Right, so I just beat Act I and I'm feeling slightly underwhelmed. I enjoyed most of the game, and had a good time, but boy was it marred with some bug combinations and gameplay mechanics that just made me wonder what was going on and why, so I'll list some things and maybe it'll have an impact. Idk. I paid the 60€ Larian has to read this now, or else.
-Notable Bugs-
1. Not being able to eat food. The only food I was able to eat outside of camping for the night were a few apples, which gave me diarrhea. I couldn't eat anything else, even other types of apples. I don't know if this is a bug or feature, but I'm leaning more on bug.
2. Not being able to climb certain climbable objects. Sometimes I would not be able to "Reach" ladders or vines or climable cliffs. I sometimes had this problem, but my friend who played his wizard was unable to climb most of the climable surfaces at all, as he'd either not be able to reach them, or he'd climb up only to immediately climb back down. Kind of frustrating.
3. Not being able to reach items within arm's length. Self explanatory. Crate in front of me "can't reach."
4. Unable to save game due to mid-dialogue bug. This is a big one. I hadn't noticed this for a little while, and I am not sure what happened, but at some point I was unable to save my game anymore. This set me back at least an hour. Sometimes I'd be able to save, but then as soon as my friend joined, the save option would be greyed out. This was pretty bad.
5. Shadowheart's AI. Shadowheart's AI freaked out on me, and she was always making a beeline in some direction, spouting lines like "Did you hear something?" and "Don't let them go." This caused her to not follow me, despite being linked with me, and made her run into enemies, causing herself to be surrounded. I don't know at all what this was about.
6. The Well in the Village. In the ruined village, there's a well you can get into. I ran into an issue where upon entering the well, nobody would be able to ever enter the well again, myself included. The well would be permanently blocked off. I don't know if this is a bug or feature, but I can't imagine it's designed to be that way.
-Personal Complaints-
1. Hit Chance. It makes no sense to me how I can be a Level 4 Fighter with all weapon proficiencies, and still only have a 30% chance to hit a level 2 goblin, while the level 2 goblin always seems to hit me, with heavy armor on, for a ton of damage. I don't know a lot about DND and how the combat works, but compared to Divinity: Original Sin 2, I felt like I got my ass kicked way more than I should have by creatures who had no business beating me as easily as they did. As a Dwarf Fighter with a Greataxe, how is it that I have only a 25% hit chance on enemies that Shadowheart with a simple mace and shield has a 70% hit chance? She's a cleric, I'm a fighter. It should be the other way around.
2. Turn Order. I get that initiative plays into turn order, but sometimes I'd get into an ongoing fight after the initaitive is rolled, and even if I got good initiative, I'd skip my turn no matter what. This happens a few times, where an enemy will go twice before I do, and it makes things very frustrating and unfair.
3. Camera. I don't know if there's a way to turn this off, but I hate how the camera gets blocked by terrain. If I want to scout the map, I'll have to follow the road so my camera will get over all the bumps and actually let me see what I want to see. It's a pretty bad way to design your camera, and I don't like it. Just makes it unnecessarily harder to see things.
-Suggestions-
1. I think it'd be pretty cool to have something like the mirror in Divinity: Original Sin 2, where you can alter your character. Maybe not to the same level, where you can switch classes, but maybe where you could re-customize. Would be nice. Like maybe a potion that'd change your look. Idk. Could make sense in the game world.
2. Right now I really feel like the enemies have some kind of advantage over me 24/7. They succeed in save rolls more than I do, they hit more than I do, I miss them more than they miss me, their spells seem more powerful than mine, they hurt more than I do, I just get annoyed when no matter how much I try to optimize my character build, I just compare to the degenerate goblin hobo, who will dodge 3 of my attacks in a row, and then pull off a 27 crit right after.
That's about it. It wasn't a bad experience, but I did struggle with the idea of quitting, because of how tedious some of the bugs made the game to me. Hope this helps, and you guys fix this game up faster. Bye.