State of the game/1.05 patch hopes

[pedroantonio]

I've been avoiding playing the game since release hoping for Obsidian to fix as many bugs as possible, but reading the support forums depresses me a bit, since it makes it look like just a few bugs have been fixed and new ones are being discovered constantly.

However I'm aware that that could be just a perception, because probably not all the reported bugs are reported correctly, etc. So I'd like to obtain an objective assessment (as objective as possible, at least) of the state of the game, specifically how many things still don't work "as intented".

Ideally, what I'd really like is Obsidian giving at least the backers readonly access to their bug tracker, so we could check for ourselves the existing bugs. But since that will probably never happen, I'd like to have some opinions from people who are far into the game about how broken the game is right now and whether I should prepare for a months long wait to start playing or not.

Also, I had some hopes in 1.05 "fixing" the game, but the information offered in interviews seems to indicate they are focusing more in "balance" and "quality of life" improvements (which in my opinion is wrong, they should be just fixing bugs and avoid touching anything else until the game works as it was supposed to work on release, and only then improve on that).

[Osvir]

Play it. Come to your own conclusion. Sometimes people will make out bugs to be more than they are (and add emotional value to it as well), or you might read into it as much more than it is, in context, and make-believe it as something more than it is. Seeing it first-hand is going to give you more valuable insight, and it will also tell you whether it is "MASSIVE!" or "passable but should be fixed".

I've encountered a couple of bugs, but nothing "game breaking" and no "OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE!" (I haven't had to restart the game, neither have I encountered any CTD's of any kind). The biggest issue for me was the doors, but they fixed that with a hotfix.

I thought it was quite stable, to be frank. Some pathfinding issues and pathfinding abuse where if you engaged an enemy group from an angle, you'd only engage one, whilst the rest are running back and forth behind the single one (because they aren't circling around the first one and trying to go in a straight line, so they get stuck because there's an "Obstacle" in the way, that obstacle happens to be their ally ).

Although, I'll have to take another gander at it and try to see if it is still possible in this build.

I've already finished the game from start to finish, and I've restarted a couple of times with other characters (Made it pretty far with a solo character on Path of the Damned before I got stumped on what to do next. Couldn't get access to an item that I needed from one source, and the other source is crawling with enemies I can't deal with on Solo).

I would say that the safest assessment you can make, is play the game a bit (rather than base your assumptions on other people's experiences and personal "ticks" or "triggers"), and if you encounter anything that you feel is "OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE!" then just stop playing, and (hopefully) even report it if you so desire. That's probably going to help Obsidian more than sitting on the fence and letting others do the talking for you. If you own the game, I don't really see a reason to wait.

 

Then again, I've played this since it was in Beta and I've seen so much improvements since then. For a fresh pair of eyes, what I deem to be an improvement, others might still deem to be a bug

Regardless of what you choose to do: My honest tip would be to avoid forums and community altogether whilst and when you are playing the game, so that you can get a fresh and unaffected or unspoiled experience. Giving yourself the time to go through it without distractions and if you find something that badly hurts your experience, just go to the forums, make a comment, and then lay it off for a bit until it gets fixed or continue playing if you see room to look past it.

There's LOTS of awesomeness waiting for you.

Also, you can sign up for Patch Beta, but I'd suggest you play on the original branch before playing on Beta branch, imho.
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76849-patch-betas-on-steam/

Edited April 21, 2015 by Osvir

[Sable Phoenix]

I think you should just play the game.  I've encountered no bugs that were game-breaking or, frankly, even noticeable.

[Althernai]

The overwhelming majority of game-breaking bugs were fixed back in 1.03. There are a few abilities that don't work as intended. The most egregious of these is probably the Barbarian ability One Stands Alone which, instead of doing 20% extra damage, actually does 20 extra damage (which is kind of awesome in its own way; I'm almost tempted to try it before the next patch). Obviously, you can simply avoid such abilities. Other than that, you may run into a random quest bug if you are really unlucky (the tech support forum is full of them as is the case for every game of this nature and scope), but there isn't really anything common.

[View619]

Honestly, difficulty/balance issues aside, the game is very playable in its current state. If you rely on the opinions of some posters on these forums, you run the risk of never playing it because a vocal minority believe the game is hot garbage and Obsidian has failed completely.

 

I agree with Osvir's advice, make your own opinion and avoid the forums and community completely while getting comfortable; do not let any external opinions influence your own. There's a lot of unwarranted negativity that could easily taint your view of a specific mechanic if you're not careful.

Edited April 21, 2015 by View619

[Emptiness]

I've been avoiding playing the game since release hoping for Obsidian to fix as many bugs as possible, but reading the support forums depresses me a bit, since it makes it look like just a few bugs have been fixed and new ones are being discovered constantly.

 

The support section of the forum is always going to have reports of bugs, no matter how long you wait.  Also, there will always be the possibility that there is some horrible bug that exists but that no one has encountered yet, but which you will.  Just play the game.  (Don't use Trial of Iron and be sure to save often to more than one save slot, at least until you are very familiar with the game.)

[Climhazzard]

None of the remaining bugs are serious and could very well be what are being referred to when they say they are working on the "quality of life".  It could very well mean other things as well, such as AI improvements, which would be very welcome.  The worst bug for me at the moment, is one where, later in the game, enemies that use deprive the unworthy strip you of your passives (permanently) along with the benefits they're supposed to be stripping (temporarily).  It's an optional and entirely skipable side quest, so I've skipped it on every playthrough, but I'd really like to do it this time so I hope they fix it in 1.05.

 

There's other things, but they all mostly fall into the quality of life category, nothing really show stopping.  The game needs balancing at least as much as it needs the remaining bugs cleared up, so I'm glad they're working on both.

