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

 

 

 

 

[Katarack21]

 

 

It doesn't really matter what you say. The majority of players experienced a fairly smooth gameplay with only minor issues; this is why the forums weren't flooded with tens of thousands of people saying the game doesn't work.

*looks at the literal flood of posts in this forum about all the bugs, game breaking and otherwise, and triple that on the steam forum...*

 

uh, anyone ever tell you you have a very special view on reality before?

 

if not, let me be the first.

 

 

 

Do you see 20 or 30 thousand people posting in here about how the game doesn't work? I don't. It's *nothing* like the experience with actually unfinished, buggy, failed launches. If you were there for the VtM:B launch, you'd know the difference.

[Ichthyic]

 

 

 

It doesn't really matter what you say. The majority of players experienced a fairly smooth gameplay with only minor issues; this is why the forums weren't flooded with tens of thousands of people saying the game doesn't work.

*looks at the literal flood of posts in this forum about all the bugs, game breaking and otherwise, and triple that on the steam forum...*

 

uh, anyone ever tell you you have a very special view on reality before?

 

if not, let me be the first.

 

 

 

Do you see 20 or 30 thousand people posting in here about how the game doesn't work? I don't. It's *nothing* like the experience with actually unfinished, buggy, failed launches. If you were there for the VtM:B launch, you'd know the difference.

 

do you ever see 20 thousand people posting independent posts on a game forum... ever?

 

gee, I wonder why that is...

 

 

[Ninjerk]

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

Try it on solo.

[LadyCrimson]

I've actually tried to duplicate the increasing-stats bug on purpose...before 1.03. It didn't work for me/nothing happened. Stats stayed the same. eg, it's not a universal bug "everyone" is going to have and that I "just haven't noticed." I don't have it. Why, I couldn't tell you.

At any rate, it's pretty difficult to really say how prevalent any specific bug is simply from posts on a forum. 1000's of posts doesn't mean 1000's of individual people for every reported glitch, for example. But it doesn't really matter if it's a minority or a majority. Some do have these gamebreaking bugs, bad luck or no, and they should be fixed where possible. Hopefully they will be.

[Hassat Hunter]

In before "Why doesn't this 4m game have the PR of a 100m game?"

 

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.  

 

Oh, ****... too late :/

 

Also, the amount of bugs I found:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72075-hhs-suggestions-and-bugs-list-508-build/?p=1638406

 

is absolutely dwarved by... say, Original Sin. But you don't hear anyone mention that one's buggy. Since like Bethesda, apparently only Obsidian releases bugs, and any single one gets massively overblown while other devs somehow get a green card. Beats me why.

 

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=506811Post506811

Edited April 7, 2015 by Hassat Hunter

[Merina]

Offended? No. However, I am deeply disappointed.

 

I didn't touch the beta because I expect from a game like PoE immersion. Bugs ruin immersion.

 

After only 10 hours of playing I already found various bugs.

• permanently distorted formations
• absurd prices
• infinite reputation
• graphical glitches
• ...

If you didn't experience those or others, just take a look in this subforum. There are many bugs reported.

 

Obsidian ruined my first impression of PoE by releasing it even though it wasn't ready for prime time.

 

The official stable release is a promise. That promise wasn't kept. Now it's up to Obsidian to restore lost trust.

 

After today's hotfix breakage, I tend to agree. I'm simply too scared to continue playing ... only to have to restart some time later because of bugs. Perhaps bugs that crept into my character's abilities, skills, talents, ... whatever ... like a disease with no Cure Disease spell ... and with me noticing only when it's too late.

 

That's unfortunate ... because the game is promising, ... if it were less flawed.

[domathon]

i would say after 100 hours of game play im more disappointed  than offended.

[Hassat Hunter]

How can you be dissapointed after playing 100 hours whereas other "modern RPG's" don't even allow you 15 hours to become dissapointed in?

