I really don't want to give the game a thumbs down.

[stabbedbyapanda]

I really don't want to give the game a thumbs down.

As the title stated I really do not want to. But theres some really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'm in the second act. And anytime I try to do "evil" or questionable things, I immediately get punished by retarded mechanics.

Every fight in this game is just AMBUSH
Oh theres 3 enemies? ok so ican do this and this... approaches the fight when ready. OH YOU THOUGHT 3 ENEMIES? try 3 MORE with 2 of those enemies being SUMMONERS!

The first Divinity original sin was great but had just as many flaws but different ones. But the game didn't punish you for picking a certain route if anything it opened you to new possiblities, but in this game, it's like Oh you don't want to save the realm? O well "slaps hand" don't think that way, My response? Wtf THEN DONT PUT THE CHOICE THERE.

This game feels like theres a really good game but they tried making it too big and trying to many ideas. Got lost in Fort joy and the rest of the game suffered. Almost zero of what happened on Fort Joy has translated back into Act 2. So each Act is really disconnected and nothing feels connected or as big choice making as it did in the first game.

Like i'm getting annoyed by some really poor design choices to the point I don't want to finish this game. And I was fanboying about this game when I tried playing it with a few group friends till they dropped it.

[DeathRow]

give it a thumbs up then

[Hobocop]

I'm trying to think of how many encounters are actual ambushes in Act 1, and the only ones that are credible threats that come to mind are the frogs (which has warning signs) and flaming skeletons. Maybe Radeka, but honestly, that fight is signposted like crazy.

Early Act 2, there's some more fairly easy Voidwoken ambushes and Wrecker's Cove. Again, there are warning signs for several of them.

Not really seeing the 'every fight is an ambush' thing.

[stabbedbyapanda]

Im relating more to Act 2. It's just that from level like i think 10-15 its probably like 20 fights total and over half have been ambushes. Even if I explore the ambush spots theres no way to see the enmies but if I walk a certain path then OH AMBUSH.

[Iry]

There definitely are ambushes, but your scout should be able to handle them.
You are using a scout, right?

[Hobocop]

There's half a dozen ambushes in Wrecker's Cove excluding the scripted one that separates the party, two of which on the path leading up to it have warning signs, but that's kind of that entire area's thing.

There's the scarecrows, I guess, and Red Prince's assassins but they're assassins and they were kind enough to leave an obvious corpse in the middle of the path to let you know something's fishy. I can't really think of any others worth mentioning.

Gonna go down the list here from what I remember of non-ambush fights:

-Each bridge troll (2)
-Undertavern Arena (2)
-Bridgekeeper's Home
-Voidwoken Bears
-Wrecker's Cove external fort
-Wrecker's Cove Egg chamber
-Mordus
-Lamenting Abomination
-Cloisterwood Magisters
-Alice Aliceson
-Blackpits Exterior (4)
-Blackpits Interior (2)
-Aetera
-Paradise Downs demon
-Paradise Downs elves
-Roost
-Lone Wolf camp
-Andras
-Ryker

I mean, that's already more than 20 encounters leading up to Level 15 not counting the easy one-offs in Driftwood.

[xanraal]

Ya. Gotta say i didn't notice there were that many ambushes. As stated by Hobo, wrecker's cave/cove sure.

Ambushes might be less than say 15% of all encouters? Just my opinion though. I ean you have to trigger encounters by proximity, but that's not really an ambush and as lry asked, you're using a scout right?

Scouts are brilliant, have at least one character with high wis and iniative to spot stuff and a pyramid and when an encounter gets triggered, either run/sneak the rest in one by one or pyramid port the whole gang.

[KOoT3]

mmm, u want to thumb down game for ambush fights?) acts are quite connected, ofc u cant connect ALL the side quests, tell us the game where its maden

[Fingusa of the East]

Originally posted by KOoT3:

mmm, u want to thumb down game for ambush fights?) acts are quite connected, ofc u cant connect ALL the side quests, tell us the game where its maden

Witcher 3?

[Dayve]

Original Sin 2 isn't an open world game with random encounters. It's totally linear with optional content on the side. I've done the part of the game you're talking about and I can't say the ambushes bothered me. I don't scout ahead either, but then I play on classic mode with a balanced, not-overpowered party. Tactician mode just bloats enemies hit points and armours and forces you to min/max every party member.

Aye, don't worry about ambushes. Just get your sword out and GO FORTH TO VICTORY!

As for not being able to be evil... well... the events of the game are pretty important. But you can still be evil and finish the storyline. I don't know how far you've gotten but just because the story requires you to become a divine and save the world that doesn't mean you can't be evil.

-SPOILERS BELOW-

The last divine, Lucian, was a liar and a mass murderer. He didn't just deathfog the elves into near-extinction, he lied to Ifan and used him as the deliverer of the deathfog. He murdered maybe hundreds of Godwoken to make sure his precious son Alexandar would be the only Godwoken left to succeed him as the next divine. He was a tyrant, and he was the guy who saved the world.

The actual gods themselves (Ralic and Duna and so forth) are thieves. They stole their power. They're not good gods.

So be evil and save the world. That's how everybody else did it in this world.

