I really liked the last game (minus the teleporting spiders), so I have been plowing through this one; however I have NOT been enjoying it most of the time.
The single player campaign in this game is unfair, buggy and generally annoying just on normal difficulty!

1) ALL enemies have 2 to 5 times more stats then my party members; most having somewhere between 2 and 3 times more stat points for the SAME level & race characters.
This is total bullshit; it pointlessly extends combat time and makes the enemies far more powerful then they should be.
This is extremely bad game balance!

A great example of a ridiculously overpowered enemy is the corpse of the witch on fire and located in a field of fire, northwest of Driftwood.
She is SOOO overpowered that she can insta kill the ENTIRE party, no matter what you have equiped.
This is true when your characters are her level or below and remains true until you outlevel her.
EVEN at two levels higher, this monstrous enemy can usually strip away ALL your armour in the first cast; meaning if you don't lock her down with knockdown, etc constantly, you can still lose your entire party in the next couple rounds of combat!

Perhaps MOST offensive, is that when you finally manage to kill this RIDICULOUSLY overpowered enemy, you get crap reward for it.
That battle should reward a few pink or gold items for all the shit that we had to go through to take it down!

2) Most encounters are spawning enemies out of the blue, instead of having them in-world already.
This is bad design, unfair and just plain lazy encounter design.
Seriously, almost all encounters are an ambush!

3) EVERYONE has teleport!
This is just plain stupid.
A great example of why this is stupid, is shown in the in-between zones encounter after escaping the first island.
You are supposed to block the enemy off from getting to Malady, while she casts that dimensional travel spell.
You literally have NO chance of doing that because two out of the three enemy types can TELEPORT!
GRRR!

Teleporting is an ability that should be given sparingly, if at all!
Yet whoever is responsible for the single player campaign gave EVERY single enemy this cheap ass spell in one form or another.
Do you developers not get that there is no possibility of there being a front and backline when you do that shit?

4) The AI is stupid.
This mostly comes into play when a character has been charmed; usually when it's one of mine charmed by the enemy.

The laws of self preservation say when you are hurt, you will always seek to help yourself before you help someone else.
This becomes a more powerful motivation, the more hurt/afraid, etc you are.... yet whoever made the ai set it up so they IGNORE their own health state and do their best to buff/heal the OTHER enemies in the area while they are almost dead.
Nuff said.

5) The AI is CONSTANTLY trying to avoid exploitable positions.
This means they will ALWAYS put their back to a wall/edge, if a wall is to be had, just to avoid backstabs.
This makes no sense unless they've FIRST been backstabbed!

This is another thing that probably shouldn't even be available to the average ai mook.
Think about it; is the average person going to be constantly trying to keep their back to the wall in the off chance someone will move behind them and stab them? NO!

This mechanic is supposed to be there so that the rogueish player (and rogue ai characters) can actually do damage!
Without being able to backstab, a rogue is just a SHIT damage dealer; this CONSTANT behavior makes the rogue unable to do their job most of the time due to their skills being half or less damage compared to other classes.
This makes rogue class essentially useless next to ANY other due to the fact that others don't need to position themselves to do normal damage!

6) Every enemy has spells.
The Crocodiles in the first island have ROCK THROWING abilities!
They are already MASSIVELY powerful melee units; there's no good reason for this crap!

This pattern is repeated across the entire single player campaign, where anything from animals, to people, to monsters, to plants have spells.
It's even worse then that though; every enemy also has LEVELING spells, meaning they get more spells from the spell list, the higher level they are.
This makes no sense!

Most regular units should ONLY ever have basic spells & abilities!
When we encounter a powerful mage, it should be a special encounter... not just another regular combat, because you made everything overpowered!


7) Giving npcs the ability to do things the player cannot do, is unfair!
The most blatent example of this cheating is when we goto Black Pits harbour and the enemy there casts a PERMANENT multi target pain link.
I don't care what your excuses are, that's just plain cheating.

Likewise, npcs being spawned for encounters and hazard fields spawned without an npc having cast a spell is also unfair!
This is also bad design!

Yeah the Witch is Hard and ?
She is absolutley optional you dont need to fight her and if you knew the game and your Spells its not that Hard anymore.
Rain on the Fire to get her a little weaker ,Living on the Edge on her Main Target and unchain the Party (that should be Standart for a Fight) to not get all your Partymember in her AoE Range for her Starting attack..

And you want weaker Enemys ? The Game is not that Hard threre are only a few realy Hard Encounters and you want the others to be Trash Ennemys ,DOS 2 is not Planescape Torment mutch of the Fun in the Game is from the Fights.
Learn your Spells and Skills and the Game gets Easy .

