Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Some Feedback from a guy who got everything wrong.

Hello guys, I was reading some other posts and occurred to me that my "noobie on games like d:os feedback" might be valuable, you see most of you guys are veterans of this genre while I, being a Bethesda/Bioware/Squaresoft type of gamer, got smashed (and then kicked in the head a bit) by the learning curve of this game.

This is a long post, because I will tell the whole story on how a person like me will possibly react (as I did) to this game, and English its not my first language, so be pacient...

I got this game as reviewers were saying it was amazing, and started it right away. My first playthrough I walked out of Cyseal at level 2 (guards don't know shit about danger anyways, so why listen to them? I had 4 guys on the party already, so lets bash some skulls right?).

I left using the wrong gate and soon meet those legion friendly squeletons that told me about the church that I should not enter or my flesh would be vaporized from my bones... obviously I didn't bothered to listen to their warning neither.

You see, npcs have the awfull habit of warning us heros of shit they can't do, but we are heros so we know better...

...and obviously got my ass handed to me by lvl 7 squeleton archers how could 1 hit my entire party (grouped tightly as a good noob ofc) with 1 single explosion arrow...

After some dozens of attempts of sneak to improve the battle (with sneak 1 lol) or try to aggro single squeletons at the time to focus fire (and failling ofc because the game just doesnt work that way) I just rotulate the game as:

"badly polished game that failled to lead me where I need to go, afterall if I decided to leave the city being too weak it is the games fault for not having interesting enough things to do on the city, or even letting me venture into that area."

I play rpgs on hard mode most of the time, so if I just got raped on the start, on classic mode, something its clearly wrong with this game (not with me ofc, i'm awesome always).

(Now I know I should have used my secret "maybe I should not be stupid?" approach...)

I replayed Skyrim for about 1 month, and again I needed a new game, my friend recommended D:Os, and I started complaining about how "this game was bad, how the books are costy as hell and I had no idea how to get money on this game, and I couldn't defeat the guys outside because I had no items/spells so I was locked on being weak, this all pointed to the conclusion of the game being awful"...

And this guy responded: "strange, this game has such high reviews, some people call it masterpiece or whatever."
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As a critical thinker I started to doubt my conclusions and decided to watch on youtube some sort of guide, so I could know what I was doing so wrong or if the game was realy that bad, and if it was, how it could be misleading people into thinking it was "a masterpiece"...

I typed on youtube: "divinity original sin what not to do" and watched the few first videos...

After that I re-started the game, became the rich master of the art of art theft (as every player in d:os ever), got myself some nice candles to lit oil and poison clouds for mere 2ap, got spider summon, followed the main story as a nice scotsman and now suddenly everything made sense and this game was quickly being one of the best rpg I've ever played...

I researched traits so I didn't screw up very badly and discovered how Glass Cannon and Lone wolf work to make characters more epic (although the game itself more difficult in case of lone wolf)... and restarted the game making my current 3 bellegarettes party , a dual weilding lone wolf heartless shadowblade, a glass cannon geo/pyro/hydro elemental mage and Medora as tanky stats+grenades...

And now definitely this is one of my favorite rpg experiences tied with DA Origins and FFTactics...

I read some of the threads here, especialy those "this game is shit threads", feat. raze's monkish pacience at responding that sort of rants and occurred to me that those guys might just be the same as me (but not so smart and handsome)...

You guys look at their rants and think they might just be "not old school enough gamers", or "need the game to hold our hand", but realy, perhaps thats not (always) the case.

I for instance think I can be as competent tactician as you guys who favor this genre... but I just had no clue this game would be so different on everything, the closest thing I've ever played to Divinity was Wasteland 2...

Now, I would guess a large portion of rpg community probabily are final fantasy or elder scrolls players I would say there are few... very few rpg players that would survive this kind of learning curve only to enjoy this game...

I can tell, its completely worth it... but perhaps Larian should adress this as I can only immagine that are MANY, MANY "not so old school rpg players" that just need a bit more help to get into the genre...

