Posted September 06, 2012
am i the only one who thinks beyond divinty is a million times worse then divine divinity? what HAPPENED there? jeez!
ashout
New User
Registered: Oct 2009
From United States
TerriblePurpose
Kwisatz Haderach
Registered: Sep 2008
From Canada
Raze_Larian
Dragon Knight
Registered: Mar 2012
From Canada
Posted September 07, 2012
Other than the world not being as open in BD (especially the first act), and no locations or characters being available through most of the game, I don't see a huge difference from DD. There are two main characters, but most of the time you can have them both selected and control them as one (depending on your build choices), if you wish. The weapon expertise skills were needlessly complex, but that could be easily avoided by sticking to conventional weapons (the slashing / crushing / piercing damage types were good). Most NPCs no longer react to theft in BD (sacrificed to improve the enemy AI), but stealing was relatively easy in DD, anyway, and an exploit made it trivial.
The summoning dolls were a good concept, if a little weak in practice (the act 1 doll can equip a crossbow, so is helpful if kept out of melee combat). The BD stat system allowed much more flexibility and customization in character development, with different viable builds to suit your playstyle (in DD pretty much every warrior ended up with 2 parts strength, 2 parts agility and 1 part constitution).
With DD the end of the game was cut short when the publisher rushed the release of the game. To prevent that from happening again, Larian did the end of BD first. Unfortunately, that had unintended consequences. A comment by Swen Vincke in his latest blog post:
The summoning dolls were a good concept, if a little weak in practice (the act 1 doll can equip a crossbow, so is helpful if kept out of melee combat). The BD stat system allowed much more flexibility and customization in character development, with different viable builds to suit your playstyle (in DD pretty much every warrior ended up with 2 parts strength, 2 parts agility and 1 part constitution).
With DD the end of the game was cut short when the publisher rushed the release of the game. To prevent that from happening again, Larian did the end of BD first. Unfortunately, that had unintended consequences. A comment by Swen Vincke in his latest blog post:
On Beyond Divinity, we started with act 4 and then did act 1, which in theory would allow us to scale anything in between. We thought that was incredibly clever, and project-wise it did work to a certain extent, but it also resulted in BD being the worst game in the series. The reason for that was that we were so afraid of anything that could cause complications that every time we had to make a decision, we chose the safest route, which often didn't turn out to be the best decision gameplay-wise.
As far as, we'll add it later is concerned, we've learnt over the years that that in general means that we'll never add it. So I prefer adding it early if I think it's worth it.
As far as, we'll add it later is concerned, we've learnt over the years that that in general means that we'll never add it. So I prefer adding it early if I think it's worth it.
Post edited September 07, 2012 by Raze_Larian
ashout
New User
Registered: Oct 2009
From United States
Posted September 07, 2012
The summoning dolls were a good concept, if a little weak in practice (the act 1 doll can equip a crossbow, so is helpful if kept out of melee combat). The BD stat system allowed much more flexibility and customization in character development, with different viable builds to suit your playstyle (in DD pretty much every warrior ended up with 2 parts strength, 2 parts agility and 1 part constitution).
With DD the end of the game was cut short when the publisher rushed the release of the game. To prevent that from happening again, Larian did the end of BD first. Unfortunately, that had unintended consequences. A comment by Swen Vincke in his latest blog post:
On Beyond Divinity, we started with act 4 and then did act 1, which in theory would allow us to scale anything in between. We thought that was incredibly clever, and project-wise it did work to a certain extent, but it also resulted in BD being the worst game in the series. The reason for that was that we were so afraid of anything that could cause complications that every time we had to make a decision, we chose the safest route, which often didn't turn out to be the best decision gameplay-wise.
As far as, we'll add it later is concerned, we've learnt over the years that that in general means that we'll never add it. So I prefer adding it early if I think it's worth it.
As far as, we'll add it later is concerned, we've learnt over the years that that in general means that we'll never add it. So I prefer adding it early if I think it's worth it.