I don't understand the positive reviews

[Nimbusᴼᴸᴳᴵ]

Any meaningful spoiler within my text will be blacked out.

I'm about half way through the game and getting increasingly more frustrated. The sheer amount of Bugs and Glitches is incredibly disappointing and the poor quest design makes it even worse. I really enjoy the story and everything around the game, but gameplay-wise this game is the biggest mess I've ever encountered, and I've seen some games.

After what I've experienced, you can't convince me that this game deserves a positive rating. Of course I will list you every example that I can think of right now:

Glitches (not that important, but really annoying):

• Missing objects during animations (e.g. beer mugs)
  
• Random NPC's walking stuck into Henry during conversations
  
• A lot of cutscenes, where Henry and NPC's suddenly stop talking (sometimes their mouths still move), turning into an awkward silence with changing camera views (lasting up to 20 seconds), sometimes ending with missing information (no subtitles on)
  
• Broken audio of main character horses, which sound like a train on crack (it's the horse breathing sound but cut off with immediate and infinite repitition, but only while the player is moving around or only their POV-head)
  
• Not really a glitch, but the player's speed never matches with NPC's (besides the 'follow' option); NPC's are usually faster on ground, while being incredible slower during the climb of stairs

Bugs (a burden on the player to game-breaking):

• Bandits suddenly attack the player during story horse ridings across the county, the quest NPC's ignore the attackers, while the latter tries to swoop the player from his horse
  
• Using stairs is a nightmare, because oftentimes the player gets stuck in invisible walls (bad stair design), only fixable with running or jumping around
  
• As soon as the ground has a gradient more than 1% (at least feels like it) and you try to feed your dog, the food rolls away while the dog just stares at it, neither following nor trying to eat the food
  
• Henry's room in the devil's tavern is completely bugged; after every day I need to open the door to my room with a picklock, this also applies to the door connecting with the hallway

Poor quest design:

Marriage quest: Good luck finding the sword in the pond. The quest and the people imply that you need to search for the son of the bailiff. Interestingly enough, he just vanishes completely during the quest. After an annoying search for about 20 minutes, i randomly jumped around in the pond and therefore found the sword lying in there. The marked mission area includes the entire battlement, which is nowhere near the spot where the sword lies. Still marriage Quest: I searched for about 30 minutes for the bride and her groom, there is literally no NPC who will tell you that she is sitting alone in the cellar, where the wine had been stored. I literally searched through the entire castle, but not the cellar, because it made no sense at all for her to be there, especially because the spot is known to be guarded and restricted for everyone. In the Castle of Trozky, you are supposed to bring wine to Capon. You cant find Catherina and there is no way to finish that (optional) quest, without going to sleep first. NOTHING hints that out! Therefore I also searched after her, for about 20 minutes until I got sick of it and just googled it. And who would have thought, I'm not the only one with this issue. There is this one side quest where you need to start a fist fight with a guy named Tobias, but as soon as you get to him (where the quest marker appears) there is no way to interact with him, you can only steal from his pockets, but there is no talk option; therefore the entire side quest is broken and not accessible (confirmed by the steam discussions). There is this one side quest where one knight recruits you in order to free his brother from cumans and get revenge. It literally took me one hour to finish this quest, because everything can go wrong there. Somehow the cumans are able to spot the quest character from a mile away, as soon as they get in certain positions, and therefore he starts running into the cumans, dying after a minute (he and Henry against about 8-10 cumans). I tried killing one silently, took the cumans clothes and weapons and wanted to recreate the logic of the successor of Kingdom Come, where you can try to fit in with the cumans and use this to get to his brother and free him. But OF COURSE, the cuman spots me immediately, even though I have a full set of cuman armour, where you can't even see an inch of Henry's skin. In one main quest, you need to free Janusch from the pillory. At night I tried to get to him and silenced all guards around him, only to be able to talk to him, where I get the idea that freeing him with picklock isn't even an option. It was a complete waste of time, you NEED to free him with 500 gold. Such a waste of player freedom.

