Took the day off yesterday to watch the stream and experience Patch 6. Ended up in an 8 hour multiplayer playthrough. We all ended up playing sorcerers - which I DO NOT recommend as you will be severely underpowered but we made it work with some creative play. We got to see a lot of fun Wild Magic bursts, I would love to have a list but if I can recall we had.
I am tagging with spoilers for those that don't want to know them all.
Wild Magic Surge - every spell you cast for the next Turn will return Sorc points based on spell level.
Wild Magic Surge - casts Blur on everyone in 9M
Wild Magic Surge - Spells you cast will heal those within 3M.
Wild Magic Surge - Casts Invisibility on everyone 6m
Wild Magic Surge - Fog cloud centered on you.
Anyway, we had a lot of positive feedback in our session. We also ran into some bugs and eventually had to stop because of a game breaking bug that we could not recover from.
The good stuff:
1. The graphics were absolutely eye-popping. We were all in total shock for at least 2 minutes when the first screen hit and we saw the new colors, fire effects, textures, detail and lighting. There was no question it was a vast improvement. On a RTX 2070 Super with an Acer Predator it was mind-blowingly good. The only other game with graphics this intense that I have seen is Cyberpunk 2077.
2. The Sorcerer is a fun class and adds a lot to the party. It still feels a little underpowered compared to other classes but that may be at this level. Again, I don't suggest running 4 of them. It was messy, we are NOT good tanks. No TPK, but a lot of deathrolling. We feel the loss of synergy may have contributed a lot to the feeling of being underpowered.
3. The grime effects were a lot of fun, and added a nice touch of realism. We loved it, and are grateful for the time spent adding those details.
4. The new spells we saw on the sorcerer side were a blast. I got to use Cloud of Daggers to great effect multiple times. Crown of Madness ended up being a little tricky to use but we did get one NPC to haul off and kill a nearby one.
5. The background activity has been ramped up significantly on cutscenes. Example: In the Volo Goblin camp one - you can hear an actual music instrument playing to him trying to sing, and the crowd responds to his bad singing.
The game-breaking bug after 8 hours.
We ran into a bug in The Grymforge where enemy units would not attack - and would get caught in "Plotting Next Move". Not sure if the bug is site specific. Save/reload did not fix. We had to stop playing as the "Plotting Next Move" eventually times out but it slowed combat to a crawl and did not provide a challenge.
Overall great patch though. I am incredibly grateful to the Larian team for the amazing work. We had a lot of laughs, I got to kill my team members a few times with "poorly aimed spells", and there was a lot of excitement. We are going back in this weekend for another 8-10 hour run with a more balanced party. Can't wait.
Thank you again, for being the only truly great game company out there that cares about making fun and challenging games.
