Still needs a lot of polishing

[LAN021]

I began playing Disco Elysium recently and while I'm enjoying the game so far--just a handful of hours in--I can't help but be disappointed and frustrated by the game's flagrant lack of polish. There are so many issues in the game that I need categories and sub-categories to address them all.

I must say, I find it a little perplexing that a game as acclaimed as Disco Elysium--having been named the greatest PC game of all time by PC Gamer, for instance--can have as many conspicuous defects and flaws as it has. It certainly makes one wonder about the critical thinking of professional game journalists. And it makes one question the ability of the developers to make necessary corrections to their game based on player feedback. I have sent most of the issues addressed below to ZA/UM's support, but have not received a response of any kind when I offered to keep sending screenshots of typos.

Text Issues

In all my years of playing story- and text-heavy games (around 25 years), I don't think I have ever come across a game with as many text issues as Disco Elysium. Text errors of all kinds abound in the game, which severely diminishes the primarily text-based gaming experience. There are typos, missing words, extraneous words and other types of errors in practically every longer dialogue tree in the game. In the rare case where a text error of some sort is not present, there is almost certainly a text-audio mismatch, where what the voice actor is saying does not match the text in-game. Early in the game, I found an instance (first image here[imgur.com]) where the audio was completely wrong for the text. An almost unbelievable oversight on the developers' part.

The typos are so flagrant, in fact, that several can already be found in the main skill descriptions, i.e. the part of the main menu that opens every time the player presses the menu button.

Endurance > It enables to survive... > It enables YOU to survive...
Rhetoric > will be neigh impossible. > will be NIGH impossible. (neigh is the sound horses make... hah)
Inland Empire > What's really going? > What's really going ON? (or whatever it's supposed to be)
Physical Instrument > one size fits all > one-size-fits-all (with dashes)

Here's[imgur.com] another one at the pawn shop (second image). There are numerous other errors there as well. And this is just the beginning of the game.

There is also that typo right at the beginning where the narrator says, "Your conscience ferments in it." Shouldn't this be "consciousness"? If this is intentional, it is not the best writing in the game.

The errors are so prevalent that simple sporadic corrections will not be enough--the game quite simply requires another thorough proofreading of its entire script (unless it gets better deeper into the game) in order to reach an acceptable standard. I fear that it may be left to the fans of the game to accomplish that, however, as ZA/UM seem to care very little at this point. This actually happened to Planescape: Torment--Disco Elysium's main inspiration--as well. There was a set of mods called Qwinn's[torment.fandom.com], which, among other things, fixed countless text errors. It was later partially incorporated[forums.beamdog.com] into the Enhanced Edition of PS:T released in 2017.

If there is anyone interested in starting a similar project for Disco Elysium, I would love to contribute. I just started playing the game recently and am taking screenshots of all typos and errors I come across. I understand that the text of the game can be edited, so this might be a fan project worth making, as the game certainly deserves better. ZA/UM can then integrate that mod into the game, if they are so inclined.

There is also the issue of censorship, which I will refrain from addressing any further, in case it leads to another contentious (and possibly virulent) socio-political discussion, which in turn leads to the thread being closed. Suffice it to say, a mature-rated game should not censor offensive words, as little as a mature-rated film or TV show should. Sometimes you need to trust the intelligence of your audience and their ability to distinguish between characters in a work of fiction using discriminatory slurs and the work itself being discriminatory in tone (which Disco Elysium clearly is not).

Controller UI Issues

The controller UI and functionality in Disco Elysium is, at best, adequate. There are still clear-cut bugs and several things that could be improved. It's not awful, per se, it's just extremely shoddy and unpolished.

Bugs

• Sometimes when you open the menu and go to the Inventory section, pressing RB/LB does not work properly. The game either changes tab in the wrong direction or moves two tabs in the pressed direction.
  
• Scrolling descriptions in the inventory with the right stick also moves the character. Text scroll should be on up/down and character rotation on left/right, how in the world did this issue get past the developers?

Needed QoL Improvements (Controller and Otherwise)

• Make it possible to go from top to bottom in vertical lists (such as the tasks) and, in the skill menu, also from the leftmost side to the rightmost side.
  
• Remember the current menu section when the menu is closed and then open it the next time the menu is accessed. The menu always opens the skill section as is.
  
• Improve the cursor visibility in certain places. It's almost impossible to see where the cursor is in the equipment slots and in the list of thoughts (which also need some sort of quick-scrolling, maybe on holding down a face button and pressing up/down).
  
• In the dialogue tree, there is a small but extremely annoying issue involving the game adding unnecessary scrolling space at the bottom. Ideally, the final row of the final dialogue choice should be where the dialogue tree ends, but, for some reason, the game sometimes adds additional space (that contains nothing). Compare image 1 and 2 here[imgur.com].

That's my list of ideas for improving the game, or a selection of them, at least. What changes would you like to see? (Avoid spoilers, please.)

[The Law]

this is so much text for "a few errors in a game with 1 million words of text and wahhh my controller doesnt work perfectly"

[LAN021]

Originally posted by It Really Do Be Like That:

this is so much text for "a few errors in a game with 1 million words of text and wahhh my controller doesnt work perfectly"

I pointed out actual bugs with the controller UI that happen constantly and the text errors are not few and far between, they are present in every other dialogue tree and are quite hard to ignore. If a game has a large amount of text, it, naturally, requires a greater degree of proofreading. The number of words makes no difference, if there are errors in basic menu elements, the game developers have not done their jobs when it comes to proofreading, editing and correcting the game's script.

If you are not going to contribute anything of value, why post at all?