the One Last Drink quest is either poorly written or bugged to irrelevance (Spoilers for the side quest)

[igor140]

So, I was pretty excited about this one at first. The captain hired me to find his old shipmates, so I agreed. Then I stumbled upon his journal and the poisons by mistake, and the quest was suddenly pretty interesting!

So I confronted him before leaving Thirdborn, finally got him to admit that he was planning to poison the crew. I tried to talk him out of it, and I think he basically said that he'd decide when he saw them.

So I tracked all of them down. I told every single one that he was planning to poison them, and they should watch out.
The hippie/ surfer guy said he didn't believe me, and was going to go anyway.
The woman's dialogue cycled through for or five times (a bug), before she finally said that she would go, but she was planning to get revenge on him instead.
The third guy said he wasn't sure what to make of it, but he was willing to go and he'd watch his back.

So i return to the captain, where the bar proprietor handed me four drinks. I had no opportunity to interact with them or do anything with them. I took them upstairs, and the woman never showed up.

I gave the drinks to the captain, and the third guy died immediately. No chance to save him, no chance to switch drinks around, no chance to talk him out of the toast. Just dead.

Even dumber, everyone-- including Giatta-- was like "Oh! That was poisoned! Who knew?!"

I mean... what the hell? This is just... bad.

Overall the game is... fine. Honestly, the only reason I'm still playing is because i love the PoE lore and the story is enjoyable. The teleporting enemies, 20 ft claw reach of bears, subpar side quest scripting, and extremely limited world interaction are... grating. But whatever. I'll finish it once and then convince myself it was another solid cRPG like the PoE games instead of a failed Fable clone.

[50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey]

Was it worth the $70?

[igor140]

Oh right! I forgot that I actually TOOK the poison so that he couldn't go through with it!

I reloaded a save just before giving them the drinks, and went to talk to the police guy instead.

I literally have Ngunu's Vial of Poison IN MY INVENTORY, and I picked up the drinks from the bar maid (which I can't find in my inventory), and the police guy still won't believe me. This is crazy. This literally no way to stop him from killing the guy.

This is just... ACTIVELY bad side quest writing.

I have long defended that not every game's side quests can be as open-ended and multi-faceted as Larian's, but this is just... bad. Why have the poison if taking it doesn't serve as either a deterrent or evidence? Why have the option to warn the victims if LITERALLY NO ONE takes it seriously-- including the party members that agreed with me when I warned them.

If you really want a side quest to be that linear, just making it ****ing linear and don't bother with all of the tangential/ minor pieces.

The more I think about this, the more I realize this is a microcosm of this whole game: It's got a lot of really cool ideas and a lot of really good qualities, but ultimately just fails to come together in a tangible way.

I'm not hating it, but I'm definitely not recommending it to my friends that haven't played the PoE games : /

[igor140]

Originally posted by 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey:

Was it worth the $70?

Overall? Not quite $70, but i'm not woefully displeased or demanding my money back. I really do think the game has a lot going for it. It's just stuff like this and the very limited exploration and the static enemy encounters/ loot locations that keep it from being truly great, in my opinion.

The part that really rankles is how much they've nerfed the class/ skills/ character development established in the PoE series. I was REALLY looking forward to playing a Cipher or a Chanter. Whoops.

I mean, it really does remind me of Fable. All the XBotters claimed it was the greatest game ever made, and that no game ever gave you that much freedom or opportunity to explore. In the meantime, we TES nerds just scratched our heads and said the same thing then as I'm saying now:

It's not BAD, it's just three steps short of being GOOD.

[Boltingdock]

Originally posted by 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey:

Was it worth the $70?

Not OP, but I would personally say it’s worth $70. Something to keep in mind though is that it isn’t anything like Elder Scrolls; if I had to compare it to existing games I would say that it’s like a fantasy combination of The Outer Worlds and Far Cry. I would recommend looking up gameplay videos in order to make an informed decision since $70 is a lot of money, or you could always try it on GamePass.

[xabungle]

it's worth the $11.99 1 month game pass. No way $70. Just finished it on game pass after 50 hrs. Just an ok game.

[Megalithik]

For me the the Kowha guy where you kill all the villagers for him, that is glitched. I kill all the lower guys and all the upper guys and i don't get the checkbox that they're all dead. Done it a bunch of times now, never completes. I notice some of the guys make a red circle and disappear, i dunno if they're escaping or if they're teleporting but if they're escaping i dunno how to stop that from happening. Was going to try freeze grenades next.