Which divinity should I buy?

[Juampa77]

the first one right now are very cheap, but i don't know if the second one are much better in every way to spend my time and money, which of the two do you recommend?

[Hunter]

I'd recommend you to buy both because some characters from dos 1 will appear in dos 2, though a lot of time have passed between the plots of both games (around 1000 years). Meaning, the events that going to happen in dos 2 will relate one way or another on the past (on dos 1 and other divinity games).
If for some reason you can buy only one of them, then check the viewers, maybe that helps with tough dicision.

[konamonkey]

Buy DOS 2 if nothing else. Its superb until you get to Arx but worth the investment until then.

[Moskibear]

I feel DOS2 if you only pick one, it is a superior experience in my opinion. That said, the first one was very fun as well!

[Cleave]

Originally posted by Juampa77:

the first one right now are very cheap, but i don't know if the second one are much better in every way to spend my time and money, which of the two do you recommend?

Get both and only play the second after you beat the first.

[Brian Sirith]

DOS1 if you like the sense of humour and storyline of the series. Not too far with this one but it seems to lack the first and mess up the second. A great game as far as I can tell but lacking the basic elements I loved about the series.

Edit: Pointing out that DOS1 has been called goofy and has no 'romance' in case either of these bother you.

[Annika]

DE is better in either case. But i would play 1 and then 2.

[chebur2012]

Only 1. 2 has major idiotic design decisions and insane scaling, which makes crafting, loot and late game completely obsolete

[✙205🍉🐆→]

frist, then second

[Dukie]

If you only have money for one of the two then buy Divinity Original Sin 2. In every way it's better. Both are good games though.

[Juampa77]

Originally posted by Dukie:

If you only have money for one of the two then Divinity Original Sin 2 by far, in every way it's better. Both are good games though.

I can buy both, but if the second one is the same than the first divinity but much better, so i think there's no good idea buy the first divinity. or maybe the first has something than the second dont?

[Dukie]

Originally posted by Juampa77:

Originally posted by Dukie:

If you only have money for one of the two then Divinity Original Sin 2 by far, in every way it's better. Both are good games though.

I can buy both, but if the second one is the same than the first divinity but much better, so i think there's no good idea buy the first divinity. or maybe the first has something than the second dont?

Other than some minor story you won't miss anything if you haven't played the first I think.

It's been a while since I have played DOS 1 but the 1st Act was a bore and the pacing was way off. It was so slow that I almost gave up on it at the time, it made it kind of teadious. After the first act it gets better though.

DOS 2 just plays better and is more fun if you ask me, but of course this isn't a fact but a personal preference. I liked the story better too.

In all truth with both games you can't get wrong, they are quality RPG's, but with DOS1 just be prepared to struggle through the beginning. :)

[konamonkey]

The first game kind of sets the scene for the second one. Its a decent game in its own right. You will not regret buying either or both of them.

[Cleave]

Originally posted by chebur2012:

Only 1. 2 has major idiotic design decisions and insane scaling, which makes crafting, loot and late game completely obsolete

I was also really disappointed with the balancing of 2. The "armor" system is really the worst offense though because it makes single damage type parties the one size fits all solution to the game and tanks and supports are pretty much nonexistent archetypes this time around. I like that they made the GM/DM mode but I don't even know if anyone actually plays it and it's probably because of how much they dumbed down the combat. Even DE cannot fix what they broke.

There's a lot of kids who didn't have the patience for the "first act" of DOS1 but I think it was superior in how open it felt. DOS2 felt too linear and for a game emulating D&D that is a bad thing. DOS1 EE > DOS2 DE

[Neosoul]

You should buy both if you can afford it. I had bought DOS EE 1 a few years ago and never played it yet. Got into it recently. I did 2 full playthroughs, then started a 3rd (halfway done) when I bought the 2nd game and switched over it. I'm now close to completing my 2nd playthrough on the 2nd game.

If you only want to buy 1 of the 2 games, I strongly recommend buying the 2nd game over the first one. You won't miss out on a lot if you don't play the first game. I don't want to give spoilers but overall, it's just a few characters that you'll encounter in the first game that you'll get to see or hear from again in the 2nd game. The stories take place centuries apart from each other.

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Overall for the first game:
It's more childish looking (graphics aren't as good) and maybe has a bit more humor in it. The story isn't very engaging. I read about a lot of people quitting before only completing the first act. It's true that the begining of the first act might feel slow paced and like you don't know where to go and nothing's happening when you're new to the game (you're basically in one big city) but it starts to get better maybe halfway through that first act.

