Dad vs Videogames 🎮

So here's what I've learned so far with regards to Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2019.

Divinity: Original Sin 2

This game is hard. Like really hard. I'm only playing in “Classic mode”, which if I understand correctly, is the normal difficulty level. Fights are hard. I've seen the “Game Over” screen more times than I care to remember.

There are games where the boss battles are hard, but the rest of the battles are “okay”. In this game, every battle is hard. Doesn't matter if you're fighting an elite enemy, or just trying to survive getting assaulted by teleporting crocodiles, every fight in this game is hard. In every fight there is the possibility of your party getting wiped out. It is brutal especially for someone new to the game and its combat mechanics.

The good news here is that the more you play, the more you learn how the combat system works and the better you become. I've had to restart the game twice already, because of the stuff I learned while playing. And right now, I'm debating whether I should restart again. Also, from what I've read online, the game is supposedly the most difficult at the beginning, at levels 1-4. So once you get to higher levels, the game's difficulty should level out.

Here is a list of notes I made while playing:

• If you're playing a Ranger and an enemy gets close to you in melee range, you can opt to switch your bow to a dagger. This will allow you to fight in melee range and give you the opportunity to back-stab the enemy. Also having a dagger equipped, with no off-hand weapon gives you the “Sucker Punch” skill, which is an instant knockdown if the enemy has no physical armor. So you can sucker punch the enemy and run away while they're knocked down.
• Staying with the Ranger, I think one of the best uses for a Ranger is to wear down the enemies physical armor. This opens them up to getting knocked down by a melee fighter using the “Battle Stomp” skill. So instead of focusing on one target until they are dead, focus on depleting the physical armor of every enemy in the battlefield.
• On the Fort Joy map there is a cooking station at these coordinates: x:123 and y:135. I use it to make dinner, which is basically combining a source of food (ie. fish, meat, potato, etc...) with the cooking pot on the cooking station.
• Fane is one of the Origin characters who you can recruit to travel with your party. The tricky thing with him is that he is an Undead. What this means is that healing potions and the “Restoration” skill damages him, instead of healing him. So far the only thing I know that could heal him, is poison. So having him drink a poison bottle heals him. Having him run around or stand over a poison surface heals him. Which leads me to an interesting idea of making him a tank.
• If you make him a tank, then you can do a combo with another character in your party that uses a poison wand. Attacking with a poison wand would end up creating poison surfaces around the target. If the character with the poisoned wand attacks Fane’s target, this will end up giving Fane a way to heal himself, by surrounding himself with poison surfaces. To take that further, give Fane the Geomancer “Contamination” skill and it would make him even better. He could use the poison from the “Contaminate” skill to heal himself, while poisoning enemies in melee range. This idea sounds so interesting to me, that I am considering restarting my game just to try this out.
• If you end up fighting Camp Boss Griff, which is what I did, it helps to take the fight outside of Camp Kitchen. There are 3 entry points to Camp Kitchen: west, east and south. I found that moving my characters outside of the west entrance helped me win the battle. The reason for this is that you could control the amount of enemies you have to fight by making the entrance a choke point. Position your range characters outside and have your tank stand by the entrance. This allows you to limit the amount of enemies you have to fight every turn. Also the enemy archers who start the fight at the top of the camp will not go down the stairs to join the fight, so by using this strategy you effectively take them out temporarily.
  • Now the biggest threat in this battle is Camp Boss Griff. He is a stealthy backstabbing SOB who hits really hard. I found that the best way to handle him is to teleport him up to the ledge outside of the west entrance. (Note that you will need the “Gloves of Teleportation” to do this. So run around the map and find those teleporting crocodiles before deciding to take on Griff.) From this ledge, which you can see in the screenshot below, there is no way for a character to go down. So if you manage to teleport him onto that ledge, he will be stuck there for a few turns until his “Cloak and Dagger” teleport skill comes off cool down and he can teleport down. I found those few turns where he is less of a factor (he can still attack with ranged skills) are enough to help my party win the battle.
• If you manage to escape from Fort Joy, try to find the NPC Zaleskar at these coordinates: x:369 and y:190. He is selling some good stuff.
• Lastly, this is a realization that I had a few hours ago about the Huntsman skill. Leveling up your Huntsman skill only increases the damage that your character will do when he is on high ground. It doesn't increase the damage you do from using Huntsman skills, like “Ricochet” or “Pin Down”. At least that's what the tooltip info said. So that somewhat makes it useless half of the time, because your Ranger will not always be able to find high ground during battles. This sucks because my created character is a Ranger and I was leveling up his Huntsman skills thinking it would make his skill damage stronger. Fail. This is another reason why I am tempted to restart the game for the 3rd time.

---

Pro Evolution Soccer 2019

Last time I talked about PES 2019, I was about to end my first Master League season. It ended quite well. I won the PEU League and the PEU Cup. Goios who was my top scorer even won the European Player of the Year award.

I played so well that I ended up getting invited to the Asian International Champions Cup. Konami describes this as an invitational tournament for the top teams around the world. This happened right around the time that I bumped up the difficulty level to “Top Player”, where before I was playing in “Professional” difficulty level. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but man was I blown away.

For the Asian International Champions Cup, I ended up in a bracket with Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen. This would have been fine if I selected a real team to begin my Master League campaign, like say Manchester United or Chelsea. However I selected a fictional PES United team and used the original Master League lineup, which means I had fictional players none of which were at the same level as the players from Madrid and Leverkusen.

My first game, in “Top Player” difficulty against Real Madrid was a rude awakening. I'm used to playing a possession game, where my team keeps the possession most of the time. In the game against Real Madrid, I could barely hang on to the ball. The opposing players were all stronger, faster and smarter. They would intercept passes that would normally connect. Casteldine, who used to be able to control midfield, could not even hang on to the ball for a few seconds. There were instances where the ball was knocked off him before he could even turn around.

Needless to say, defending against the opposing team was a very challenging affair. I was used to my center backs intercepting passes and winning the ball regularly. Not against these teams. They could barely stop the opposing team from scoring. It was also the first time that I saw my full backs run out of stamina, due to trying to keep up with really fast wingers from the opposing team. That didn't happen when playing against PEU League teams in “Professional” difficulty.

On a positive note, I played my first season so well that I got offered to coach several national teams. I decided to coach the US Mens National Soccer Team. I don't know how that will work out but I'm looking forward to it.

The things that I learned from this experience are:

• It is very important to practice one touch passing. As mentioned above, Casteldine couldn't protect the ball long enough to dribble and pass. The only way I could keep him on the field without him being a liability was to do one touch passes.
• Instead of waiting for the ball to get to you, you have to move your player to receive it, otherwise it will easily get intercepted.
• Physical Contact is the attribute that determines how effectively a player can hold off an opponent, thereby allowing him to keep control of the ball. I think this attribute is extremely important when playing in “Top Player” difficulty. I believe this is why Casteldine was getting manhandled by the Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen midfielders; he has a low Physical Contact attribute.
• Unless Casteldine can improve his Physical Contact attribute significantly in the new season, I'm going to have to find a replacement for him. Or move Arcas into the attacking midfielder position and find a new secondary striker. Either way, I need to do something as I cannot keep losing the ball when trying to attack.
• I need faster defenders to keep up with the really quick wingers on the opposing team, especially when playing against elite level teams like Real Madrid.

Tags: #DivinityOriginalSin2 #ProEvolutionSoccer2019 #GameLog