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!
Me and another, took so long to get through the tutorial. Neither of us could figure out the quests that ended with us outside the fort, so we both somehow learned teleport - I’d teleport them a distance to some unreachable nook, and then they’d teleport me to some other farther unreachable nook from there and so on till we leapfrogged our way out. It was a fun time all things considered.
Me and my partner at the time figured it’d be amazing for a couch-co-op thing, but it was so chaotic around NPCs due to the spam of random interactions flying off from two interacting characters, we just gave up on it. Breaking combat was a lot of fun though.
I really ought to get back into it and just play it solo. 🤔
Having just finished DOS2, and played a ton of early access BG3 as well, I think BG3 really does take it to another level. It does a better job with immersion, I think, which engages you more in the story and characters. Based on what I’ve played so far, they’ve managed to do that without sacrificing any of the complexity of DOS. We’ll see how fleshed out the rest of it is soon, but I’m uncharacteristically optimistic.
I liked the first game more. The introduction of armour bars in DOS2 made each fight a huge slog; I understand the intention of promoting strategic thinking, but it just felt un-fun to me. Also, I liked the light hearted nature of DOS1’s story more.
For me it was the other way around, I liked the combat in 2 a lot more, because 1 felt way more random. In DOS2, status effects are more predictable, in 1 you can get really lucky or unlucky with status effects hitting or missing, leading to more reloading and “save-scumming” (or maybe we were just bad lol)
I haven’t played a lot of games like this but from all of the games I’ve played in the past 20-ish years, this one shot up to near the top of my list. I must have dropped at least 200 hours on this game on my first playthrough, just appreciating every little detail there was and doing all of the side quests.
The gameplay itself is already amazing, but to me what really shone was the brilliant, brilliant writing. I have never read such intensely hued writing in a video game.
I have the first game and … ive only played through the combat tutorial. I guess its a bit too slow paced for me. But maybe i should give it a whirl at some point
I liked the game but I was a bit disappointed that nearly every fight ends up with everything covered in necrofire. I bet that if you were to just spec into a build that likes being on fire you’ll probably be super overpowered.
The problem is that loot is random, and it takes a lot of gear support to get to the point where a character isn’t getting hurt by fire, even with the relevant perk.
Cursed surfaces in general were just a massive pain, considering how precious Source was by default. Using a mod to get Source back on rest makes things a lot more reasonable, particularly in the first half of the game.
Source on rest should be the default tbh since you can farm it after every fight. I think they added them to the game as an option in the loot bags that they introduced later on.
Now that you say it. Item management is my second big complaint about DoS2 - right after the nearly useless quest journal - it is truly horrible and the “improved organization” gift bag sadly does not fix the problem but makes it even worse imo.
Yeah, I just finished the game, and inventory management was probably my number one gripe. Hours were spent micromanaging all the luggage. I had the same experience with the gift bag. If I had it to do over, I’d go Lone Wolf, just to simplify the logistics.
I started playing D:OS2 in 2020, but eventually got distracted around 15hrs in. I started a new playthrough to test out the gameplay again, and have really fallen in love with it all over again. I’m really terrible at the combat, but everything surrounding it is extremely engrossing.
I do plan to pick up BG3, and I’ve read that the combat is a little more quick-paced and hopefully forgiving, so I’m really looking forward to the release this week.
I do plan to pick up BG3, and I’ve read that the combat is a little more quick-paced and hopefully forgiving, so I’m really looking forward to the release this week.
Mh, I don’t know. So I’m what’s (rightfully so) considered a filthy casual, I suck at builds, and I suck at strategy and tactics. I played D:OS2 on easy mode, and loved it. BG3 only has one mode at the moment, and I loved the main plot until here, especially since you can sneak around or negotiate with people to avoid direct conflict and still get the mission done. I feel D:OS2 had much more fighting than BG3.
That being said, there was one fight where I did not find any another solution outside of outright violence, and what initially was just my party against a similar sized group rather quickly escalated into a stand-off that had us outnumbered at least 3:1 and took hours. It was nice, everybody made it through, but it was a bit tedious tbh.