If you survived all this reading thanks a lot for the game, it is awesome... and be free everyone to add if you fell the same or disagree = ]

Nice post Velvet. That was a good read.

The thing with DoS "core" design was to recreate pen & paper experience as much as possible so yeah, the learning curve is hard when you are not experienced with this kind of games.
In a pen & paper you can do whatever you want, which is the case in DoS and also, if your DM throws you a monster 6 level above you and you decide to fight it, yeah, you will die.
This is the same thing in DoS.

DoS is an open game where you can do whatever you want and go wherever you want. It's overwhelming at first but I'm glad that you took the time to rethink about it and learned how to play this genre before coming here and vomiting insults. It's all in your honor.

There's a few of us around! For no especially good reason, I was quite a late-comer to RPGs (considering I've been playing video games on and off since the late '70s) and started with Oblivion. Which is fortunate for me, as in its vanilla form it's probably one of the more forgiving introductions to the genre, but I still found myself having a major case of "...?!" more often than not, until I eventually got it (and then came mods and complicated concoctions like FCOM, but that's another story).

Likewise, I started the Divinity series with Ego Draconis, which was again quite accommodating except for the minor element of being killed constantly if I didn't absolutely know what I was doing; so I did end find myself backing D:OS with some trepidation: I'd never played the old-style isometric, turn-based games and wasn't overly enthused by the fans of that particular style. So, yeah, I appreciate that it was definitely quite a learning curve, and unlike you am I not a good tactician, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

It's a tough one: investing the time in something complex can be very rewarding, but if it seems too daunting, a lot of people won't bother. Fortunately, the Divinity series doesn't seem to be particularly afflicted by the sort of unwelcoming "lolnoob!" thing you see elsewhere, but I think the older-style of D:OS does certainly require a little determination for those unfamiliar with the playing style: which was at least my personal experience, anyway.

Starting with a "what not to do" guide sounds like it turned out to be a good plan though, and I think is one I should adopt for various things I need to learn too!

I think many had the OP's experience and likely most probably didn't give it a 2nd chance, face it we all have games up the yang and we just move on to something else.

DOS sold well, well those that were frustrated and left early probably aren't coming back for 2nd's.

I was one that did agree with the feedback of people wanting direction in the starting town and where to go. People were asking for a pointer, but a lot of us old-timers if you will get offended easily as if we would be stealing the game from them. There really could be an option to turn it on and off and really in the end it allows more people to enjoy the game and provide more sales, resulting in more games like this. We've all been streamlined to some point, some areas perhaps too much, but many UI designs are better than what we had.

Glad to hear you gave it a 2nd shot, once you get it down... then you want a harder game!

Yes and I think that this should be addressed... you see, the game doesn't necessarily need to block my path saying "you can only enter this area when you are lvl 10", but AT LEAST tell me, somehow, what side of Cyseal I should probably head out first...

And the game shouldn't expect me to discover, by myself, that I need to steal stuff (all stuff) to make enough money to buy all my spell books...

I know there are other ways of making money, but lets face it, will be 10x times harder, especialy if I decide that my character its a good person and would not pickpocket someone... (its to be expected from dark magic hunters)

It also looks like the price of everything its balanced around a player who at least stole all paintings of Cyseal to start the game... you guys don't think this is wrong? Sorry, but I do.

I also think its too easy to steal, that's why things MUST be balanced around stealing, so the problem to all would be make harder to steal. This would make barter, crafting and especially pickpocketing and pick locking more important and perhaps a bit necessary for people who like to play around grenades, special arrows and also wants the top spells as soon as there's level requirement for those.

It would be much more logical to make stuff cheaper and make steal harder wouldn't it? Even on elder scrolls when you could just drop a bucket on the vendors head and steal all his stuff you will STILL have everything flagged as "stolen" and only certain vendors (thief guild) would buy those.

Being caught would also make you lose everything you have flagged on the inventory not only that item that you were trying to steal, and yes if you were an important person you could ask guards to let this one slip...

