DOS2 is NOT the kind of game that holds your hand. I can imagine new players are having a rough time getting started so I will try to give some basic tips that should help.

1) Take along a bedroll.

Healing potions and spells are a sparse commodity in this game, especially in the beginning. Sure you can rest in beds but sometimes you find yourself for away from any civilization. Luckily you can find a bedroll on the ship towards Fort Joy. Make sure to pick one up and keep it in your inventory. The bedroll allows you to rest between battles and will heal your party completely.

2) The ALT key reveals all the things you can pick up.

There is a lot of loot just lying around everywhere but sometimes its not that easy to see. If you press ALT all will be revealed! Mind you, you will still have to open crates and such before you can see what's inside. Be sure to look out for valuables like gold, silver or even paintings. You will be glad you have a lot of junk to sell when you want to buy stuff from a vendor.

3) Know when to run away and use your sneak skill

Sometimes it is wise to know when you are outclassed. Even enemies that are just one level higher then you decimate your party in minutes. Be careful when exploring and use your sneak skill (press C) to avoid getting seen.

4) Use the environment to your advantage.

More often then not battles will seem overwhelming. Always look out for ways to use the environment to your advantage. You can electrify water or blood and stun enemies. You stack crates to create temporary barriers. Also make sure you place your ranged fighters on the high ground. And avoid placing your guys near oil barrels or in toxic fumes.

5) Don't be a jack of all trades.

When leveling your characters makes sure you plan ahead. You will not get a lot of points to spend on skills and attributes so spend them wisely. A character that has one point in everything is not that useful. Play into the strengths of the character and make a diverse crew.

6) Quick save is your friend!

Auto saves are kinda sparse in this game. Make sure you save after everything important you do to avoid having to replay large sections.

7) Be prepared to die a lot.

You will die a lot in this game. Some battles may seem impossible and it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Just remember that unless you are facing enemies that are a higher level then you there is always a way to win a fight. Maybe you can lure the enemies in a better spot or maybe you can use your spells to better effect...

I'm sure there are loads more tips that can help new players so feel free to add your nuggets of wisdom below!

For what its worth, you can also just spam the heal skill outside of battle if you have someone with a heal on them. That's what I ended up doing when I realized "wait, how do I sleep?"

Thank you! Was about to give up honestly, the bedroll thing should totally be explained! I'm sure i'll make mistakes with some of my builds, and im not really sure when I should be buying gear and how to equip whom, but i plan to learn over time i guess. Keep the tips coming!

@bladededge:You can also spam all other spells outside of combat. If your team is burning after a fight its a good thing to get out whatever waterspell you have and quickly douse it. Same with poison and other effects. You will learn that quickly however by trial an error. Ressurection is expensive and the last thing you want is partymembers dying while you are looting new shiny stuff after a well faught battle ;)

2b). Be aware that the ALT key doest NOT reveal everything you can click on like you would expect in an adventure game. Its strictly things you can pickup (and not stuff you can open, look at, manipulate etc. etc.) so you need to get out your pixelhunt skills.

8) Everyone has something to sell.

Make sure that when you are talking to a NPC you click on the trade button to see if they have something interesting to sell. And hey, if you don't have the coin you might be able to get what you want trough "other means".

9) Sometimes splitting up is for the best.

You can split up your party by dragging the character portraits apart. This allows you to go into combat situations in a tactical way. Or maybe you encounter a NPC that has a history with a certain party member and you don't want a confrontation.

10) Morning person perk is awesome.

At certain levels you can choose perks for your characters. One that I found to be VERY useful is the morning person perk. It will make it so that your character resurrects with full health. This means that you can resurrect fallen team member during battles wihout having to worry that they will be killed immediately.

11. Be sure to strip your partymembers first if you are gonna dismiss them. Essential questitems will be teleported to you automaticly but you dont want them to run away with that shiny armor you spent alot of gold on.

Aside from: Quicksave, quicksave, quicksave!

The tip below is a really good one. Don't get locked into the idea that you need to get your entire group somewhere. I've had numerous situations where I'd split my main character off from the group and teleport around some big baddies like shriekers to purge them from the back, or got around some terrain to open up the map and then found a travel portal to get the group back together again. It feels exciting and dangerous, it's such a good mechanic.

