Why do most people think DOS 2 is better than DOS 1? It's not.

[Dragon]

I played DOS 1 for over 180 hours on Tactician mode.

Recently I started playing DOS 2, also on Tactician mode. So far I'm 11 hours into that, and I've gotten as far as Withermoore's soul (but my collars are still on and I've never traveled to the swamps yet).

Before I started DOS 2, I expected to be blown away with one of the best RPGs ever, and one that is at least 10x better than DOS 1. But so far, that's not even close to being the case.

The only things I've seen DOS 2 do better than DOS 1 so far are: a) DOS 2's Origin Stories are better than their absence in DOS 1, and b) DOS 2 seems to have a main story that is tied together cohesively although DOS 1 does not and 3) DOS 1 has a few annoying voice actors in the first town, and they keep spamming the same lines every 3 seconds, but DOS 2 doesn't have anything like that.

But aside from those things, I am not seeing how what I'm told - that DOS 2 is like DOS 1, yet much improved in most if not all ways - jives with reality. DOS 2 has a whole mother lode of downgrades from DOS 1 that makes DOS 2 much worse, i.e:

1. My main character doesn't say ever her dialogue choice lines, whereas either and/or both of my main characters in DOS 1 always do. This is a very jarring & immersion-breaking downgrade. It makes me feel much less connected to my character in DOS 2, and it also strangely makes her comes across as if she is a pseudo-mute.

2. I am told DOS 2 has amazing music, yet plenty of its battle music and walking- around music sounds worse than elevator music (i.e. the 'music' that plays in the Fort Joy dungeons, which isn't even music). DOS 1 does not have any music as bad as that.

3. The map is DOS 2 is ugly/splotchy/pixelated/unclear, in contrast to the beautiful map in DOS 1 which isn't any of those things. In turn, this makes exploring more difficult & frustrating in DOS 2 because the co-relations between what the map represents and where you can actually go are quite unclear (this is also complicated because DOS 2 has tons of elevated platforms and the map does not accurately represent the places where they will block the player from moving, i.e. the map makes it look as though the player can walk somewhere that is really impossible to walk to).

4. The 'manual' for DOS 2 isn't even a manual. It's only 7 pages long and it barely even says anything about how to play the game. Whereas DOS 1 has very long manual that gives instructions about many aspects of the game (although it also leaves tons of things out).

5. A second point about the dialogues: DOS 1, characters talks to you as much as they want to before stopping. Whereas in DOS 2, characters (always?) talk in one-sentence bursts, and then stop. I've seen some people complain that DOS 1 characters talk too much. Well, even if that is true, then DOS 2 still went too far to the other extreme, by having them talk too little, as if they are robots who have been programmed to never be allowed to talk for any length of time that might cause someone to complain.

6. The monster sizes: DOS 1 is full of big, glorious creatures, both enemies and Summons. I am not seeing that in DOS 2. All the monsters look tiny. And so do the Summons, which are very disappointing & unsatisfying. I.e. DOS 2 gives me a generic tiny little imp Summon that is supposed to fill in for the roles of multiple different Summon creatures, yet the imp always looks the same. In contrast, DOS 1 gives me a huge variety of big, beautiful and different Summons, i.e. a giant spider, a zombie, two distinct types of armored skeletons, different golems for ice, earth, fire and air Summons, etc.

7. The inventory UI and skills UI: DOS 1 gives me colorful, well-organized, pleasant-looking UIs. On the other hand, DOS 2 inexplicably mashes all 4 characters' inventories together onto the same one screen, which makes it a nightmare to use. DOS 2's inventory and skill UI's also looks ugly. And unlike DOS 1, DOS 2 sorts the inventory backwards, in the incorrect direction, when using "the sort by Last added feature." Furthermore, DOS 1 lets you confirm skill/attribute/talent choices before you finalize them, whereas DOS 2 doesn't.

8. The gameplay/combat [possibly the most important point of all]: DOS 1 absolutely owns DOS 2 in this department. It's not even a contest. DOS 1 combat gameplay is a 9/10. DOS 2 combat gameplay is a 6/10 at best, if that's if we are being very generous to DOS 2.

In DOS 2, 95% of the time I spend in combat uses no special abilities that activate with skills, because of the game's horrible rule - one that is not present in DOS 1, to its great benefit! - that physical armor & magical armor prevent all abilities from working. This rule makes those abilities irrelevant, and therefore they might as well not even exist. Instead, all of the skills might as well read nothing but: "does X damage to physical armor" or "does X damage to magic armor." In practice, that's literally all they do almost all of the time anyway.

This problem makes the all battles in DOS 2 incredibly tedious, untactical, and annoying, and most of all, boring.