And why the hell did the devs think it is a great idea to turn NPC's into ghosts, in order to walk through them and not get stuck? The only case where I would have needed that, was when a NPC leaned on a battlement and blocked the entire way with his animation. But guess what, during animations like that, they don't turn invisibile, therefore I was stuck until he finally moved away.

[Raywhisper]

Give it a negative review then. Just becuase people like the game doesnt mean you have to. After all, and that is a rare case here, your criticism is all fair and valid.

I have over 130 hours in the game and I like it, but lot of issues you are describing are in fact in the game. Did not bother me tho.

[Nimbusᴼᴸᴳᴵ]

Originally posted by Raywhisper:

Give it a negative review then. Just becuase people like the game doesnt mean you have to. After all, and that is a rare case here, your criticism is all fair and valid.

I have over 130 hours in the game and I like it, but lot of issues you are describing are in fact in the game. Did not bother me tho.

It's very hypocritical, because in any other case players would complain about a buggy release, while this game get's praised into heaven. But anyway, I'm certainly not a hater by ideology, I was really excited for this game. But with every hour further into CKDII, I come across more and more bugs, glitches and poor quest design and get more frustrated, than gaining any fun out of it.

I've never wasted that much time in games only because of bugs and poor quest design, I can't even describe the level of exhaustment: Every time I try to immerse myself, something else pops up. Why are these obvious issues still not even partly fixed, how can a playtested game ignore issues like this? You can probably not answer these questions, but I hope the devs will read this and finally do something about it.

Ah wait, they have 92% positive reviews, only because of the storywriting (of course there is no reason to improve anything then).

[Galactic-Tactics]

I've played through the game twice and although there are bugs, there weren't any game-breaking bugs. I didn't have trouble with the quests you mentioned and was able to find NPCs that pointed me in the right direction. I am not doubting your trouble with the game, but I know that at least I did not encounter them. Perhaps many others did not either, hence the positive reviews.

[Grubbs008]

Originally posted by Galactic-Tactics:

I've played through the game twice and although there are bugs, there weren't any game-breaking bugs. I didn't have trouble with the quests you mentioned and was able to find NPCs that pointed me in the right direction. I am not doubting your trouble with the game, but I know that at least I did not encounter them. Perhaps many others did not either, hence the positive reviews.

I also did not encounter any of the issues with quests he was talking about. I was also able to lock pick the pillory on the right had side on the lock.

[2tecs]

Yeah man, i agree. I tried refunding it since the bug I was facing was virtually game-breaking (at the time) but they said no. How they could release a game for full price but so buggy is amazing.
All that time they spent on woke characters and plots, they could have spent bug-fixing but I guess appeasing certain demo groups was more important that sticking to their original ethics or making a complete game.

[Fitzy]

Originally posted by Nimbusᴼᴸᴳᴵ:

Originally posted by Raywhisper:

Give it a negative review then. Just becuase people like the game doesnt mean you have to. After all, and that is a rare case here, your criticism is all fair and valid.

I have over 130 hours in the game and I like it, but lot of issues you are describing are in fact in the game. Did not bother me tho.

It's very hypocritical, because in any other case players would complain about a buggy release, while this game get's praised into heaven. But anyway, I'm certainly not a hater by ideology, I was really excited for this game. But with every hour further into CKDII, I come across more and more bugs, glitches and poor quest design and get more frustrated, than gaining any fun out of it.

I've never wasted that much time in games only because of bugs and poor quest design, I can't even describe the level of exhaustment: Every time I try to immerse myself, something else pops up. Why are these obvious issues still not even partly fixed, how can a playtested game ignore issues like this? You can probably not answer these questions, but I hope the devs will read this and finally do something about it.

Ah wait, they have 92% positive reviews, only because of the storywriting (of course there is no reason to improve anything then).