So, I still love the game, making my second run and already planning the third, harder one, but all those problems add to the learning curve, and my problem with the game was never "the enemys are too strong" or like that one funny guy said "I use all my ap to catch up and the archer runs away" (lmao), anyways, by learning curve I was talking about those alien concepts (to me), being almost obliged to steal to get "a ok number" of spells and equipment and having problems to know what to do and where to go first.

If something on tutorial said to me "maybe you should carry a candle with you, could be useful to lit oil and explode poison clouds" Omg... my game approach and personal opinion would be completely changed right there with only 1 dialog line.

So, IMHO helping a tiny bit on those things would make the player pool much much larger, as all those "not so old school" rpg players like me would not immediately misjudge the game for those flaws and would give it a chance.

And hopefully, like me, enjoy it for the great game it is.



PS, AND SPOILER

Btw that cliff teleport stuff to get into boreas castle, no way to discover that without a guide, that was just mean.

When you get to Cyseal Arhu tells you to talk to the legion commander, who tells you that the undead to the west are weaker. Also, every other gate besides that one is closed, and you have to ask a guard to open it for you, which checks on your level and number of characters in the party.

There are other easy ways to make money: Earning a honest living (newbie friendly).

Raze, i'm not saying it isn't there, i'm not complaining, i'm trying to help...

I'm not saying its not possible to play without stealing, it certainly is, but the normal, noobie way, and the way the prices are balanced around, its stealing paintings.

I know how to get money via crafting right now, I know that I can get crafting 5 and blacksmith 5 using scientist talent and 2 points on each (only 6 ability points) , and get the other 2 points from bracers and belt... I know about it now.

I know I can melt all knives and craft daggers and sharp them for money, but for that, I need to know how the crafting stat work, I need to know if I can, or can't dedicate my points to that, and for that I need to know how stats scale properly...

I also need to know if a spell will have add AP cost for having too low of a talent and the % of success on my Int/Str/Dex (before buying the book), thats knowledge its essential to build a hybrid.

I can survive the early game battles even dedicating one of my characters to craft and blacksmith, because the crafted melee weapons are superior and know I know how to properly use the elemental effects, even if I'm playing lone wolf the craft and blacksmith points are still worth it, but a noobie can just barely survive the battles even dedicating his points to weapons and defensive stats (the normal way a noobie would head)

I also know (now) that lone wolf = -1 char, not only 1 char (like the name "lone wolf" misleads one to believe).

I now know that not having petpal will lock me out of quests, and even if I get it, I can respec later so I dont need to be afraid of getting it early... I know I can respec!, but I will need all my spell books again, gladly I learned to keep them for later and to craft the most important ones from scrolls...

And that's a lot of learning just to start getting money and building your chars properly.

My point is, if someone needs a guide to get money to buy the initial novice spells, and START the game, maybe this is not the best way it could be, not the best way to greet a player you understand?

I imagine that if were I design a game, I would probably want to avoid that a player must read any guide (or multiple ones in case of divinity OS) just to start having fun with the game, especially if that game already has a tutorial dungeon.

Well that's my opinion... the game its great, I like it, really, but I fell it is unfriendly, and if this were changed (a bit) for D:OS2, it would help Larian to sell the game to a way larger public.

I'm not talking about mmorpg or moba players, thats indeed out of reach, but bioware/bethesda/projkt red/squaresoft public really enjoy good rpgs and we are currently starving for those, and I would love to see D:Os2 having the attention it deserves.

and we are within reach... = ]

Haha, that really mirrors my experience with Morrowind after coming to the genre via Oblivion! I got thoroughly pwned in the first dungeon I encountered on the way from Seyda Need and wrote the game off as a complete loss for several months, which is the time it took for me to somehow get the gist of it. Subsequently I installed FCOM on Oblivion which removed the levelling issues (admittedly to replace them with other levelling issues) and really enjoyed it, but considering I couldn't venture outside Imperial Isle for many levels without a very high risk of being pwned, it's certainly not a welcoming environment for beginners and I wouldn't recommend it as one.

