dungeon siege 1 and 2 are missing their expansion packs and I bought the dungeon siege collection...

Yeah, they're also missing on Steam. Unfortunate legal issues it seems.

As I've written in my 15 July '22 review for the Collection, if you don't mind a little workaround, you can find the expansions files on the internet and then it's a simple copy-paste thing into the installed files. Especially the expansion of Dungeon Siege 2 (Broken World) is a must, since it continues and concludes the main game's story.

You can get the expansions to work:
https://www.gog.com/forum/dungeon_siege_series/enabling_ds_1_2s_expansions_on_gogs_version

Although I'd heavily recommend installing the expansion for DS1 only after you finish the original campaign if you plan on playing both. The expansion brings changes that work retroactively and they basically ruin the campaign's balance because it was never adjusted to account for those changes. They make the Ehb campaign VASTLY easier than it should be.

As you have to start over in Legends of Aranna anyway, there is really no point in installing it right away.

trhank you all very much!

I think I preferred installing the expansion immediately, instead, since it gave you more items, weapons, stats, etc.

You can still change the difficulty to make the game harder (but beware, it means less exp and no better rewards).
I started with hard and multiclassing and I regretted it lol.

Also, there are mods to export your party to Aranna (the devs' choice to start from zero was nonsensical) or to the multiplayer map for SP (I played those in veteran and elite modes).

Maybe too much travel for such a basic hack & slash game, but I still enjoyed it overall (like a 7\10).

Thanks for linking to my guide. :)



Also i've updated the post to mention that the reg entries are needed for DS2 and its addon otherwise the game doesn't see the expansion.

If you followed the guide (I also did at first), then your game also includes this mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/dungeonsiege1/mods/90?tab=description

Which attempts to recreate the original balancing in the Ehb campaign, but there really is no way to tell how precise it is. So the problem is not as bad is it would be without the mod, but the balancing was mostly left to the whims of the mod creator. Given that some of the core mathematical formulas completely changed in LoA, there is pretty much no chance everything is as was intended.

And regarding difficulty, no, it does not affect gained experience in the slightest. Hard just gives enemies +50% damage and you deal 15% less damage. Experience per enemy stays exactly the same because enemies have the same hitpoints and experience values across all difficulties. And you also are actually rewarded for playing on Hard. Weapons on this difficulty sell for 2/3 of their full price, resulting in a very large boost to your gold income. You can also buy an expensive weapon, for say 100K gold and get 66K back when it becomes obsolete. The weapon sale price drops massively on lower difficulties.

This page has pretty much all the info about the game you'll ever need, including many differences between the base game and LoA:
https://dungeonsiege.fandom.com/wiki/Character_Leveling_and_Spell_Guide#Difficulty_Setting

And personally, I prefer experiencing the base campaign as it was originally, so without the LoA added items and stuff. Again, the original campaign was not made with LoA items in mind, and they offer a considerable power increase in general.

Considering how easy it is to get LoA to work, I'm actually glad DS 1 comes only as the base game in digital releases.