The cutscenes sometimes have a desync between the audio and the video but nothing is missing, it just plays at the wrong time. I found the sword and bride no trouble with the info in the game, can't speak on the others, I've never noticed npc's bumping into me during cutscenes, if never been angry at the sound a horse makes, seems superficial to me, There is an instance where people are talking lots of quests and not finishing them, what is then happening is they have populated the map with quest npc's that are being encountered while on another quest, the simple solution to that is, if you take a quest to go and kill some bandits, go and kill some bandits, they won't be there when you ride past several hours later on some other quest.

Anyone that follows the dev announcements knows there is a big patch coming soon and while I can't speak for the other 50,000 + people that have given a good review, I waited until I had finished the game before giving a review of it as a whole, it's not "hypocritical" its whether I felt I got value for money out of my purchase. Most people understand that there has never been a game released without bugs and this release is much better than KDC1 for example and calling 50,000+ people hypocrites simply for having a different opinion to you doesn't seem all that well adjusted to me. Fair enough you aren't enjoying the game 39 hours into it and if the other good reviews are anything like me, I never encountered one bug that made me lose any game progress, I never encountered a quest I couldn't finish, I never gave a review based on the noise a horse makes, the level of vitriol from some is uncalled for.

[Dreaming Prince]

i see they have the same stairs as in the first game lol would have hoped they had fixed it by now..

[Actalo]

You're right about some of the minor visual bugs, but I've never experienced anything game-breaking. As far as quest design, more often than not it pays to read the journal to double check things, and sometimes its best to think for yourself, ie: wine from Katherine, well, where else would you find wine? The kitchen, see cook, ask cook, cook gives wine. It was pretty f'ing obvious with the camera work and body language, Kat had ghosted.

[John 'Cheek Spreader' HellDiver]

My game has crashed once.
Its not hard to jump when you come to stairs.
I didn't have an issue with any of those quests you listed.

If you talk to people they'll give hints. Regarding all your issues with the wedding stuff. If you pay attention they say they bridge and groom are going inside fairly quickly after the ceremony. Its not hard to put 2+2 together there. Likewise with the sword in the pond.
I couldn't find it, until I found the son and spoke with him.

Lord have mercy if you try the quest to steal objects for a hired hand in the 2nd map area. Can't imagine that'll go well.

Game has less hand holding then many games and I appreciate it.

As far as launches go this has been one of the best. But it is SP so ya know. No server issues to worry about.

[Galactic-Tactics]

Originally posted by Dreaming Prince:

i see they have the same stairs as in the first game lol would have hoped they had fixed it buy now..

It's annoying, but you mostly just have to jump to get up them. I have more of an issue during siege battles where my ally NPCS clog the stairs and I can't get up to the one guy that's still alive. But waiting it out is usually the answer, someone eventually kills them.

[Dreaming Prince]

i bought the first game at release, and thats the reason i didnt buy this yet. didnt exactly expect it to be smooth sailing before some heavy patching. damn those quests were a mess, and some of them still are to this day..

[Shawn]

Let me explain this to you: The game is fun.

[Malistair]

Originally posted by Nimbusᴼᴸᴳᴵ:

Any meaningful spoiler within my text will be blacked out.

I'm about half way through the game and getting increasingly more frustrated. The sheer amount of Bugs and Glitches is incredibly disappointing and the poor quest design makes it even worse. I really enjoy the story and everything around the game, but gameplay-wise this game is the biggest mess I've ever encountered, and I've seen some games.

