this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
152 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
30564 readers
136 users here now
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I was fortunate enough to not run into any of the quest-breaking bugs. Had no issues doing what I wanted to do. What I did run into a lot was buggy scripting where dialogues assumed I had information I didn't, so I wouldn't know what my companions were talking about some of the time.
The bigger problem in my eyes is spells/items/class abilities/feats not working correctly and being outright non-functional in some cases. That's going to be an enduring problem for replays, and it's not encouraging to me that very little has been done on this since release.
I do think this game wouldn't have scored as well as it did if so many publications didn't rush to press with half a playthrough. In this particular case, I think the game--bugs and all--is still a strong GotY contender, but I really hope there's a conversation being had in the professional games criticism sphere about how this practice could cause a scandal in the future.
As it is, I'm genuinely surprised the reviewers aren't coming under fire more than they have for this. I come from an era where publishing a review without completing a game would have been unconscionable.
Do you have an example? Haven't noticed that yet in 110h of playing.
A couple minor broken ability examples: Mage Hand requires a short rest to recharge, which is fundamentally wrong for a cantrip, and Feather Fall is a bonus action instead of a reaction, making it useless for its primary purpose. These aren't game-breaking, of course, but annoyances like this add up, and it never feels good to have chosen an ability that turns out not to work as it should.
One of the more problematic issues is stupid pathing logic, especially around known hazards: Party members absolutely love to spot traps, announce them, and then walk right into them. Sometimes it results in someone getting a minor injury. Other times it nearly wipes out the whole party.
I suggest saving often.
mage hand requiring a short rest to resummon might be because you are using the gith racial?
Feather fall now is a ritual spell so you can cast it before combat and it will last all of combat. It's just different from the tabletop game.
I have mage hand on Astarion and it's still once per short rest.
Feather fall has caused me problems (and at least one TPK) I have had it drop off with no combat log line.
Nope. Wizard and bard cantrips.
Since you mention it, though, I think the Gith's psionic Mage Hand is a cantrip in 5e. Did it require a rest in some past edition?
I'll have to try that; thanks. It would still be an annoying extra step and wouldn't cover surprise situations as the spell is intended, but would at least be more useful than it seemed.
In any case, it's not just those two examples. The point is that a surprising number of little things like these are broken, either by departing from D&D rules in ways that don't make sense or by just plain failing to do what their in-game descriptions say.
I have found one example of departing from 5e rules in a way that does make sense, though, so it's not all bad.
I wouldn't label things they changed compared to 5e rules as necessarily broken, unless the way they say it's implemented doesn't actually match what's happening.
I picked half elf as race initially because I was used to the +2 +1 +1 spread they get, which isn't the case in the game, or hypnotic pattern, which only lasts 2 turns instead of 10. Is the game broken? No, it's just me assuming stuff will be 1 to 1 to the 5e rules. And it goes both ways, took me a bit to realize they don't follow the spellcasting rules to a t, and you can cast leveled spells with both your action and your bonus action.
The key words were in ways that don’t make sense. If you read my whole comment, you'll see we agree that not all the departures are inappropriate.
For the items, etc. the ones I can remember offhand are:
There's also stuff on the plus side, like Titanstring Bow double dipping with Lightning Charges or, famously, Haste and Haste-like effects (Elixir of Bloodlust) granting second attacks on each additional action for lv. 5+ martial classes. It's possible Larian just balanced it this way, but I don't think so. It's crazy broken.
The pole arm button is on the far right of the bottom bar gui thing, to the right of items.
Okay, I'm seeing it now. It's sort of like Ranger's Horde Breaker. It only appears after an attack and it disappears after the turn.
all possible actions should show up on the K panel, I have dragged the "non-lethal toggle", the eldritch blast push toggle and all of those the the actual bar to be able to juggle them.
These two don't show up there unfortunately under normal circumstances. The first Horde Breaker attack shows up there, the follow-up doesn't until the first has already been executed. The feat one doesn't even have a similar indicator there. It's kind of a weird implementation.
Here's a few:
spoiler
That's a short list off the top of my head but there's been plenty more.
Damn it, I am sorry, I meant to quote this specific part :D Yeah some of the stuff you mentioned also happened to me.
The main example cited in the article comes from recruiting Minthara instead of killing her. It looks like Act 3 didn't really take that option into account.
Other problems include questlines that can't be completed.