Firstly, I apologize if I'm posting in the wrong place, and anyone is welcome to take my post and re-post it so that Larian can see it. I'm new to the forums and just want the information shared so we can all experience a better game.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the game and the progress so far, but some things have been a jarring experience. This won't be about where's the Bard or Paladin classes, the want for level 5 or new areas or body types. I think it's been stated enough, and I'm sure Larian is working hard to get those things to us players. Those will come in time.
1. Custom party creation;As much as I love the companions, I've played through the game about 15 times now, and don't always want to have companions. Launching the game 4 times with 4 different profiles is taxing as my computer screams at me "WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?" I like to think I'm not the only one that would want this addition.
2. Character creation prebuilds;The ability to create characters ahead of time might not work between patches, but even having the option for re-play throughs in each patch would be awesome. I've resorted to choosing the default look many times now, just because I know I'll have to do it all over again. (This would also help for custom party creation, so that I don't have to create 4 individual Tavs while my computer is having an existential crisis.)
3. Customizing companion stats;I recognize each companion as being their own person with different stats, but even adding something down the line, like in DoS2, where you can change where you put stats would be a great addition.
4. Companions changes?;It may be intentional, but for example, Laziel will disapprove of everything you choose for removing the tadpole unless it involves visiting the Creche. Even if you visit the other Githyanki first, she still disapproves of small things. I'd rather see character development of her after the encounter with her fellow Githyanki and possibly start to doubt her clan.
Wyll has a huge glitch. If you don't play out his story in the exact right order, he refuses to acknowledge his storyline. IE; skipping the windmill scene, or killing Spike without him in the party.
Gales appearance. While I love all the companions, Gale looks badass in the loading screens, and in game he's a gooby looking guy. I feel like I would choose him more often if he looked more like the bad ass Wizard that he seemed to be intended to be.
Astarion - Thank you for fixing him not wanting to cross water. I would be exploring and get into an encounter to find him missing. Just to find him pacing back and forth by a stream I crossed ten minutes prior like a cat in need of help.
I actually like Shadowhearts character model in game, even though it's different from the loading screen like Gales, but my first impression was "Those bangs girl....who hurt you?" And I think I've just gotten used to them now.
5. Persistent effects;While it's understandable to cast companion spells, or speaking spells after each long rest, I find myself cursing myself for forgetting to summon the Warlock companion and don't notice until I'm in combat. The same with speaking to an animal and I ruin the dialogue choices because I forgot to cast it. I think it would be a great addition to have things that don't require spell slots, automatically be activated through long rests.
6. UI;The look of the new UI is lovely, and I like the overall idea of it, but there are some needed additions and changes.
A. The old hotbar setup was awesome. I don't use items in combat through the hotbar, I just open inventory, so the far right section is useless to me. (That's a personal choice, I know some love the new section.) But now there is far too many abilities that get hidden behind the sliders. I know you can click below for "Common/Class/Custom" But that's an extra step that I didn't have to do before. While I'd rather not QQ about it, it is an inconvenience.
B. The hotbar doesn't stay saved. Each time I login the hotbar is randomized. And there is no lock button.
7. Gameplay;A. Throwing companions;
I'm able to throw Astarion across the span of an entire room but not upwards a few feet? Specifically the support beams above the goblin priestess room, or rather in front of where her room is. My party jumped down to the support beam from the rock, I collected the loot in the chest up there, but then Astarion couldn't jump back up but everyone else could. Tav was Barbarian, and couldn't throw him up there, from the support beam, to the brick area, so I had no choice but to leave him there, or jump down from up above entirely, or warp out of the area.
B. Shadowed rooms;
Cool idea, but I've run into blacked out areas and it stays blackened until I reload. I've also returned through once blackened out areas to find them blackened out again. Which may make sense for roaming npc's for possible combat, but I wasn't sure if this was intended.
C. Obscured by shadows;
I've encountered a few problems with enemies being very well lit up and still staying obscured.
IE; The hag fight, she was standing on top of the torch and was still obscured. Another example, fighting the Hook Horror by the Sussar Bark loot, which is insanely blinding right where you pick up the bark, but the Hook Horror was still obscured.
D. Sussar Bark;
I was able to craft both the dagger and greatsword but not the sickle in this patch. It kept telling me incompatible. I tried both the sickle from the Druid Grove and the sickle from the Bog.
