Too many load screens, wait states and little interruptions

[Arnegar]

There's just too many of these. The load screens get really long, especially until the memory leak is fixed, and they just happen constantly. You're sailing around and some random lore or ship event happens, you click through the pages, and then there's a load screen afterwards. Moving around a city is 50% load screens.

 

Half the areas you click in the world map will come up with some storybook script before letting you in. Sometimes it's to let you search for clues or whatever, but one time it was literally just a cave and then it made me choose between "enter the cave" or "turn around." Nothing else. I mean, really? This is just pure pointless tedium and wasted clicks.

 

Then there's the wait states. You know how, before/after dialogue, the UI disappears and you have to watch the NPC wander away slowly? Often that's ten seconds thrown away for no reason. It just happens a bit too often, so it gets frustrating.

 

These things have their place, but they're too frequent in this game. They especially overuse the storybook scripts. Often it feels rammed in just for the sake of having it. When I click on a zone exit, I really don't need a book to pop up asking whether I actually wanted to travel there or would rather turn back. I already clicked on the exit.

 

 

[Crucis]

First world problem.  Learn to be patient.  You get frustrated about this.  I get frustrated by the lack of patience and complaining about it.

 

Yes, moving around a city involved a number of load screens.  It's always been this way in the Infinity Engine and now the Unity Engine games.  You just can't load up the entire city of Nekataka as well as every single building into memory.  That's just not reasonable.

 

As for the possible overuse of storybook scripts, perhaps there are instances where they may have used this method unnecessarily.  The Narrows, for example.  The Narrows itself could have been an area unto itself.  But then again, it would have involved loading another area.  The only other option might have been to make the Gullet map larger so that the Narrows could have taken up a portion of an enlarged Gullet map.  I think that what it comes down to in most cases with the storybook scripts, they could have replaced them with an area map, but that would have involved more wait time, rather than less.

[Tosho]

Yeah there is more and longer load screens than modern day AAA huge open world games. Which is rather odd. (Witcher 3, etc.)

Edited May 21, 2018 by Tosho

[Moriendor]

I agree that it can be pretty tedious, especially in Queen's Berth, and it is exacerbated by the fact that you have multiple loading zones even within a single building.

 

It would be nice if maybe they can add this in a patch that e.g. to get to the head honcho of the VTC -who resides on the upper floor- you could click or mouse-over on the door and then you get this mini pop-up where you can select ground floor, 1st floor, and so on. That would be a nice QoL addition to the game.

 

Or, alternatively, just move all important NPCs to the ground floor or let us speak to them via telepathy from anywhere in the world .

[PatrioticChief]

I guess so but the load times were all short enough it didn't bother me too much. Obviously better to have fewer load times if possible tho. 

[theBalthazar]

In 2018, He has not totally wrong... Witcher 3 = Open world full 3D without a second of loading. With SSD it is fast but like he said, always a "little" interruption.

 

+ the fact companion must changed at tavern or at the ship. A lot of goings and comings, which could have been avoided by devs.

Edited May 23, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Crucis]

In 2018, He has not totally wrong... Witcher 3 = Open world full 3D without a second of loading. With it is fast but like he said, always a "little" interruption.

 

+ the fact companion must changed at tavern or at the ship. A lot of goings and comings, which could have been avoided by devs.

 

Heck, I don't see why you should be able to change your roster (between those companions you already have in the active party and the reserve) anywhere but back at the ship.  Seriously, ya going to yell down from the Queen's palace to your ship for Pallegina to get her butt up to the palace to trade places with Eder?  Come on.

[Crucis]

I agree that it can be pretty tedious, especially in Queen's Berth, and it is exacerbated by the fact that you have multiple loading zones even within a single building.

 

It would be nice if maybe they can add this in a patch that e.g. to get to the head honcho of the VTC -who resides on the upper floor- you could click or mouse-over on the door and then you get this mini pop-up where you can select ground floor, 1st floor, and so on. That would be a nice QoL addition to the game.

 

Or, alternatively, just move all important NPCs to the ground floor or let us speak to them via telepathy from anywhere in the world .

 

It would be nice if there are multiple floors on a relatively small building if they could load the entire building as a single area, and when you go from one floor to the next, you just get "teleported" (not really, but you get the idea) from the first floor part of the map to the second floor part of the map, without the need to load a different area.   But maybe there are other issues we don't know about that would prevent this.

[Katarack21]

I agree that it can be pretty tedious, especially in Queen's Berth, and it is exacerbated by the fact that you have multiple loading zones even within a single building.

