[spoiler] rushed ending ? :(

[monsieurK]

I was wondering if I was the only one with a LOT of bugs at the end, the two first acts were awesome. the third started to have some bugs and little narrative flaws, but the last mission had all the "allies" repeatting their lines, lot of minor bugs that completely ruined the mood of "gathering of heroes".
+ the ending felt like "wow wow there is no much time left, you should wrap this up guyz".

Will they fix this?

[BeautifulFlowerField]

Act 2 is pretty rushed too, about halfway through the companions stop commenting on pretty much anything not related to their personal quest and the game throws like 100 HUGE plot twists and points at you all in a row. In one segment you meet ketheric, meet the absolute, find out about orin and gortash, find out about the captive elder brain, and there's zero dialogue in camp about any of it no companion reactions to any of it. Act 1 is significantly more detailed and reactive. Even though these same flaws show up in Act 2, it's tight and focused so they don't stand out nearly as much as Act 3 where you wander around doing random ♥♥♥♥. Something as simple as a camp cutscene where everyone discusses their thoughts about what the party has learned, a little more commentary from Jaheira if you report back to her at the inn throughout Act 2, maybe introducing some dialogue/cutscene only encounters with Orin throughout Reithwin town, a little more development for Isobel and Ketheric too would go a long way. Moonrise feels small, it has a lot less going on for it than the Goblin Camp.

[monsieurK]

Originally posted by caev79:

Originally posted by monsieurK:

For me it's the epilogue, and the fact that most "bosses" are actually easy and didn't felt like real nemesis (Okay, Orin captured one of my guys, but that's the evilest she has done, Gortash is manipulative but we see it from books, and the iron throne). For me, the most "nemesis-like" boss was Ketheric by FAR: we see his children, we realize how much power he has, etc. (even though there is a bittersweet ending where his daughter just say "yeah, daddy's dead after he sacrificed himself to resurrect me, let's b*ng that angel !")

Yeah I agree with the sentiment that Ketheric had the best setup as a main antagonist over Gortash and Orin. At least he's more explicitly setup as a main antagonist.

With Gortash you get the situation with Karlach as the primary way you develop hate for him. Secondary ways involve the player paying attention to messages Gortash has been sending out to other people, which you can find in various locations. One interesting moment involved finding Gortash's parents, which I won't spoil for those of you who want to experience that.

Gortash setup as a villain is more subtle than with Ketheric, so if players don't pay attention or don't do a lot of exploring they'll miss info. about Gortash that makes him so evil.

Orin is the blandest of the three, in my opinion, because she's just a stereotypical crazy evil person.

Yes I see what you mean for Gortash, and that's also my point. Seeing the parents (btw are they cure-able?), the fact that he was emprisoned in Raphaël's house, etc. it really was the kid (Littlefinger style) that grew resentment to humanity.

Actually Orin is also a "kid", she vowed an admiration to her grandad, and even killed her mother to please him, and kept her, probably to suffer more, and see her action/devotion. Despair, never being "enough" and hatred grew up in her. At least that's how I see it, but it was not that great. It would have been way better if she used her doppleganger power in some missions, or do a ass**le move like killing the dog/cat/owlbear, that would make anybody go John-Wick style

[Action Man]

Originally posted by WeirdWizardDave:

I think its more likely that Act 3 just suffers from being at the end a long series of branching choices and character advancement. Its the most complex and dynamic part of the game with all these threads coming together. That's going to lead to more bugs and harder to track down edge cases that some people run into. Obviously Act 1 did have a lot more testing, Act 2 probably stands on its own more than Act 3 does.

I agree with you. Which (to me) means they should have taken a lot more time to get it working smoothly.

From my own personal play, I had two quests that bugged out and could not be completed. Fortunately they were not game ending issues. I had some frame drops and performance issues. I had numerous dialogue bugs where my only option was "1. Continue" despite that I should have multiple choices. I select that, and the game proceeds as if I chose whatever the first option was.

I also felt the pacing of A3 was worse because the focus seemed more on closing plot lines (or forgetting them) so we could get to the end.

[monsieurK]

Originally posted by BeautifulFlowerField:

Act 2 is pretty rushed too, about halfway through the companions stop commenting on pretty much anything not related to their personal quest and the game throws like 100 HUGE plot twists and points at you all in a row. In one segment you meet ketheric, meet the absolute, find out about orin and gortash, find out about the captive elder brain, and there's zero dialogue in camp about any of it no companion reactions to any of it. Act 1 is significantly more detailed and reactive. Even though these same flaws show up in Act 2, it's tight and focused so they don't stand out nearly as much as Act 3 where you wander around doing random ♥♥♥♥. Something as simple as a camp cutscene where everyone discusses their thoughts about what the party has learned, a little more commentary from Jaheira if you report back to her at the inn throughout Act 2, maybe introducing some dialogue/cutscene only encounters with Orin throughout Reithwin town, a little more development for Isobel and Ketheric too would go a long way. Moonrise feels small, it has a lot less going on for it than the Goblin Camp.

+1

[monsieurK]

Thinking about it since a few hours, I think I would prefere an ending like Fallout 3/NV, with maybe just painting on how each characters goes on his/her journey: Gayle with his Cat in his tower, Astarion taking one of the Underdark place (maybe the inn?) with/without his siblings (depending on your choices etc.) or if you released all the vampires, maybe they became vampire hunters, who knows!, etc. etc. With or without text, but that would be more than enough for me.

[Aouregan]

The final "Gathering of Allies" meeting before the final battle that decides the fate of this plane of existence is.... abysmal at best and an insult at worst.
Jaheira even only gives her bark line that she gives when she is selected in character selection:"Nature's servant awaits." in that ... rather jumbled together custcene. That sequence as a whole is also technically sub-par. Bad renderings, cuts, lines, character expressions, and whatnot. Textures loading in one at a time, instead of preloading them, etc.

The Endgame is a joke, really. No better or longer Cutscenes as not to distract from the "epicness" of the endgame experience.... right. The endgame is where you expect them the most... as a reward. It's literally what makes it epic. After 100 hours of gameplay I will gladly watch 30+ mins of high quality cutscenes combined. No issue there. I am not in a rush to turn off the PC or to fire up the next game in my list. If they want to drop cut scenes, then cut the ones about the emperor's, sorry.. Balduran's life story. They have absolutely no impact on the game and the whole affair is never mentioned again by anyone in the game anyway. They are needless fillers for the wow effect of that humbug reveal.
And no one can tell me that the last fight up those ruins and against the brain are particularly "epic" in itself without any framework. Instead of insta-spawns and lackluster AOEs in that fight, they could really have added a sequence of Ramazith's Tower charging up it's magic artillery and blasting the crap out the place, when calling on it, have Dame Aylin plow through a sky full of Mindflayers to arrive on the battlefield... such things. Instead they all stand in some boring room, looking high as kites, delivering some of the most bland pre-final fight lines in gaming history, just to be insta-spawned into battle without any further bells or whistles. That is, if you need them at all.

Battle for Last Light Inn is epic in itself and has more interesting action going on, or the boss fight against Raphael... not that stuff. Teleport to brain, Sanctuary, boom. Fight is over. How "epic" an experience that surely cannot be accompanied or followed up by some high quality video content, as to not distract from it.
Here's to hoping they polish and fix of it what they can.

[Lminith]

Originally posted by monsieurK:

Will they fix this?

It's called being trimmed.