After what I've experienced, you can't convince me that this game deserves a positive rating. Of course I will list you every example that I can think of right now:

Glitches (not that important, but really annoying):

• Missing objects during animations (e.g. beer mugs)
  
• Random NPC's walking stuck into Henry during conversations
  
• A lot of cutscenes, where Henry and NPC's suddenly stop talking (sometimes their mouths still move), turning into an awkward silence with changing camera views (lasting up to 20 seconds), sometimes ending with missing information (no subtitles on)
  
• Broken audio of main character horses, which sound like a train on crack (it's the horse breathing sound but cut off with immediate and infinite repitition, but only while the player is moving around or only their POV-head)
  
• Not really a glitch, but the player's speed never matches with NPC's (besides the 'follow' option); NPC's are usually faster on ground, while being incredible slower during the climb of stairs

Bugs (a burden on the player to game-breaking):

• Bandits suddenly attack the player during story horse ridings across the county, the quest NPC's ignore the attackers, while the latter tries to swoop the player from his horse
  
• Using stairs is a nightmare, because oftentimes the player gets stuck in invisible walls (bad stair design), only fixable with running or jumping around
  
• As soon as the ground has a gradient more than 1% (at least feels like it) and you try to feed your dog, the food rolls away while the dog just stares at it, neither following nor trying to eat the food
  
• Henry's room in the devil's tavern is completely bugged; after every day I need to open the door to my room with a picklock, this also applies to the door connecting with the hallway

Poor quest design:

Marriage quest: Good luck finding the sword in the pond. The quest and the people imply that you need to search for the son of the bailiff. Interestingly enough, he just vanishes completely during the quest. After an annoying search for about 20 minutes, i randomly jumped around in the pond and therefore found the sword lying in there. The marked mission area includes the entire battlement, which is nowhere near the spot where the sword lies. Still marriage Quest: I searched for about 30 minutes for the bride and her groom, there is literally no NPC who will tell you that she is sitting alone in the cellar, where the wine had been stored. I literally searched through the entire castle, but not the cellar, because it made no sense at all for her to be there, especially because the spot is known to be guarded and restricted for everyone. In the Castle of Trozky, you are supposed to bring wine to Capon. You cant find Catherina and there is no way to finish that (optional) quest, without going to sleep first. NOTHING hints that out! Therefore I also searched after her, for about 20 minutes until I got sick of it and just googled it. And who would have thought, I'm not the only one with this issue. There is this one side quest where you need to start a fist fight with a guy named Tobias, but as soon as you get to him (where the quest marker appears) there is no way to interact with him, you can only steal from his pockets, but there is no talk option; therefore the entire side quest is broken and not accessible (confirmed by the steam discussions). There is this one side quest where one knight recruits you in order to free his brother from cumans and get revenge. It literally took me one hour to finish this quest, because everything can go wrong there. Somehow the cumans are able to spot the quest character from a mile away, as soon as they get in certain positions, and therefore he starts running into the cumans, dying after a minute (he and Henry against about 8-10 cumans). I tried killing one silently, took the cumans clothes and weapons and wanted to recreate the logic of the successor of Kingdom Come, where you can try to fit in with the cumans and use this to get to his brother and free him. But OF COURSE, the cuman spots me immediately, even though I have a full set of cuman armour, where you can't even see an inch of Henry's skin. In one main quest, you need to free Janusch from the pillory. At night I tried to get to him and silenced all guards around him, only to be able to talk to him, where I get the idea that freeing him with picklock isn't even an option. It was a complete waste of time, you NEED to free him with 500 gold. Such a waste of player freedom.

And why the hell did the devs think it is a great idea to turn NPC's into ghosts, in order to walk through them and not get stuck? The only case where I would have needed that, was when a NPC leaned on a battlement and blocked the entire way with his animation. But guess what, during animations like that, they don't turn invisibile, therefore I was stuck until he finally moved away.

Quite literally all skill issues. Give it a negative review, watch people laugh at you and move on.

[Dreaming Prince]

Originally posted by Malistair:

Quite literally all skill issues. Give it a negative review, watch people laugh at you and move on.

yea might be some skill issues if they cant make stairs work propery after 7 years

[Phantom]

I reviewed it as a no for immersion breaking story cutscenes and a bugfesta level of bugs

Any game that breaks immersion in the first hour by either sheer incompetence or willful negligence isn't a yes vote