I want to go back to this game so bad. I played for about 15 hours and loved it but got distracted with something else. Ive tried to start over a couple of times but I just can’t get into it again in the same way. Once I’ve finished Pikmin 4 I might try again.
I played on the switch and that made it take ages. I got until about act 4 or 5, I can’t remember, with a kraken? But I noticed a harsh spike in difficulty at that point. Coupled with the very tedious controls on switch that made me stop playing.
In DoS2, when difficulty spikes, that often means that you need to bring your items up to your character level. DoS2 is very much a constant race to keep your items up to date. I recommend playing on a pc nect time.
Meh, D:OS2 is a great game until the latter 1/4th in my opinion. Act 1/2 are fantastic, act 3 drags a bit and act 4(arx) is the absolute worst in my opinion. I sincerely hope BG3 doesn’t have the same problem, since D:OS1 had a similar issue where it was great until the very end for me(scavenger hunt.) Sadly i dislike the latter parts of each game enough i’m just not inclined to ever replay them. It really soured the whole experience for me unfortunately.
Arguably the definitive edition makes D:OS2 worse too, since it makes side quests damn near mandatory or else you’ll be constantly underleveled.
How quickly gear became obsolete in DOS2 is a super valid criticism. No loot, no matter how unique, ever felt special because you knew as soon as you leveled up there’d be better at the merchants.
Since Baldur’s Gate 3 is built on a framework of D&D 5e, however, there should be a lot less shopping - upgrades are rare in 5th edition and almost always found while adventuring instead of bought from stores. Good news for anyone who hates shopping!
How quickly gear became obsolete in DOS2 is a super valid criticism. No loot, no matter how unique, ever felt special because you knew as soon as you leveled up there’d be better at the merchants.
I felt the same, it´s really frustrating to find a cool piece of gear but having to replace it after just a few level ups. Because of that I activated the Sorcerous Sundries giftbag that allows you to increase the levels of items (for a hefty price that increases every time) and it completely fixed the issue. I can now use epic gear as long as I want in a run because I can upgrade it every few levels instead of buying/looting new stuff. Is there a reason you don´t want to use Sorcerous Sundries?
It’s not just the shopping part of it but also the way unique items with unique effects get deprecated so fast you barely get any use out of them. It’s a damn shame.
I felt the same, it´s really frustrating to find a cool piece of gear but having to replace it after just a few level ups. Because of that I activated the Sorcerous Sundries giftbag that allows you to increase the levels of items (for a hefty price that increases every time) and it completely fixed the issue. I can now use epic gear as long as I want in a run because I can upgrade it every few levels instead of buying/looting new stuff. Is there a reason you don´t want to use Sorcerous Sundries?
I was playing it co-op with a friend and he was adamant on not using any giftbag stuff because he felt like it was cheating.
I’m not even sure he read through the whole thing but I didn’t want to argue, so I guess didn’t either. I don’t think I realized the item upgrade function was in there.
If I ever go back for a solo playthrough I’ll be using it. Does it work on Unique items too?
The wish to be able to keep using cool unique items once I found them was the main reason to turn Sorcerous Sundries on, so yes it does work :)
There are many different gift bags, some are just little quality of life improvements that should have been in the base game if you ask me, others really change the game balance. Saying gift bags are generally like cheating is nonsense. Before the next playthrough just check each giftbag and decide which you like, start a run, check them out in practice and if you don´t like one you just restart and turn it off. The item management improvement giftbag for example did not work for me at all while the giftbag that gives you a respec mirror in ACT 1 is mandatory for players learning the game so they can mess around and try different builds from the start imo.
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Me and another, took so long to get through the tutorial. Neither of us could figure out the quests that ended with us outside the fort, so we both somehow learned teleport - I’d teleport them a distance to some unreachable nook, and then they’d teleport me to some other farther unreachable nook from there and so on till we leapfrogged our way out. It was a fun time all things considered.
One of my favourite games and the only reason I purchased the Early Access of Baldura Gate 3.
Wish I could play it for the first time again. Have fun!:)
Same here
DOS 1 is also good but obviously the second one is better
I could never get into it, tbh.
