I feel offended do you?

[Guest BugsVendor]

Dear Obsidian,

 

Being a huge fan of titles like Baldur's Gate I took Path of the Damned difficulty simply so this wonderful experience would last as long as possible. I wanted to be forced to eat consumables and search for items that help with certain enemies and experience the game in it's full potential rather than just run through the game on normal without any serious challenge. The game still seemed too easy... Boring...

 

There is only one initial playthrough of the game and now that I am close towards the end I realised mine is ruined. I did a quick bug search and sure enough my Eder is overpowered due to stacking bug and the game is too easy. I also experienced other bugs like the Raedric Castle problem.

 

They way I see it yet again I was sold a car without a wheel. It is that simple. Yet another product in the gaming industry that is unfinished, rushed, clearly broken.

 

If this would be any other industry we would never hear the end of it. Just imagine calling help line of some company saying "You sold me a coffee machine that gives tea" and hearing "This is a known issue".

 

Do you know who buys these game right after the release or even pre order ? Your most dedicated fans. The new normal is to poke us in the eyes with a stick and turn us into slave testers.

 

I feel offended obsidian. The experience I bought from you is broken. You send a clear and loud message:

 

"DO NOT PRE ORDER" & "DO NOT BUY RIGHT AFTER RELEASE"

 

Regards,

 

exFan

 

 

 

 

[Falaffel1]

I don't feel offended, but I am disappointed.

 

I also canno't understand, why there are so much people trying to explain why it is OK, that games are released with so much bugs. 

 

OK, the **** happened and time cannot be turned back. I think it's better to release a well testet patch, than one which is released to early, but in such a situation I often think companys shoult talk a bit more to the customers.

[Katarack21]

 

80's hours in, no bugs of any sort. Game isn't broken. You're just unlucky.

uh... wtf?  no... unpossible.

 

sorry, there are a ton of tiny bugs in this game.  you experienced them.  somehow, you just never bothered to even notice, or deliberately ignored them.

 

 

 

Or you just really feel like insisting that everybody must have the exact same play experience as you. I guess if you count the journal years counting up to much as a bug then yeah, sure. I've got a buggy game to. In other news I have a slight tickle in my throat. I'm deathly ill, you know.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Katarack21

[Sashenka]

I'm too old now to be offended by videogames or be mad at bugs. Let's just wait for a couple of patchs, we waited this long for the game we can wait a week more for a patch to correct the most glaring issues.

[treaves]

80's hours in, no bugs of any sort. Game isn't broken. You're just unlucky.

I'm not sure if the unreasonable or the liars are worse.

Edited April 2, 2015 by treaves

[Halric]

Whether you agree that bugs are acceptable or not, one thing that I do think Obsidian needs to improve is communication. 

There have been many AAA broken releases in recent history, DAI: Inquisition suffered from frequent crashes to desktop and usability issues. Though Bioware made a public statement, through the games media, to let everyone know what the major bugs were, which ones would be fixed in the next patch, and a rough time frame for delivery of said patch. 

 

Customers shouldn't have to dig through support forums to search for posts from developers to try and estimate a delivery date on their own. 

Someone from Obsidian needs to step up and say: "Listen, we've got bugs, here is a list of issues we are working on, here are the ones we have fixed, a patch will be released in the next few weeks (or whatever time frame they think is reasonable). 

 

I love the game, it's amazing, I've only gotten to play 4 hours of it before I got stuck on the ramparts of Raedric's Hold.

Everyone should keep in mind that bugs and technical issues can be fixed post release, but bad story, terrible characters, or disappointing writing can not. Obsidian got the important stuff right in my opinion. 

 

So with that in mind, my point is that communication can do a lot to assuage frustration. People are frustrated because they can't play a game that they want to play. Not unreasonable. Neither is it unreasonable that we get some more direct communication from the company about the state of the game, and assurances about when we can expect fixes.  

[Katarack21]

 

80's hours in, no bugs of any sort. Game isn't broken. You're just unlucky.

I'm not sure if the unreasonable or the liars are worse.

 

Personally I'd go with the arrogant people.

[treaves]

Given the time took and the money raised, there are a surprising number of bugs that have an impact on game play.  There are bugs on the Mac platform that impact even after the game is exited.  I understand the choices companies make in releasing software.  I know that this one could have been better.

[Sashenka]

Well to be fair most of the most gamebreaking bugs are in items bonuses calculation and other forms of stats (the constantly adding stat to obscene level is one, Cipher losing Focus regen is another) so people not observing the combat log and verifying calculations might think there is nothing wrong.