The Ennemys got Teleport so do you and Malady is no Weak NPC so she dont get One Hited.
The Challenge there for me was to get Swashbuckler bevor Malady teleports the Ship.

Yes some Attacks are out of the Blue thats an Ambush ^^ but most are not so Stop whinning .

That are Levelling spells ?

Wow I mean it's a game, you know that right. Things like this don't have no place in a game because it's just a stupid little hobby we enjoy and not a simulation of life. I mean by your standard every game out there should be unplayable because this happens in all of them in one form or another. Heck, even the way you talk in game is highly unrealistic but no one every complains about it.

But as the previous poster said you have to learn the mechanics and think a little. I am playing this game for a while now, closing in on 500 hours, and I haven't encounter one really unfair or overpowered fight. Ok if you go to the Witch at level 10 then you are really screwed but that's a basic mechanic in every RPG, you just pick a fight with a guy roughly the same size as you are, or level in this case. So you turn around and come back later when you more capable.

Every RPG works that way, unless those games with scaling enemies. And the reason for that is because the game wants or has to challenge you, otherwise you don't really learn the mechanics. I mean do you really want a game where you can just turn off your brain and cruise through the content? Sounds rather boring if you ask me, especially for any complex game like RPGs. But hey you can actually do that, it's called Explorer Mode. Super easy!

So because the game is hard it is bad, this is what i gathered from your post.

I like it because you have to (at least at some points) have to think about tactics and usefull teamcomposition. Never felt it was unfair in any way. Just not the hack 'n slay you find in other games.

The OP writes yet another "round peg in the square hole" post...;) So many people get hung up on their ideas about how a game "should" play and what they "should" be able to do that they literally are *unable to learn* how to play the game! Simplest way to put it: when an RPG throws stuff at you that you cannot overcome, then it's telling you to *go and do something else for awhile as you are not ready for this.* Beating the player's head against a telephone pole in frustration is *not* how the game should be played, imo...;)

Playing an RPG is all about character development--your characters grow gradually in skill as you move through the game. I thought it was funny how the OP doesn't seem aware that there is a story going on here and *goals* to progress through that, as you progress through them*, your character grows in experience, levels, and power. Instead, he talks as if the game is a simple-minded FPS where your goals are nothing more interesting than killing everything you can as fast as you can...;) No, the goal of the game is *not* to kill everything in sight and then move on to a difference area, rinse and repeat. Funny how that seems to have slipped by him...;)

hi

i like this game and the first one BUT this game hasnt the mecanic of the first one

WHY larian changed it lol according to ppls they love the first one

So the second one has a probleme with Z axis

no more difference btwn BOW and CROSSBOW

Mobs can cast even in the door is close

IF its difficult to make the same game on console and PC/MAC

WHY to do not make 2 DIFFERENT GAMES

one arcade for console and an other a true tactic RPG

BUT not make a bad compromize and changed what ppls love........ means the mecanic
and to put mobs and ncp with alot of hp/resistance and be capable to cast thru walls and doors ...doesnt make the game hard but ridiculous

sry for my english and personaly i dont think i ll buy the next one..........

ty

So like Vipstaakki said, it's bad because it's hard? I'd say it's easily GOTY.

"mimimi, this game is too hard for me, so it sucks, mimimimi"

DOS:2 is awesome. I started the game in Tactitian mode and sure it was hard enough. I had to carefully avoid most of fight encounters for first 10hrs or so but then I managed get my hands on better gear, learn more appropriate spells and I cant say its a breeze now but its definitely playable+enjoyable. I also like the changed fight system where its not possible to stun-lock enemies til their defenses are down. Brings more thinking into the battle imho. Also Im roughly 20hrs in and encountered only one minor bug - quest list is sometimes bugged but reopening it fixes it so who cares.

I think Larian made a splendid job and Im happy I chose this game over all other AAA titles for Xmas.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT



i am playing with 3 friends, i am a water/warfare STR/INT/CON Tank, we have an archer, a Necro/Warfare Two handed meelee and an Air Wizzard.

We totally DESTORY every enemy in Tactican mode. We'd like an even harder mode, but we all do not like the "die once and its over" hardcore mode.


The corpse of the witch on fire was a oneshot, the bloodmoon island advocate, together with 2 of his companions died in the 1st round of our Thunderstorm, Hail Storm & Arrow Storm opening with out meelee standing by for a finishing blow.

Just wait until all enemys are a favourable position, port one or two, hide in a good spot and unleash hell over them.
GG EZ

If enemys are split up, move them around, kite them, use their predictable AI to position themselfs in a bad stop and have one of the teleporter-pyramids at the source-well until you get source necromancy.

