Feedback - Things that didn't work well in the game

[Dana]

So… in general the game is good. I would give it 7/10. Why 7? Mostly because of clunky gameplay, and here is the list of what was not much thinked about (or even overthinked at times). In short, it's another pillars game but in 3D. You became predictable, Obsidian.

I play on normal difficulty. Thought, as it is the first choice without any useful feedback from the game (like if it is another Eternity system game or not), that's the best choice as I don't know the system yet. And that probably was the bad idea. The game is soooooo easy on normal…

- I upgraded some guns on level 3-5 and didn't look at them since then. I'm now lvl 15 on THE moon (no spoilers), about 15h in the game. 

-I still run with a big f gun. The problem is the encounters are so rare and so unchallenging with the same type of enemies over and over I do not need to use it much. Robots. Dogolizards. Yetibeasts. Humans. Rinse and repeat.

- Since encounters are scarce and set "traditionally", I don't feel the need of using mods. Or skills in the "tree". Or my teammates' skills (figured how to use them about lvl 12, no tutorial on what those icons on D-pad were...). Or even heal myself (100 syringes right now, not even one bought)

 Just take the toughest weapon, take the higheat lvl armor, upgrade both a few times and no one even touches you for at least next 10 lvls. Everything Dies in two seconds.

-I liked the concept of yeti group at the very beginning. The one by your grounded ship. All this grassy stuff, hiding, avoiding enemies.. What a shame you never encounter any true stealth mission again. Tall grass? Forget it. Just approach outcasts' camp from the other side and the target npc is just standing there! Whoopsie!

-Most of weapons do not "feel" properly while using them. It's so 'unimmersive'. Guess that's a minor issue since you use it rarely

- Companions' AI is horrible. I started shooting at an enemy. They spotted another... Behind a building and then next one faaaar away behind another obstacle.

They walk on my line of sight when I'm shooting, covering my target. Guess if you wish to have a clean line of sight your team musn't be melee… or use a flamethrower otherwise.

They open doors I locked behind me to steal something. Sometimes they move even though I ordered them to stay behind doors.

They stay standing in open when I order them to stay in a spot while stealthing. 

They do not care about being detected in stealth.

-Tons of kinds of food…that does completely the same thing. Most useless. You have to dig through inventory to just find a thing that does something different. No filtering. Typical PoE thing. 

Similar goes with mods like stealth (haha, stealthing in this game, uh! Where could I use it?)

-Piles of garbage. Everywhere. A.k.a. "loot". Littering every room like leaves in the fall. Another typical PoE thing.'i'm sick of gathering every single s*it. Yep, I'm from those who compulsively clear every area. Like about 90% of nowadays players, I would bet. You think that I will care to climb in the 10th hour of my playthrough to another garbage holder hidden under a ceiling? You think it's funny? 

More of it, finding 10ammo, 10bits, some crappy armor or weapon in every superhighly locked chest. Superhighly locked chests are everywhere. My 50+ hacking and 50+ lockpocking feel so unrewarding.  

Could you please care next time to … "compress" the loot? Put all this sh** in a one single chest locked? Increase the rewards in highly secured places? I won''t get hurt if that dogolizards' hide worth 1c won't be in every doglizards' corpse either.

Could you please make lockpocking/hacking more meaningful? Put less but more valuable things? Maybe in stacks, perhaps? I didn't have to rise skill in those two for 10 lvls! Started with 30!

I didn't have to buy a single thing in The Whole Game so far!

-Stats. Are. Meaningless. Seriously. On normal you don't feel they change anything. For the first 10 lvls 20 points in persuasion, 30 points in hacking/lockpocking and you are a god of whatever situation you are in. Same with tree/companion skills.

 What the "weapon" skills even do? Is this accuracy thing once again? Don't see any difference in raising them (maybe except the "every 20 pts in a skill..." thing in some cases).

-Maybe I'm only on the moon now (guess it's still early in the game?)  but I see how the plot will go further. Pillars 1 and 2 + tyranny style - wow, you are noone, here are 4 fractions you have to pick from. Tip - you can choose only one, ah, and your choices don't really matter. Am I right?