Aside from this, I wonder if this is going to end up feeling like Witcher 3 for me where the game world is so huge that the main story line is really useful to propel you to different areas of the map, but it's also easy to get tunnel vision and focus on it too much and it keeps you from just wandering around and enjoying the world and side quests cuz you just wanna get to the next story beat. The main quest in this game seems okay enough, but so far for me the real beauty of this game is just exploring and running into bad/hilarious situations.

It's real easy to feel outclassed even by single, ridiculous enemies, where they just totally decimate your entire team in a turn or two. Sometimes it's almost hilarious just how adept the AI is at gaming the rules, immobilizing your entire team for turn after turn until you're looking at the "yr all ded" prompt. Just reload and go somewhere else! Find some other quests that feel more doable and come back later. Baddies ain't going anywhere, and there's at least a dozen other things you can do to get your gear/experience up.

Also: more often than not (maybe even in all cases) killing an NPC that's tied to the quest doesn't mean that quest is broken. Quests can be picked up in other ways, although the game is pretty obtuse about it. Poke around, and see if you can find some other way to propel the quest forward. The game doesn't seem to gate you from anything, so it might also lead to some situations where you reach end-quest stuff before you have even gotten to the starting-quest stuff.

This game gives you complete freedom to do what you want, but that also means that it gives you the responsibility to deal with that. You gotta pick up that slack, and the game does not hold your hand through anything.

ALSO: sometimes you just flat out can't finish a quest, or even get much progress to begin with, because your party isn't equipped to deal with it. The game almost forces you to process the idea and execution of letting things go without having experienced them. Some things are not for you, the game says. And that's totally okay! Get it on your next play-through with another, totally different character.

Goddamn, I'm in love with this game even though it frustrates me so.

Keep the cat alive because, if the cat is still alive when you get out of the fort it will give you a pretty handy skill. There's a dickhead ranger guard on a platform around the fort gate who fuckin' shoots the cat if it gets too close.

12) Make sure you utilise your characters 'Civil Abilities'.

By this I mean if a character has high Barter you need to select them in the sell window to benefit from their higher barter. This goes for all Civil stats like 'Lucky Charm', yes when you are opening ANY crate/box/anything you should be opening those with the character that has the highest Lucky Charm stat. This way you'll be rolling in rare items as Lucky Charm increases the % to find Epic/Legendary gear in ANY lootable object.

Tips for people playing with a controller:

• The crafting screen is the easiest way to see all the inventory between your whole party
• if you use backpacks as a subfolder, mark the backpack as "wares", mark all the items you want to put it it as wares, go to the wares tab to place the items into the backpack, then unmark the backpack.
• carrying a small sack as well as a backpack, per person, is a good way to distinguish two different sub folders.

Tips for thiefs:

• Split the party and run interference; in crowded areas, have your party talk with NPCs to pull their vision cones away from your target.
• In non-crowded places, have your party talk to the target while your thief goes to town. After awhile whoever you rob will look for who robbed them, but they won't go into this state as long as they're talking.
• When your target goes looking for you, don't be there. However, it's fine for your party to be there as long as they dont have the stolen goods. Just let the target search the party and you'll be fine as long as your thief is hidden.
• Best way to see what characters have to steal is to open the trade screen. though, they may have hidden items, such as keys, on them as well.
• You can use a skeleton character's finger as a lock pick.

Combat tips:

• beasts can't use ladders. If you can teleport a beast into a spot that is only accessible with a ladder, they won't be able to reach you or use melee on you.

That's everything i can think of off the top of my head.

Just wanted to chime in that those are some really great tips as someone that's dabbled in the first game.

I got so fucking angry when that guard killed the cat. I murdered him as soon as I got the chance, no regrets.

Also taking along a bedroll is pretty genius, I didn't think of that. When playing co-op that seems pretty useful instead of making the one character with a strong heal sit there and heal everybody.

@bdead: I'm just getting into the first game and came here to find a tips thread just like this one. Regarding skill points - is it wise to hold onto them until the next level up and you're able to raise the skills you want to concentrate on? This is particularly confusing to me, as hybridization seems to be encouraged, but you can't have your character be too much of a hybrid.

Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated!

@stryker1121: I personally don't save up my skill points. I build my characters by focusing on one or two things.For characters that use physical weapons most of the points go to the actual weapon I want them to use. The other points I generally spend on some defense or a skill that fits the weapon (warfare for close combat sword or ax wielders, huntsman for archers..). For mages I choose two spell skills to focus on in the beginning so they have acces to a some powerful spells as soon as possible. I think there are many valid ways to build characters and you get the option to reset characters for free so you will never be stuck with a certain build. The main thing to avoid is to spread all you points too thinly but other then that you can basically experiment.

Don't stress over stats and builds too much and fall into the trap of recreating characters, you can respec at the start of the second act.

In addition to avoiding jack of all trades characters it's probably best to avoid jack of all trades PARTIES as well since for the most part you'll get along way better if you can safely batter down one style of shielding over being prepared to slowly whittle down both.

@bdead: Awesome, thank you. I'm loving the game, so I'll carry on as is.

How is the crafting in DOS2? I remember it being crazily (and awesomely) intricate in DOS1, and I generally hate crafting in games.

Does any one know if the Dual Wielding combat ability affects wands? I have fane setup as a dual wand user and I want to know what stats I should upgrade to get more DPS. The game is awesome by the way!

@ravingham91: It does but practically any school of magic would be a better choice for damage before you started worrying about his normal attacks.

I'm currently going through Torment: Tides of Numenara, but I'm definitely going to give Divinity a shot soon enough. Just a question; is it worth it to pay the first one before jumping into the sequel?

Well its impossible to say. Personally i quickly lost interest in the first but with twos polished mechanics and more engaging writing im in love. Others obviously loved the first one to the end but nontheless i dont think its essential to play both games in any sorts of order or relation to each other. They are just two good games you might enjoy playing each one by themself.

Cannot stress enough the value of having a designated "looter" with lucky charm the benefits you can get from any random box or barrel is immense.

Lucky Charm is pretty cool. I'm doing a Lone Wolf Duo campaign with Sweep right now and noticed that when Lucky Charm activates, a little icon pops up over his character's head and a sound plays.

I discovered editing the formation, as well as ungrouping my party to position them for ambushes, I dont die nearly as often now. Stealing everything that isn't nailed down helps too.

Do you need to have played the first game?

@smokey_earhole: Not at all, same universe very distantly apart in the timeline.

This is my first time playing anything like this so here are the things I've learned through being a complete idiot -

- you can have three NPC characters join your party. I was getting my butt kicked and didn't know I could recruit another character, once I did it became a bit more manageable.

- you can respec characters in Act 2, so if you've spread points too much or gotten talents you don't use that's fixable without restarting.

- read books and letters and everything, sometimes it is just flavour but occasionally you'll learn valuable information or a new recipe.

- on controller, clicking the analogue stick will highlight all objects on the screen. I know there's a keyboard button but I assumed there wasn't the equivalent on controller.

- Pet Pals seems like an essential skill to pick up for one character, not talking to animals seems like you'd miss out on some great bits of writing and occasional missions and hints.

- controller again, don't forget that your hotbar has multiple pages which you can access via RB/LB.

question for people who know things, how do I get merchants to be more favourable to me? Is it just spending lots of money with them or do I get credit for selling too? Is it worth buying lots from just one merchant for the discount or is it not significant enough to matter?

I can't work out flag colours, they seem like they mean quests but occasionally there are flags where I can't find a quest so maybe it's something else.

Is there a way to pull up the full map with controller? I can only see the mini map.

@rahulricky: For vendors, selling at a loss improves their favor towards you. I'm not sure the exact numbers, but it may be worth selling some items at half their value to get your attitude with them up if you are going to be a repeat customer later. For the flags, sometimes the point of interest that the flag was pointing to disappears. Usually this will only happen if you complete a later portion of the quest making the earlier parts irrelevant.

@rahulricky: Full map comes up with the "select" button on a controller, or whatever the equivalent is called these days.

I have some questions.