Me and my partner at the time figured it’d be amazing for a couch-co-op thing, but it was so chaotic around NPCs due to the spam of random interactions flying off from two interacting characters, we just gave up on it. Breaking combat was a lot of fun though.
I really ought to get back into it and just play it solo. 🤔
I think my most uttered phrase during couch co-op was «opps, sorry!» as I electrified/curse fired yet another surface by accident.
I wanted to like this game but I found the combat to be really tedious and the story felt dull. I hope BG3 takes it to another level.
Having just finished DOS2, and played a ton of early access BG3 as well, I think BG3 really does take it to another level. It does a better job with immersion, I think, which engages you more in the story and characters. Based on what I’ve played so far, they’ve managed to do that without sacrificing any of the complexity of DOS. We’ll see how fleshed out the rest of it is soon, but I’m uncharacteristically optimistic.
I liked the first game more. The introduction of armour bars in DOS2 made each fight a huge slog; I understand the intention of promoting strategic thinking, but it just felt un-fun to me. Also, I liked the light hearted nature of DOS1’s story more.
For me it was the other way around, I liked the combat in 2 a lot more, because 1 felt way more random. In DOS2, status effects are more predictable, in 1 you can get really lucky or unlucky with status effects hitting or missing, leading to more reloading and “save-scumming” (or maybe we were just bad lol)
I haven’t played a lot of games like this but from all of the games I’ve played in the past 20-ish years, this one shot up to near the top of my list. I must have dropped at least 200 hours on this game on my first playthrough, just appreciating every little detail there was and doing all of the side quests.
The gameplay itself is already amazing, but to me what really shone was the brilliant, brilliant writing. I have never read such intensely hued writing in a video game.
I only played it for 2 hours or so, but wasn’t at a time where I can play long hours on PC so I dropped it…
Now with my steam deck arriving, time to give it another go…!
I do recall things being hectic as others have said in here tho…
I have the first game and … ive only played through the combat tutorial. I guess its a bit too slow paced for me. But maybe i should give it a whirl at some point
I liked the game but I was a bit disappointed that nearly every fight ends up with everything covered in necrofire. I bet that if you were to just spec into a build that likes being on fire you’ll probably be super overpowered.
The problem is that loot is random, and it takes a lot of gear support to get to the point where a character isn’t getting hurt by fire, even with the relevant perk.
Cursed surfaces in general were just a massive pain, considering how precious Source was by default. Using a mod to get Source back on rest makes things a lot more reasonable, particularly in the first half of the game.
Source on rest should be the default tbh since you can farm it after every fight. I think they added them to the game as an option in the loot bags that they introduced later on.
I think the only dumb reason I stopped playing after 25 hours was just not having a convenient storage chest as I tend to be a hoarder in games.
I even went as far as figuring out how to make a mod to improve the storage chest.
My thought was to see if I could edit the ship’s chest to show a bigger screen of items and have either tabs or separaters for the name type.
Anyways if I were to replay it knowing that I shouldn’t just try to pick up every crate and scrap I see I would likely get farther.
Now that you say it. Item management is my second big complaint about DoS2 - right after the nearly useless quest journal - it is truly horrible and the “improved organization” gift bag sadly does not fix the problem but makes it even worse imo.
Yeah, I just finished the game, and inventory management was probably my number one gripe. Hours were spent micromanaging all the luggage. I had the same experience with the gift bag. If I had it to do over, I’d go Lone Wolf, just to simplify the logistics.
I started playing D:OS2 in 2020, but eventually got distracted around 15hrs in. I started a new playthrough to test out the gameplay again, and have really fallen in love with it all over again. I’m really terrible at the combat, but everything surrounding it is extremely engrossing.
I do plan to pick up BG3, and I’ve read that the combat is a little more quick-paced and hopefully forgiving, so I’m really looking forward to the release this week.
Mh, I don’t know. So I’m what’s (rightfully so) considered a filthy casual, I suck at builds, and I suck at strategy and tactics. I played D:OS2 on easy mode, and loved it. BG3 only has one mode at the moment, and I loved the main plot until here, especially since you can sneak around or negotiate with people to avoid direct conflict and still get the mission done. I feel D:OS2 had much more fighting than BG3.
