Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition (Nintendo Switch) BUYERS BEWARE

[Boogiman]

Let this post serve as a thorough warning to anyone that may be considering buying the Pillars of Eternity port for Nintendo Switch. Those of us that own it already know what's up.

Let me just start off by saying that Versus Evil's handling of this port has been detrimental to the series, and their handling of customer service has been negligent, heavy-handed, and filled with rude remarks to those of us who raise genuine grievances with the state of the game.

I have owned the port of Pillars of Eternity for Nintendo Switch since September 4th, and it has been a complete disaster of a game and little more than a greedy cash-grab. It first began with frequent crashes, the game-breaking gray screen bug, and many, many bonuses to stats not being applied whether from equipment, modals, or abilities. Versus Evil made a poor, half-baked attempt at solving these issues with their first patch sometime in early September. It did not solve any issues and made many issues far worse. The next patch would not come until early December. During the time between September and December, many of us who already owned the game diligently reported bugs in Versus Evil's discord server, though it seems like little, if any, of it was taken very seriously. While the gray screen bug was VE's main concern, they made many claims that their upcoming patch would also several of the other more serious bugs pervading the bulk of the game. They try everything in their power to make it look as if the state of the game is not their responsibility. This includes muting and banning people in the discord server that raised concern with how they have handled this disastrous release. They seem eager to do everything they can to erase any evidence that the game is still not in a playable state and grab as much money off of this as they can. Furthermore, their comments within the discord show that they have little to no knowledge of basic game mechanics or how Pillars of Eternity is supposed to play.

Well, the port has been out for a few days now, and the port is still fraught with bugs. In addition to several bugs that have been around for the long haul, new bugs have popped up since applying the patch to my game. Others have experienced these new bugs as well. The gray screen bug has been fixed, but the game still leaves much to be desired and , most certainly, cannot be enjoyed in the way which it was meant to be.

Persisting bugs from before the patch:

Modals not applying when used by various classes. (Most notably paladin and fighter modals)

Attacks on Caed Nua not registering properly. When attempts to manually resolve attacks are made, the PC and party will simply appear in the main keep of Caed Nua with no attackers present, and the status of an impending attack removed from the Stronghold menu.

Visitors to Caed Nua not showing up properly. In my case, I had a "warrior arrive at Caed Nua looking for work." This warrior did not appear in my list of hireable defenders.

The paladin ability Flames of Devotion does not properly apply burning or corrosive damage as it should. The only damage present is slash and crush damage.

Companion portraits not displaying properly or not at all.

Item icon mismatches when viewing the inventory.

Placeholder description where ability text should be. Example: For the ability mental binding, instead of the text describing the ability, the phrase "Placeholder Description" is simply repeated over and over again.

Feel free to comment with any persisting bugs you might have experienced, and I will gladly add them to the list. This list just includes the bugs that I have experienced and heard from other discord users.

Bugs that have cropped up since the patch was released:

In certain areas, I have had issues regarding enemies, containers, and ingredients reappearing after they have already been interacted with. If I leave an area and come back, these items will completely reset as if I never interacted with them in the first place. The most extreme version of this I experienced in Raedric's hold, where Raedric and all of his men reappeared even AFTER I had gotten a notification upon completing the quest.

I consider this to be a MAJOR bug. Upon leaving and returning to certain areas, the entire area will reset as if I had never visited it. That includes the fog of war, enemies, containers, and ingredients. So far I had experienced this in Magran's Fork, Black Meadows, and the Esterwood.

Again, feel free to comment with any new bugs you have experienced since the patch released. These are only what I and others I have spoken with have seen. These bugs first appeared on an old save game, so I erased all of my saves, deleted and reinstalled the game, and started an entirely new game, only for these bugs to persist.

The staff of Versus Evil have commented on the respawning bug and shown that they have no idea how the game mechanics for Pillars of Eternity are even supposed to work. They have shown that they don't even know if respawning enemies is supposed to be in the game or not. Clearly, their attitude represents just how much they care about fixing the port that they should have worked on for another year before release.

Follows is one comment from the discord regarding the Versus Evil staff and their lack of knowledge of the game: " I get the feeling the people doing the port don't know much about the game, since they initially fixed the items not applying stats by making them stack (which is not the PoE system), and they said they didn't know if respawning enemies was intentional, and the fact that just SO many abilities didn't work that would have been very easy to spot if you knew the game but difficult if you weren't that familiar with it "

I hope that this post will make anyone considering this port think twice before buying it. Versus Evil does not deserve your money, and they need to know that. They should have worked on this game much longer before release, and I don't believe they have any intention of fully fixing it in the near future.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Has Obsidian been informed about this already?

[Boogiman]

Obsidian already knows the situation. They won't comment on it, touch it, or anything.

[Beautiful Ham Sandwich]

Porting a game is hard so I'd be sympathetic towards them about the issues, but the way they're handling it removes any sympathy I'd have. If you make a mistake, or are in over your head? Be transparent, people will be so much more willing to forgive if you just do that. It's bad enough Nintendo's policy about refunds are that they can go to hell, so that decent customer support is incredibly necessary.

It honestly doesn't make much sense to sweep this under the rug considering the general gaming audience isn't going to buy this game, it's too much of a niche. The only people who will buy it are those part of the niche and those who've already played the game on a different platform, hiding their mistakes doesn't really seem to do anything besides garner ill-will towards them

[LHGreen]

Lol, sounds almost like the way that Tyranny has been handled the whole time, but combined with the awfulness of Mighty No. 9's approach to community relations.

[Reaper21666]

There has been 1 major patch and a 2nd has just been released or is just about to be released. This apparently will include a fix for the game killing "grey screen bug"
However due to all the reports about quality I just bought this on steam instead of the switch.
(And it was 1/3 of the cost)
May I also suggest divinity original sin 2 to anyone that likes isometric RPG's.
amazing dev support and it supports steam/switch cross saves.