A critic to the unpolished work done by Obsidian

[ABSofficial]

Just wanted to start off by mentioning that I play this game in RTWP, as I come from the Baldur's Gate era.

This thread was enlightening. That being said, I haven't finished the game yet - I've managed to read enough of this thread to not read spoilers, but several questions have been answered as far as things being 'broken'. To put it into perspective; I never experienced the transition, since I am new to the game after its final update when allegedly the entire game was left in what has been described as a broken state. I can definitely see why that leaves a lot of you frustrated and disappointed. 

I can also definitely see some of the shortcomings as a result, in comparison to PoE1 - which I've gone through 4 different endings now at this point, however; So far my PoE2 experience is hovering around a very modest 100 hours. I think the biggest thing has been some hiccups with using AI in tandem with health potions - sometimes I have to make sure I issue the command close enough to the round timer's end to make sure they aren't changing a command on me halfway through the round. Other than that, I haven't really encountered anything that produces any unhealthy levels of frustration. I am probably not even halfway done with the game at this point, even though my party is level 17. I have been so deeply immersed by the absolutely terrific selection of side quests and content, which has been maintaining a firm distraction from my main goal, and in my opinion is one of the most beautiful things to to ever have in a CRPG of this style. The cream of the crop for me was being introduced to what essentially boils down to a truly open world through various map levels. The "Ship Management" page, the ship combat system (which clearly stands out to me as needing more polish than many other things in the game but is still a... blast... none-the-less), and especially the on-deck encounters when you board enemy ships. All of this combined really stand out for me as one of the most epic, fun and truly satisfying combinations of systems in a game like this. Everywhere else, the plot and the character development seem much more deep and meaningful so far than PoE1 did, and the world just feels exponentially more alive. I am very happy that every other NPC isn't a gold-plated backer with a vague soul-peering event. That aspect of PoE1 made that game feel empty and... soulless... (go figure...) and even though some of it was still interesting, it was only to a very shallow degree and is definitely something I'm grateful that they pretty much did away with here.

Nothing game-breaking so far. Hopefully the sailing stays this smooth 'as we sail down the Deadfire way' toward of the end of the game.

Edit: I'll report back if I do happen to encounter anything game-breaking

Edited August 16, 2020 by ABSofficial
Added mentioning being aware of the hiccups when using AI with health potions

[EveryThorn]

I know it's a common defense to let it lie and have a dev walk away from their games, it still seems kind of sad when it's a franchise they own and should support.

The console versions are probably the worst example of walking away, but the end state of POE2 even with all the patches still has room for improvement for sure.

[Boeroer]

That's true for many games. I'm sure if the devs could afford it they would polish their games further until they are nearly flawless. But you can't really justify that (economically I mean) unless it's a subscription- or microtransaction-based model. At some point it's just damaging to the company to pump resources into a game that very few people still play.

Same reason for premature releases basically: economic ones.

Not that this is great - I wish all games would reach perfect shape or even better: came out in perfect shape. But honestly no (serious) software product ever achieved that afaik. In over 30 years of programming and nearly 20 years of professional software-engineering I can only say that there's always a lot of room for improvement left.

The console versions are not an example of walking away - more like an example of not taking a walk in the first place.
Both games were advertised as PC-only games and Obsidian insisted multiple times that thay had no plans to bring those games to consoles on their own. So they didn't but simply let other devs do this. Will they still get flak for flaws of the ports? Sure. Are they really responsible? Maybe not. I also don't know how you could handle the situation in a better way: you don't want to do the ports yourself because you have 0 experience with consoles. But your publisher wants to earn some money from console releases and maybe you get some, too - so why not? So now there's a dilemma, right?   
  

Edited December 17, 2020 by Boeroer

[Natures Bounty]

The game is not perfect and I love it. And, not but.

After all, the multiclassing system (well, dualclassing actually) is quite balanced and that is a great accomplishment, really difficult to achieve. It's simply beautiful to be able to play a Psion or Beguiler / Priest of Wael (ok, that feels like a multiclass :-))

Even more so, I remember some points in the game when I got really enthusiastic because of the intense atmosphere, e.g. Evon Dwer in Beast of Winter. So for me, there are enough highlights in the game that I can forget about bugs etc. 

I can say that although I was so sceptical about PoE II that I touched it only after the 5.0 patch.