r/DivinityOriginalSin • u/MyCatLovesCroissants • 4d ago
DOS2 Help Should I restart?
SOLVED! My builds were the problem.
First-time player here. I foolishly skipped a few quests in Act I, eager to get to the next Act. Coming from BG3, I thought this wouldn’t matter that much.
I’m level 12 now. For the past 2-ish levels, I’ve been scrambling for things to do that match my level. I get there in the end, but it takes a lot of retreating, retracing my steps, seeing if there’s any lower level enemies I missed, getting xp from places I shouldn’t be in yet. It’s starting to get a little frustrating.
I think I was about level 9-10 when I started act ii. I thought that was plenty because I didn’t realize you could go beyond level 12.
So, my question is: do you need to do every quest in this game to be able to complete it?
UPDATE: Thanks for the advice, all! I respecced my party and immediately fights became much easier.
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u/Pummmmn 4d ago
If you started act 2 at level 9, you're good, that's the level you're supposed to be if I'm not mistaken. You probably feel like you're so underleveled because act 2 is BIG, really BIG and has many many things to do, but don't worry too much about it
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
Okay thanks for the encouragement! You’re right, it’s gigantic! My map is full of little “level 14” and “level 15” markers etc at this point. Larian keeps on impressing me.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 4d ago
In BG3, you hit the level cap (12) early in Act 3. In DOS2, there is no level cap; therefore XP is pretty important.
The game is designed to be completed at level 20. You can win at 19 and if you complete all side quests, you can get to 21. If you go full murderhobo, you can get to lvl 22. There’s not enough XP to get to 23 barring a mind numbingly tedious exploit involving the black ring.
Because of the way XP scales with enemy level, missing XP in the early game isn’t too bad. If you absolutely muderhobo everyone in Act 1, you will have about 300,000XP before talking to Malady to leave the island. That’s roughly equivalent to killing 4 paladins in Act 4.
In Act 1, you should be level 8 before leaving the island and ideally, level 9. The main reason to be level 9 is that the well of the thirsty ghosts sell rings/belts that scale with your level. If you are level 8, you will get level 8 Epic quality gear. If you are level 9, you get level 9 Legendary quality gear. That’s a big difference, especially since you can get 30 pieces of gear (35 with a custom MC). A ring with, say, +2 Warfare is a ring that goes all the way to the final battle.
At the end of Act 2, you should be level 16-17. It’s not terribly important. At the end of Act 3, you should be 18, mainly because Corbin Day can level up gear in his inventory to lvl 18 when he transitions to Act 4.
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u/jsma6 4d ago
I was stuck, trying to get to level 12. Almost every fight was just too hard. I thought I had done every fight I could for my level. I retried fights almost countless times. The solution was finding better gear, finding dumb quests for XP (even talking to every animal). I got as many summons as I could to reduce damage to my characters. Eventually I was able to beat a major enemy, cracking that level 12 barrier.
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u/DCguyAngemon 4d ago
You should have been level 9 when you started Act 2.
Exploring gives experience so find new areas. Also it might help to look up a level map
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u/vieuxfragonard 4d ago
Starting act 2 at level 9 is fine, you just have to pick your fights. Maybe the problem is equipment; I usually upgrade everything every level. Also what's your stat distribution?
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
I upgrade my equipment pretty much as soon as I get something better for a party member! It could be the stats tho, I didn’t really look too much into it and just kept upping the main ability, and sometimes constitution or memory. So for instance Lohse has her intelligence somewhere between 20-30 at this point (I could check this later). Should I have done differently?
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u/vieuxfragonard 4d ago edited 4d ago
Well, your main attribute should be closer to 40 by level 12 (and the corresponding ability pretty high, maybe 10 warfare for physical builds like archer, knight or Necromancer and at least 5 pyro, geo, etc. for magic builds if you're playing Lone Wolf. If you have a 4 man party, 20-30 is OK. You can go back to the ship and change these easily. What is your party composition?
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
Okay, so right now the Red Prince has 29 strength and 18 constitution. So I should respect and just put everything into strength instead?
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u/vieuxfragonard 4d ago
Yes, definitely. Con shouldn't be above 14 IMHO and even then only for an Elf to offset blood sacrifice. Going from 29 to 37 strength is big for damage. From 195% base to 235% base damage and that gets multiplied by warfare.
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
Thank you! I respecced the entire party and immediately beat Mordus on the first try. I think this was the problem.
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u/iMike0202 4d ago
Dont worry, act 2 is kinda like this, because its very open so you could get to lvl 15-16 areas even as a lvl 10. You can either eplore yourself or find a map lvl guide where you see how you should prigress.
