Recently I’ve discovered the joy of CRPGs, having previously only dabbled in them without spending any significant time on the genre.
With Baldur’s Gate 2 just around the corner, which I’m sure many of us are hyped for, I wanted to try a similar CRPG to get a feel for whether I’m going to want to play it. Enter DOS2; this game is made by Larian Studios, the same studio making BG2, and is an absolutely incredible game.
From the graphics, which are stunning even 6 years on from release, to the combat which makes you think about your moves in a manner similar to how you might do in a game like chess, and best of all stories which are for the most part genuinely interesting. I frequently found myself surprised at events / characters / quests I found throughout the world, even small things like hearing someone screaming nearby then discovering they had been torn to pieces by voidwoken.
I recently just finished Act I and just started Act II but wanted to share a bit of love for this game as it is an absolute masterpiece with a well deserved 95% positive rating with 144k reviews on steam.
Please share your experience with DOS2 and whether or not you have fully completed the game!
A friend and I tried this game and enjoyed it up to a point, a particular fight we could not get past.
Finally looking online for a guide, we discovered that every guide we could find suggested cheesing the fight in various ways.
We both decided that any game that required the player to both know a fight was about to happen (when it was impossible from context to predict) and cheese the fight to win was a bad game. Even if this was only one fight, it was a fight that blocked all progress. We quit and neither of us have wanted to play the game again.
Note: We have, either together or on our own, completed other games - like BG 1-2, NWN, PoE, DOS1 - without resorting to guides, cheats, foreknowledge, or cheese.
We were, and remain, very disappointed with DOS2 because of this, and we’re “suspicious” of BG3 because of DOS2 (but, charitably, perhaps Larian made a mistake in DOS2 and won’t repeat it in BG3).
EDIT: Please don’t ask me what fight this was, because I really don’t remember as it was now years ago. We were pretty deep into the game, bopping along pleasantly and thinking we were succeeding. As I recall, we had no side-quests to do (so no way to level IF we were under-leveled - I remember looking to see if we had missed some corner and needed to quest there). We basically entered a room in some dungeon/temple with no other direction on the map to go and experienced TPK. Over and over until we finally gave up. Looking at Steam, it says we were 93.3 118 hours into the game.
You are wrong, you can cheese in DoS2 but you don´t have to. It is an option, not a requirement. Source: I (as probably many others did too) finished the game without using any cheese once.
I suspect you reflexively cheesed the game, mainly because I absolutely recall that when we gave-in and looked up guides for this fight, every single one of them that we found at the time advised us to cheese the fight. Not one simply presented a strategy or alternative. They were all like, “Oh, yeah, that fight. You gotta cheese it.” We both found the idea of having to cheese a fight to win distasteful, so we just quit with a shrug.
That was our experience. It was a bad game for us because of that, and I thought I had made that clear.
Without knowing what fight you stopped at it’s hard to really talk about your experience, but I promise you don’t need to know a fight is coming or cheese the fight. There’s a point where the fights just click for you and become easier. There’s also plenty of content you can go to instead to level up, if you’re under leveled.
There’s only 1 fight I can think of that’s balls to three weeks nuts (the Blackpits) and my brother and I still beat it legitimately, just took like 6 attempts.
I found that lowering the difficulty was just required. The early game, you have a LOT stacked against you. When you level up, get more abilities, better gear - then you don’t have to pull them behind a doorway or something.
It made sense that you were completely outgunned in the start, but as you progress, it’s a little easier.
However, the emphasis on surfaces was bad. It was way too easy to make necrotic fire that was 2 turns to dispel a small portion of. And in the beginning, it’s very hard to get rid of it. Late game, you can turn it into a healing fire.
But other than those gripes, it was a fantastic game. Well with the time invested to learn it. Just, lower the difficulty.
Which fight was this?
I knew getting into the game that the combat was punishing - especially in Act 1 before you built your team. But I don’t recall having to cheese a fight to get pass it.
This is a game for which the developers said “you have to cheese it, we made it that way intentionally”.
You have to do fights trying to cheese it as much as possible, guess the correct order based on your level as well and often end up in situations that are impossible to resolve unless you do something that doesn’t make sense.