The element of thieving is one that sat uncomfortably with me: I would say you're correct in that it's not a means to easy money, it's the only realistic way of making enough money to get by in the early stages, however else you might play it. I reconciled myself with having to do it, but wasn't happy as my preferred character type is basically honest rather than a rogue who will steal anything that isn't nailed down. As the dialogue with the prospective thief shortly after entering Cyseal would indicate.

There is an easy way to find out where to go: each enemy has a level and you can see the level when you put your mouse there. If the enemy level is much higher than your own, may you should try to go somewhere else.

I think this game is just right. My favourite quest is when you investigate the murder in the first town. There are lots of things to do all over the place, but you will get some hints where to start.

If you want it old school, play the realm of arcadia trilogy: In the first game you start in a town and somebody tells you to find an item to stop an orc army. You start very weak, have a huge map to explore, no idea where to go, almost everything can kill you (not just monsters, also illness, traps and other things) and you will lose exp if you save the game outside of a temple. It was a great pnp adventure simulation, but almost impossible to finish without a guide.

I am happy that you tried D:OS again and finally finished it.

@vometia: You started to play cRPGs with oblivion and continued playing? Thats impressive! I have played several RPGs before oblivion. When I started playing it was nice. But level scaling killed every fun for me. After killing tons of demons I was unable to kill some goblins, then I quit and never touched it again. If this was my first RPG, I am not sure if I had ever played another one again.

Fortunately the sense of adventure kept it going for me, I guess something that happened again with D:OS when I repeatedly found myself out of my depth! I'm glad it did as it opened up the whole genre to me: I'd previously only been playing some not entirely rewarding shooters (nothing wrong with them per se, they just didn't really do it for my playing style).

I certainly agree that the level scaling made it not fun, and during my second play-through I got to that "oh, what's even the point?" phase where I learnt about the likes of the big overhaul mods (and FCOM, which tries to smush the whole lot together: successfully, I should add, but complex). Happily, the game's engine supports much more effective and complex level scaling, it just isn't implemented that way as standard. I now find it's right up there with other favourite games, its main omission being the inexplicable lack of beards, something that can't even be modded in very easily.

Edit: oh yeah, and the high-level goblins are really bloody annoying. Stand still so I can hit you!

Yes, most people give up on a game because it doesn't play like they "expect" it to play--it's the same with movies and books, too--if they aren't what most people "expect" they are often panned. I'm guilty of that myself in years past.

I can't remember all of the computer games, books, and movies that I have picked up again after a hiatus of months or even years--which I then thoroughly enjoyed! (That's not *always* true, of course...;) But I'm surprised at how often it is true.) Some of my all-time favorite computer games are games in that category--that I initially put aside in disgust because they weren't what I thought they should have been. Once you forget what it was you expected a game to be you are then in a position to approach the game with an open mind and to let the game take you where it will, and to play the game according to its own rules rather than insisting that it play like some other game that it isn't. That's really the only frame of mind to have when sitting down with a game.

You seem to have learned that lesson early and well and that means you have many years of enjoyment stretching out before you, imo. Congrats! Some people never get past trying to force their games to fit a mold they were never designed to fit and those folks miss it all.

Agreed, there is a way to unpack some files and modify the viewing radius, bumping AI up to 360 degrees really helped imo. Like who would steal with someone in the room anyway? Wait for the dude to turn around 6 feet in front of me and take whatever? Nah, if someone is in the room, I would get caught. It was more realistic and helped police rampant thieving.

Copy two posts in here that are part of a discussion I have with Vendetta in another thread, it belongs more in here:

Abraxas*:

@Vendetta: Much to say to all these things but, indeed, not the right rail. I read quite everything that's posted on this forum, so I'll take your thoughts and opinions into account. But I won't make the game more 'accessible', if you hope so. Larian have introduced more hints, information and even a type of questmarker with EE - also made changes to skills and things like loremaster (which now tells you the most valuable information (resistances) on value 1 which usually comes from gear, so there is absolutely no reason to invest ability points in loremaster any more) - to help players (and there are good guides out there). Opening the game to players who aren't familiar and willing or able to accept its approaches and descisions and to learn how this game wants to be played (I was quite impressed by your honesty and your will to give it a second try, by the way) is a difficult and quite dangerous task: at a certain point it leads to simplified game design, and there are enough such games out there. D:OS is not the high end of complexity (never meant to be) but is doesn't serve the well known patterns game industry has developed over time and validated as functional to sell their games to high amounts (and that means: higher and higher and higher amounts: it's a logic of expanding, not of improving and developing their games further in the first place - that quickly becomes a contradiction) - absolutely legitime but, well, this means they rather perpetuate their patterns (with slight variants or some new 'features' here and there or patterns from their competitors which seem to work fine for the great public) and just fill them with different content - than to try new things or improve their games on a vertical axis (what we call 'depth'). And aren't we hoping exactly for that when we buy and start a 'new' game?
Not to elaborate that too much: What could Bethesda's games be if they were willing to develop their games further? To capture your example (stolen items): to make the social system of a town react on player actions organically and more complex than just dividing the world in NPCs-that-buy-stolen-items and NPCs-that-don't-buy-stolen-items. And it doesn't help that the first group of NPCs offers quests the other group doesn't offer - the addition to the vertical axes is very small, it's more adding content and features. The whole distinction is absolutely artificial and implausible: there's a crime system, a trade system and a 'social' system but instead of combining these three systems here trading, social and crime system were separated (I'm not even sure if there is a social system in Skyrim - and is there a political system or just more groups of NPCs that have no relation to each other except in a few subordinate clauses?) - relations that, let's say, Gothic had, of course not very elaborated and not notable in every situation but they were there and affected gameplay, they were more than just 'background' and one of the reasons why Gothic is still a reference for rpgs in 2016 [good design priciples never get old, it's just a mechanism in discourse - intentionally forced by some big companies - that tries to exclude certain types of games and tries to signify itself as 'modern', 'new', 'innovative', '2016', 'zeitgeist' or what else, that leads so far that many principles rpgs once had, structures, systems appear to be 'new', but they aren't, they were just forgotten, never known, ignored or repressed]): so, the consequence is: you can't sell stolen items and therefore no one reacts on the player's attempts to sell stolen items - it's simply not there.
So my solution to stolen items would be a more 'organic' and plausible one. Fortunately D:OS is not a massive open world game, so it's much easier to connect things and get some 'depth'. Open world has an enormous high price also Witcher 3 pays.

But to come to an end (something brought me off the rails too): more hints, more information, more hands that take you from start to end, more obviousness, more making the world fit to the players expectations and habits would kill D:OS quite soon. An uncounted amount of players considers the first hours of the game boring. Walking through Cyseal, reading 'walls of text', somehow trying to solve a quest, and then this childish humour!: beside the fact that you can combine intown actions with some fights, if you explore, and that Larian's humour seems more mature than so many games that claim and try to be mature but consist of quite underdeveloped 'seriousness' and simple hero patterns (I can't take such things seriously the 'older' I get: that doesn't mean such games are 'bad' it just means that they aren't mature or more mature than Larian's ironic treatmeant of genre conventions is) - so, I absolutelly fell in love with D:OS when I played it the first time for NOT serving the patterns: Why not starting a game with talking, exploring, listenting and investigating a murder? Why souldn't that be possible? These reactions prove the existence of those patterns I talked about. The general rule is: give the player action and rewards, give him an appetizer right from the start so he does not lose interest.
I love Larian Studios for NOT doing this. I was absolutely surprised about this uncommon decision. Just a few encounters at the beginning and a tutorial dungeon to introduce some of the mechanics, that's all. And then the game expects you to interest yourself, by offering you a lot of possibilities to talk, to steal, to quest, to explore, to trade, to craft, to listen, and yes, to fight.
There aren't many games like this, especially over the last 10-15 years. And it also made you rethink your own expectations and, in the end, you seem to be happy about this experience. It made a difference, and that's what good games should do, even if they turn out to be 'uncomfortable' in some way.