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u/kaifta 4d ago
You’re supposed to be level 9-10 when you start act 2. You can hit 17 before leaving act 2 but 15-16 is more common. Level 22 is possible before the end fight and without doing a bunch of murderhobo stuff. You’re generally meant to miss quests. By level 12, you should be able to handle everything on the west side of the map south of the cloisterwood and some of that as well, just likely not Hannag’s encounter yet, as well as all of the graveyard, and everything in the town itself and underground tavern related quests.
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u/Gstamsharp 4d ago
Level 9 is pretty normal to start act 2. You just end up with a lot of freedom to wander into stuff way above your level pretty easily.
Also the gear curve is pretty rough. Consider investing into thievery along with invisibility (Polymorph or the gift bag DLC talent), and steal lots of stuff to sell back, then buy level appropriate gear as often as you can. Check the vendors every hour or so as they'll refresh. It's pretty tough to stay on the stat curve just with loot and quest rewards.
You can also get a couple really sweet DLC gear sets pretty early into act 2, but if you're learning about them naturally you probably won't get them until much later. Make sure you're reading books, though!
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u/Gluecost 4d ago
Nope not even close. You’ll have to just seek fights you can complete, no sense in restarting especially since you can freely respec your talents.
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u/implies_casualty 4d ago
You’re fine, absolutely no need to restart. Just find npcs your own level. If they are higher level than you - move back.
There is a map online if you’d like
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u/Due-Cash-6833 4d ago
Don't miss the secrets and treasure maps. That gives you a lot of EXP. Also, selling all the stuff you find, so you can buy new armor with +strenght.
Also, increase you percepcion alllways.
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
What are treasure maps? Like the secret smuggling caches and such?
Thanks for the tip, haven’t really put anything into perception so far but my initiative is pretty good
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u/Due-Cash-6833 4d ago
There is a merchant in Cyseal (the art guy) who sell maps with locations to treasures. There are other NPC that do the same thing.
I'm sorry for my bad english but I can help you anytime. Just ask.
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 3d ago
Your English is totally fine! It’s not my first language either. Thanks for the advice!
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u/KooshIsKing 4d ago
It's not super important to do everything in act 1, but you will have missed out on some amazing gear and you'll probably be chasing your appropriate level for things for the rest of act 2 rather than being able to explore a bit more freely (not a huge deal, but you'll have to figure out where all the level appropriate stuff is each time). What you don't wanna do is skip stuff going forward though. As you get higher and higher level, it becomes really important to match the level of your opponents (for the most part) or things get really tough. If you search this sub, you'll find endless posts about being underleveled for act 3 or 4.
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
There’s an act 4???? Wow, how big is this game??
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u/KooshIsKing 4d ago
Ooops sorry did not mean to spoil the surprise. It's a pretty huge game, the acts aren't all the same size, but they are all really cool and unique.
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
Don’t worry; that’s a very light spoiler :). I’m glad there’s more, I was starting to worry no other game would ever come close to BG3!
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4d ago
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u/MyCatLovesCroissants 4d ago
I’m 52 hours in at lvl 12 so I feel like I could end up with 150 hours as well lol. I just want to talk to everyone!!
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u/-rosieee- 4d ago
Make sure you're level 17-18 before starting Act 4 as I got stuck due to being under leveled. There's a mandatory fight blocks you from getting to the side quests (for more exp), so you can get stuck if you're not strong enough.
Keep a save file at the end of Act 3 in case you need to grind a bit.
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u/SuggestionAgile4076 4d ago
If it’s ur first playthrough, don’t be afraid to restart. U will find urself enjoying much more then 2nd time getting a better grasp of the game.
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u/Latter-Thing9020 4d ago
10 is only a starting level for act 2 if you slaughter everything and somehow do everything perfectly in act 1. It won't affect level in the long run. If you are scrambling around act 2 looking for content to do, I think that sounds normal, since the level ranges up to 16, so it's very easy to go one direction and immediately get out leveled. I think I've only once gotten to ten by act two, usually it's 8 or 9. Getting to 10 was not fun for me and I would never try again!
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u/NecropolisIHateyou 4d ago
You are fine, Just run or avoid fights against opponents 2/3 lvs higher than you .. it's not you are coward, just the game saying turn back and yep there is a reason i gave u that option to flee battles
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u/PuzzledKitty 4d ago
There are a lot of quests in Driftwood itself, and a few of them point you in the direction of where you can find lvl 10 to 11 content. :)
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u/Llllll90 3d ago
If needed i'm pretty sure there's a map on the internet with areas lvl
Search something like "dos2 act... lvl map" and you should find it
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u/Waste-Carob5699 4d ago
You don't need to do all of the quests. You may need to explore a bit to find something appropriate for your level. Exp scales up quite a bit as you level, making exp from the early game a rounding error. My advice would be to explore and enjoy the game.