Really? (I really wonder)

[shibby191]

I know how RPG releases are and I knew I wouldn't play more then just messing around with it at launch.  I have maybe 8 hours in just playing with builds and such.  But I *knew* there would be bugs and my plan was to wait until after at least the first 2-3 bug patches come out to see where it's at.  Pretty much every other RPG in modern times suffered from some game breaking bugs that hit some people at launch. Skyrim, Dragon Age (all of them), Divinity OS, etc.

 

I learned my lesson and I wait at least 2 months before trying any serious playthru, keeping an eye on the forums to see how things have come along.  I've got plenty of other games in my Steam library I haven't played yet that I can play while I wait for what looks to be a great game gets better.

 

But that's just me perhaps.

[Wintersong]

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

79.5 hours to finish Act II (and Od Nua level VIII pending on a fampyr). Bugs suffered: Edér got a minor stats improvements, sanitarium buggy hostility, visual effects (mostly strikes?) seem to be off but with my crappy rig who knows. Not sure if NPC stats resetting after coming back to the party is bug or feature (should read the manual, I guess).

 

Do you people know why all the games are buggy now ? Because we the customers put up with it.

And yet, you are still a fan of yourself, dear customer. Every game released gets the usual "gamer" who complains about buggy releases and how he is never to buy again or some other similar stuff. And yet, people still buys. Maybe a thread to vent... offer feedback, is not the answer you were looking for.

 

 

 

Hail Dwarf Fortress' development cycle!!!

[Merina]

How can you be dissapointed after playing 100 hours whereas other "modern RPG's" don't even allow you 15 hours to become dissapointed in?

Really? (I really wonder)

It's not 100 hours for me, ... and with more patience I will return to this game.

 

My disappointment so far is easy to explain:

 

 * stopped playing and started a New Game multiple times, because I learned that the included PDF manual is out-of-date and doesn't match the game

 

 * had the game crash in the first long animation sequence upon leaving the tutorial ruins - only decreasing resolution without fullscreen is a work-around

 

 * had Eder with abnormally high deflection, although I think I've never knowingly double-clicked an item to equip it

 

 * was "imprisoned" in Raedric's Keep, with the game crashing upon using stairs ... and me not knowing anything I could have done differently to avoid that

 

 * was happy about patch 1.03 and all the stuff it promised to fix ... restarted with a fun Monk and more careful playing ... was about to enter Defiance Bay Copperlane for the first time when the second hotfix after 1.03 broke movement speed of my party

Edited April 7, 2015 by Merina

[bobthe]

There will always be minor and major bugs on release. It is inevitable, since as many ppl posted, bugs and problems with PC games vary wildley from one machine to the next. Some bugs are consistent on all systems, while others are unique to some components. Not to mention that BETA TESTING does not involve 100.000 ppl but rather, a fraction of that number, so accounting for every instability during a beta test is impossible.

 

As for "good old times" when games "were released when they were done and not a moment too soon", I am confused... Was that before or after computers were invented?

 

Because no matter how much I love some old games, they were as bugy as most games of today... (ok slightly less bugy). Anyone who played Fallout 1/2 knows how painfully bugy both games were... Baldur's Gate series? A ton of bugs, some of which were never actually fixed unless you downloaded all official updates, then the unofficial comunity patch and finally a specific mod... Gothic 1? Buged as hell, Gothic 2, even worse, Gothic 3, a disaster at release day. Sacred 1? The game infamous for it's "wasser" console cheat, needed to progress the main quest. VTM: Bloodlines? Where you had to use a teleport cheat code to progress the story, and most skills were broken. Starcraft 1? Where ppl demonstrated new bugs during official tournaments?

 

Were those games bad? Hell no!!! I loved every second of them and I still play them from time to time when I get nostalgic. The only difference was the gaming comunity was much smaller back then, not to mention a lot more civilized... Most ppl back then were content to play their games and occasionally post on forums if they encounterd some rather gamebreaking bug to ask for a workaround untill the patch comes out. Today I find ppl on forums posting questions such as "where can I check my skills" because they didn't even bother to look for them in game. Posts about bugs where ppl scream "why no one mentioned this" even if a post about the issue is staring them in the face, but they didn't bother reading through it because it was 2 pages long?