The biggest issue I have with the first game is that every of my playthrough on the 1st and 2nd game have been on tactician mode (hardest difficulty) and the 1st game is an absolute joke once you get about half way in it and gets worse and worse as you get closer to the end. The difficulty is trivial, it just feels like you're toying with your food and deciding in which way to kill it in 1 round every fight. You'll get maybe 1-3 fights in act 1 that will be fun and truly challenging on the hardest difficulty. Then, if you explore everywhere and do all the quests rather than rushing through the main plot, you'll eventually outlevel every mobs you face (at one point, I was 4 levels higher than the enemy boss of an act).

1- Combat:
The combat system from both games are a bit different. In the first game, especially early on, you'll want to emphasize on spreading fire everywhere with spells and environmental effects (very strong) and crowd control abilities/spells. You also start the game with very few Action Points which are required for everything in combat (from using spells, special moves and even moving around). It's especially annoying for melee early game because sometimes you'll spend those points to reach a target and not even have enough to make an attack. As you level up and gear up properly, you'll eventually have a ton of action points near the end of the game, basically letting you wipe out the entire enemy team on your turn before they even get to do anything. There's some RNG involved. Crowd Control and debuffs have a % chance to succeed based off 2 defensive stats (that reduce the % chance to be affected by specific debuffs). Having a high amount of your primary stat (intelligence for example for a caster) raises the % chance to apply the effect to an enemy. In other words, if you keep your main stats high, the effect should land most of the time on most mobs unless they have a higher amount of those defensive stats I mentioned. It also means that you most likely will not be avoiding much CC and debuffs yourself early game which is why you need to CC them first or snipe out their casters fast before they do it to you (especially if you play with a party of 2 instead of a party of 4 characters). About mid game, you'll be able to unlock master spells. The ranger one along with the fire, water and to some extend air ultimate spells are game breaking. They'll basically 1 shoot almost anything in a huge AOE and make the game a complete joke.

2- Crafting:
Crafting is a must (at least if you have a physical dmg dealer). Look up recipes and guides on it. It helps early game to craft strong accessories that will boost stats but most importantly, it allows you to craft the best possible weapons in the game for almost no cost at all. The crafted weapons are so much stronger than anything else you will ever find, including the unique weapons in the game and with save/reload, you can also control which stats you want to have it roll (for instance, you would want +Action Points daggers). Crafting also allows you to buff your weapons. Finally, most crafted armors are garbage but it allows you to get super rich over time (you might be very poor without crafting).

3- Classes:
There are basically only 3-4 main character variations I find in the 1st game. Caster, Melee 2h, Melee Dual Wield, Ranger. You can have some sort of mix of ranger/caster or melee caster too although it'll be a bit more of a jack of all trades.

The thing with casters is that all 5 magic schools share the same 1 attribute to boost its damage (intellect). The game rewards you for sprinkling a few points into almost every school to unlock more utility abilities. Basically, casters (especially "Lone Wolf" ones which is a talent that makes your character stronger but you have to sacrifice 1 party member to get it) can boost intelligence and put points in every magic school in order to unlock a master spell (or two) from each tree along with all the utility. You lose nothing from doing this, you have the right tools to use the right elements depending on enemy resistances in every fight while still being optimal at everything. So having a specialized caster (say fire mage for instance) is kind of pointless when you can be king of every single element + witchcraft all at once.

Melee, rogue archetype is basically garbage unfortunately. Their ultimate talents are very weak, daggers deal less damage (except for backstab that do ok dmg). If you want to go dual wield, it's best to make a sort of mix of warrior/rogue that uses a dagger in his main hand and an axe (or whatever other better weapon early game until you can craft good axes mid game) in your offhand. This allows you to use all of the same rogue abilities but hit harder with those special moves than with double daggers. It also allows you to use the warrior abilities.

2h warrior is possibly the most basic class. It feels like it's lagging behind early game. Once you reach mid/late game (especially if Lone Wolf), you'll start boosting your crit chance quite higher and they get extra damage from crit so they eventually hit super hard. Still, with a lone wolf and everything, I think I was pushing my crit around 65% or 70% if I remember well. With a lot of calculations I made comparing Dual Wield and 2h from my different playthroughs, I came down to the conclusion that both were almost identical in terms of damage output. The Dual Wield will have more special abilities he can use to deal reliable higher damage per attack and might feel a bit more fun in that sense. The 2h will hit significantly harder when he gets a crit from RNG (harder than the special abilities from the Dual Wield).

Ranger hits hard and from far. If you enjoy crafting, you can craft some special arrows (or find/buy some) that can sort of act like spells with magical damage, AOE effects and so on. It makes them very strong and versatile 1st act due to special arrows if needed on top of not having to waste many action points moving around to shoot down targets. As I said earlier, their ultimate ability (rain of arrows) is one of the strongest abilities in the game. No friendly fire, basically 1 shoots almost anything.