[Firecam]

You also have ambush on Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

[KOoT3]

Originally posted by "Punished" Fingusa:

Originally posted by KOoT3:

mmm, u want to thumb down game for ambush fights?) acts are quite connected, ofc u cant connect ALL the side quests, tell us the game where its maden

Witcher 3?

wow really? i can name any number of quest, that arent connected to main story and to each other. witcher 3 has some cool connections, so dos 2 has too. so whats the point??

[stabbedbyapanda]

The sawmill / lone wolf camp is a good example of what I like about divinity (as a whole both games) because they are hard challenging enemies (because I've been almost a whole level below, I dont know why thought even though to my knowledge and the fact i search every inch of the game)
I can see my enemies I'm going to fight and be prepared.
In the list that hobo posted, half of those have mid encounter enemies added, or enemies spawned at the start of the encounter or what not.
Maybe ambush was a bad word. and I'm fine with ambushes enemies being added, this was just an example of what seems to be Larians go to thing in this game. Oh you see 3 enemies? Encounter started 2 more.
Alice for example ~ Witch ok... maybe I can do this... Encounter starts Oh 4 fire totems that are just there to heal her... Like it's all theatrics that come off punishing and cheap, just show me them, because now it makes me think she has 10+ AP to summon 4 separate totems even though thats not the case.
This is a tactical game, and I'm not getting much information.
The scouting thing is the perfect example of how they force you into playing a way. But it doesn't work for revealing ambushes, and I have not once read about anyscout thing in the game. But yes I have at least one char high in each area.

All I'm saying is this game shouldn't be called a sequel. It's more a spiritual sequel and not a very good one either. Because in divinity you can really play any class and combination and not feel like you are being told your wrong and should play another way. Which the Scout thing is the perfect example of that. If the game told me from the start I HAD to do that then fine, but it has not so therefore it should not be required for most encounters, maybe 2 or 3 every 20-30 hrs so it stays fresh but when its every other one...

[Hobocop]

That's an...interesting viewpoint. Does that mean that encounters should have no surprises whatsoever unless it explicitly fits your definition of ambush? Should enemies, especially powerful Sourcerers who are too dangerous to be directly confronted by the Magisters not have tricks that may not be immediately obvious up their sleeves to force you to adapt or catch their enemies off-guard? It's only good design if you can perfectly plan for everything ahead of time? Is it really such a sin if trivial Voidwoken in the Wrecker's Cove Egg Nest or popcorn necromantic constructs in Ryker's Basement spawn as you fight?

Also, I'm pretty sure dispositions were a thing in the first game, which encouraged heavy metagaming to get bonuses relevant to whatever build or archetype you were going for which may or may not have been in line with that character's personality.

I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from here, because that doesn't make much sense to me. A lot of what makes tactical games like XCOM interesting is having to adapt to unexpected circumstances given your current toolset, and having contingiency and backup plans to mitigate risk.

[stabbedbyapanda]

Yeah but in Xcom, thats what the game is from the start and it tells you that. So there actualy is a point to "Scouting" because thats a scifi military tactics game, and Xcom doesnt do it every single encounter or even most, its like every 5th or 6th if even that.

As I said before I'm fine with it, I don't think it should be the main thing that happens every fight.
And I'm fine with an enemy having a mechanic or a gimmick but how they are introduced in divinity 2 is just really bad imo, theres no opening to them most of the time you just experience it in a really non organic way.
I will use divinity one as an example. Theres a Spidercrab boss, and it starts "charging up an attack" so this gives you enough time to react and understand that something bad is coming.

While divinity 2's main way of handling it is.
Oh heres a troll. Attack it with an arrow. Oh it healed from it. what is this perk... "I'm a troll i heal"... Hrm... ok that doesnt tell me anything. Uses magic... oh it didnt heal (i just so happened to use a poison attack) and saw it was weak to that but healed from fire. So i keep using poison but all my poison attacks went on CD half way through the fight he recovers and proceeds to ONE SHOT my characters. he has about 10% im like ok i got this no sweat, his turn comes up and he just has all his hp, no animation no dialogue just BOOM and that perk "im a troll I heal" popped up, but disappeared before.

It's way too situational to understand that OH POISON AND FIRE prevent it from healing? O... Because my first thought when I read that perk was I should use fire since in fantasy trolls are weak to fire and this game likes to do mechanics based off fantasy (or the first one did, divinity 2 likes to do the opposite of what you think they will do) but then i saw it healed from fire and was like hmm... ok. Guess magic maybe will prevent from healing? So i use magic but then found out lightning didnt affect it and so my theory went out the window. Which forced me as a player to resort to google. Like this is just dumb. This game is way more focused on punishment. Instead of trying to show this really cool silly world where you get rewarded for actually knowing or noticing some fantasy troupes. While this one likes to punish you for knowing those.


Anyways Im tired of ranting. Oh well, just another disappointing sequel. I still plan on beating it, just no longer with enthusiasm.

[Hobocop]

There's books in Driftwood that tell you about different varieties of trolls and their strengths and weaknesses, and if you have Loremaster (which you probably should if you care about scouting), it pretty much tells you outright what to use on them.

Kinda bizarre thing to get upset about when the game literally tells you about it ahead of time if you're paying attention.