 

Bottom line is: STOP WHINING! If you can't wait for 24h for a patch to come out do something more productive with your time than flame all accross the forums about "being dissapointed, offended and emotionally hurt". IF YOU LIKE THE GAME play it anyway and help devs pinpoint and solve all the issues. And if you feel like "I didn't pay to be a beta tester" GO DO SMETHING ELSE UNTIL THE PATCH IS OUT!!!

 

Ok rant over, back to playing...

 

Just because you're ok with insufficient testing on a product doesn't mean everyone else is. Also, your examples of old games show how young you are. Those examples are definitely not from the days before games were released with major bugs. You need to go back to the days of the original Nintendo and other early consoles. Sure, many had minor bugs, some had major bugs, but the rate of bugs (especially major bugs) was much lower. Without the ability to issue a patch they had to be sure their game worked on release. These days it's not developers that are lazy, it's the management pushing to meet deadlines to make a few extra bucks and assuming they can fix anything with patches later. It's an insulting practice to be honest.

[Guest BugsVendor]

 

There will always be minor and major bugs on release. It is inevitable, since as many ppl posted, bugs and problems with PC games vary wildley from one machine to the next. Some bugs are consistent on all systems, while others are unique to some components. Not to mention that BETA TESTING does not involve 100.000 ppl but rather, a fraction of that number, so accounting for every instability during a beta test is impossible.

 

As for "good old times" when games "were released when they were done and not a moment too soon", I am confused... Was that before or after computers were invented?

 

Because no matter how much I love some old games, they were as bugy as most games of today... (ok slightly less bugy). Anyone who played Fallout 1/2 knows how painfully bugy both games were... Baldur's Gate series? A ton of bugs, some of which were never actually fixed unless you downloaded all official updates, then the unofficial comunity patch and finally a specific mod... Gothic 1? Buged as hell, Gothic 2, even worse, Gothic 3, a disaster at release day. Sacred 1? The game infamous for it's "wasser" console cheat, needed to progress the main quest. VTM: Bloodlines? Where you had to use a teleport cheat code to progress the story, and most skills were broken. Starcraft 1? Where ppl demonstrated new bugs during official tournaments?

 

Were those games bad? Hell no!!! I loved every second of them and I still play them from time to time when I get nostalgic. The only difference was the gaming comunity was much smaller back then, not to mention a lot more civilized... Most ppl back then were content to play their games and occasionally post on forums if they encounterd some rather gamebreaking bug to ask for a workaround untill the patch comes out. Today I find ppl on forums posting questions such as "where can I check my skills" because they didn't even bother to look for them in game. Posts about bugs where ppl scream "why no one mentioned this" even if a post about the issue is staring them in the face, but they didn't bother reading through it because it was 2 pages long?

 

Bottom line is: STOP WHINING! If you can't wait for 24h for a patch to come out do something more productive with your time than flame all accross the forums about "being dissapointed, offended and emotionally hurt". IF YOU LIKE THE GAME play it anyway and help devs pinpoint and solve all the issues. And if you feel like "I didn't pay to be a beta tester" GO DO SMETHING ELSE UNTIL THE PATCH IS OUT!!!

 

Ok rant over, back to playing...

 

Just because you're ok with insufficient testing on a product doesn't mean everyone else is. Also, your examples of old games show how young you are. Those examples are definitely not from the days before games were released with major bugs. You need to go back to the days of the original Nintendo and other early consoles. Sure, many had minor bugs, some had major bugs, but the rate of bugs (especially major bugs) was much lower. Without the ability to issue a patch they had to be sure their game worked on release. These days it's not developers that are lazy, it's the management pushing to meet deadlines to make a few extra bucks and assuming they can fix anything with patches later. It's an insulting practice to be honest.

 

 

I think it is really worth mentioning over and over again.

