Divinity: Original Sin II - AI Update

Myrthos

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The AI of Divinity: Original Sin 2 will be updated in an upcoming patch of the game, currently in Early Access.



AI 2.0 won’t just blow up barrels: it will manipulate existing surfaces to make combat much more challenging, it will use your statuses against you, it will use spells and abilities in ways that even we never imagined, and- frankly if we’re not careful, it may be well on its way to world domination.

The way this AI has been using our combat system has already caused us to take a step back and have another look at how some of the unintended uses our skills and spells can have. Because it considers every possible outcome, we’ve seen AI 2.0 take advantage of things that we thought were relatively insignificant and using them deviously to fit the situation they happened to be in at the time (such as healing people on full health because the want the “Well Rested” status that the First Aid skill gives you, or passing up the opportunity to do a small amount of damage in order to create an oil surface to slow you down and remove your “Haste” status.)

AI 2.0 has proven so devious that we’ll probably have to disable it in the easier game modes, but those of you that want to take it on will have to step it up a notch to survive. However, if you do learn how to defeat our new, ruthless AI then you'll be equipped with an impressive set of combat skills. And of course if the campaign isn’t providing enough of a challenge, then you can always step into the arena for a pure combat experience. And speaking of the arena...
Besides that there are also other improvements, like new arena's, combat improvements and more (apparently 100 more).

More information.
 
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Damn it, this game was already hard enough at classic difficulty for me.

Guess I gotta go easy, and hope that it's not too easy that it's boring.
 
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It is often possible to make "better" game AI because you can give it perfect knowledge of the game world, player abilities and everything that players cannot necessarily see or know about. Indeed, sometimes game AI has to be "crippled" to make the game playable... the challenge is to make responsive AI that, using only what players have access to, can be competitive. Not clear yet where this AI update fits in, but I suspect they'll have to cripple it to make the game enjoyable (except to the leet few of course!). Also, one thing that make DOS hard was that almost every fight has you outnumbered...if you're going to have more powerful AI, you should reduce the encounter size to compensate. Just my 2c.
 
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I backed this and glad I did. Sadly, I never finished D:OS. I think I got about 60% done and just lost interest. I'm hoping D:OS 2 will keep me engaged all the way through.
 
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Yes, when I first fired up the D:OS, I thought Christmas had come early - looked like just the game I'd been waiting for. But, once I got into it, it didn't really hold my interest. I'm hoping this one will live up to its promise.
 
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Yes, when I first fired up the D:OS, I thought Christmas had come early - looked like just the game I'd been waiting for. But, once I got into it, it didn't really hold my interest. I'm hoping this one will live up to its promise.

D:OS is a fun game. But the game was too long for me for what it had to offer. I really LOVED Divine Divinity... that game was like Baldur's Gate (for story), Diablo (for skills, combat, and gear), and Ultima VII (for exploration and world interactivity) mushed together as a single game.

I was hoping for more of that with Divinity: OS. But D:OS focuses greatly on combat mechanics and left story and exploration/interactivity with less emphasis. This isn't a bad thing and it seems a lot of people like the direction of the game... it just interested me less personally.

If the Divinity games keep going down the track of heavy focus on combat that's fine because there's always Swen's "RPG of all RPGs" to hold out hope for.
 
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I thought D:OS had plenty of story, though. And less emphasis on exploration/interactivity?? o_O It's probably the most interactive RPG I can think of that isn't Divine Divinity or an Elder Scrolls game where you can pick up every plate. But I'll give you that Divine Divinity probably has it beat in this regard.

My dad and I co-oped the first game and spent 140 hours with it, doing pretty much everything we could find and still wanted more! Glad that a co-op RPG of this magnitude on PC is a thing and hopefully D:OS2 is even grander and more epic in scope! :)
 
I thought D:OS had plenty of story, though. And less emphasis on exploration/interactivity?? o_O It's probably the most interactive RPG I can think of that isn't Divine Divinity or an Elder Scrolls game where you can pick up every plate. But I'll give you that Divine Divinity probably has it beat in this regard.

I'm not saying D:OS had no story or interactivity. In my opinion, it's just that story and interactivity came second and third to the combat. Again, this is NOT a bad thing when so many people love the direction of the series. It's just that I've been craving for so long a game that is a spiritual successor to U7. Divine Divinity came close. My hope was that D:OS would get even closer... but it sort of went a different way with what it emphasizes.
 
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I'm not saying D:OS had no story or interactivity. In my opinion, it's just that story and interactivity came second and third to the combat. Again, this is NOT a bad thing when so many people love the direction of the series. It's just that I've been craving for so long a game that is a spiritual successor to U7. Divine Divinity came close. My hope was that D:OS would get even closer… but it sort of went a different way with what it emphasizes.