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Velvet Vendetta:

Abraxas, first of all, english its not my first language, so forgive me if I missunderstood any of your points, I did my best tho reading it four times:

I think you mistook what I meant by accessible, or user-friedly game, seems that you think I meant easier? You pointed the loremaster change (I wasn't even aware of that, and I usualy use low cost ap spells to check for a mob resistance that I can't guess, I can guess most of them anyways). Questmarkers and Hints features are a more fit example of what I meant.

I never meant to say I would wish D:OS to be easier, as the hard (at first) battles are one of the main reasons I stayed and still enjoy the game (currently playing duo-lone wolf tactician)...

So, what I suggest its not making the game any easier, just less convoluted, if the game didn't had quest markers, hints and a proper journal I wouldn't play it... imagine how many other people would play it if only it had a bloddy map that we could "click and go there" or some other more user-friendly mechanic?, or the said "appetizer":

I do disagree with your opinion, (if I understood it correctly) when you say "give the player appetizer right from the start" as something bad and being glad it was avoided, it may be indeed mainstream that Devs uses some strategy (usualy the same, as they fear to fail) to hold player interest in the start, as the player will be facing the learning curve and might be unfamiliar with what the game offers... and might end giving up the game without ever learning what the game its about... I fell every gamer has at least one game that falls into this category, sometimes great games that will fail to hold interest because of a lack of some strategy to make good first impressions and/or make the players extra distracted while they learn "how it is supposed to be played". Anyways, I don't think just because something its done massively by all other big games it means its a thing that should be avoided, needless to say I don't want D:OS to "surrender" to the "just other rpg" formula either, but instead, seek a balace between the big learning curve and some strategy to hold interest for single player (I think it is already very attractive as a coop rpg the way it is)

Holding interest IS important for a game with such learning curve for a game to reach a bigger audience and I think that can be done without any meaningful sacrifice to "old schoolness", and that would be important for the second game, and I mean all that especialy for anyone who haven't taken part on the Beta/Dev parts of the game like you guys, or someone from out of the genre (or both).

Ok about the Depth stuff you said... well, I never thought of it that way I must admit, yeah a "only X characters buy Stolen items" it is indeed no deeper or more meaningfull than "steal the painting for the guy hands and sell to him right after", BUT, its more immersive on the skyrim (and a lot other games) way, I guess. It would be great to have a more meaningfull system, with proper reactions and development towards crime, punishemnt, etc; but this means a new system for everything social/crime/speech checks/etc... while a temporary mod-fix (prices not balanced around stealing, and stealing being hard and punishing, and probabily going renegade/low rep via steal) could help the game not being so "unimmersive" as it is right now in regard to stealing stuff.

Basically I speak of complexity (amount of elements, how many and what type of relations between them), combat and combat difficulty is one part of the game's complexity as a whole. In the first place I used this as an example for more accessability to combat by showing the player basic and important enemy stats without requiring ability point investments (and necessary decisions about investing points in loremaster or other abilities, for loremaster getting quite unimportant after 1 point investment) to get this information and an advantage towards enemies. Displaying health points and resistances on Loremaster 0 respectively 1 approximates loremaster to an external information and almost separates this ability from roleplaying. It's more a tooltip than role-related information (for your character being a loremaster). As a role-specific information it's too easy to get. Every character who wears a ring or amulet that has a bonus on loremaster (what is likely the case) suddenly becomes a loremaster who is able to decode ALL weaknesses of enemies!
This change makes it both simpler and easier. That's what I meant.


The problem a game designer has to face here is that the implementation of questmarkers under the conditions of certain design principles (especially of story and questing here) has an effect on the design or, at least, would be quite difficult and time spending. Questmarkers work quite well for the complexity of quests we find in most RPGs ('complexity' based on amount of involved NPCs, items and locations, how many different ways to solve the quest exist or - much more complex - how many different versions of 'the quest' exist, depending on your actions and the effects of your actions on the involved or possibly involved elements). But for Pen & Paper principles (freedom, creativity, dynamic etc.) and the vision of Swen Vincke and his team full questmarker/questtracker support would be highly problematic, as one Larian (maybe Raze?) already mentioned somewhere. We can try to get into details if that instance doesn't appear to be evident.