And let’s not forget the “kill everything that moves to get the most xp possible” because that’s the way it’s intended to be played.
If it was just a straight up “combat - cutscene - combat” I would agree with the “great game” opinion because the game only shines for the combat system.
Everything else is below average when not straight out broken.
Wife and I couldn’t even finish act one. Hated it, don’t get the praise.
DoS2 is a truly outstanding RPG - many CRPG nerds say the best ever - but that is ofc only after getting into the game. Unlike most games that are developed today. DoS2 is not at all a casual game, on the contrary, it´s pretty complex and to make it worse for new players, the game also does not explain much. The consequence is a relatively high threshold to get into the game and an extremely steep learning curve, that can be truly overwhelming for new players, especially those who are not familiar with “hardcore” CRPGs - like me before playing DoS2.
The fact that you could not finish act 1 simply means that you didn’t get over the threshold to get into the game, otherwise finishing act 1 would not have been a problem. It took me 2-3 attempts to finish act 1, because there was still so much to learn after the first try. What I mean is that you are missing out on one of the greatest RPGs of all times and that you should consider giving yourself another chance to actually get into the game. I very much recommend using guides, at least on your first playthrough.
To not gimp your chars, use class guides by this guy (DON`T use fextralife builds!) https://steamcommunity.com/id/teesinz/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=435150&p=2
The one big weakness of Dos2 is the dysfunktional quest journal, it regularly leaves the player without any information about where o go next. To not get lost, simply use this quests by character levels guide (thank you Lost Sinner, you are amazing <3) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1139237003
I highly recommend using a two person party and giving both the lone wolf talent on your first run. It is significantly easier to learn (and beat) the game this way than with a full four person party.
Another key factor for a successful first play through of DoS2 is to not split your damage imo. This might be counterintuitive but the dual armor system in DoS2 heavily rewards parties that deal only physical or only elemental damage. I recommend a phys dam only party for the first playthrough.
tldr: Yes, the game has a high threshold to get into - that is naturally the case because it is a deep and complex game - it is very much worth to get into - don´t make yourself miss out on it.
I didn’t say we were bad at it mate, I said we didn’t like it. A game shouldn’t have a “threshold” to get into it. It should just be fun. We stopped playing because it wasn’t fun.
I mean, you did say you hated it and “didn’t get the praise”. I don’t know how else to interpret that than calling it bad.
But also, I disagree that games shouldn’t need a threshold to get into them. Some games simply have depth that can’t be instantly expressed as soon as you start playing.
Each to their own, fun is different things for different people. Naturally every game has a certain threshold to get into. The more complex a game is, the higher that threshold becomes. Some games have a threshold that is so low you wont even notice it. Enjoy what you like best and glhf mate!
I love CRPGs and was excited when I got recommended this game - it got a lot of praise. Unfortunately, I found it to be tedious and overall uninteresting. That wouldn’t be worth mentioning if this game wasn’t on every top-rpgs-of-all-time list… I honestly don’t get it and I am confused.
How far into the game did you get? I know it took me a couple tries to actually get hooked, but that involved doing a good portion of the tutorial island multiple times
Personal taste is always a factor. I’m curious, though - which CRPGs do you consider less tedious/more interesting?
@Taliesin @solidstate Legend of Grimrock has its moments.
Grimrock and Grimrock II were awesome! Not really CRPGs, though. Dungeon crawlers in the tradition of Eye of the Beholder (apparently the sub-genre is called “blobbers,” I am amused to have just learned. On account of the party moving around as a blob).
I enjoyed both Baldur’s Gates, Planescape Torment, Pillars of Eternity, Arcanum, Gothic, I don’t know, pretty much RPGs across the board I think.
That’s a solid list, though I’m surprised to see Pillars up there. Gave both 1 and 2 really serious tries, tens of hours each, and just couldn’t get through them. Flat characters and uninspired world, I felt. I even like Critical Role but found their performance in PoE2 phoned in.
Its a great game, its funny trying to break it as its quite arbitrary at some places. Also it needed a few more QOL passes as things like an invisible oil spill will randomly slow your character down and ruin the turn.
Also the ending was very unsatisfying. All this talk about being divine, then it just ends with a book reading.
