Saturday night after I got home from the game, my Raft friend and I worked on Divinity II. I'm still way too prone to lighting allies on fire, but I did better and we made some story progress.

I think part of my problem is definitely a ME problem - I'm not used to playing games that look and feel like Divinity II. But part of the issue is the game itself.

I can see the difference between the view I have on Divinity II and the view that players have on Baldur's Gate 3, and BG3 has a superior view. Also, when I'm casting spells, the little highlighted zone (the thing that is supposed to help me predict where that spell will land and how big an area it will affect) is not done the way I would prefer. I do not find it intuitive and in some cases, I would even say it is misleading.

Some spells and abilities do exactly what it looks like they will do. But some of them look like they affect a certain area and then BOOM! Your whole screen is on fire.

My character breathes fire, and I'd been unintentionally igniting my allies all over the place (thank goodness my teammate is patient because it was happening...a lot).

Anyway, last night I was carefully lining up a blast of fire breath and I had even rotated my dang view to make sure I wasn't going to get anyone that I didn't WANT to light up, and DANG if it didn't spray fire up to the 2nd level and light MY OTHER CHARACTER on FIRE.

Frustrating. But hey, on the other hand we got through that fight (which we both honestly thought was beyond us at this level), and now we can progress through the story a little further.

#Gaming #Divinity2

@AngelaPreston I remember playing a lot of this game probably 6-7 years ago. I think the difficulty curve got pretty steep towards the end

@smeg Oh good. Something to look forward to. LOL

@AngelaPreston Haven’t played “Divinity II” and so can’t comment on that, but was curious about how you liked “Baldur’s Gate 3” …

We tried it but didn’t even get through the start 😛 I don’t know if it’s an issue of us not really getting the more table-top gaming orientation of the game, or if we are just that bad at it …

Or maybe we just are too impatient in our old age, who knows? 😛

@f Hi Fahim! I'll give you my take on it, but it comes with a grain of salt because I haven't played Baldur's Gate 3 myself - I have only watched it being played by some folks I know.

I don't think that BG3 is for me, really. I can't comment too much on the gameplay aspect, but there are other elements of the game that I think I wouldn't enjoy if I was playing it (rather than experiencing it as an observer). I've seen some of the cut scenes and dialogue trees and I'm not tempted. It's kind of the same way I felt about the newest Diablo game. I was not enticed even a little bit by watching others play that one.

I don't know if you're impatient, or if it's the table-top feel, or if it's something else. I can say this: I found myself feeling impatient with Divinity II.

I like games that kind of lead you through the story. Not the kind of help that makes things super obvious or inevitable, but a pattern that you can find if you look for it, like the way lights in Portal 2 lead you where you need to go, or how Raft provides you with a blueprint for a receiver and if you build it, you can start the story part of that game.

Divinity II is not like that at all. I cannot find a pattern that helps with determining where to go or what to do, and that's frustrating to me. I don't like walking around all day long talking to the same NPCs, hoping that they might have finally been triggered to tell me something different, or hoping to find something useful that I overlooked the first 30 times.

I'm also not fond of dying over and over again. I know that's a big part of video games, but in this case it feels unfair, because In Divinity II I'm constantly meandering unintentionally into fights that are way above my weight class.

You can get into a lot of trouble without realizing it's happening - encounters that you are definitely not a high enough level to beat will absolutely allow you in, and you cannot back out (you just have to do your best, get killed, and reload from your last save).

It's kind of like certain foods or drinks - people tell me I'll love this drink or that flavor combination and I just...don't (pineapple cooked with meat is a big one that I just cannot get into).

I like tabletop roleplaying, but I think unless Divinity II ends up being an amazing experience, I will probably steer clear of games like this one in the future. Or at least, I will not seek them out for myself (I am not ruling out trying them if someone I play with wants to give it a go).

All that said, I do feel better about Divinity II now that we overcame a tough encounter and got some better equipment. I feel like maybe we can make some progress now, and that has tempered my frustration.

#Divinity2

@AngelaPreston Yep, I hate games where you wander around trying to figure out what to do instead of having some clue.

When you get a few breadcrumbs and you follow them and find something, you feel a sense of accomplishment. And to a great degree, I think that’s what I’ve always loved about games — finding stuff and solving puzzles, however small they might be.

I really hate not having info and having to rely on guesswork. I think that’s what turned me off the old-school DOS adventure games. Not all of them, but the bad ones where you just had to randomly try every combination of everything till something worked …

I played the original “Baldur’s Gate” on PlayStation a long time ago and I liked it. But then again, it was mostly a typical hack-and-slash.

We both like “Diablo” because we get to play together and it’s fairly straightforward. Not really that great storewise, but playable.

“Diablo IV” feels a bit darker and, forgive the cliche, but grittier. I am not a huge fan of this blood-and-gore heavy feel, but again, it’s one of the few games that we can play together in couch co-op mode without split screen.

We tried “Baldur’s Gate 3” hoping for the same thing even though it was split screen. But unfortunately, more than the split screen, it was the game itself that didn’t work for us. So we probably won’t be going back to that one …

I enjoy your posts about gaming and so was wondering how you felt about it. It’s interesting that you don’t like it either 🙂

@f Well, you just made me feel a bunch better about all of it. I was feeling as if there was some kind of failing in me that I didn't love it, when so many people obviously do.

I love solving puzzles too! But they need to actually be solvable - I should be able to find and collect the necessary pieces with a reasonable (to me) amount of searching. Having to resort to The Internet to figure out which piece I'm missing takes me out of the game (literally!) and lessens the fun.

I am hoping that some of what I'm experiencing is due to unfamiliarity. I mean, I don't complain nearly as much about Pathfinder 2 as I used to. I'm more accustomed to it now, and I'm not dying every week any longer.

And I've recently begun playing a daily game that has 16 terms, and to win you must group them correctly into sets of 4.

That was weirdly difficult for me at first, and I did not love the game. But I stuck with it because The Husband was playing it and talking about it every day. Now I have a better feel for how the puzzle creator thinks and I'm getting more combinations correct on the first try.

I'll keep updating about Divinity II and maybe I'll start liking it for itself and not just because of the person I'm playing with.

@AngelaPreston Personally, I don’t think you should feel bad about not liking something others do 🙂

I’ve come to realize, that I should do what I enjoy even if others don’t enjoy it, and that I don’t necessarily have to like what everybody else loves.

There are movies and TV shows that everybody raves about and I’m totally turned off by something that feels like a minor thing to others. I can name some well-known (and loved) shows that everybody raves about but I just couldn’t get beyond the first episode ...

Similar to you, I didn’t enjoy the first time I tried “Connections”. I couldn’t find the connections and I got frustrated. The second time I tried it (weeks or maybe months later) I did do better. I keep telling myself that I’m going to do it every day but only play when I’m reminded — like you just did today. So will probably try today’s one but that probably will be the end of it till I’m reminded again 😛