Love the game. Here is my report.
Note: I did not experience this in Early Access.
ISSUE:
Finding Mol's hideout turns all Tiefling's Hostile.
This is not substantiated, or explained, adequately.
REPRO/PLAYTHROUGH:
On my first playthrough I saw an impoverished Tiefling boy, Doni. When talking to him he acted strange, non-responsive, drugged/charmed. I was genuinely worried. He slipped away, but my character noticed a hole he had crawled into. Obviously, being concerned I followed him. Catatonic children crawling into holes is something a good person follows up on. I found a hideout of Tiefling children, and it seemed they were playing hide and seek, or otherwise running around.
They told me to leave, but being concerned I wanted to see what was going on. My party hid and moved around, trying to ascertain what the situation was. Were these kids playing? Were they using drugs? Were they being trafficked? I concluded this was their hideout, but couldn’t figure out why Doni wasn't responsive... I was still worried, but I left.
Sometime later, I was accused of threatening the children. However, I didn't do that. Confessing to a crime you didn't commit is not a good idea, and "Deception" to an event that didn't happen doesn't make sense. I also didn't want to fight a Tiefling refuge. Needless to say, eventually combat did happen. However, the combat turned ALL Tieflings hostile.
REVIEW
This outcome is vastly disproportional to the event, and out of tone with what each individual NPC interaction has established about the scene/setting/circumstance.
This looks like a scripting error that fails down to the engineering level, resulting in "FACTION:HOSTILE".
IF this is NAB, working as intended, then it should be re-evaluated by a stakeholder and the lead designer.
Narratively, this works against the majority of story elements that other interactions with Tieflings have established. It is out of tone.
CRPG players will assume "FACTION:HOSTILE" is an indication that something has gone terribly wrong and the game has enacted a poignant, longform. "Game Over".
This playthrough above is most likely common and may have negative impacts to player retention.
For those players with less than 10 hours of investment, a sudden shift from high polish to broken interaction, will lower confidence in the product.
RECOMMENDATION:
Guards/Tieflings should have a list of incidents to inform the player of what they've done. "What are the charges?"
A single event should not be sufficient to trigger the sequence, it should require multiple things.
Additional interactions should be scripted to convey the building threat to the player.
Last edited by Callirgos; 15/09/23 04:50 AM.
