The camera really is so irritating. It makes movement and targeting so much harder than they need to be. Those functions would be fine with a decent camera, but as it is, even getting around in buildings is beyond frustrating.
I agree. It feels like the camera is deliberately trying to get in the way. This starts with homing the camera, which does not look in the direction your character is looking and goes on to not being able to angle it up so that a character can see things up high.
It also does not help that enemies are not consistently shown in the minimap. This is really bad with the phase spiders in Whispering Depths: the spiders are shown moving about in the dark somewhere, but they do not show up in the minimap. Figuring out where they are involves really messing about with the camera in the dark ...
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There have been several occasions where either my PC or my party members have gotten stuck. They can't move or jump from their place, usually between elevations, until I end a day.
This happens all the time (every 20 minutes at least) in coop mode (which is what I am currently playing): a character either a) gets stuck and stands there twitching, unable to more or jump away or b) will not react to any mouse or keyboard commands at all. A workaround is to save the game and reload. Takes forever (see below), but usually works.
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Also, maybe this is my computer, but there are a lot of things that take too long. The NPCs planning their next moves in battle makes the fights last an eternity. Additionally, loading a game or an old save takes me minutes, not seconds. I have time to go pee or get a drink every time I reload a save. Really frustrating.
Yes, there are a number of places where there are long delays that really break the flow of the game:
During a dialog, it takes several seconds from the time the last word was said until the next dialog screen. My coop partner consistently sees dialog options (and die roll results) several seconds before I do, even though my PC is faster and I am hosting.
In combat, it takes seconds to move from one NPC to the next, before they even start planning.
Saving a game takes seconds, loading several minutes. This on SSD.
Also, saving is not reliable. I have had several cases where the game confirmed that it had performed a save but there was no save file to be reloaded. I now double-check important saves.
I find the rolls during conversations weird. When I mouse over the options, it tells me which stat will be rolled against and what my modifier is. That's great! However, it does not tell me what my stat is (e.g. what my chances will be). How come I can not let another party member say the line and make the roll? For example, the fighter could easily intimidate someone in a conversation with the wizard. Beside being how real-life conversations work, it would also allow other coop players to join the dialog in a natural way.
Final note about rolling: I do not need the dice animation, it just breaks the flow of the conversation by adding several seconds to the screen. Maybe make it an option?
After so much criticizing I think it is only fair to say that I am blown away by this diamond in the rough. We have spent hours each evening/night over the holidays playing coop. Sure, there are lots of frustrations and there are some balancing issues, but the overall experience is awesome and I am hooked. The story is engaging (so much better than DOS2) and I see myself replaying several times to try out different options and outcomes.
