Sarky

All of the mysterious named characters around Dyrford with the yellow title bars contain a *missing string*. Apart from also not doing or saying anything...

Hey. So, first thing I noticed on starting up the latest beta was that all the little info points around Dyrford have disappeared. The mill, the alters in the temple, the pictures in the inn, all of them gone, they don't show up when you mouse over where they should be, they don't appear when you hold down Tab. That's a lot of lovely descriptive text missing! Second thing I noticed was that on the levelling screen where you put points in skills, sometimes the text of those skills disappears or becomes garbled, like the pic attached. Oddly enough it happened the very first level up I did, but didn't happen for any of the others. These both seem to be unique to this build, never encountered them previously.

Just when I was planning to play Wasteland 2 all weekend. Y U HAET INXILE GUISE? :v

When 2 or 3 AoE effects go off around the same time, you can't see anything in a battle. Pretty effects are lovely and all, but if the green/red selection circles for players and enemies could remain on top of them, that'd be handy. That or tone down the bloomy glarey brightness of those effects so we can see what's going on behind them. As long as I can see the outline of a character behind the swarm of buffs and debuffs, I'm happy.

Oh, this is much better. My party's gear no longer disappears, I can complete quests, and the pacing of combat has mostly improved a whole lot. There's something off with fighting the Temple Guards and their friends though, it's not fun to spend ten minutes having your whole party deal less than 1 damage to a heavily armed guard. And sweet jebubs, those Deep Wounds. I'm not sure I like something that can drains both health and stamina at the same time. I'm also not a huge fan of something draining your health while you're unconscious so that you're dead in ten seconds, unless your priest drops everything to try and prevent the hideous damage. Which generally means the rest of the party gets a battering. The rest of the combat though, I have to admit it mostly flows a lot better. Some of the cooldown times seem crazy, but the pacing is better than it was, and that's a good thing. If the next update improves things as much as this one, I'd say things will be looking pretty good come release day.

Yes, a queue would be damned useful. Sometimes you just want your mage to do nothing but spam magic missile while you manage someone else's abilities.

If I recall correctly the BG games had status icons inside the portraits, saving screen space.

I hope they keep going more or less the way the beta suggests they are. D20 is, in my experiences, a horrible system for anything trying to be more than a dungeon crawl, and translates especially poorly into a cRPG of this type. This new system is interesting. Not perfect, but that's why we're all beta testing. And I am overjoyed that the attribute system isn't based off random rolls. If you don't like it, just pretend you rolled the best number of points and just saved hours of tedious clicking. Fighters in particular were awfully dull in Baldur's Gate. They walked over to an enemy and hit them. And then they hit them again. Any ability they had was at the mercy of whatever piece of clothing bestowed it, to be lost as soon as something with a better AC came along. I much prefer having fighters that can knock opponents, or decide to fight extra defensively, or what have you, regardless of what magical codpiece they're wearing. Yes, there's some more micromanaging involved. I'm ok with that. I was bored to tears watching BG fighters just stand there swinging a sword until someone fell over. I'm optimistic about what's been shown so far. When the AI and feedback have been polished up as promised (and hopefully the auto-attack cooldown times reduced to something actually happens when you're not using abilities), I think the combat will be pretty freaking sweet tbh. And frankly, Forgotten Realms bores the hell out of me, a brand new setting that breaks away from some of the tired old clichés is exactly what I wanted.

I wonder is that the same issue I've been having? Every now and again the game decides that the game world isn't affected by the mousewheel zoom, but lighting effects such as shadows and spell effects are. Very odd. I'm still not sure if there's anything particular that triggers it. I found moving to a new area usually fixed it, whatever it is.

Yup, I've lost grimoires, shields, sabres, armour and quest items in between areas, saving/loading, and just swapping items between characters. Haven't completed a single quest in this beta yet because the game either doesn't recognise quest items or they straight up disappear from the game. It's also very irritating that picking up a quest item places it in your character's inventory, but if you then swap it between characters, it disappears into the Quest Items stash. Why can't it go straight there on pickup? Well, wherever in the inventory they are, the game doesn't allow me to turn them in... :sadface:

Well then, first impressions: Music: Sounds good, I like the understated inn tune particularly. Game music tends to play over menu music after quitting though. Visuals: Oh my, I had a moment when I walked over the bridge to the water mill. It looks splendid. Mechanics: Character creation is nice and varied. I very much like how your culture changes your starting gear as well as a stat bonus. Be nice if it did more in the game, will have to wait and see. There are several items in the store with the name and flavour text of *missing string*, and a few lines of dialogue where someone didn't realise they'd left caps lock on, or added a few words too many, or too few, in a sentence. A game like this lives or dies as much on its dialogue as on its combat, so more proof reading please to make sure it's spot-on. Movement: Nice and smooth, nobody moves annoyingly slowly. I know you mentioned AI pathfinding is being worked on, I'm glad because they're a bit thick right now. I like how clicking on a crate/drawer will send the nearest person to open it. I particularly like how you gave barbarians a sprint ability. Was worried running looked very ropey back in some of the update videos, pleased to see it was improved. Combat: Needs a little work, particularly on the visual feedback. Would like better indicators as to who a selected character is currently attacking/targeting with a spell, and maybe additional "Argh, I'm hit, see how I reel from the blow" animation or a spurt of blood/ichor to help you notice when a blow landed. I mean, arrows and magic projectiles, you can easily see who they came from and who they're hitting, not so clear whether a sword swing connected. In an inter-party scrap, the overhead status bars get very hard to distinguish and it's currently quite hard to make out individuals and make sure everyone's doing what you want. I suppose turning them off would be a solution, but then why have the option at all? The combat abilities I've tried so far are pretty intuitive and straightforward. The little description box for each ability is very handy. I've tried the basic fighter/barbarian classes so far alongside the generic party members, and everyone seems to fill the role you'd expect, more or less. I'm a BIG fan of your stats altering things like strength, duration and AoE of abilities, makes more incentive to avoid the traditional min-max of a combat character. I'd have more to say, but after exiting the mill in Dyrford the game sort of crashed... Summary: Clearer visual feedback in a fight for status, hits, and targeted enemies, please. Make sure the finished game doesn't contain *missing string* items or a "cONTINUE" button. I'm sure I'll have more to say when I try out the cipher next time. It feels like an Infinity Engine game in all the ways that really matter, mostly needs a wee polish and stability improvements. So far, it looks like I'm getting a pretty damn good return on my investment. Thank you for making this game, I am very much looking forward to the final product. Ciaran.

I'm having the same issue. I was honest with Nyrfe and told her to escape east. Medreth didn't believe me when I said she went north, fight started, Medreth and his pals died. I went to the water mill to loot the crates inside, but on going out the door, the black loading screen just stayed there. The menu is available through Esc, but the only option that stopped the black loading screen was to quit to main menu. Tried pause/unpause like the edit above mentions, no luck.

Steven Erikson's Malazan books had the most believable deities I've ever read. They should be more than just eleventy thousand extra hit points and 10 of every spell. They should be beyond mortal in every way. Their plans take centuries to unfold, and make little or no sense to mortals. Some of them have no plans at all and just wander the worlds looking for excitement or mischief. Some of them have total mastery over a certain aspect of reality, while being powerless in others, or even weak to some material/word/emotion. Most of all, they're kinda bored. Living for eternity can only make you jaded and cynical. You really have seen it all before. I'd really like to see some gods like that. Presumably the events of the game are the first really interesting thing they've seen in millennia. That should get them interested in the things the player gets up to and the choices he/she makes. Surely they'd want to influence the outcome, but how does a being which transcends mortal comprehension make itself understood?

A simple way of ensuring you don't break the economy by selling enemy loot: If you've just hacked a bandit to pieces, his gear is ruined. Swords will be notched and blunt if not completely shattered, armour will be cut to shreds, you'd be lucky to trade them in for a few rags. On that note, a simple weapon degradation mechanic would require upkeep of your armour and weapons. That stuff costs money to keep in good condition. Hell, magical armour might need to be fed precious gems to stay magical. +5 whatever armour is great, but if you don't spend the cash it won't STAY +5... Weapons and armour should be expensive, anyway. They're hard to make, they're dangerous, and in your typical fantasy setting they're restricted to soldiers and nobility for the most part. And that's normal stuff. Nobody in their right mind would part with magical gear for something as simple as money. That's the sort of stuff you should get in exchange for serious favours like rescuing princesses and saving the life of the local archmage. They're legendary artifacts because they're supposed to be rare, but by the end of Baldur's gate 1 everyone was packing seriously magical equipment. It just has to be kept sensible. Exalted, while a terribly clunky tabletop RPG, had economies that worked despite the massive amounts of magic being thrown around. Gold, silver, magical materials, they all had their place and it worked. Hopefully the devs will be able to do something like that.

I'd like to see a couple of completely inhuman gods. Gods are supposed to be well beyond mortal, after all. How about one of those humongous chtonic deities, something Lovecraftian, embodying a concept so completely that communicating with it is genuinely difficult, causing all manner of theological debate/argument/schism/jihad every time it so much as shifts in its slumber?