I have spent a few hours with the backer beta and filled out a sheet with my notes from the experience and am here to pass it all along to you, for what it's worth. So you know where my impressions are coming from, I have completed every Infinity Engine game multiple times as well as completing every release from both your studio and Troika. I am very familiar with this genre of work. On to the list...
General Impressions:
Combat XP. I know that this has been brought up a million times, but getting no experience from kills feels very wrong for a game like this. I played for several hours and didn't advance any characters' levels at all (completed Nyfre quest, acquired the dragon egg, convinced the ogre to leave).
I didn't notice acquiring any experience/levels during my playthrough having completed the above quests. I killed Nyfre in the Dracogen inn and informed Medreth of the fact, allowed him to depart. I acquired the dragon egg but the quest giver had no option for quest redemption. I convinced the ogre to leave, told the farmer and was given his gun and piglet - no experience or levels as a result.
Combat is chaotic, hard to follow. It's particularly difficult to track what abilities do or whether they hit at all. This really makes combat feel unresponsive and unrewarding. The combat log is a jumble of large text, expanding it helps but ends up often blocking zone transitions, loot, etc.
Pathfinding is troubling. This is an issue during both exploration and combat. There are many places where characters cannot walk around a large object and just endlessly run into it, in Nyfre's room in Dracogen Inn for instance, characters crash into bed while trying to get the the nightstand. During combat, my characters have a hard time fitting into melee combats and tend to just collide with one another instead of walking around or spreading out.
Combat:
Party AIs or auto attack. Basic AIs like in Baldur's Gate or NWN2 would help, especially for people uninterested in controlling a full party in every encounter. The biggest issue is when foes perish, party members often stand around doing nothing afterward. This could be avoided by enabling autopause after a death, but that shouldn't be mandatory. This is basically just another notch to combat feeling buggy and unfinished.
Party members don't attack. I have often sent party members into combat only to have them not follow the order and just stand around. If there's no party AI, at least make them follow orders accurately. Failing both makes the fights even worse.
Combat sounds. I'm sure this is just a beta thing, but there's a serious lack of sounds during combat. This also makes it difficult to know when abilities are activated.
Knockdown actually does have a sound effect, but it is a little much. There is a booming, low end sound whenever it is performed and if combat is paused around the time the ability is used (a common tactic, I would think), the effect loops over and over.
Warding Seal doesn't seem to do anything, enemies walk through it and the spell eventually expires.
Enemy AI attacks itself. I only witnessed this once while fighting the bandits at Dyrford Crossing; the two rear bandits began attacking each other, one eventually killed the other before I finished with the two melee bandits.
Inventory and Items:
Disappearing/appearing items during zone transitions. I would frequently notice that equipped items would disappear while transitioning between different zones in town. I lost my main character's Fine Sword, BB Fighter's shield and BB Rogue's stiletto among others. I would also find random gear on the floor during these transitions as well - and not always the same items missing from characters. It's all very strange...
Disappearing items while trading between party members. Towards the end of my playthrough, I began sorting my inventory and managed to make at least 3/4 of my items vanish by trading gear between party members. I would drag an item from one inventory to another and it would just vanish. This worked for equipment, food, materials and a note.
Being able to highlight dropped loot with tab would be great. Some enemies would fall behind scenery and the only way to get their loot is to pixel hunt. Needlessly irritating.
Prices of items in shops would randomly drop significantly. Their price would be the original value when added to the "cart", but not while perusing the merchant's wares.
There are many graphical glitches in the shops, especially item text falling behind the UI and becoming unreadable.
The are many graphical glitches in the inventory screen related to the character models. They often do not show their equipped weapons or the weapons will be floating somewhere on the screen, disconnected from the character. There is also a mysterious cape that would appear on every character's screen, unattached to their person.
General UI:
Character screen button brings up wrong character regardless of which is selected. It was also difficult to figure out a way to switch between party members when the happened (the arrows to click are dark and blended with the UI)
Nonexistent quest log. Assuming a beta thing.
The UI overall is effective and mostly unobtrusive (other than when the combat log blocks stuff).
Art:
The maps are beautiful!
Most of the character models are passable up close and look fine overhead. The Aumaua look terrible - their portraits and concept art are good but this is not well represented in game.
Hair options are terrible. They look similar but even worse than NWN2's (which were really bad). If the same artist is responsible for both of these... then I have absolutely nothing positive or constructive to say!
Character portraits are good (not IWD Justin Sweet great, but good) but could use more variations. See what HBS did with Shadowrun Returns' portrait variations.
Much of the armor does not fit the character models well at all and many of the weapons look like they're from NWN1. This is not a compliment.
The enemies I faced looked good.
Misc:
The boar companion in Merdeth's group seems to duplicate itself. I never fought them and don't know if that is merely graphical. There is also loot on the ground in front of this boar after departing the church (duplicated this bug twice).
I have noticed some party members stand in place after falling in combat.
That's all I jotted down during the free time I had to spend with PoE. I should note that I played through the town and west of town with a Fighter before falling to the lions then played through the town and east of town with a Paladin. I did not complete the beta during the Paladin playthrough because the majority of my inventory vanished while sorting, which really took the wind out of my sails.
Question
skyst
Hey Obsidian,
I have spent a few hours with the backer beta and filled out a sheet with my notes from the experience and am here to pass it all along to you, for what it's worth. So you know where my impressions are coming from, I have completed every Infinity Engine game multiple times as well as completing every release from both your studio and Troika. I am very familiar with this genre of work. On to the list...
General Impressions:
Combat:
Inventory and Items:
General UI:
Art:
Misc:
That's all I jotted down during the free time I had to spend with PoE. I should note that I played through the town and west of town with a Fighter before falling to the lions then played through the town and east of town with a Paladin. I did not complete the beta during the Paladin playthrough because the majority of my inventory vanished while sorting, which really took the wind out of my sails.
Looking forward to a completed game!
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