I see. I can dig that. The exploration of the areas did lead to a lot of combat, but often you'd find weird NPCs to interact with, little stories here and there, a quest to do, etc. In terms of interactivity I just meant it still has more than 98% of RPGs, IMO. But that aspect honestly may have been a bit more satisfying in Divine Divinity to me.

One aspect I really liked about the game was in fact the scope and length of it. It felt as though the game was going to end at times, but then it would open an entire new area to explore, or entirely new rooms in Homestead to explore, which then often led to exciting new propositions, like
forging gear with the legendary forge, buying special secrets from the secret seller person, the Tenebrium skill popping out of nowhere, Tenebrium ore, etc.
It felt like they kept adding new things further along in the game that you weren't expecting. Sadly, these were not ever fully realized in the way I had wanted, but I have hope that in the sequel they add more of that sort of thing.
 
I backed Sin in the hopes of more DKS, which I loved. I also loved the promise of the day and night cycles and the mega-dungeon. Of course, none of this made it into the game. The tactical combat was okay, but it's not why I play games. Reading about great combat AI and the multiplayer Arena-mode makes me glad I won this game through a Watch giveaway. Otherwise, I'd be waiting a few years to buy it till it was on a humble sale. Now, I can grumble MUCH earlier :biggrin:
 
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My first try, I didn't finish DOS. Like others, I lost interest. But I played again later and finished it.
I am not sure if it was because there were not as many side quests, or the plot was a little linear, even though it was open world (mostly). Once you had certain tactic down pat, you relied upon them, and they made the combat similar. But I am just not sure that is it either....
Sounds like you can do more with your action points in DOS2. I suspect it will hold the attention better than DOS1.... hopefully!
In saying that, I did enjoy it, and it did have some great parts to it.
 
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The tactical combat was okay, but it's not why I play games.

This pretty much describes me as well. Combat is a natural part of an RPG and I do like it. But it starts to lose me when it gets really complex (to me, the D&D rule set (any edition) is complex). I like some complexity because I don't want it to be auto-win (I'm looking at you Dungeon Siege) but I'm more into the exploration, interactivity, world-simulation, quests, and story when it comes to RPGs. I too would have liked day/night to have been in D:OS but it was still a fun game.
 
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This pretty much describes me as well. Combat is a natural part of an RPG and I do like it. But it starts to lose me when it gets really complex (to me, the D&D rule set (any edition) is complex). I like some complexity because I don't want it to be auto-win (I'm looking at you Dungeon Siege) but I'm more into the exploration, interactivity, world-simulation, quests, and story when it comes to RPGs. I too would have liked day/night to have been in D:OS but it was still a fun game.

Divinity should have you covered with its difficulty levels. Only tactical difficulty will have the niggardly hard ai.
 
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I thought D:OS had plenty of story, though.

I agree it did have a lot of story but for me the writing was so poor that it left me not wanting any more story. I found the humour in the writing just too juvenile and grew bored of the constant bad jokes and sexual innuendo.
 
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I agree it did have a lot of story but for me the writing was so poor that it left me not wanting any more story. I found the humour in the writing just too juvenile and grew bored of the constant bad jokes and sexual innuendo.

I agree to some extent, but that's been an issue with every DD game. I actually found that DD:OS was the least juvenile of the series. But I wouldn't mind even less of that. I'm usually a fan of humor in games, but DD's humor has always kind of felt forced to me.
 
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I agree it did have a lot of story but for me the writing was so poor that it left me not wanting any more story. I found the humour in the writing just too juvenile and grew bored of the constant bad jokes and sexual innuendo.

Well Larian claims the writing and humor should be better in Divinity: Original Sin II due to the hiring of better writers, and other staff members over the last few years.

Also the director cut version of Original Sin was improved due to the new staff.
I agree to some extent, but that's been an issue with every DD game. I actually found that DD:OS was the least juvenile of the series. But I wouldn't mind even less of that. I'm usually a fan of humor in games, but DD's humor has always kind of felt forced to me.
Two Worlds II & it's Pirate expansion also had a bunch of juvenile humor. I wonder why it's usually the various German RPG developers, and if they think players love it?
 
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Larian is not German though.
 
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Larian is not German though.
Yep they are from Belgium. So I should of said European RPG developers.:biggrin:

Though German is one of the Major languages spoken along with Dutch & French.
 
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Well, I guess enough people must like it for them to keep doing it. Personally, I always wondered what a Divinity game might look like with a more serious tone and story. That would be cool but it doesn't seem too likely we'll see that.
 
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