 

It would be nice if maybe they can add this in a patch that e.g. to get to the head honcho of the VTC -who resides on the upper floor- you could click or mouse-over on the door and then you get this mini pop-up where you can select ground floor, 1st floor, and so on. That would be a nice QoL addition to the game.

 

Or, alternatively, just move all important NPCs to the ground floor or let us speak to them via telepathy from anywhere in the world .

This is actually a thing for a lot of buildings and such in various maps, though I don't know why they left the VTC out of it. Take Queens Berth. When you load the Neketaka screen and click on Queens Berth, a list of names of certain areas come up on the upper left side. You can click any of those names to go straight to that location. This can avoid a lot of load screens on *entering* maps though not on leaving them. For example, you click Serpent's Crown, then click "Kahanga Palace--Roof" and boom, you load up on the roof ten feet from the Queen, without having to walk through Serpents Crown, load the palace, walk to the stairs, and go up.

[E.RedMark]

 

In 2018, He has not totally wrong... Witcher 3 = Open world full 3D without a second of loading. With it is fast but like he said, always a "little" interruption.

 

+ the fact companion must changed at tavern or at the ship. A lot of goings and comings, which could have been avoided by devs.

 

Heck, I don't see why you should be able to change your roster (between those companions you already have in the active party and the reserve) anywhere but back at the ship.  Seriously, ya going to yell down from the Queen's palace to your ship for Pallegina to get her butt up to the palace to trade places with Eder?  Come on.

 

I would ! You are all the way up there...imagine the echo ! 'PALLAGINA! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE!!!!!!!'' 

 

Pallegina: Idiota! 

 

 

Edit: For the loading screen , I fired POE1 and it really load faster for me . And POE2 does load slowly in comparaison . different engine maybe ? 

 

And as for the companion changing . They said they had a reason for giving us 5 instead of 6 , I'm of the mind that we should have a button or icon for easy switching back and forth . I personally been using the console command 'ManageParty' to do it..since I don't care for achievement . But for those who do....they probably won't use that . 

Edited May 21, 2018 by E.RedMark

[flyingsaucers]

Pillars of Eternity was unbearable with load screens. I had high hopes that Deadfire had eliminated this major annoyance, but it's still there, albeit to a lesser degree.

 

I'm genuinely curious how a game like The Witcher III, which has a lot more going on graphically, can get by with zero load times, but Pillars of Eternity II, which features static, hand-drawn world maps, cannot. 

[flamesium]

 

I agree that it can be pretty tedious, especially in Queen's Berth, and it is exacerbated by the fact that you have multiple loading zones even within a single building.

 

It would be nice if maybe they can add this in a patch that e.g. to get to the head honcho of the VTC -who resides on the upper floor- you could click or mouse-over on the door and then you get this mini pop-up where you can select ground floor, 1st floor, and so on. That would be a nice QoL addition to the game.

 

Or, alternatively, just move all important NPCs to the ground floor or let us speak to them via telepathy from anywhere in the world .

This is actually a thing for a lot of buildings and such in various maps, though I don't know why they left the VTC out of it. Take Queens Berth. When you load the Neketaka screen and click on Queens Berth, a list of names of certain areas come up on the upper left side. You can click any of those names to go straight to that location. This can avoid a lot of load screens on *entering* maps though not on leaving them. For example, you click Serpent's Crown, then click "Kahanga Palace--Roof" and boom, you load up on the roof ten feet from the Queen, without having to walk through Serpents Crown, load the palace, walk to the stairs, and go up.

 

 

This is one of the best new features in the game. I believe VTC HQ is left out because there are missions where you may need to sneak in there and they didn't want you to be able to just teleport straight in.

[Masticator]

Load screens are a bit numerous, but not too long on my computer. I'm running a 9 year old computer with the game installed on my non OS hard drive (my slow 7200 rpm hard drive). Occasionally though the game does take a while to load.

 

This game also occasionally uses a lot of CPU resources, and I find it better not to have a browser open in the background.

[flamesium]

Pillars of Eternity was unbearable with load screens. I had high hopes that Deadfire had eliminated this major annoyance, but it's still there, albeit to a lesser degree.

 

I'm genuinely curious how a game like The Witcher III, which has a lot more going on graphically, can get by with zero load times, but Pillars of Eternity II, which features static, hand-drawn world maps, cannot. 

 

It is very impressive but they are built totally differently.