4- Resistances:
You easily can use crafting in order to max out all of your elemental resistances on armor (even in act 1, you can get them really high or maxed if done properly, just that it can get expansive if you keep changing your armor) which then makes all of the enemies flinging spells at you useless along with traps, environmental effects, etc. It basically trivializes the game. Same can be said about the 2 defensive stats to resist status effects. In other words, as you progress through the game, you eventually become immune to all spells and spell damage making the game stupidly easy. There's a defensive stat called Leadership that is very powerful to boost on one character if you play a full 4 characters party (still good but not as useful if you go with 2x lone wolf characters since the one that has leadership is not affected by the buffs it provides). This is why I did not mention a 1h+shield tank type of class for melee. It's entirely pointless, I never even put any points into extra health except when I had no choice late game (because you reach a point where you need to put points in it or else you can't keep increasing the amount of Action Points you get) and I never was in any danger of dying. Having a 1h+shield tank would just make you hit like a wet noodle for no reason whatsoever in DOS 1.

5- Early game tip:
Make sure you pick up 1 point into Scoundrel for Invisibility early game on one of your characters. Use it to steal a lot of stuff in the starting city (especially golden plates and paintings), it makes a HUGE difference in order to make a lot of money early game and be able to buy all the spell books you need. If you don't do this, you'll struggle and be super poor and unable to afford what you need/want early game.

Overall, the game is still good and fun. I just wish it was more difficult. Early game, summons and crowd control abilities are very useful to win fights. As you progress, you eventually outlevel mobs, become immune to any spell they throw at you and get enough Action Points coupled with OP abilities to annihilate them all on turn 1 before they can even react. I'm not even joking, on my 2nd playthrough, my mage debuffed the final boss, my dual wield teleported behind him and used his ultimate dagger ability that flings a bunch of daggers at it and backstabs, the boss died from that 1 single attack from 100% hp down to 0%. The most challenging and frustrating times will be getting 1 shot by invisible traps early on (late game, you can just walk over most of it from high resistances and it does nothing).

[Neosoul]

Here are a few main differences/pointers for the 2nd game:

1- Combat:
Combat is a bit different in the 2nd game. While in the 1st game, especially in act 1, it is all about shutting down enemies first before they can shut you down and making them catch on fire (until you progress to the point where you're basically immune and 1 shotting everything), the 2nd game brings in a new armor system which brings both good and bad things.

Armor value no longer exists (say, enemies in the 1st game could have a certain amount of resistance to piercing or slashing dmg for example and your armor made you take a reduced % of physical damage). Enemies now have their health pool and on top of it, they have 2 armor types (physical and magical) which could be considered like 2 different shields. There no longer is RNG % to resist spells and status effects. Instead, you need to use raw damage to break the enemy's armor and only once this is broken, the status effects and CCs will 100% apply.

This makes armor a lot more important because you no longer can just enter combat and shut down enemies right off the bat. You will normally exchange some blows (at least early game) before you can land CCs and status effects and if your armor is low level, there are chances the enemy will break it first and start shutting you down first.

It makes for more interesting fights for the most part. Also, Action points are now smoothed out. Instead of starting the game with just a few and getting an insane amount late game, you always keep the same amount all game and abilities are balanced around those numbers which feels a lot smoother and better overall compared to the first game.

The main issue I have with this new system though is that it makes many classes/builds not synergize very well together. In the 1st game, damage is damage, spell casters can synergize totally fine with a melee DPS or a ranger. In the 2nd game, most magical attacks can only damage the magical armor and most physical attacks can only damage the physical armor. Physical status effects (knockdown and bleed for example) can only be applied once the physical armor is broken, same goes for magical statuses (freeze or silence for example) can only be applied once the magical shield is broken.

The enemy's life bar can only be damaged by your damage type once his armor of the same type is broken. This means for example, your warrior is beating on a mob, broke his physical armor and took him down to half health, if this enemy still has his full magical armor, your mage can't help damaging him in anyway and has to waste his attacks into the magic shields before he can be of any help to your warrior. This obviously rewards you to go either all physical damage team OR all magical damage team by totally ignoring one of the 2 armor type and having everyone on the same page. It makes it a lot more efficient to kill enemies this way although having a mix of the 2 damage types can have a few advantages (there are a few abilities that sort of cross over but they are rare).

Add the fact that the different spell schools don't synergize well together (air and water synergize together, fire and earth also synergize together but water and fire will counter each other's debuffs for example), this makes creating a party that synergizes together a nightmare.

I picked up Lone Wolf talents in both my playthroughs so far (stronger characters but max 2 party size instead of 4 characters party size). I went full physical 1st playthrough (2h warrior with a summoner/necro that I respecialized into a ranger mid game). I'm full magical damage on my 2nd playthrough (2 mages with different schools).