E. Sneak;
If two party members are sneaking and you hit Shift+C, it reverses who is sneaking, rather than making everyone sneak together. This may be working as intended, but I'd rather the keybind do what the tooltip suggests, and have it be group sneak, group unsneak.
8. Hag area;A. Kagha's letter;
My characters all failed their investigation checks for the bog to be revealed. (Another reason to let us adjust companion stats.) Upon still defeating the Wood creatures and the imps, the slot for Kaghas shadow druid letter wouldn't appear until I went and broke the illusion by means of Sheep(Red Caps). It may be working as intended, but figured it deserved mention in case it was a glitch.
B. Hag Fight;
Her fight has become incredibly frustrating and possibly the hardest encounter in the game with this patch. Maybe it was just bad luck the 10 times or so I reloaded, but now all of her clones spam the same two spells. Hold Person and then Ray of Sickness. If the clones work together and kill a party member, and all 3 of my characters are being held by hold person, I literally just have to sit there waiting for one of them to break the spell as she slowly kills them all. I don't know if I had good luck in past encounters, but this was a relatively easy fight before, and this play through took about an hour. but it seems unbalanced, and while I absolutely love being challenged, this was overwhelming. Especially one of the times I managed to roll really well before the clones happened, and she spawned her clones, then immediately spawned an extra set of clones, because I did too much damage too quickly. Leaving me to fight 6 or 7 Auntie Ethels. My good rolls, turned into something horrible and I reloaded.
I was finally victorious, and I got her low enough to get the option to kill her or spare her. I chose to spare her in hopes of getting some Auntie Ethel hair. You can imagine my frustration to find out that the hair option doesn't reward you with anything right now. (Glitched) But I wanted the hair, so I went back and fought her a few more times before getting her low enough that I could scum-save and attempted the hair reward a few times, and it wasn't in any inventory, nor on the ground. I also exited and leveled up to level 4, because I remember in a previous patch it was glitched and leveling up it would appear. This was not the case.
Side note; Maybe only have Mayrina speak on her turns. Spending an hour fighting the hag, reloading, and not being able to kill Mayrina (Due to the hag originally saying she would take the girl and give you the hair, I didn't want to disrupt the hair reward.) it was exhausting to hear her constantly calling out, to the point that "HeLp gOdS, pLeAsE" is still playing over and over in my mind.
9. Odd enemies;A. When fighting Dror Ragzlin, I had chosen to attack him immediately, as I hadn't chosen this before. All enemies turned red, I used Shadowheart to cast Bless, and suddenly I blessed the enemies. Random glitch, so I reloaded to avoid the inconvenience. This time, just Dror Ragzlin was red, while the surrounding cult, were yellow, but still attacked me like enemies, and the option for the basic hover mouse over an enemy to do normal attack to them, was no longer there. I had to click the option each time I wanted to attack in the hotbar.
B. Another instance was in Grymforge;
I chose to side with the two Duergar plotting to overthrow Nere. After freeing Nere, and presenting the option for telling them "Now's the time" or something rather, I had forgotten Laizel wasn't grouped with the rest of the party. (I meant to keep the group back while Wyll exploded the bomb, and mistakenly took her out of the group.) Upon fighting Nere and half the Duergar, I realized Laziel hadn't gotten a turn. I clicked on her and all Duergar and Nere were all still Green(Friendly) towards Laziel. I used CTRL+Left Click on an enemy thinking she would be placed into initiative order, and instead, I was able to stay as Laziel and just walk around freely, while everyone else was stuck in turn based mode, and she slaughtered everyone while no one else got a turn. I reloaded and tried the same thing again, and sure enough, she was able to walk freely and kill whomever while avoiding turn based combat. I added her back to the group and upon facing more Duergar back towards the boat area, it was the same case, and even though she was grouped and chained as a party member, I had to move her individually now.
C. I normally enter the Underdark by means of the Goblin Camp/Temple area with the Moon puzzle. This time I chose a different route and upon reaching the gates of the temple, the 3 minotaur were charging the locked gate, and being obliterated by the moon crystal laser beam thing? This may be normal, as it was the first time I entered through different means, but it seemed like that should not have been the case.