 

The Witcher 3 'streams' (loads) in assets in real time only when you need to see them (or when it knows you are about to need them) and then forgets them as soon as you don't so they can be replaced by something else, using a game engine built from the ground up to support that. It's like water flowing into a vessel and out of a vessel at the same time, so the water keeps moving through but never overflows. 

 

As I understand it Deadfire loads the entire scene you're in and keeps it there until you change location, at which point it will forget that entire scene and have to load the next one. It has to tip the water out of the vessel before it can fill it with different water, or it will overflow. There are dozens of places you could go to directly from an edge of map transition in, say, Queen's Berth, so they can't 'know' where you will go next and load it until you decide where you want to go 

 

Could they make it so that when you're in Queen's Berth it loads (in the background while you're running around) all of the possible building interiors you could go into and have them 'ready' just in case you do decide to go into them? Maybe, idk. I suppose it depends whether the vessel is big enough to hold all of that water at once.

[alexis13]

I'm fine with all the mini-interruptions and all that, that's the joy of the game.

 

It's content.

 

The loading screens though, I thought'd they have fixed it since the last game, far too long for a 2d with low res 3d sprits top down rpg.

 

Who knows what it is.

[Varana]

Also, modern game engines are optimised for exactly what the Witcher and similar games do: real-time streaming of 3D assets. It's what makes or breaks an engine: Can it run games like that fast with many details?

PoE takes such an engine and uses it in a non-optimal way. Maybe they can streamline the process here and there, and there are certainly other issues as well, but I think an important part is that they're using the "wrong" engine. (Not that there currently is a right one.)

 

When you load the Neketaka screen and click on Queens Berth, a list of names of certain areas come up on the upper left side. You can click any of those names to go straight to that location.

Wait. Why have I never noticed that???

[Ashen Rohk]

Pillars of Eternity was unbearable with load screens. I had high hopes that Deadfire had eliminated this major annoyance, but it's still there, albeit to a lesser degree.

 

I'm genuinely curious how a game like The Witcher III, which has a lot more going on graphically, can get by with zero load times, but Pillars of Eternity II, which features static, hand-drawn world maps, cannot. 

 

I think it works the same way Skyrim et al does, that the world is constantly streamed from the drive it's installed on, rather than each area being loaded separtely.

 

The loading screens are a bit annoying but my god is it better than the first game.

[Guest]

Pillars of Eternity was unbearable with load screens. I had high hopes that Deadfire had eliminated this major annoyance, but it's still there, albeit to a lesser degree.

 

I'm genuinely curious how a game like The Witcher III, which has a lot more going on graphically, can get by with zero load times, but Pillars of Eternity II, which features static, hand-drawn world maps, cannot.

ITT, 10,000 references to a AAA, with a AAA budget, built on a AAA engine. Is it too much to ask that we compare apples to apples?

[Epimetreus]

I don’t know. I found PoE 1’s load screens unbearably long. PoE 2’s seem much faster... and I’m on an 8 year old PC with a standard non-SSD drive. I would have liked an expedited exit option the way that you get expedited entry to areas you’ve already been (using that upper-left pull down menu), but I’m not complaining.

[Shadenuat]

I also dislike all the menus you have to open to understand what is ability doing. Hover over ability to open menu to hover over status effect and then get into cyclopedia to read more about status effects since it doesn't state the whole picture.

 

And then the descriptions. Trickster: "Gives rogue illusion spells". What spells?? Aside from 1st level one? "Ranger and pet get bonus if they're within 4 meters". Just how big the bonus to acc and def is there?

 

And the descriptions of classes. Imagine you're some casual and read description of a chanter. Or Trubadour. Something something linger modal phrases something. What the hell does the class do? But they did put what is the name for Cipher is on glanfathan. Into class description. Why? What does it have to do with anything about the class? Write what the class does, not this.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shadenuat

[GuyNice]

For me it is a vast improvement over the last game. Playing on SSD the loading times are quite reasonable. However performance in some areas should still be improved, there are some noticeable frame rate drops (my PC is over the recommended specs). And there must still be a memory leak, as performance degrades over time. But for me it's not a huge issue, I just restart the game after an hour or 2. The game is so good I'm willing to forgive a lot. Especially since mods have started to fix some of my biggest pet peeves (mainly difficulty).

[Excerpt]

What kind of computer are you playing on? I haven't had any issues with long loading times, they are many times faster compared to POE1.

