I've decided to collect a bunch of my own feedback into one large post. I'll add more posts as I progress and think of more things to add. These are in no particular order or priority.
I'm sure that a lot of these are on the list already.
1. [Persistent Bug] Jake's Dog - Source Hunter dialogueSTILL, STILL, Jake's dog, the "Maybe he's trying to tell us something thing STILL happens only AFTER you dig up his grave. This does not seem like something that is hard to fix. It's a matter of putting a one-time trigger in the graveyard, and attaching the dialogue to that instead of opening Jake's coffin.
2. [Persistent Bug] Source Hunter Dialogue For some dumb reason, the way text is layered on the screen is to have the Dialogue, the important stuff that's one time and really important to know, that appears at the BACK, BEHIND all of the "AP points preserved" and "XP points" information. The Source Hunter dialogue should always be on top.
3. [Annoyance] Real-time "low health" popup Too many times, the "helpful" popup that warns that your health is low happens in real-time when you walk over a surface, which actively interferes with your attempts to heal, usually guaranteeing a death.
4. [Immersion] "Source Hunter's Manual" needed It's important that we get a "Source Hunter's Manual" in the player's inventory at the start of the game, something to give them much-needed context for who exactly the Source Hunters are, why they exist, what the Source is exactly, what the signs of it are.
Giving context is a vital part of storytelling.
- Divinity 1 had a character with no history, but it had Aleroth which introduced the world and context through characters, books, and conversations.
- Beyond Divinity had the opening cutscene and dialogue with the Death Knight which explained all you needed to know right away.
- Divinity 2 placed you in the role of a Dragon Slayer, but it had Farglow to give you context for what a Dragon Slayer's mission was and why they were doing it.
- Original Sin has an opening movie and then you're dumped on the beach with orders to investigate. You're told you're Source Hunters, but the start of the game provides very little context for what that means, why you're doing it, or even what the source is.
A persistent burning patch in an inn is a sign of the Source, but it looks just like any other burning patch. A bloody dagger is apparently evidence of someone killed by Source, even though we're told the Source is magic. The Source Hunters make declarations of things and the player doesn't know why. Context.
A Source Hunter's manual is a simple way to give context without bogging the player down with NPC explanations. It's there to read if they want to understand.
5. [Design/Storytelling][Immersion] Star Stone teleports party away before they're done Okay, while it does make some sense for the Star Stone to immediately teleport the players away, it's quite annoying and interferes with the story - you are interrupted and whisked away in the middle of doing something else (either investigating the crime scene, or treating Evelyn's patients).
It is also really odd, because it forces your characters to talk about something else relating to the OLD scene they were just in, as if they hadn't suddenly been zapped to a strange place. That's immersion-breaking. I do not like it.
You also lose the thread of the scene, so you're not pointed in the direction of "we should check out the body" and Evelyn doesn't comment that the star stone suddenly lost potency. That stuff is lost and forgotten because you are whisked away before you were finished in that scene.
I would prefer that the teleport not happen until after you either leave the King Crab Inn, or until after you and your partner/Madora talk about the events in Thelyron's clinic.
6. [Incomplete Quest] Bertia can't be paid off There's still no option to give Bertia the money Roberts gave the S.H.'s to pay for the sheep. She just runs off to Aureus right away, no option to give her gold (or not).
7. [Feature] Testing of AI Personalities? I am getting a bit worried about the AI personalities. That's something I really, really want in the game, and even if they're in the next patch, there's not going to be a lot of time to test those.
Honestly, if they're not in the game on June 20th, I don't think I'll play the game until they're patched in.
8. [Pacing] Tutorial Dungeon lacks climax The tutorial dungeon lacks a climax. After the door which requires two pressure switches to open, it's just a short walk with nothing but a few bone piles and vases. It just ends unceremoniously.
My suggestion is to add in Ragequin the mummified skeleton's boss, at the end. He auto-initiates dialogue, and you can either try to fight ("1. Ready your weapon") or talk your way out ( "2. You should let us go peacefully."), and this serves as a Dialogue Options tutorial, which teaches you about persuading people to solve some quests without killing, and how situation bonuses work.
If you flop the check, it's a miniboss fight and thus a fitting climax to the dungeon. (Same XP whether you fight or not, but no additional XP if you talk him down and THEN fight and kill him.)
9. [Performance] Hiccup in opening movie There's some strange performance problem in the opening movie. It plays fine until a certain point (about when you climb up on deck), then it freezes for a half second or so and continues, and then freezes again for a half second (near the start of the captain's dialogue). This has happened every time since the opening movie was added. It's as if it's loading something behind the scenes, which seems odd - if it needs to load things, it should do it either before the opening movie starts, or after it (when there already is a loading screen).
10. [Missing] No start-of-game AutosavesThere are no autosave points at the start of the game and on entering the tutorial. There should be.
11. [Feature] More formation options needed We need two more formation options: The first is the "f瑞ollow exactly in the leader's footsteps" one from Baldur's Gate 2, as someone suggested in the UI thread. The second one is a "spread out option to get your group to not cluster up so closely (prime targets for AoE spells and arrows).
I found the need for that second one first-hand when I engaged the undead clustered around the Scarecrow and was hit by a poisoncloud arrow that killed half my characters basically before they could react. I don't mind getting poisoned or dying, but the annoying thing is that there is no formation option to spread your party out to deal with that better. The best I could think of is to split everyone off from the chain and move them individually to attack from different directions.
12. [Design] Two-Handed weapons lack options Why are there no 2H Crushing damage weapons? That makes zero sense at all. If there are going to be enemies in the game which have resistances to Crushing/Piercing/Slashing, then there shouldn't be melee weapons missing those types. Fine, 2H crushing damage can have lower base damage like other crushing weapons, but to have the type just plain completely missing is bizarre.
Additionally, there is the problem that piercing damage weapons are dexterity based but the warrior skills are STR-based, and there are no DEX-based skills for spears. That discourages the use of Spears.
13. [Design] Item-based Health Bonuses worthless HP bonuses on items seem worthless. I have not seen any HP bonuses on items exceed 15. That's basically nothing, as enemy damage rapidly exceeds the effect of the small bonus.
