General & technical feedback (suggestions and bugs/errors listing)

[markowski]

Dear developers and Carrie Patel,

Thank you for creating this amazing game and bringing us back to fantastic world of Eora. You should all be proud of your work - while it's not without flaws (nothing is flawless), it really brings satisfaction, joy and pure fun.

Combat, exploration, writing (Sargamis quest was amazing!) and graphics / sound design are all top notch. Hopefully there's a room for big DLC / expansion, sequel and Pillars of Eternity 3 in the future (classic crpg)!

Here's my feedback and suggestions, both general and technical (english isn't my native language, so sorry for any mistakes):

- player should be able to drop a pin on the map, too many times I'm opening map just to orient myself to go where i want to go, that would be decent QoL feature,

- map shouldn't constantly reset zoom level, I like it more when it covers bigger area and I need to zoom out time and time again, as soon as i open it,

- please fix the bug with not being able to hide weapons (keybind often refuses to work), it's annoying. what i found as a workaround - it usually (not every time though), fixes itself after using companion skill (for example Hunter's Sense from Marius),

- consider removing black bars from cutscenes (dialogs) for ultrawide screens; there's a mod that already do that, but it should be in the game natively (if not by default, you could add it as an option). I'm not referring to bink videos, which were recorded in 16:9 aspect ratio, but to the cutscenes which use game engine to render,

- please implement proper and native HDR support for PC (with support of popular TrueBlack 400 or Peak 1000 mode &/or add sliders), I have to use RTX HDR, which isn't perfect, game looks great on Xbox Series X in HDR,

- wanted to suggest giving player additional talent points to promote even more build variety, but you already did that in latest patch; this is great,

- itemization is hit or miss; on one hand uniques are fun and for the most part well designed (would love to enchant armor though), but regular items could have been so much more than just fillers and source of ingredients for crafting. Please at least consider in the future changing naming of regular items to something more exciting than another Common Sword +1, +2 etc. You could have different regular items type / models based on current map - Scimitar on one map, Sabre on another, and something unique about it (single affix that isn't as powerful as those on unique items),

- would be amazing to give our companions weapon at least (if rest of the gear is out of the question due to project limitations), would be limited by weapon type; Marius -> bows etc.,

- once again, it probably is problematic due to project limitations, but the game would benefit greatly from introducing more enemies type and improving variety. Fighting in general feels great and I can feel the power and impact of hits, love the sounds of gunfire and melee weapons, but enemies feel repetitive (so many xaurips!),

- regarding flora and fauna, some bushes and trees are looking great, because some elements move which creates immersion (looks like they're affected by the wind, most trees in Shatterscarp are perfect example), but some trees are completely static and that feels a bit off,

- there's a problem with motion of npc's in general - companions and enemies move with perfect fluidity (and the game runs great on my rig), rest of the characters in the world move with a bit of stutter, this should be addressed (wouldn't hurt if npc's in cities were more alive, children running, more people walking etc.),

- I'd love to see custom difficulty setting in which I could at least set enemies hp / damage (many games allow this from predefined settings). I'm playing Path of the damned and it feels great at start of the game, but later after min-maxing build and acquiring gear, I'm so powerful that enemies die too quickly,

- polish language localization needs a lot of work, it's full of errors / typos, couple examples and other bugs:

1. The Disappointer weapon doesn't list duration of Shared Misery affix, instead showing just {Value2}:

The Disappointer

2. Arcane Veil still shows 50% damage reduction, it was patched to 25%,

3. After sparing Ygwulf and receiving Writ of Passage upon leaving the city, if I go back and go here (image below), rebels still attack me:

location

4. Sidequest with Josep Abaccio is bugged, when you finish the job and talk to him in the end only one option results in game showing quest as ended, you can speak to him multiple times and he reacts like we're speaking to him for first time (you can choose dialogue options again and again).

5. When Giatta speaks about her mother in the camp (it's first dialog after she joins the team I think, her mother wanted to feed the world etc.), this line shows error:

Giatta camp

6. Gjeda’s Journal still contains duplicate entries when playing in polish.

That's all for now. I just want to say thank you one more time. Keep up great work Obsidian!

[markowski]

Few more things, first is really important to fix:

1. I don't know how widespread this issue is, but after latest patch 1.3 and changes to combat & enemy behaviour some enemies don't attack (even if you're standing there for couple minutes). Noticed problems especially with ranged attacks, for example Scourge Skeleton Ranger is only kicking you if you're close, never shooting with bow, Small Lava Blight is just idle no matter what, same with some of the Xaurips (some do attack, some don't, some are reacting only if you attack them first). There's no problem with Arisen Skeleton Fighter, but Xaurip Skirmisher attacks only when you're really close and not doing anything otherwise. This was in Shatterscarp, I'll play and test things in other regions today / tomorrow.

Another user (Frieren, link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2457220/discussions/0/508449060926047842/?ctp=4#c508449254659887049) in comment section on Steam regarding this patch noticed even stranger patterns:

Quote

 

Devs, I'm serious, AI of mobs and companions is much worse now:
- mobs either stop attacking for no reason but often when you are a bit out of their territory  or shot from high range
- mobs get more confused then ever when you hide behind something
- companions AI is weird too. They attack things very far away when I'm clearly not attacking and enemy is not even having yellow field triangles above them
- mobs sometimes completely freeze
- whatever you do roll back these changes re AI of mobs and companions, please

Also, fix special enhancements of various uniques as not all of them work.

 

2. When you're speaking to woman after visiting Wael's shrine in the southwestern area in Shatterscarp where one of the fragments is located, one of the dialogue options refers to her as female and the other refers to her as male in polish language, which is incorrect (picture below, change "Powinieneś" to "Powinnaś"):

 screenshot

3. Stelgaer's Pride unique affix Bloodied Fury doesn't trigger.