 

The whole problem is that it is the new normal to sell broken products and use the customers as beta testers. And Yes I think it is insulting.

 

I don't want to be a beta tester. I want to me a consumer and happily consume whatever I bought.

 

Imagine this situation. You bought a new laptop. You get the delivery and it doesn't work.

 

Do you than go and say oh it is such a complicated product it's normal it can sometimes stop working. No it never happens. You are furious, you call them and send it back and you complain everywhere you can that you got terrible service and you had to wait extra week for something you already paid for.

 

In the gaming industry however... Logic seems to have a whole different dimension. "Yes they sold you a broken product but look how nice they are, they repaired the major issues in 1 week, aren't these people great. You are such a hater."

 

Doesn't it bother anyone? It is delusional.

[Prime-Mover]

I think you have issues to address if you become "offended" and not say 'disappointed' if no one made an intentional atteampt to wrong or mislead you. So I imagine that you actually do believe that the amount of bugs is to some extent a deliberate/calculated action by the devs. And I imagine whether you are justified in being offended really comes down to whether Obsidian has put in the appropriate amount of resources (read: money) to test the game, in order to get it into the necessary relevant shape for general consumption. So how do we measure this? I suggest by reference to the current market standard.

 

From my own experience (double click bug, and getting stuck at Readric's), I'd say that this game is just like every other RPG released today. The question then becomes: is that the appropriate level to shoot for by Odsidian, or should they have gone above and beyond the current market standard with regards to testing/QA? It's not clear to me that they should have, especially on such a tight budget, and insofar as we would miss out on other features. So your what you're offended by, I assume, is the current standard of the RPG market. However, part of that blame lies with the market (we the people) being too accepting with regards to bugs, or their willingness to trade off debt for less bugs. Personally, I would rather live with the current standard, which to some extent is a public beta, than the overall product missing relevant features.

 

That being said, I could have done without the castle for less bugs. 

[bobthe]

I think you have issues to address if you become "offended" and not say 'disappointed' if no one made an intentional atteampt to wrong or mislead you.

 

Stop right there. I DO consider releasing a product without sufficient testing an intentional attempt to "wrong or mislead" me.

[Prime-Mover]

 

I think you have issues to address if you become "offended" and not say 'disappointed' if no one made an intentional atteampt to wrong or mislead you.

 

Stop right there. I DO consider releasing a product without sufficient testing an intentional attempt to "wrong or mislead" me.

 

Then you're being irrational*, because that is not necessarily intentional.

 

*Not name calling, just a statement of obvious fact.

[jeffrobot]

I don't buy a lot of games on release these days. Probably the last one I bought was Wolfenstein: The New Order. I don't remember seeing any bugs in that game. I bought Divinity: Original Sin a month or two after release, and while there were some annoying exploits, I can't say I noticed any bugs. This game, on the other hand, has several bugs that affect me constantly. I'm on a mac so I can't see any capes. When I open a wizard's grimoire their portrait doesn't show up in the top left corner so if I have more than one wizard (I had a party of 6 wizards at one point) and I'm flipping between grimoires trading spells, it gets annoying. And for whatever reason, alt-tab (cmd-tab on mac) doesn't work for me (I think it's a mac issue). Instead if I want to switch windows I have to use cmd+f to switch to Windowed mode. This isn't so bad, but it turns out whenever I do that the game switches my difficulty to easy! And since I always play on Path of the Damned, that means I have to start a new game lol. This is the buggiest finished game I've seen in a while. Planetary Annihilation was pretty buggy too, actually, but the bugs weren't as annoying. All that said, I still love the game.

 

Moral of the story, I probably will not buy their next game on release. Will probably wait a month or two.

[Guest BugsVendor]

And yet, you are still a fan of yourself, dear customer. Every game released gets the usual "gamer" who complains about buggy releases and how he is never to buy again or some other similar stuff. And yet, people still buys. Maybe a thread to vent... offer feedback, is not the answer you were looking for.