[Ichthyic]

 

 

80's hours in, no bugs of any sort. Game isn't broken. You're just unlucky.

uh... wtf?  no... unpossible.

 

sorry, there are a ton of tiny bugs in this game.  you experienced them.  somehow, you just never bothered to even notice, or deliberately ignored them.

 

 

 

Or you just really feel like insisting that everybody must have the exact same play experience as you. I guess if you count the journal years counting up to much as a bug then yeah, sure. I've got a buggy game to. In other news I have a slight tickle in my throat. I'm deathly ill, you know.

 

no.  I was a game dev for 6 years.  I know what bugs look like, and there are a lot of very consistent bugs in this game.

 

there is no possible way any playthrough could have avoided them all.

 

none.

 

perhaps you are confusing "game breaking" bugs, with any bug at all.

 

as for that, there indeed are relatively few gamestoppers at release.  only a couple I can think of, and if you're not using a ranger, you can entirely avoid one of those.  the other is Raedric's Hold, and I haven't even gone there simply out of fear of running into that one, as it indeed will end your game.

 

but... you never got the insect swarm bug... never got stats bugs... never saw any abilities bug...

 

yeah, sorry, not buying that.

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2015 by Ichthyic

[Jimmious]

Someone must defend Katarack in the assault from bug-hurt people. I also havent dealt with any important enough to notice bug. And I've played like 45-50 hours so far.

*Im playing a ranger btw, no issue with that as well. So far at least.
**I think that people are basing their opinions a lot on forum topics about bugs that other people found and become way too concerned.
I actually think that if I didnt come to the forums I wouldn't have even thought of a bug so far. Now I do try to be sure I dont double click for example, even though its something I never did anyway..

Edited April 2, 2015 by Jimmious

[Anvirol]

They do make excellent games, but you certainly aren't alone in thinking that these games could use longer QA periods..

It's a long time problem with Obsidian and Black Isle..

 

This is a nice piece explaining why they couldn't release their games "when it's done":

http://kotaku.com/5968952/the-knights-of-new-vegas-how-obsidian-survived-countless-catastrophes-and-made-some-of-the-coolest-role-playing-games-ever

 

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/is-it-possible-for-obsidian-to-make-a-non-buggy-ga-421349/

 

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm not suffering any bugs. Sorry to disappoint.

 

No bugs at all? Would be good if you stopped lying.

 

then yeah, sure. I've got a buggy game to. In other news I have a slight tickle in my throat. I'm deathly ill, you know.

 

Ah here we go. So there is bugs in your game. The OP does have a point and it doesn't help when people like yourself come online and tell lies.

[WintermuteX]

 

No it isn't. This rule apply only to the gaming industry. Planes are complex and they work. Cars are complex and they work.

Ah yes, planes never crash, cars never gets recalled by the manufacturer...

 

Ah, yes. You missed the point entirely. As far as I can tell, civil planes crash by a multitude of things but not by bad design. Maybe the German "Erdnagel", but this was some other issue. Software is complex, but coding isn't magic and errors are made because someone made mistakes while coding or because something wasn't thought through entirely, they don't "just happen", they are flaws made by people. It is not about 100% bug free, it is about obvious bugs and the gaming industry which pulls this stunt nearly every time. So OP is perfectly right and you try to make points with BS.

[Sashenka]

Piling up on Katarack21 achieves nothing, I am a developer too and I've been in the field long enough to know that end users and developers have their own definition of bugs. I think what he meant is that he didn't get any gamestopping bugs, which is very possible.

[Stahlbart]

Fanboyism is strong in this thread.

"if I'm not seeing this, it's not there"

So if you don't experience war, it isn't there. If you don't have a disease, it doesn't exist. Logic.

I got my whole inventory wiped out. Every single item of every follower. I assumed it was in any of the chest, but it was not. Luckily I stopped playing and investigated on that. In the end, only Durance's inventory was lost. But I found it to be a serious, almost game breaking bug. I don't wanna know how much more I've encountered without even noticing.

Aside from the translation errors in the german version, where a good amount of weapons, weapon categories, and even letters said "Intellect +1" or "Perception +2", literally destroying the immersion.

It's about obvious bugs and releasing an unfinished game.

Doesn't matter if it's a car, plane, or a coffee machine. Haven't I got the right to assume I buy a working product?

That's the whole point.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Stahlbart

[gkathellar]

Why is this is the tech support subforum?

