redface on 29/10/2017 at 13:09
Yeah, the combat is an unnecessary grind.
I also hate that every lousy enemy can cast something, I never really know what to expect from a fight and no way to prepare. Three crocodiles? Looks manageable... but nope, they all throw some AOE spells that wipe out my party.
scumble on 29/10/2017 at 16:14
I've lost a bit of momentum on the game since I last played. I spent some considerable time swapping gear about and found the one path that would get me to a winnable battle. I'm considering adding the number bloat mod and another mod that alters enemy AI so they don't always do exactly the right combo with abilities.
On the subject of mages, I've found it easier to make one mage work with a crossbow so there is another option for physical damage, using some items that buff the finesse skill. Physical armour always goes first, and most of the magic abilities I have don't make much of dent in armour. I'm probably reiterating the same thing as Nameless Voice here. I think you must have to tune your mages carefully to make sure their abilities will get enough bonus damage from stats. I haven't even bothered to use wands because they generally do tiny damage...
I'm scratching my head as to why some reviewers were calling it a "masterpiece". Some people must love way the battle system works and spending hours swapping equipment?
Nameless Voice on 29/10/2017 at 17:06
To be fair, I do like the writing, world, characters, and all the little detail that's everywhere in the game.
It's just the combat that I have an issue with - but combat is very much at the core of the gameplay.
I'm also surprised at how it has 93% (out of almost 13,000!) positive reviews on Steam. I guess that's another victim of Steam lacking a "mixed" review option, which leads me to never review games like this which have some great bits and some poor bits, because I can neither recommend or despise it.
scumble on 30/10/2017 at 08:25
The reason I persevered with it is largely down to the writing, voice acting and slightly facetious tone underlying. Items with names like "smelly pants" and funny descriptions.
I think using a mod to tweak the combat might fix my frustrations with battles and make the game more fun. As I've said, even the easiest difficulty presents challenges if you don't do battles in exactly the right order to level up enough.
Malf on 30/10/2017 at 09:06
I completed the game with the "No scaling" version of the number bloat mod.
Thanks to the mod, I never saw the disparity in armour strengths you guys saw, but even then, as mentioned previously, some fights were irritatingly difficult thanks to the AI cheating by getting the first turn in "feature" battles and access to more action points than the player's characters.
And even then, I eventually ended up having to use Cheat Engine to max out my team's stats after trying the final battle about ten times before realising that partially because of the mod, it was otherwise impossible.
There's a lot to love in the game. Unfortunately, combat and the general RPG system aren't deserving of that love. The game needs a serious balance pass, but looking at how pervasive the problems are, almost every encounter after Fort Joy would need to be re-done.
It's a massive shame, as the combat has huge potential; in fact, I can't help thinking that if they'd left it the same as the first game, it would have been in a much better place than it currently is.
Nameless Voice on 15/5/2018 at 18:18
Add fourth-wall-breaking character to randomly pop up and ask the player's for feedback.
No mention of any of the myriad gameplay flaws.
EvaUnit02 on 15/5/2018 at 18:38
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Add fourth-wall-breaking character to randomly pop up and ask the player's for feedback.
No mention of any of the myriad gameplay flaws.
Are you really getting triggered by a temporary feature bug reporting in an Early Access console version? Typing text with the system's default input device is far from optimal, perhaps even mentally beyond the grasp of a segment of the normie audience who is on a largely mass-market platform like a gaming console.
If you have issues with the game design then I suggest you hop on social media, the Larian forum, Steam forum, etc and voice your opinion. Now is the PERFECT time to give criticism since they're developing an "enhanced edition" at this very moment.
Nameless Voice on 15/5/2018 at 23:27
I think you mean "less optimal". But anyway, I was more complaining that they're announcing the enhanced edition but not giving any hints as to what will be in it yet. It's entirely possible that they aren't even sure themselves yet.
But you're right, I should get around to expanding my Steam review and post it on the Larian forums.
I'm afraid that DOS2 annoys me, because I really wanted it to be even more awesome than the first one, and yet I found it very disappointing, mainly because of a couple of (in my mind) really bad design decisions that sapped a lot of the fun out of it for me (to the point that I had to struggle to finish it).