 

  

Next time you buy anything that doesn't work don't complain. Rotten food at supermarket? Don't go and complain. Ordered a new mobile and it's broken? Don't complain, you just do it to vent. It doesn't help, people will still buy phones even if some of them are broken.

 

Sound more like you are a fan of yourself putting comments like this that don't contribute to anything.

 

Buy broken products till the end of your life with a happy face. Otherwise you are a troll.

Edited April 7, 2015 by BugsVendor

[Emptiness]

This forum really needs a way to "dislike" posts.

[Jayngo]

Um, bugs are a part of gaming-like it or not.

 

Everyone has rose colored glasses when it comes to BG and IWD. Those games had bugs too. If I'm not mistaken I remember dowloading a patch for BG2 after it had been out for 2 plus years.

 

When you get a 50+ hour game with A LOT of quests and lots of mechanics bugs are to be expected.

 

Now, some of the bugs at release were bad (I didn't experience any of them) and that should not be excused. But to say you're and "exFan."???? To each his own I suppose....

[Plazmid]

Oh, BG, BG2, and IWD were all buggy when they first came out. Some Bethesda comments also brought a chuckle, since I remember vividly how bad some of their first games were. Does anyone remember Skynet or Daggerfall when they first came out? I also remember that everyone of these games got better over time. And I enjoyed them all, flaws and all.

 

But, I do not believe Obsidian did this on purpose to PoE. I don't think any of these companies released buggy software on purpose. I can't think of why a company would do that when they depend on selling games. And, if you look at the art work and dialog, and the creativity that went into it, the devs and design team poured some serious effort into this game. It really is unfortunate. I can say that I'm a little disappointed that here is yet another game that is still a little rough. But it is more of an "Ah man, I wonder how many patches this one will take?" But, it will get fixed, I'm pretty sure of that.

 

It definitely could have benefited from a lot more testing. Any piece of software can. I'm just going to wait and sip my coffee. And play some PoE. Knowing full well that I might hit an issue here and there. Nothing in this world is perfect, although we would all like things to be.

[Hassat Hunter]

Damn you Plazmid being all rational and all.

 

You should go along ranting how a freshly 1 week old game is less buggy than a game that has been patched over a year, and then pretty much 5+ years by fanpatches probably all use and base their 'BG stability/buglessness' on.

 

I recall how I after years in PS:T hit a bug that allowed me to get a +permanent HP kiss twice. Never officially fixed. But the fanpatches did. Rose-colored indeed.

[Mordivier]

• It is usually a good idea to wait a bit before buying a game. Saves you the hassle of buyer's remorse..

[Alexey Kryshen]

Why is it so hard for people to understand that games of this magnitude take time, and tens of thousands of different machines and players to explore every bug possible. It's not realistically doable in beta. There will ALWAYS be bugs on release. Man up, grow up, and be patient until the game reaches a properly-playable-bug free-state. Or, play the game, support it, report bugs, and know that a brighter future is coming from your and others' support. Both for the company who made the game, and for the game itself.

 

I am game developer with more than 10 year of experience in this area, working as programmer & as system architect. And I am asure you as an expert that all these bugs in PoE are not due to the project "magnitude" but solely due to the low-quality programming. It could take a lot of time to explain my position in details but simplest example is bug with double-clicked applying of armours & items. In properly designed & written code such kind of bugs are just impossible. It is still possibly to have bug with incorrectly applying modifiers provided with items (because it is really easy to make mistake in math in code) but definitely impossible to have different effects for different ways of performing the same action. Imagine text editor. You have main menu entry for "Cut" action, you have pop-up menu with same "Cut" action and you have keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+X" for the same action. These three different ways of activation lead to the same effect. As it should be in correctly designed & implemented code. But with PoE we had two different code-paths for single action "Apply item", and one of this code-path was broken. And there are many other things which are just obvious to ones who have good programming experience & especially experience in code design & architecture.

[Hassat Hunter]

So you've never programmed stuff with major bugs in it in 10 years?

 

I sorely doubt that.