't have much issue if you keep to focused builds (spellcaster, warrior, archer) and keep to the level ranges (only engage things at your level or lesser).

Abuse save/load as much as you want because there's some really some random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in this game like a lvl 8 monster in a lvl 4 area, instant-killing you at the end of a dialogue option, your team mates pathing into lava, etc. IT IS NOT THE MOST POLISHED GAME.

[Reality]

Save loads aren't really needed for combat (some people claim their are some first turn fights that full party CC them but they just don't understand the beauty of stacking the CON stat) Much more oftan that you are the one doing it..

The trap areas deserve some save loading, but the automatic autosaves work okay. This game tends to completely segregate trap areas and combat dungeons, for better or worse - It's nice that you don't need an always-on Theif charather, but it's annoying because their are 3(arguably 4) Dungeons that are 100% trap areas with no combat and all of them are obnoxious. I recomend save-trialing through all of them, and for the last few (most annoying) cheese completely by going out of your way to craft 100% fire resitance (AND immunity to burning special effect which is seperate from normal fire damage) - When in doubt - use the teleport (air spell) on your own charthers then use the inventory menu to twink items between them remotely and of course the walk on air (scoundrel spell).

Builds aren't needed. Game rewards both "multi classing" which is what you'd use a build for, and going all-in with common sense Strength Warriors, Intelligence Wizards, etc. Difficulty also falls off a lot after midgame and end-game is a joke.

[v0]

i wouldnt worry too much on normal. even with incomplete info game gives you. make sure to read skill descriptions though. anyway most of my time was spent on puzzles not retrying battles.

[gregfromthepeg]

I found for both Divinity games, and as someone who hasn't played many video games in a long time, that the starts were tougher as you can go in different directions and accidentally run into enemies too high in levels etc. You also need good gear so it can take awhile. I found the games a little easier in the second half. And some builds are very slow to become good. (Looking at you, rogue).

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

How difficult is the game? How OCD are you? The inventory and UI could put you over the edge. The actual gameplay is that hard though.

[Yoko]

Originally posted by Kyzonu:

a lot of these "old school" style RPGs have tight character/party building and if you put points into the wrong abilities, you might find yourself unable to progress through the game.

with games like these being so dialog heavy, it's unbearable for me to start over, but making good choices in your first playthrough is kind of paradoxical since you need to know the game before having played it - and i prefer to do my own thing rather than following guides

i started playing on normal difficulty - or whatever its called - and had a somewhat challenging time exploring the first area out of the city, which i imagine will only get worse from there. i know i can change to easy if i find myself struggling, but i don't enjoy games that are too easy either.

all this build-up to ask the following question: can i play through the game (on normal) without reading guides, assuming i don't spend points on silly things (like int on a warrior or str on a mage)? my characters were a 1h+S warrior, a summoner, the archer ally and the mage ally (still don't know how to write their names).

as a follow-up question: is quick-loading supposed to be used often as you play through the game? using it so much feels like an exploit, but it seems unavoidable with so many random mechanics and traps that one-shot your characters

[JCourtney]

It's more annoying than hard due to poor game design. Tedious.

[/^^\461|[ 834||]

It's a chalenging game, but in a different way than most, you have to use your head a lot. I mean really, you have to be quite smart with this game, and if you are smart with it, it can actually be quite easy.

It's normally difficult at first to learn any new oldschool RPG like divinity, or say Baldurs Gate, Pillars etc because you have no idea the deeper implications of spells and talents typically have or what to interpret as an "average" combat experience. Overall, most of the difficulty is getting over how different Divinity Original Sin is from a lot of other games, even RPG's, once you start playing it like Divinity, and not the other RPG's you have in mind, it becomes very rewarding.

[Odahviing]

Man I love DOS2 and finished it in Classic, but playing this game after already having completed the sequel, all I can do is note the obvious glaring and frustrating mechanics of the series which this game just elevates to the whole new level. The whole game feels like a slog which I never felt in DOS2 and I find the difficulty terribly unhinged. I started the game in Classic, but then changed it to Explorer instead of spending time reloading a failed fight. Pacing feels better now since the whole journey is sort of a huge slog anyway.

[LezDole]

It is one of the most frustrating experiences I had in gaming. Incredibly fun combat system, plagued by "adventure" like puzzles, that just completely kill the rhythm in this game. Puzzles are really obscure, without any prior explanation, and often lock you down from experience and story progression. Its almost impossible to finish the game without looking up stuff online. The game simply enjoys to confuse you in every single way, except in the combat, which is plain down amazing. I would never buy this game if I had a prior knowledge of whats its about, luckily Im close to finishing it (I have to again pass another puzzle which is literally in the final room of the game), and would never touch this ♥♥♥♥ again.