I was really into the game at the beginning, but then I started noticing schemes from your older RPGs. No one likes predictable gameplay or story...

-World, even though beautiful and full of just-standing-there-NPCs, is lifeless. As it is usual in Obsidian and Bethesda games

-What saddens me the most though (and what lured me in advertisements) is that, as usual in Obsidian's case, there is no way to become an inspired "bad character". 

"You can be whoever you wish" ads said… and yet all the "bad" lines are either just swearing or threatening people. Just a crude, mindless brute. Uninspired at the whole length. I won't get caught on that slogan for the third time. I have an eye on you, Obsidian. 

How about being a rebeliant soul? Or a philosopher against rules of the society? This might thrill some of your writers, but… here is a secret (!)... bad characters can have more IQ than a brick!

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There are strong points too to enjoy the game, though. Like the world, backstory, story of the side quests, lore, and writing in general.

The conclusion is one - things that used to work 10-20 years ago sometimes turn to be outdated and clunky. Things that work in an isometric RPG sometimes do not work well in 3D, realistic RPGs. Please do not make another PoE clone in 3D next time.

Here. I typed it all finally. Good night.

[rainharder]

All valid points, I feel the same. People just want to believe this is the next Fallout and refuse to realize it's just a small budget AA game with many game design flaws. Even the writing is mediocre, too much deliberate humor and boring NPCs. I guess Obsidian lost its touch once MCA is gone. 

[TL Gamer]

I want to include two things to this

1. A single player, first person view only game, does not need a character customization screen as far as appearance goes. It's a complete waste of programming space which could have been used for other elements.

2. A total inconsistency on instructions at the very beginning of the game. While this game was catered to the Obsidian/Fallout crowd, it doesn't change the facts that it has an onscreen instruction for keybinds on howto walk, crouch, jump and things like that, but failed to include camera control. They also didn't include any form of learning curve so a player gets stuck near the very beginning of the game.

[PUBG2055]

-all of the quests are fetch quests.

-decision making is pointless and has no actual effect on anything 

Edit: also no grenades ? Wtf who came up with that idea?

Edited October 28, 2019 by PUBG2055

[Ommamar]

It is weird they have a grenade launcher that uses heavy ammo!

[Rheetro]

+1 

I agree to this post

[Horrorscope]

It's been a common theme lately for RPG's, but this game will need a balance pass and probably be part of a larger patch, possibly even an enhanced version, yes it is too easy on hard, Supernova has some weird difficulty choices to it, so I steered clear. Yes there is room to pick it apart, perhaps I just find the overall sum greater than the pieces.

As far as more of your advanced concepts, yeah gaming has a long way to go and it's been a good while since barriers have been broken into new ground.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Horrorscope

[Merzhinhudour]

On 10/28/2019 at 12:54 AM, Dana said:

I didn't have to buy a single thing in The Whole Game so far!

So, basically, you're complaining because you find your Hacking and Unlocking skills useless, even if thanks to them you didn't need to buy anything during the whole game, and that's the reason why you ask them to add more valuable items in the chests you unlock ? ? Best reasoning I've ever read in my life !

 

[Dana]

On 10/29/2019 at 4:50 PM, Merzhinhudour said:

So, basically, you're complaining because you find your Hacking and Unlocking skills useless, even if thanks to them you didn't need to buy anything during the whole game, and that's the reason why you ask them to add more valuable items in the chests you unlock ? ? Best reasoning I've ever read in my life !

 

I'm afraid my friend you get me wrong.

No, those aren't lockpocking skills that allowed me to get everything. This "everything" is just littering whole world like rubbish. That's the issue no. 1 I had back then. I didn't need lockpocking at all to get much more consumables than I needed.

Second issue is that there was no real reward, I was getting from lockpicking . It was simply the same shiFt that was lying everywhere around the "super secret lockers/rooms", just twice as much than from regular locker. 

That's what I was complaining about.