IWD2 - the good and the bad

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I find myself playing IWD2.Again.
I never finished it but started like maybe 5 times.

The Infinity games are my all time favorites, but IWD2 is like a black sheep in the series concerning my taste.

I really want to like it, it has all the beauty in art as IWD1 or the other infinity games. The solid engine is almost the same (though I wished it had the same OpenGL support as BG2 or IWD1 with addon, because you have to do workarounds to run it smoothly on modern PCs).

But now I reached the fell woods again in chapter 3, and it is so tedious.
I need to look for walkthroughs in the internet to boringly note the directions I have to take.
To reach the map where you find a specific quest item I had to write down ten directions (like: NE-N-E-... and so on).
Maybe I would have figured it out without help, but I just didn't have the patience.It is too tedious, and I never experienced such kind of bad design in the other games.

I know there are a lot here who like especially this game, so maybe I missed some clues there, but how do you think of this point in the game?

I really want to finish it this time, but passages like the fell woods are killing it for me.
On the other hand I want to experience all the beautiful sceneries that are still to come.

 

IIRC with good wilderness lore skill it's pretty easy to navigate there.

 

And without? ^^

Even so, it would have been nice if the game had carefully hinted to make you use this skill.
I still hate this area.It is not even a maze, just something like a code in the form of: go east then north, then east again...
Slightly reminds me of The Legend of Zelda where you would have to pass the woods in a special order, too, but then again, the sequence there wasn't as long as in the fell woods .

 

If it only were a maze, but it isn't.
It is just a code of directions.

 

People keep saying how Wilderness Lore is useless. I find that having a Druid put a few points in this skill just to get through the Fell Wood without hassle is worth it. I don't like playing with a walkthrough.

 

In my first game I used pen and paper to draw some kind of map. It requires some thought to do this effectively, consider it as challenge.
You don't need wilderness lore, it only speeds the process up a little.

 

Also with a high diplomacy I think, you can get the directions from the woman singing in the woods.

Agree that Fellwood is not a well designed area, but it is only a very small percent of the game, so just use a walkthrough. It takes like 10 minutes to get over it and enjoy the rest of the game.

 

Drop a different item on each screen, then take a few notes and it gets a lot easier.

Or just use a walkthrough.

 

Yeah, it's not a great part of the game, but I still like IWD2.

 

Took me a year on and off to finish it the first time. I don't know how many parties I went through, just kept forgetting to play, would come back and feel lost or overwhelmed and decide to start over. Ultimately I went for the premade evil party (Hands of Fury?) and finished it a lot faster than I thought I would, evil turns out to be pretty efficient when you take the "I'm here to kill you" dialogue option everytime

 

Well, I'm in the monastery now with the eight chambers challenge and looking forward to see the Underdark.

On a sidenote, after Fellwood (next time I definitely will have someone with wildernes lore), I had to fight two white dragons.
Given the fact, that most common opponents a pretty tough, the dragons were a pushover compared to the 2nd ed infinity games, I'm a bit disappointed about that.
Comparing the white dragon of IWD2 to the one in Heart of Winter, it is a joke.

 

The White Dragon in Heart of Winter was Ancient, while the ones in IWD2 are Young. Dragons have very different stats depending on age.

 

There's nowt like a bit of shameless advertising!

 

@Tal
I actually like walkthroughs and use them if I play a second time to see if I missed something or to discover easter eggs or secrets.

I find it just annoying if I can't get past one area on my own the first time.
Needn't always be the fault of the game .
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Maybe someone can help me with this:
I selectet shambling mound shapeshifting with my druid as a feat, but it doesn't appear to be used even not after resting.
I think I read somewhere it is a bug, can this one be resolved?

 

Great thread.

Spoiler

The Fellwood (and the 8 chambers) in my opinion are without a doubt the worst part of the game. However you get rewarded in the Underdark, the gameplay there is so much fun. So is about 99% of the rest of the game. Specifically chapter 6, which I have always found to be the most fun and productive.

 

I absolutely loved this game. Though it's been years since I played it, I do remember the Ice Temple giving me fits - 2nd floor, 1st floor, 3rd floor, 2nd floor and on and on - I could never seem to get out of there without a few curses under my breath.

 

I always have a ranger in my parties. so i always beef up the wilderness lore. even if you don't play a ranger then just use a druid and have the same thing done but get the wilderness lore up.

 

Having a high wilderness lore does not always work. And even if you get a successful description of the area, IIRC in one of the maps you must go in a direction that is described as "leading to nowhere".