Remember how I said there's no more armor value (no more reduced dmg taken from physical except for maybe 2-3 mobs in the entire game)? Well, for some reason I can't understand at all, they decided to keep elemental resistances (fire, air, water, earth, poison) on top of the magic armor! The resistances (and sometimes complete immunity) also apply on the magic shield. So say a mob has 100 hp, 100 magic shield and 50% fire resistance, you'll need to deal 400 fire damage to take him out while if it has 100 hp and 100 physical shield, a physical dmg character will always only need to deal 200 dmg to take him down. This makes some fights against mobs with high resistances or immunities harder for magic dmg teams that rely on these elements or sometimes force them to respecialize for these encounters (for instance, I had to respec my frost mage into fire for a part of act 2 because the mobs in the are all had very high resistance to water).

The combat is more challenging than the 1st game but still not very hard if you build right, especially as the game progresses and you unlock more utility abilities and stronger abilities.


2- Crafting:
Crafting went from being broken OP for money making and best weapons in available by far in the 1st game to complete garbage in the 2nd game. I don't even know why I bother with it, I think if I make a 3rd playthrough, I might just sell all of the crafting materials I collect as it takes a huge amount of space and weight in my bags for nothing. You can craft a few weak armors with no stats for cheap the first few levels, that's about it. If you want to play with magic arrows for a ranger, crafting might help a bit or if you like using consumable scrolls but overall, it's very niche. The armor and weapons you craft are garbage. There isn't much money to be made from it unlike in the 1st game either. The only good thing is you don't have to invest talent points into it anymore.

3- Classes:
Unlike the 1st game, putting points into a specific combat tree now increases its effectiveness (not always the case for every school but it'd be long to explain, best look up guides on it for more information). For instance, intelligence still increases all spell damage but putting points into fire also increases all fire damage (which wasn't the case with the 1st game). You also find gear with extra points for the different schools to push it beyond the max (10) points you can put in it. In other words, specializing into 1-2 thing now matters and will impact your character build. While this is being more restrictive than the 1st game, it also sort of forces more variety of possible builds which is a lot more numerous and interesting than the 1st game.

So far, I've tried 2h warrior, ranger, physical caster and elemental casters along with summoners (physical and magical). I haven't tested out rogue archetype yet but from what I've noticed and compared, it seems like rogues might be strong early game this time around but fall WAY behind 2h melee late game (especially with lone wolf as you can boost your crit chance higher). When respecializing and comparing them with similar gear late game, my rogue character's damage was roughly 1/3rd of my 2h warrior's damage... In best possible scenario, say I had much better gear, I still don't see how it could get past 50% or 60% of the warrior's damage output. So I guess they screwed it up again with rogues unfortunately. I think they might shine in act 1 and be better in 4 character parties as they have a few abilities that cross over in dmg types and without lone wolf, your other melee can't boost their crit up to close to 100% where backstab guaranteed crit from rogues becomes irrelevant.

I also haven't tried a tanky character yet but once again, I'm not sure there's a point to it really, I lived just fine without one on both playthroughs but it could have more uses than in the 1st game still.

Most of the ultimate spells are still very strong but not quite as OP as they were in the 1st game (except for the earth one maybe that feels really out of line OP or some cheezy combo for necromancer).

Summoner starts out very strong in act 1 and is versatile and a great complement for a caster early game (as you only have a few spells with long CDs early game) but feels like it becomes quite weak mid/late game once your character gets stronger and has a high crit chance (once again, especially with Lone Wolf). So I think 2 of the best act 1 classes (rogue and summoner) turn out being the weakest late game from poor scaling or poor mechanics.


4- Resistances:
Not as broken as in the 1st game. I haven't tried to max them out it's pretty hard to boost them unless you get really lucky with what you find and are willing to sacrifice a lot of offensive stats to boost your resistances. However, as long as your armors don't break (physical and magical), you're immune to the status effects of each specific type so it's not as big of a deal as it is in the 1st game.


5- Overall:
The 2nd game is a bit more mature than the 1st one. It has nicer graphics, a longer story (although act 3 is very short and act 4 still shorter than act 1 and 2 I think which is too bad). The story is better. The combat is still a bit too easy unfortunately but not quite as bad as the 1st game. There is more diversity of possible class/builds combinations I think. You can play as just 1 single character instead of 2 if you want (not possible in the 1st game), I haven't tried it. It's annoying how your companions start with preset builds in act 1 with wasted points and suboptimal builds until you can respec them in act 2. The main downside from the 2nd game I'd say is how the new armor type combat system makes it so spell casters don't synergize well at all with physical damage dealers for the most part.

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That should give you an idea of the main different aspects of both games to help you make a choice.

Cheers!