I've been playing for a few hours on-and-off, because the opening HUB (not the tutorial area, that was actually pretty well made) is tedious and uninteresting, which is par-for-the-course for RPGs.

I wanted to just start mowing down hordes of enemies but I find myself neck-deep in quests that my OCD is badgering me to handle.

Just figured out the same thing that I JUST looked up Raze_Larian recommending (https://www.gog.com/forum/divinity_series/mindreading_in_divinity_2)-

1. Mindreading
2. Killing
3. Turning in Quests

Thus far enemies don't SEEM to respawn, and the experience given decreased SHARPLY after a merely two level-ups from easy quests in the opening HUB- but the exp debt from mindreading keeps you from leveling for a bit... meaning the earlier you mindread the less excess exp is wasted from lowered exp gains from enemies. Which doesn't fit in at all with the quests which seem to give a consistent amount of exp regardless of level.

One of the most obtuse and mind-blowingly badly-designed gimmicks in any game I can think of.

I wish I could just lose myself in hunting enemy-after-enemy like in DD, but I'm so struck by how specifically I have to handle every crappy little quest about the cheating farmer's wife and the farmer's poor little pigs that this gimmick on top of it just makes me not want to play at all.

Really, the entire far-right skill category (Dragon Slayer, I think?) is just filled with garbage skills. Out of all the great designs in DD, they kept the skill WISDOM!? Seriously? Then there's the lockpicking skill, which doesn't fit in since the vast majority of the skills in D2 are designed purely for straight-up combat and mixing utility skills with combat skills is always something devs need to do carefully.

(I know I sound like a whiney grouch, but do me a favor and sympathize a bit before you go into what the game does well and why it's worth my time, ty)

I actually rather liked it, because I thought it was a fresh feature, actually.

My preference in gaming is quite strongly focused on the RPG genre - so I do not play a lot of games by default. Yet: I cannot recall any other game having had this same idea, and therefore it added a lot of charm for me.

Meanwhile, rather a gentle tactics spoiler, if it can be taken as such, for the style of play you might prefer:

Just run around the game-world open to you, and kill all the "ambient" enemies, and backtrack to mind-read for those other quests, if you rather mind the mind-read thing.

And equipment can help you there.

This said, being a great fan of Divinity series, and having played Divinity 2 once or twice - I tend to end up rather overpowered in these later replays, but I can never resist pimping up my char. I am weak! The level differentiated XP from enemies ensures you do level up though, either way.

Have you progressed to the "Eco Draconis" bit yet? (the second part, after you beat the original campaign)



Edit: replace "Eco Draconis" with "Flames of Vengeance" pray! But if you rather dislike mind-reading, I think u know what I mean! :-)