It comes across as if a non-gamer executive played DOS 1 combat for five minutes, ragequit, and then told the devs: "this is too hard. In the sequel, I want you to dumb-it-down to the maximum extreme possible." I know that's not what really happened, but I can't fathom how it could. They knew DOS 1 had great combat/gameplay, yet they totally it wrecked in the sequel. It makes no sense why they would do that, yet they did. It also makes no sense why DOS 2 is a megahit despite having absolutely abysmal gameplay in contrast to its predecessor.

TL;DR summary: DOS 2 seems to be a series of major downgrades to DOS 1, not an improvement. Even though DOS 2 does do a couple of things better than DOS 1, in almost every case, DOS 2 does, many, many, many more things way worse than DOS 1. On the whole, DOS 1 is a vastly better game than DOS 2.

[A Rock Seller]

k

[Findanniin]

Most of your monster of a post comes down to personal preference, really.

I rather like the changes to combat, the memory system, killing the crafting civil skills and the armor system that (while it has it's own flaws) is preferrable to the 'stunlock everything all the time' gameplay of the first game.

Game's a great success because, well, it's a great game. If the changes aren't for you, that's unfortunate - but why come and complain on the steam forums if you own the game on GoG?

[Dragon]

Originally posted by Findanniin:

why come and complain on the steam forums if you own the game on GoG?

Because most players and prospective purchasers don't read/interact with the GOG forums.

As for the idea it's a great success because it's a great game: by that logic, then it's a much less greater game than DOS 1, so why isn't DOS 1 a much greater success than DOS 2? If success is co-related to greatness or lack thereof, then DOS 1 would have vastly out-sold DOS 2.

As for your point about stunlocking: I never did that in DOS 1, and I'm sure many others didn't either. If that was their motivation for [inadvertently] wrecking the combat in DOS 2, then it would been better to let the stunlock problem go, and leave the combat great overall, by repeating it in DOS 2, even if it has one flaw. DOS 2's system ruins the combat overall, so it's not worth the tradeoff to have that instead of the problem they were trying to fix.

[Scary_Turtle]

1. Get a bit further in the game
2. I disagree you just have to learn how the map works
3. who cares there a dos wiki and millions of youtube guides
4. I occasionally felt this way
5. Play a bit more but I think DOS 1 had terrible looking creatures that were not scaled correctly.
6. DOS 2 has the best inventory of any RPG ever period (bags can carry infinite) and once you get to the chest you can spend hours making your inventory beautiful.
7. I disagree DOS 2 is different, once you start co-coordinating spells it is quiet fun and challenging but seriously you haven't even done 10% of the game so what can you really say about combat.

Just because you are a butt hurt DOS 1 fanboi doesn't mean anything you said is correct.

[Id3alistic]

The best part of DOS1 was the first town, Cyseal. There was a crap ton to do and after that the next areas were a letdown.

DOS2 has much better areas(acts). The combat is subjective since some people like it and some don't.

[Don Cool]

I only agree on the inventory system, I hate it.

[Razorblade]

Hasn't left the tutorial area, complains about the whole game.

[zacharyb]

People have a different opinion than me therefore they are wrong, great way to start off a thread OP. Next time try saying "Why do most people like DOS2 over DOS1."

[Hobocop]

Sure would be a shame if someone based their entire opinion of D:OS1 off of nothing but Cyseal and never even got to the areas to experience most of what you say D:OS1 has. That's essentially what you're doing here.

Also, tell my vanilla Enchanter build Lohse who locked down half of each of the early game fights by herself that spells have pointless additional effects.

[Hans]

Why do people think DOS 1/DOS 2 are good games? They're not.

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by Hans:

Why do people think DOS 1/DOS 2 are good games? They're not.

You're right, they're amazing.

[Lans]

To be honest I'm pretty disappointed with your review, I thought you would have some actually relevant and interesting criticism - but like someone said earlier in your thread it's really down to personal preference.

And if it comes down to that and you are weighing the personal preference of an unknown against what is a majority of people they can get consistent and measurable feedback from, then they are going to make the game that makes the most impact.

I've played both and I absolutely without a doubt believe DOS2 is better, and if you look closely at the details you will be able to tell that they made everything with a careful and incredible attention to detail, none of it being an accident.

It's a better game, and as far as the armor design? Fantastic. Bravo.

[fulf]

act one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks
I could never really get in to DOS1 so I can't compare them much, I really like this game though. Does it matter?

[TradingDough]

I agree with 7 and 8, and the last can be modded to fix their weird choices for this game

In everything else is just superior specially in dialogue and the story build

So I wouldn't call it a downgrade when pretty much evryone else agree that is superior in every way

[raubrey]

You lost me when you compared game manuals, sorry.