 

I agree with the other posts here that, if you rely on the forums to judge when you should play the game you just may never end up playing it.  Pretty much all the game breaking bugs were fixed in 1.03 so if you want to play the game now is as good a time as any to get started.

[pedroantonio]

Thanks for your answers. I think I'll maybe start tentatively playing once 1.05 enters beta.

[Sedrefilos]

To be honest I never encountered any of the bugs I read in threads. The game was 99% playable for me. I only found one or two very minor bugs/glitches here and there. And those were at the launch version.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Sedrefilos

[Jojobobo]

Play it, all the main bugs (the biggie being not able to save in areas where you recruit a companion without unwanted stat stacking) are all fixed. I'm currently experiencing a bug where my health is shooting up due to getting poisoned and sickened a lot (I'm playing solo on PotD) but this was something I never even noticed on regular PotD play (maybe because I took enemies out a lot faster).

[danielkx]

Yeah, I played through the game with the release version, never experienced any of these bugs I read here.

 

I am however waiting on playing through a second time until 1.05 is released in hopes they fix some of the balancing issues. 

[El Zoido]

I've played through the game and think that esp. since 1.03 it's definitely playable.

The biggest remaining problems in my opinion are the difficulty bug (the game seems to sometimes reset to easy on the higher difficulties, but no one knows why or what triggers it) and some general difficulty/balance issues.

That aside you should likely be able to play the game and complete it without any real problems already.

[Tigranes]

Most bugs identified since release have been addressed, or are in the pipeline. Patches are coming out basically on a weekly basis, and you can also choose to have access to beta patches.

 

The game is very polished for most of the time. If you're unlucky to get one of the specific issues, you can look forward, often, to a patch the next week.

 

*shrug* games have always been buggy and bugs have never stopped me playing them, so it depends on your own threshold.

[Slapstick87]

I have played > 100 hours, and encountered exactly 0 bugs. Balance "issues" exist, but I don't mind those in the slightest. Not everything has to be equal, that's some of the charm of this (type of) game IMO. 

[Katarack21]

I'm like 129 hours into the game, and while I've never encountered any of the major bugs I can say that even most of the smaller bugs are fixed at this point.

The biggest issue I'm currently having is the load times. They're actually the reason I haven't played the game the last couple of days; the load times are getting really, really annoying. 20+ seconds at each loading screen...

[Waywocket]

The game is basically unplayable at resolutions over 1920x1080 because of the UI scaling problems that Obsidian haven't even acknowledged.

[Slapstick87]

The game is basically unplayable at resolutions over 1920x1080 because of the UI scaling problems that Obsidian haven't even acknowledged.

 

Haven't noticed that myself. I play on 2560x1440 just fine. A few things might be a tad small, but I'm not exactly 10 feet away from my screen either so /shrug. I haven't thought about it at least. Maybe it's different on 4k though.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Slapstick87

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

The overwhelming majority of game-breaking bugs were fixed back in 1.03. There are a few abilities that don't work as intended. The most egregious of these is probably the Barbarian ability One Stands Alone which, instead of doing 20% extra damage, actually does 20 extra damage (which is kind of awesome in its own way; I'm almost tempted to try it before the next patch). Obviously, you can simply avoid such abilities. Other than that, you may run into a random quest bug if you are really unlucky (the tech support forum is full of them as is the case for every game of this nature and scope), but there isn't really anything common.

 

 

Yeah, there really aren't any obvious game-breakers left at this point; the game mostly works. There are a few stealth bugs that can disrupt things in non-obvious ways but the game is definitely worth playing as it is.

[DCParry]

Seriously, if you are posting on an game forum on the internet, your time is obviously not that valuable. 

 

I have played through twice, and I think I have lost maybe an hour of play time (in the Sanitarium when everyone went aggro; and you thought the inmates were CRAZY!).

 

All the cool kids like to exaggerate how serious the bugs are because the game has been getting such good traction and cool people don't like what is popular.

[demeisen]

No significant problems here either, and I'm maybe 90 play hours in.  I've had a few very minor warts, like the resetting of the view position to the lower left corner of maps on map transition, but that (a) isn't game breaking, and (b) has a workaround.  Otherwise... it's been rock solid, not a single crash in all those hours.

 

Given the state of many AAA studio games when they ship, I thought they did a great job with PoE.  Any piece of software this complex will have issues a few people hit.  But I'd say give it a shot, and don't worry about all the people saying, "OMG, my two handed sword of kickassitude had a +4 modifier to awesomeness instead of the +5 it was supposed to have!   Didn't they even TEST this game????  I'm never buying another game from this studio!!!"

 

PoE is great.  Go play.

[Wbino]

The game is basically unplayable at resolutions over 1920x1080 because of the UI scaling problems that Obsidian haven't even acknowledged.

Playing @ 2560x1440 no problems what so ever.

[skaffen]

Amost through second time, not a single crash or story breaking bug. A few graphic glitches, e.g. I once had an animat appearing at the same spot on every map, started calling him Forest, but all those go away aftera reload. Also no scaling or similar problems at 2800 resolution (imac 27"). Very fast patching and overall amazing maturity and response especially compared to BGII EE where it took almost a year for the first patch to come out.

[demeisen]

No scaling problems here either: 2560x1600 monitor.  Text is perfectly crisp and plenty big enough to read.  Running the Linux version, not sure if that matters to how text is rendered.

[Sarnind]

I hope a more difficult PotD or a configurable version , class and story balance ( act 2 and 3 are too easy compared act 1) and immunity

[guntter]

Mac user need cape, cloak

 

 

please obsidian :'(