D. I accidently killed Kagha. I miss-clicked in a rush scroll of Charm Person, instead of Guidance, while trying to get her to not side with the Shadow Druids, my own stupid fault, but I went with it. Of course the charm wore off and she attacked, to be expected. I defeated the Druids down there, and luckily the Druids in the grove above didn't seem to mind. The problem was that her body just vanished. Upon going above ground, her body was up there where the Tiefling parents were first arguing with the Druids. All loot was still on her body, but it was a bit odd.
10. Jumping;A. In Waukeen's Rest, where the guy is hiding and ready to explode all of the barrels, (Entrance to Zhentarim Hideout) I was going to be cheeky and jump over his vision, when I noticed I could jump behind him....Through the wall and bookshelf, I jumped from the doorway and avoided the dialogue option entirely. This may work as intended, but it doesn't seem like that way meant to be.
B. If jumping from a high enough height that your character takes damage, the other characters won't jump and follow. (This is a good thing, because you wouldn't want everyone jumping to their deaths.) The problem is specifically the mage tower in the Underdark, the very last jump off of the mushrooms. I will jump down, no one follows, as intended. If I leave everyone grouped up and I click on the next party member for them to jump, they jump, then if I click the third party member to follow suit, the first jumper will jump back up if their STR is high enough.
But, part of jumping, is that party members can jump on top of one another and can cause them to go flying. This isn't that big of an issue until you're next to a cliff like the mage tower and then it's goodbye companion. I've learned to be careful when jumping, but the AI of the companions likes to run randomly, sometimes where I'm jumping to, and all I can do is sit there and watch as Shadowheart decides the last minute to run where Tav is jumping and hope I don't send her flying. This has resulted in me ungrouping the party entirely, and clicking each character to jump and move out of the way, then regroup them.
This may work as intended, but it seems like a simple fix of characters jumping on their own companions won't send them flying 50 feet into oblivion.
11. Odds & Ends;A. There was a few times Astarion was standing in normal melee attack range, but I kept getting the message that he was "Too far from target." Which was corrected by moving him slightly over, but I feel it was worth mentioning.
B. Sneak attack ranged requiring advantage, would sometimes glitch out and say I didn't have advantage. I would check status effects, I would check lighting, I would check positioning, and even when they all checked out okay, I still couldn't sneak attack.
C. Also for people who don't have knowledge of D&D, casting Shield of Faith as a level 2 spell versus level 1, or Faerie Fire at different levels. It's clear from the tooltip that no matter what level, it does the same effect, but players not familiar, would be wondering the difference. It's obvious to those familiar with D&D that it's just a spell slot difference, but some people don't have that knowledge.
D. Story items used to not show up when trading with NPC's. Now I'm stuck clicking on the same items each time I visit a shop or hovering over each to see if it's a story item or not. Trying to sell a story item doesn't work, so that's a plus, but I'd rather it be in the old style of not being able to see them in the shop menu at all.
E. To build on that, item organization would be greatly appreciated. IE; Putting all keys into 1 bag or story items like books and papers into a bag, or being able to send camp supplies to the camp and being able to full rest using them through the chest storage rather than inventory.
F. During the Nere fight, I chose to side with the Duergar, then after the fight, I demanded the gnomes be set free, and had to fight the rest of the dwarves. Not an issue, except once that fight was over and I attempted to loot the bodies, the gnomes would become aggressive if I tried looting. If you warp away and warp back so that the gnomes will move to the Mycanid colony, most of the dead bodies will be missing. Along with the loot.
G. If you kill Laziel by shooting her while she is in the cage, and then shoot the cage bottom out, the game still treats her as a companion that can be raised. The death save counter remains persistant through the entire playthrough, even after failing her saves. An hour or so later, I went back and revived her so I wouldn't have to see the icon anymore and she still joined the group as an ally. You can do this with all companions, but the death save icon for her stayed permanent.
H. If you kill Auntie Ethel in the Druid Grove, she transforms into the hag, and still runs away with 0 HP. This might be not be a bug, but I was disappointed.
(She also ignored the "Ensnared" status she had and still moved.)
I. Alfira singing shows the lyrics above her head, but in game it's spelled "Farwell" while she is singing the word "Farewell".
J. You cannot cast "Rally" on Mirkon. (The boy with the harpies.)
Thanks for taking the time to read! Hopefully some of these nuances can be adjusted and this reaches helpful eyes. Good luck out there fellow Tavs!