Everything I pick up has "Effect Unknown" on it and by consuming it I can learn, but obviously I lose it in the process. Is there a way to learn without consuming it?

Are there any items available early on that are useful that I shouldn't just sell? For example, crafting or will be useful later. I have no idea what most of these items are useful for.

Is persuasion on my Dwarf character a pointless endeavour? My understanding is that other races don't respect dwarfs so I wondered if that would counteract my persuasion stats.

Is there a way to highlight lootable containers? Alt only highlights objects laying around and I'm constantly frustrated at not being able to see containers.

I keep getting my ass handed to me in the fort dungeon (starting area). All my characters are level 3 right now. Did I start that part too early?

@obikwiet: No but maybe you dont cheese enough ;)

Single out enemies and teleport them around ftw. Its not an easy game to just steamroll, several tries on a single fight is not uncommon.

Loremaster might affect the whole Effect Unknown thing, I'm not sure. I haven't bothered with it because unless you are feeding body parts to an elf, food and related buffs seem pretty inconsequential for the most part outside of a few specific things.

I'm not sure crafting will ever be useful outside of specialty items like arrows and maybe potions. You are never going to make better gear than you can loot or buy off of a vendor. If you are a character that needs a lot of some specific item like a Hunstman you might want to collect that stuff, otherwise I think you can skip most junk.

Persuasion is affected by Attitude and people don't like Dwarves for the most part, so you are best off having another race do your Persuasion checks in conversation. Persuasion just adds to your base Attitude score, so even 5 points in Persuasion giving you +25 Attitude might not be enough for a Dwarf to be meaningful. Those points are better spent in probably anything else. I'm playing a Dwarf and my co-op partner is playing a Lizard, and I basically fail every Persuasion check and he passes virtually every single one of them.

There is no way to highlight lootable containers. Maybe a mod will come out that does it, but probably not since the game doesn't seem very mod-friendly outside of changing values in ini files and cosmetics.

@mike: I was wondering if the healing effects were worthwhile, and I suspected that they weren't big enough to really matter. Thanks for the answers.

@alistercat: Yeah they aren't. Even the food items don't heal for much and the buffs they give don't last long enough to really matter. Just get some potions and call it a day. There are a couple of specific consumables later on that seem worth it, but in general, you can just skip them.

@alistercat: I think the only time I've had anyone consume food (outside of Sebille eating every body part) is when someone has been under the effects of charm/madness - the AI seems to freak out in those situations and will sometimes just chug potions and eat food rather than actually attacking.

The only think i have used food for is to buff up a particular stat temporarly when needed in some situations. You can cook your food to get greater and longer lasting buffs but i havnt dabbled in it.

Maybe an obvious one but don't underestimate magic and physical armour, learning how to manage these and knowing what to focus on in battles is essential for victory. For example if your enemy is low on health but has full magic armour you won't damage them with magic so use your mage for buffing or healing and let the physical attack guys do the work. Also it's good to have an even mix of damage types in your party.

As to that last bit... I dunno.

It seems to me that the party who wants to get shit done is gonna be either a physical or magical battering ram. I don't see doing both as being more difficult necessarily but it would slow things down even more and I already want the fights to be moving so so much faster.

There's also a boss late in the game that I saw on my more diverse party and I just stopped for the night because it would have been so much of two different bars to clear.

wits are not as useful as you may think they are. the game enforces that you must take a turn, and then an enemy, and then you, and then an enemy when the combat begins. you can't load your characters with wits and have them all get turns before any enemy does, the game does not work that way. summons are nice because they act on the turn immediately after getting summoned.

make sure you edit your party's formation in the escape menu. if you don't separate them, they begin all combat clumped together and often the first thing that will happen is they all get aoe'd to heck. this made things SO MUCH EASIER

@dijon: Wits grants critical hit chance which is very good, the initiative is a bonus.

Critical hit chance from Wit is actually very inefficient per point unless you are capped out on your primary damage scaling attribute. Investing points in Wits to get CHC and sacrificing damage multiplier is quite bad.

@mike: true ive not spent time min maxing and checking the numbers but honestly ive not found anything challenging enough for ne to respec yet. The crit chance still to me prevents it from being worthless to invest into.