That being said, there was one fight where I did not find any another solution outside of outright violence, and what initially was just my party against a similar sized group rather quickly escalated into a stand-off that had us outnumbered at least 3:1 and took hours. It was nice, everybody made it through, but it was a bit tedious tbh.
I want to go back to this game so bad. I played for about 15 hours and loved it but got distracted with something else. Ive tried to start over a couple of times but I just can’t get into it again in the same way. Once I’ve finished Pikmin 4 I might try again.
Do it - it is absolutely worth it
I played on the switch and that made it take ages. I got until about act 4 or 5, I can’t remember, with a kraken? But I noticed a harsh spike in difficulty at that point. Coupled with the very tedious controls on switch that made me stop playing.
Was a great game until that point
In DoS2, when difficulty spikes, that often means that you need to bring your items up to your character level. DoS2 is very much a constant race to keep your items up to date. I recommend playing on a pc nect time.
Meh, D:OS2 is a great game until the latter 1/4th in my opinion. Act 1/2 are fantastic, act 3 drags a bit and act 4(arx) is the absolute worst in my opinion. I sincerely hope BG3 doesn’t have the same problem, since D:OS1 had a similar issue where it was great until the very end for me(scavenger hunt.) Sadly i dislike the latter parts of each game enough i’m just not inclined to ever replay them. It really soured the whole experience for me unfortunately.
Arguably the definitive edition makes D:OS2 worse too, since it makes side quests damn near mandatory or else you’ll be constantly underleveled.
3 friends and I played this. They all liked it I did not. It felt like a shopping simulator.
How quickly gear became obsolete in DOS2 is a super valid criticism. No loot, no matter how unique, ever felt special because you knew as soon as you leveled up there’d be better at the merchants.
Since Baldur’s Gate 3 is built on a framework of D&D 5e, however, there should be a lot less shopping - upgrades are rare in 5th edition and almost always found while adventuring instead of bought from stores. Good news for anyone who hates shopping!
I felt the same, it´s really frustrating to find a cool piece of gear but having to replace it after just a few level ups. Because of that I activated the Sorcerous Sundries giftbag that allows you to increase the levels of items (for a hefty price that increases every time) and it completely fixed the issue. I can now use epic gear as long as I want in a run because I can upgrade it every few levels instead of buying/looting new stuff. Is there a reason you don´t want to use Sorcerous Sundries?
Both of my playthroughs were completed before that feature was added.
I see. Next playthrough when?
Gonna have to wait until after BG3!
Understandable, glhf :)
It’s not just the shopping part of it but also the way unique items with unique effects get deprecated so fast you barely get any use out of them. It’s a damn shame.
I felt the same, it´s really frustrating to find a cool piece of gear but having to replace it after just a few level ups. Because of that I activated the Sorcerous Sundries giftbag that allows you to increase the levels of items (for a hefty price that increases every time) and it completely fixed the issue. I can now use epic gear as long as I want in a run because I can upgrade it every few levels instead of buying/looting new stuff. Is there a reason you don´t want to use Sorcerous Sundries?
I was playing it co-op with a friend and he was adamant on not using any giftbag stuff because he felt like it was cheating.
I’m not even sure he read through the whole thing but I didn’t want to argue, so I guess didn’t either. I don’t think I realized the item upgrade function was in there.
If I ever go back for a solo playthrough I’ll be using it. Does it work on Unique items too?
The wish to be able to keep using cool unique items once I found them was the main reason to turn Sorcerous Sundries on, so yes it does work :) There are many different gift bags, some are just little quality of life improvements that should have been in the base game if you ask me, others really change the game balance. Saying gift bags are generally like cheating is nonsense. Before the next playthrough just check each giftbag and decide which you like, start a run, check them out in practice and if you don´t like one you just restart and turn it off. The item management improvement giftbag for example did not work for me at all while the giftbag that gives you a respec mirror in ACT 1 is mandatory for players learning the game so they can mess around and try different builds from the start imo.