Looking to get little more details about DOS1

[Lepakko]

I have been playing DOS2 and loving it. I been trying read most topics how they are diffirent. Still want to know little more.

Main thing is how unbalanced the combat gets? I know DOS1 has no armor/shield system so cant block CC. CC is % hit chance based and can be buffed go near 100% right? Dont this make combat based luck in early part and later when you buff CC % high it comes cake walk after you can CC lock enemies if you can do first hit? Do CC abilites come too powerful and make pure attack spells less good? Like in DOS2 you need some attack spell/abilities get armor/shield down. Then you shoot CC.

I heard story, characters, writing and first hours are wosre in DOS1. Is this true in most part?

I started DOS2 with highest difficulty but kept unlimired saves up. Difficulty feels really good. I enjoy hard fights. How is the difficulty in DOS1? Easier or harder than DOS2?

Thanks for any feedback. Trying to figure if its worth buy DOS1 in this sale.

[Dragon]

If you play on the highest difficulties, Tactician or Honor, then the game is certainly not a cakewalk. It's epically hard. It took me 175 hours to beat Tactician on a completionist run on my first playthrough (I'm sure the game can be beaten way faster, but I took my sweet time to enjoy everything, like the game is meant to be played IMO).

Many people complain that's also too hard for them on Normal mode.

IMO the statements about it being too easy are greatly exaggerated.

Yes, the story & characters in DOS 1 are worse than DOS 2. On the other hand, DOS 1 has a much more interesting & varied world in terms of environments and monsters.

No, the first hours of DOS 1 are not worse than in DOS 2. People say that because DOS 1 you starts you off with a mission to solve a complicated mystery, but the game does not at all hold your hand about where to go & what to do in order to accomplish it. So the people who complain about the start of DOS 1 do so because they get stuck on that mission.

DOS 2 is actually almost exactly the same in this regard. Tons of players complain about DOS 2 in that they don't know how to progress in Fort Joy, and that they are frustrated because they keep getting owned in every battle in Fort Joy, etc.

The only major difference between the start of DOS 2 and DOS 1 is that Fort Joy is smaller and less complicated because your characters are restricted to certain areas, whereas in DOS 1 it's not like that because it's an open world game that for the most part lets you go anywhere you want (DOS 1 doesn't even have Acts like DOS 2 does, which is good for DOS 1 because you can always go to any area you like - unlike DOS 2). But DOS 1 naturally railroads along a certain path because if the monsters are too much above your level, then you have to turn around because by design, you aren't supposed to be able to defeat them (again, DOS 2 also follows this same principle).

The first hours in DOS 1 are actually amazing and among the best segments anywhere within either DOS 1 or DOS 2, so long as you don't expect to solve the mission easily. In a worst case scenario, you can always look up the solution online, or ask here, for the solution to the part you are stuck on. So it's not a big deal if you get stuck.

As for are the battles determined by luck?: no. Luck certainly plays a factor in terms of which spells hit or miss and things like that, but luck is not the deciding factor for winning or losing. Rather, your skill/tactics/choices of stats and spells, etc. are the main factor. It's like Poker in this regard, luck plays a role, but skill plays the much bigger role.

As for which is easier or harder: DOS 2 is harder, at least on Tactician, because in DOS 2 Tactician, the enemies can break your armors quickly and easily. In contrast, your characters are designed to be much less powerful and therefore take forever to break the enemies' armors. This results in lopsided battles where the enemy can use all their skills on you most of the time, but yet you can't use your own skills on them for the majority of the battle.

So even though DOS 2 is 'harder,' it's not harder in a legitimate way, just an arbitrary one because the enemies are vastly vastly vastly OP and the player characters are vastly UP.

But anyway, as I said, if you want hard, then play DOS 1 on Tactician or Honor mode, and it's going to be hard o'plenty, definitely.

Another thing to keep in mind is that DOS 1 is heavily based on putting fatal traps & puzzles in your face constantly. Many of them can one-shot your whole party dead instantly. DOS 2 has a few traps/puzzles like this, but they are much less prevalent in DOS 2. So DOS 1 is definitely a lot harder in those regards.