Open-world fantasy games such as these require smart decisions and great leadership. With leadership comes the task of commanding your army. Or a party of four. Part of the video game role-playing experience is controlling another character vastly different from oneself. Looking through the eyes of others and being the hero or villain you wish you could be, if only for the stories and gold.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 offers control over all party members which can be very crucial when it comes to using talents in dialogue or special skills in battle. Players can control one companion for a conversation because of their high persuasion or another to prepare positions before a combat encounter starts. For players who like a thought-out challenge, it’s important to know how to control the board.

6 Preparing Combat Positions

Divinity now has an option to preload a party formation when a battle starts. By pressing ESC and then click “FORMATION”, the player can choose from seven different formations. There’s only seven options, but the player has freedom to click and drag each party member’s icon to a different spot and make a custom formation.

After checking off “Use positions at the start of combat”, each time enemies are aroused in the game, the party members will scurry into their positions without the player having to do a thing at all. This avoids tedious tasks like unchaining and singling out each party member which can be seen below.

5 Making A Companion Go Somewhere

A party is well and useful but there can come times where everyone must not be so bunched together. If a player rather not have everyone directly beside each other in battle, they can make each party member walk into a position away from the rest.

An archer may want to stand at the highest point from every one else, or the thief may need to lock pick and steal to help everyone else in the party get by. To do this, the player has to click the party member’s icon and drag it away from the other icons until there is a space in between. From there, walk normally.

4 Separating The Pack

To create a unique formation the player can unchain every party member to control and place everyone accordingly. By separating the pack, the player can focus on each character’s movements one by one instead of worrying about mistakes while they follow and scurry behind. This is useful for players who get overwhelmed and need to hone in on one thing at a time to ensure safety.

Unchain every companion by clicking and dragging every icon away from each other one by one. The easiest way to do this is to drag them all the way to the bottom of the screen just before the hud to avoid any frustration.

3 Taking Aim

Formation and combat positions are important for this reason. Taking aim. Making sure each companion is where they should be can feel tedious at times but that comes with the tactical aspect of turn-based strategy.

Archers and mages benefit from high vantage points due to their ranged attacks. Melee fighters should be closer and surface level to any enemy. To perfectly take aim the player must be aware of each classes weaknesses and strengths and utilize location. If there’s no certainty if there’s a fight ahead or not, the player can set up all three party members before talking with a potential enemy or saying the wrong dialogue choice.

2 Using Party Members To Talk

Companions could run the entire Divinity story line by themselves if they could and it’s possible since they are character options in character creation. Who needs an original main character? Because of this, they are perfectly capable of handling any and all conversations over the player.

Any surprise dialogue will go to which ever party member is the closest to the NPC which can be a positive or a negative. The way to utilize a companion’s ability to progress the story is to use a party member with particular stats for specific dialogue skill checks. For example, unchain a high Persuasion companion and walk to a sensitive area or just click on a party member icon and speak to anyone.

1 Following The Leader

Unchaining is a boring task at times. It’s useful for challenging moments where the player must think on their feet and use real-life wit as well as in game Wit. Though, with the party members following the player’s every move it can relieve some stress knowing that they don’t get into any trouble.

Everyone can’t stay separated forever. Well, they could technically. To chain everyone back together the player will have to drag the party member’s icon toward the another’s until a chain is seen. It will still feel slow since the player has to do it one by one, but it’s easier to do than unchaining, that’s for sure.

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