[Falaffel1]

I would be happy to know if I should block some time at easter or if I can enjoy the bad weather here in Germany. But for that anyone at Obsidian should start talking to the customers.

[Jimmious]

Noone said bugs are "not there" , we are just saying that the situation is not so extreme as some people present it and certainly not for everybody.
I'm sorry some of you face serious issues, I haven't though and there are many more like me and that should also be told.

Also please guys, do not compare a car with a video game. Or generally software with moving vehicles in which "game breaking bugs" would cause DEATH. Of actual people.
It's unbelievably hard to control bugs in huge codes and inevitably some will leak out when you release. Releasing a patch that fixes the most important ones within a week is awesome in my opinion and I'm a senior software engineer if that matters at all.

Finally, please relax. I'm not being a fanboy or aggressive to anyone. I have no connection with Obsidian or benefit from them doing well. I'm just stating my view on the game's current state.

[NerPan]

i can figure the huge amount of players who whiill complaints about how hard the game becomeafter the patch... i mean the vast majority of them probably don't even noticed about the stacking stats ecc...

[cremno]

I guess in my case it's a bit of a mix really. I don't feel offended, because of the fact that I REALLY want this game... Right now... ;P And I know that the game itself is awesome, yet plagued with some pretty toxic bugs. Now, under normal circumstances I'd be really pissed, but due to my great love for the style and such I am forgiving here. I do hate the direction games are taking with the "let the hardcore fans beta test by calling it a full release", and taking a look at Rome total war 2, I was not forgiving, even though I loved the franchise. The main difference between the two, however, was that Total war Rome 2 was a disaster, and pretty much unfixable due to the wreck of a dumbed down game it was, but Pillars of Eternity, in my opinion, has a great game. 

 

It's kinda hard to describe, but I guess to boil it all down, I am pretty tired of being sold really buggy releases, but since it's obsidian and such an awesome genre that they dared stay true to, I'll wait patiently for the patch and start over. Though it still pains me

[ToolofIsis]

I'm not offended but yeah, I'm mad I had to shelve this game so they could patch it.

[sparklecat]

 

Customers shouldn't have to dig through support forums to search for posts from developers to try and estimate a delivery date on their own. 

Someone from Obsidian needs to step up and say: "Listen, we've got bugs, here is a list of issues we are working on, here are the ones we have fixed, a patch will be released in the next few weeks (or whatever time frame they think is reasonable). 

They have!  It'll be this week, which a pinned thread right at the top of the forum says!

[zephiris]

-- Just another edit:

But I also can't believe that the ones who are stating that they hadn't any bugs are right. E.g. there are items with +stats bonus which will

give you the bonus permanently even after you've already unequipped them and so on... You must be really lucky if you didn't get into

at least one bug. (Not saying that everyone experience this that much that it's becoming game breaking)

 

Finally, someone who is saying what I wanted to say but just didnt bother with. 

For me personally, its really infuriating though childish it may sound but that people come in here boasting that they played 80 hours already and did not encounter bugs.

Honestly, if it was that easy to avoid the perma stat bugs that you can get in a multitude of ways I would be playing Pillars of Eternity right now instead of waiting for the patch.

 

But you can get it by simply reloading a previous save at certain locations, even sometimes when not in certain locations (like perfect example of HP stacking on your main character). Equipment re-equipping, forgetting to turn of Eder's 'Defender' skill when loading previous savegame, +2 intelligence bug on various items for Aloth etc etc, though this is a bit more obvious if you look at his stats and notice 43 intelligence or something and 283% Area of Effect bonus on hard difficulty xD...

 

How the hell can you NOT get hit by these gamebugs? I find it hard to believe and assume that the one who writes that he didnt ecounter bugs is simply unaware his stats have indeed been increased without noticing. Maybe just tiny amounts so at first look all looks oke, but its not.

 

On the other hand, people do with the lottery 

[remiz]

its just not true that anyone could bypass the bugs. thought kickstarter games should have enough time to relase something proper

[Jean-Luc]

Many of these bugs, Raedric's Hold black screen, bugged stats, never ending insect swarm, are very widespread and by no means marginal. They either have mega threads and even press articles dedicated to them or there's new threads constantly popping up both here and on Steam. Many people who claim they've had no bugs probably just never noticed the bugged stats or "unpaid" hirelings or non-existent tax money. 

 

Either way, dismissing problems does nobody any favors.

 

As for being "offended" by the bugs, there's no need to be dramatic.