I completed a playthrough of this game a while ago and I encountered so many bugs and was locked out of so many quests for seemingly arbitrary reasons where I couldn't if they were bugs or features. The two that come to mind were being locked out of the quest to lift the curse because I opted out of a second round of hide and seek, or being locked out of a submarine quest because I completed the factory quest too early (despite the former quest still being marked on my map). Because of this, I refrained from doing an honor mode run for quite some time until I was sure the game was in as complete a state as it would ever be, since being unable to load previous states only exacerbates issues with bugs and unforgivingly arbitrary quest design.
Yesterday, however, I encountered the most egregious example of this, in the druid grove of all places, an area that has been playtested for years. I passed a perception check to allow me into the hidden cave only for Mol to begin a countdown for me to leave, which I did.
After saving the kid from the Harpies, he told me to go talk to some other kid and ask him about the secret hideout, the one I had already discovered. Turns out he was talking about the kid standing in front of the cave, but that kid did not have any dialogue options, just something about how looking at me made him uncomfortable or something. So anyway, I had no luck talking to any of the kids, so I just went back into the cave because in my previous playthrough, Mol had thanked me for saving the kid. Well this time, he began his countdown from 5, and I couldn't make it out in time. So the guard threw me in jail. I don't know if that was a bug or a feature, but if it's a feature, what would be the point of passing a perception check to access the cave early, only for that to lock you out of a quest? But what happened next was definitely a bug. I managed to escape from Jail only for my jump to stop working completely while I was on the rocks behind the jail. I suspect it's because I set off a trap mid jump.
Anyway at this point I was so pissed off that I just decided to go on murder spree in the grove, making Wyll leave my party, and then Karlach left when I sicked the goblins on the grove. So when Minthara betrayed me at the camp I only had 3 party members (I failed the strength check to recruit Gale). So I lost that honor mode run but I was already over it at that point.
I think this game falls victim to its own ambition. With so many quests and different ways to approach them, trying to refine them all and debug everything is just impossible. It's really disappointing.
Last edited by pistoff; 14/11/24 10:06 PM.