Maybe my current problem is that I don't know exactly how you imagine a more accessible D:OS (2). So let's say: If you'd have been the lead designer of Divinity Original Sin, what would you have done to open the game to the public you have in mind? What would you consider 'accessible' and 'interesting'?

Well, I don't know exactly either, unfortunately... I'm no developer so I might not know exactly why is that D:OS didn't feel accessible.

What I can do tho its tell from my personal experience...

I will try to list some things that almost made me quit the game before I started enjoying it, and you are probably far more prepared than I to deduce what (in terms of design) i'm actually referring to and how to address it, so I will just describe (even further) my experience with the game that made me feel it was necessary to make this thread, to help the game devs to improve, avoiding the same case (or worst) to happen again on their future games.

The first time:

When I reached Cyseal I didn't know what to do on "boat on fire quest", barely knew how to control the camera tbh, so the boat sank "errm...ok..no problem?", arrived into Cyseal and started the main quest, I found the vendors and sold everything I had (from tutorial) to buy 1 spellbook, glanced the prices on the spellbooks and concluded I would take ages to get a decent spell selection, especialy without knowing what were the best and worst spells and without having any list in game of all spells on a school...

I then decided "I need more money to get more spells, lets kill some weak mobs around the city to farm some money perhaps", well, the rest I said in my original post, I got out from the wrong gate faced the fire legion while on lvl 2-3 and got raped (ofc).

So I concluded "this game sucks..."
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Second time: When the soldiers said a party of 2 was not enough I knew that I would have to invite more people into my party ofc, but I had no idea of that before while on character creations and had no intention of inviting anyone else as I already liked my main characters (I spent like 1 hour in character creation) PS: Memories from the future its a great song.

Having to invite other characters so uninteresting like Jahan felt like a huge turn off, to the point I went to google to discover how exactly lone wolf worked (I thought at first I would have to play as a Single guardian as the description says you cannot have a companion, I thought it refered as the other guardian)

And while I was at it I watched other videos and stumbled upon the info "steal everything thats not bolted down" and others like "bring a candle to lit oil" (made me deduce and want to test every other element combination possible)... and from there everything went ok...
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So what can we tell from that? Hmm... Jahan sucks, skill system based on buying spellbooks, prices of everything (including spells) balanced around stealing and no way to know that I should steal everything, and finaly realizing that I can steal everything with walk in shadows with no reaction and even sell it to the owner...

So... basicaly what we already discussed its what made me feel this is a great game but seemed quite lame at first. My suggestion being, addressing those problems as mods for D:OS 1 and on design level for D:Os2 so that the start on the game becomes a bit intuitive, as I didn't need a guide on my first hours to ANY game i've played before, including disgaea, fft, dragon commander, wasteland, diablo, dark souls, etc...

Perhaps having a more "user-friendly", more immersive, start would be an important change for the future games, especialy because, as I said before, probably lots of rpgs players were very close to absolutely loving this game and becoming fans like myself, but instead, dismissed it shortly before that happened.

Well, i'm sure I had more tiny things that builded up to make me drop the game at first and forced me to research how to play on the second try but I don't remember exactly everything that made me feel the way I felt.

There are also other things that I feel that game should improve but would be just opinion after playing it, I want to focus on my first reaction to this problems as we can safely say that there's sizable number of rpg players that will have the less pacience to wait for the game to reveal it to be a great game.

I can say the only 2 reasons I gave Div:Os a second chance are the very high rate reviews that made me skeptical about my first conclusions and that I had nothing else to play atm...

So to speak even I wouldn't have the pacient required to give it a second chance if the circunstances were a bit diferent. (Glad I did tho :3 )

I must admit, this is like my third or fourth time roaming Cyseal, and I still get the :
Oh well, here's a monster group 2 levels under me that I must have passed by.
We got to the beach and pergamon and such being nearly level 7...

I don't dislike it per se, but I always felt the game had very streamlined combats in a sense that you need to do combat A to be to the good level to do combat B and so forth. A bunch of times we we're in Cyseal trying to get whatever XP we could in order to go on to a fight because we couldn't figure the path to go to.