Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition
I had bought this on GOG a couple years ago and had intended on getting back to it, it has taken me a few hours to wrap my head around what this game actually is as I was trying to complete all the quest for the first main area Fort Joy, but after watching Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an RPG Lover's Dream by Ghostcharm it's clicked and I am trying to be more open to not winning every situation as if it was a more genuine adventure.
With a 93/100 on OpenCritic for the original release, PCGamer had this to say;
Playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 is uncannily like playing a tabletop RPG. The way that Larian’s sequel embraces player creativity immediately conjures up memories of days spent sitting around a table, asking the Dungeon Master if I can attempt the last stupid idea that floated into my head. And like a good DM, Original Sin 2 usually answers that question with “Yes, you can attempt it.”
My only regret is that I got it on GOG as it was cheaper, which has made mods less friendly without the Steam Workshop, but it was a lot cheaper at the time and hasn't gone below $15.74 on Steam since.
It's really great, my wife and I need to finish the last few acts at some point.
It did have 2 pain points for me, though. For one, there are some encounters where you can get stomped because of you initial positioning, which made us reload and basically game the system for a better start, which felt a bit weird. The other is that, mostly because of the shield system, you can't really make a hybrid character. You'll end up chipping away at 2 separate health pools when you should be focusing on one of them. I haven't played many rpg's like this, though, so maybe all this is standard and/or I'm just bad at the combat.
You are completely correct about the armor system being bad, really sandbags the game. It's Audi exacerbated by the number bloat.
The general consensus is that hybrid builds are tricky and require a good understanding of the mechanics to pull off. You could pull builds from fextralife to make it easier, or just make a hybrid party made up of 2 magic and 2 physical damage dealers, which is far easier.
I got tired of managing the skills and inventories of 4 characters so I’m going to try another run with 2 line wolf hybrid builds. Probably will end up on east mode cause I want a chill experience.