[Arnegar]

One example is when you have to go back to Fort Deadlight after receiving a letter. FOUR load screens just to talk to an NPC for a moment.

 

Then there's the myriad places where there's a completely pointless exit, like the Imperial Command place. There's a side exit, and if you leave through it, you go out to these stairs that just go up to the upper level. Load screens both times. What's the point? There are stairs inside. Or the Kahanga palace, there's this balcony off the rooftop that has nothing in it, but it's two load screens if you click on it to have a look. It's just such meaningless waste of time, why are there load screens for these tiny flavor areas?

 

When playing this game, I just feel like 25% of my time is spent in load screens or NPC-walking-away wait states where you have no control. There's just too much of it. When you travel to the Gullet, there's like a forty second display of some guy getting thrown in the depths, and it's so slow because you have to watch NPCs move around and speak their lines. I'm all for story, but can we not constantly put the game on pause for extended periods of time every few minutes?

 

Older games had these as well, but they weren't something that happened all the time. We all remember the drudgery of watching Imoen get kidnapped by the wizards in BG2 for the fifteenth time, but then that sort of thing didn't continue to happen every other time you talked to an NPC.

 

I just travelled from Serpent's Crown to Queen's Berth. On the way, I was interrupted TWICE by storybook events where I had to kill some meaningless bandits who lit a house on fire or bullied one of my crewmates. It made the trek across the city take ten minutes for absolutely no reason. Then I set sail for Crookspur, and in that short trip, first my crew wanted to play dice and then they wanted to know if this fish was okay. It's just not something I want to click through sixty times over the course of a playthrough.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Arnegar

[Katarack21]

That balcony actually does have things in it--a pet and a trainer.

You get that cutscene at the gullet *once*--the first time you go there, never again. Personally I enjoyed the small interactions in Neketaka and on the boat--they didn't happen very often, and they added flavor to the events. You feel like your crew actually exists, is doing stuff when you're not there--your crew is fishing while your sailing around, they go out for shore leave while your in port, etc.

As far as older games are concerned, every time you leave a district to go somewhere else in BG2 there's a chance you'll be randomly attacked by thugs, assassins, or (in the wilderness areas) random monsters. Every. Single. Time. BG1 had attacking assassin cut-scenes in *EVERY NEW CITY*. You get randomly assaulted when you rest, too. There are far more interuptions like this in older games.

Not to mention goddamned Noober.

[Crucis]

One example is when you have to go back to Fort Deadlight after receiving a letter. FOUR load screens just to talk to an NPC for a moment.

 

Then there's the myriad places where there's a completely pointless exit, like the Imperial Command place. There's a side exit, and if you leave through it, you go out to these stairs that just go up to the upper level. Load screens both times. What's the point? There are stairs inside. Or the Kahanga palace, there's this balcony off the rooftop that has nothing in it, but it's two load screens if you click on it to have a look. It's just such meaningless waste of time, why are there load screens for these tiny flavor areas?

 

When playing this game, I just feel like 25% of my time is spent in load screens or NPC-walking-away wait states where you have no control. There's just too much of it. When you travel to the Gullet, there's like a forty second display of some guy getting thrown in the depths, and it's so slow because you have to watch NPCs move around and speak their lines. I'm all for story, but can we not constantly put the game on pause for extended periods of time every few minutes?

 

Older games had these as well, but they weren't something that happened all the time. We all remember the drudgery of watching Imoen get kidnapped by the wizards in BG2 for the fifteenth time, but then that sort of thing didn't continue to happen every other time you talked to an NPC.

 

I just travelled from Serpent's Crown to Queen's Berth. On the way, I was interrupted TWICE by storybook events where I had to kill some meaningless bandits who lit a house on fire or bullied one of my crewmates. It made the trek across the city take ten minutes for absolutely no reason. Then I set sail for Crookspur, and in that short trip, first my crew wanted to play dice and then they wanted to know if this fish was okay. It's just not something I want to click through sixty times over the course of a playthrough.

 

My god.  If you tried just a little hard, could you whine some more?

 

I love those little events where you get stopped while traveling between areas in Nekataka.  I wish that there were more of them.  Not a lot more, but a few more.  So freaking what if they're just random bandits!  It seems to me that they'd be particularly appropriate if you were heading through The Gullet.

 

You really need to learn patience for crying out loud.  It's an RPG.  Every single thing that happens doesn't nor shouldn't be massively important nor have the time they take measured so that it doesn't tick off some self-entitled person who acts like every single freaking microsecond is precious.  Jeeez!!!