I want my money back.
Ok I know I won't get my money back, but I hate games, and this one in particular, that are designed for the 20 % of players that just flipping love spending hours trying to figure out how to beat the next boss which is WAY OVER POWERED. I understand you guys are looking for a challange and the game does have difficulty settings that sound really challenging. Why in the hell is the standard play level set to overwhelming and demoralizing?
I like to win eventually. The win should be gratifying not exausting and fun.
IMy map of Fort Joy had no citizens left in the town. I killed and looted everything so that I could level and armor up to kill the witch and Alexander (after the 6 try). Stupid shit.
The hit points should be ballanced in the standard game. Do not change anything except make the armor and hit point total of my team match the opponents. If you want to come after me with seven enemeys their armor total and hit point total should be pretty damb close to mine. Ok a boss once in a while may break the rule but every encounter being at boss difficulty sucks. Having 4 voidwoken guarding a farmhouse with lnothing of value in it and out in the boonie which are two leveles and at least 3 times the armor and hitpoints is obsurd. Especially for a "standard" difficulty game. I would expect this kind of challenge on the Tacktical difficulty.
Have you guys posting "being exteemly hard is good" beat the Tacktical difficulty? Dominated the Honor difficulty? No? Go play those difficulty levels and stop trying to influence the game desighers that the difficulty level intended for the other 80% of players should be no fun at all.
I want my money back
- - - - - - -
Oops I have to apologize. While writing the above crazy rant I realized that there are harder levels yes, but there is also an easier level. The Discovery difficulty level is just what I need. Sure it seems easy so far in the fights especially after spending 3 weeks getting my ass kicked on the standard difficulty. But the story is FUN.
So in regards to the above rant... Never mind.

The game is bad as was Divinity: Original Sin. I left that game in the Luculla forest. There were two ways to finish the eastern side of that place, but both blocked with overpowering stuff. 2 is no better. Both games were poorly designed. The Combat systems are trash and complete unbalanced. It is weighed heavily in favor of the bad guys in both versions ( 1 & 2 ) and that is playing in "Story" mode. The game at the very least needs hacking and give a lot more APs to the player in order to balance the Combat and actually let the player get some decent offense in. A game should be fun, but thses two have NOT been fun at all. I left the first on in the Luculla Forest, which is the second area. Looks like I will leave this one on Fort Joy. I pretty much cleared all the bad guys and was up at the Camp getting ready to board the ship, but had to deal with Bishop Alexander and his bunch. Not an easy thing to do at level 6 as it is hard to level in this thing ( need afr too many XPs ). Both games turned into ordeals and not fun at all. Not the way a game should be. There should be a challenge, but these things are off the charts, even in the easiest mode. Another good example, was the Gargoyle's Maze. It is easy enough to get to the Historian using Teleportation, although it is said you miss picking up some good stuff, but moving through that mess is anybody's guess. ALL gates are locked and can't be picked. When you get to the Historian, he is on fire and you need to put it out. Bless should work, but doesn't, so the game is not only bad, but buggy, and after "Beyond Divinity" that was really buggy and they did nothing, or at least not that I am aware of. After reading the reviews on that I skipped it. You ahvbe lots of Games out there that are done right such as the Witcher series, Elderscrolls Series, and Fallout Series to name a few. I did Play Divine Divinity back in '05 and that was poorly designed as well, but I did finish it. It is unfortunate as both these games could have been good.. No Way either 1 or 2 could be GOTY. It is poorly designed and the combat system is way out of balance. It is weighed far too heavy in favor of the bad guys. It shoulf not be that way. One way to even things would be to hack into the game and fix it so that the player has a whole lot more AP to work with and can mount a decent offense. The leveling system could be better too. It is Games like The Witcher that get GOTY, NOT junk like this.

I find that it is fairly well balanced. Nice & easy on 'explorer' mode, challenging in 'normal', and downright impossible in 'tactician'. This seems to fit in with where I'd say my skill level is - I'm not brilliant, so I play on explorer, or normal to challenge myself. What difficulty do you play on?

PC Gamer GOTY 2017

It is SUPPOSED to be Explorer, but I am having doubts about that. I will usually do the first playthrough on just the story and then move the level up on each new playthrough. In this thing, I get into a fight and look, and I am looking at a string of 5 bad guys and then one of my people, and that move is usualy to try and get into range in order to get some offense in. The Teleportation, I can bring them to me, but I am, lucky to have 2 moves and they seem to have a lot more AP per Character. I don't have an issue with challenging, but this is ridiculous and this is from someone who took on stuff 10 levels above mine in the Witcher. Somtimes I had it handed to me and sometimes not. As I said, the game is NOT balanced, at least the one I am playing. I get PCGamer and must have missed that article. Then again, there wasn't much out in 2017 either as far as RPGs went.