Greedfall: The Dying World

The misadventures on the continent. I have discovered that there are timed quests by failing a side quest. No spoiler tags as it is fairly inconsequential. On the Olima markets, there was a noble berating her servant. The servant lost the noble's necklace. I quickly found it and tried several dialogue options to return it to the servant. The thing was that one of the companions was disapproving, so I decided to swap the party and return later. I got sidetracked and, when I finally got back, the noble and the servant were nowhere to be found and the quest promptly failed. There was nothing in the journal to indicate that it was a timed quest, however, the noble had mentioned going to a ball.

So, while it is more immersive than the NPCs waiting for me for a few in-game months, the lack of clear time limits is unpleasant.

The stealth system, on the other hand, is funny. There are several notable things. When you stealth-kill a hostile NPC and save/load, sometimes the remaining hostiles spawn at different positions, including the newly freed one. Another one is that you technically can approach from the front (~45 degrees) and, when you stealth-kill the opponent, they turn their back to you. And another one is that even with 1 point in the Stealth skill, the hostiles cannot notice you farther than a few metres away in the ~45-60 view cone in front of them. The companions, conveniently, are completely invisible.

There are some continuity bugs, such as a quest NPC spawning after the related quest was completed or companions referring to the non-chosen options. It does not happen too often, but it is noticeable. When the quest resolutions are tracked correctly, it feels good, though.

Other than that, I've spent most of the time trying to comb the areas for loot. I do not know whether I will ever need all those crafting ingredients or low level equipment, but if it is there, I must collect it (i.e. the game might be balanced in a way that considers the player looting everything in sight and if I do not, I will be at a disadvantage later). It is a fairly meditative experience. I am also certain that the playtime would have been halved (thirded?) if I did not do it. I think there are difficulty options, but I'd like to stick to the default one.

On the other hand, it makes the story progress much slower than it could have been. There is also a new "feature" - you cannot take more than one companion quest simultaneously (the PC auto-refuses) and the companion remains in the active party until it is completed. I probably could just grab 3 people and do their quests in parallel, but I kind of understand the reasoning behind limiting it to 1.

Edited 17 hours ago17 hr by Hawke64

15 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Greedfall: The Dying World

The misadventures on the continent. I have discovered that there are timed quests by failing a side quest. No spoiler tags as it is fairly inconsequential. On the Olima markets, there was a noble berating her servant. The servant lost the noble's necklace. I quickly found it and tried several dialogue options to return it to the servant. The thing was that one of the companions was disapproving, so I decided to swap the party and return later. I got sidetracked and, when I finally got back, the noble and the servant were nowhere to be found and the quest promptly failed. There was nothing in the journal to indicate that it was a timed quest, however, the noble had mentioned going to a ball.

So, while it is more immersive than the NPCs waiting for me for a few in-game months, the lack of clear time limits is unpleasant.

The stealth system, on the other hand, is funny. There are several notable things. When you stealth-kill a hostile NPC and save/load, sometimes the remaining hostiles spawn at different positions, including the newly freed one. Another one is that you technically can approach from the front (~45 degrees) and, when you stealth-kill the opponent, they turn their back to you. And another one is that even with 1 point in the Stealth skill, the hostiles cannot notice you farther than a few metres away in the ~45-60 view cone in front of them. The companions, conveniently, are completely invisible.

There are some continuity bugs, such as a quest NPC spawning after the related quest was completed or companions referring to the non-chosen options. It does not happen too often, but it is noticeable. When the quest resolutions are tracked correctly, it feels good, though.

Other than that, I've spent most of the time trying to comb the areas for loot. I do not know whether I will ever need all those crafting ingredients or low level equipment, but if it is there, I must collect it (i.e. the game might be balanced in a way that considers the player looting everything in sight and if I do not, I will be at a disadvantage later). It is a fairly meditative experience. I am also certain that the playtime would have been halved (thirded?) if I did not do it. I think there are difficulty options, but I'd like to stick to the default one.

On the other hand, it makes the story progress much slower than it could have been. There is also a new "feature" - you cannot take more than one companion quest simultaneously (the PC auto-refuses) and the companion remains in the active party until it is completed. I probably could just grab 3 people and do their quests in parallel, but I kind of understand the reasoning behind limiting it to 1.

My concern with this game is bugs, polish, and balance issues, as these are what typically get ironed out in patches delivered during the first several months after a game's release. And we don't have that with this game. 😟