Most Frustrating Game of the Year?

[DreamCore.SwE]

I'm not sure where are the praise is coming from or if people are brain-washed, because this is one of the most frustrating games I've ever played.

The dice rolls for everything from hit/miss, damage to conversations is a plague. The whole game is random and you have no control. You can win a fight with ease or get stomped based on the rolls. Doesn't matter how skilled you are. A spell can do 3-30 damage. Well, that is a big ♥♥♥♥♥♥ difference. You basically have to save/reload on every fight until you're lucky with landing hits. Combine this with the fact that your spell slots are extremely limited which makes it even worse to miss even once. Dice rolls is fine in a board game, but in an interactive game, it's frustrating as ♥♥♥♥. The whole dialogue system is designed around saving before and just restarting to get a good roll and the outcome you want. The whole game is built around constant save/load as you never know when you will get screwed over by a bad dice roll.

Party members blocking each other in tight areas like doorways during fights, forcing you to waste your turn as you can't move past. This even happens when there is visually more than enough space but apparently they are too dumb to function.

Worst stealth system in gaming history. Even if you turn of all lights and stealth kill someone, there is some hive mind that alerts everyone in the area. Also if you kill someone without anyone noticing and move to another room, when the body is discovered they somehow know it was you and also know exactly where you are. Like for real?

No fast forwarding in combat is insane. Sitting and waiting for minutes while the enemies makes their moves in fights with lots of enemies is extremely tedious.

Also I've never seen this many bugs in a game. Friendly AI gets stuck and refuse to follow. Trying to move an item in the inventory with a controller makes the character trying to jump instead. Enemies sometimes not making a decision on their turn and thus soft locking the fight, forcing you to reload. Lots of visual glitches and weirdness during cutscenes. They have basically fixed 500+ issues with the hot fixes with a 1000+ issues patch incoming. PC players are basically beta testing before the console release.

[Naamtar]

What difficulty are you playing on?

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

Everything being a risk determined by a combination of dice rolls and our builds is the fun part for some. And the bane of others' existence. Just depends on what you enjoy and don't. Definitely not for everyone. The bugs are definitely a nuisance, though, yes. Hoping that patch addresses them. I'm having fun in spite of that, but YMMV.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I would say most disappointing.

[HelsDottir]

Not allowing you to switch characters in conversations that have stupidly high DC checks is probably my most hated feature in this game. There is even a switch character button that doesn't work just to rub salt in the wound.

[Ratch]

Plays DnD game
Complains about dice

ngmi

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Ratch:

Plays DnD game
Complains about dice

ngmi

fr

[Nats]

I think overall its a great game but it does have some minor issues. The worst things are the inventory management is pretty terrible, the map is too compressed, and the flirting is excessive. I can live with the slight pathing issues and character blocking. I haven't figured out stealth yet, I am assuming because I am playing mostly outside in bright light still.

[DogWater]

Stop trying to win conversation checks and the like, roll with it. Having high chance of say Intimidation working means it will often work and steer conversation that way, but not always. You don't lose if you miss a skill check, the conversation just takes a different turn.

As in any game that has combat revolve around dice rolls, plan for the worst at all times. Sure sometimes you'll get so unlucky you just have to give it another go but in the vast majority of cases good planning would have won the day. Take something like Xcom or Xcom 2. If you watch any actually good players of those games play them, it can be surprising how well they do while rarely going for plays that aren't a sure thing that will knock a threat off the board. You absolutely can try "it would be nice if this works" 70% attack for instance but should always have a "worst case this will finish them off" option.

As for something like PC's blocking each other in the environment well... yes. If a doorway is 1-person sized someone will not fit if another member of the party already ended their turn mid-doorway. That's a pretty quick lesson to learn and makes intuitive sense tbh.

[GeminiEclipse]

You can get around a lot of the all or nothing by using more reliable abilities.

Magic Missile or Shatter are spells that are more reliable because they will always do some damage.

For clerics one option is to go light for a good aoe channel divinity. It does half damage on a save instead nothing

There's lots of options like that from early through till midgame. You don't always have to throw a 50-60% guiding bolt and miss and feel bad.

[OBud]

Weird. I just finished the game and encountered a very few bugs. I think you are just bad at the game. It's ok, it might not be the game for you, you can move on with your life now :)

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by GeminiEclipse:

You can get around a lot of the all or nothing by using more reliable abilities.

Magic Missile or Shatter are spells that are more reliable because they will always do some damage.

For clerics one option is to go light for a good aoe channel divinity. It does half damage on a save instead nothing

There's lots of options like that from early through till midgame. You don't always have to throw a 50-60% guiding bolt and miss and feel bad.

Honestly by late act 1, let alone Act 2 on normal I feel like any roll below 70% is a bad attack. Normally my fighters are 75%+, my wizard is usually about 65%+ to disable every enemy in one turn.

Heck, even Shadowheart has a 90% hit chance pretty often without a respec. Bless if needed, use gloves that give +1 on attack rolls or advantage, get high ground when ranged, target enemy's weak saves with disables, there's a ton you can do.

Not to mention throwing weapons and potions even.


Anyway, it's also worth noting for OP that for many people the chance to fail is part of the excitement. If I knew I'd hit every time and pass every skill check, that makes the situation less tense. Instead I have to be prepared to fail and have things go wrong from there, improvise and manage somehow.

[HelsDottir]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Anyway, it's also worth noting for OP that for many people the chance to fail is part of the excitement. If I knew I'd hit every time and pass every skill check, that makes the situation less tense. Instead I have to be prepared to fail and have things go wrong from there, improvise and manage somehow.

Rolls on doors and locked chests is one thing, but when they force a near impossible skill, (my character would have had to roll a natural 20), check in a conversation that seriously screws with the way you are RP'ing your character it just feels like getting shafted. I had to replay a full 2 hours after the fight where you assist The Emperor because my character was against the use of Ilithid powers and I wasn't going to have another tadpole forced on me by a failed skill check.

[DreamCore.SwE]

Originally posted by Ratch:

Plays DnD game
Complains about dice

ngmi

So what if it's a DnD game. You have to adapt it to the medium. What works in boardgame doesn't necessarily work in an interactive video game. Watching your characters miss time and time again even though your're standing right next to the enemy is frustrating as ♥♥♥♥.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by HelsDottir:

Rolls on doors and locked chests is one thing, but when they force a near impossible skill, (my character would have had to roll a natural 20), check in a conversation that seriously screws with the way you are RP'ing your character it just feels like getting shafted. I had to replay a full 2 hours after the fight where you assist The Emperor because my character was against the use of Ilithid powers and I wasn't going to have another tadpole forced on me by a failed skill check.

If you don't habitually shove them into your head you can just refuse it without a check whatsoever. You put yourself in that position, where they have so much control over you.

[Recjawjind]

Lemme break your post down

1st paragraph: What can I say except git gud. Learn the systems and it becomes piss easy even on tactician.

2: Who put those people there? Oh right, you. And you can just.... jump over them? Again, learn the game lmao

3: If you're in a hostile area where you don't belong and someone is found dead, and they find you, *obviously* they are going to attack.

4: We must not be playing the same game. Enemy rounds, even with 20+ participants rarely if ever take that long.

5: Yeah, a bit of jank exists, however far less than a lot of other games. Your companions not following anymore happened a grand total of once over my 140 hours, big deal. Idk about controller gameplay, see no reason to use one over KB&M in a crpg.
Yes enemies sometimes fail to make a decision, then their turn auto-skips after a short moment, like 30s. If you don't have the patience for that, this might not be the game for you.