Gripes (especially regarding sorcerers)

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So far, I have encountered several annoying bugs, annoyances &/or bad programming. Here's a list of several bothersome issues related to my current game running a sorcerer PC.

1. Can't reform party.

2. Default behaviors (scripts) are relatively moronic at times (e.g., sorcerers charging into melee rather than casting spells, auto-casting "protection from good" when attacked by grey dwarves).

3. Characters don't obey assigned behaviors.

4. No auto-pause (to keep sorcerers with said moronic scripts from "disabling" traps by tripping them while charging into battle).

5. Sorcerers cannot trade in useless spells when leveling up.

6. Sorcerers can no longer summon familiars with thieving abilities (e.g., pixies).

7. Disable device -- does not employ take 20 rules.

8. If a sorcerer is assigned the task of casting a spell, and if the selected target can't be reached (e.g., when another party member is blocking access to a touch attack), the sorcerer will sit there and do nothing, waiting for access to the target.

9. Melf's acid arrow requires a successful ranged attack role, making low-level sorcerers significantly less useful in ranged combat.

I'm sure I'll come up with more, but this is what is bugging me at the moment.

 

1. You'll be able to once you reach Neverwinter. The system is stupid, but it works I guess...

2. Not all spells are useful all the time, especially at lower levels, melee is inevitable for any caster at low level.

3. They should, it might be you're accidentally miss-reading the purpose of the behavior. (ieuppet mode = it doesn't act on it's own, you "puppet" it.. puppet mode must be off in order for the NPC to act on it's own).
The AI is still not up to par with... anything... really.

4. I wish I could find auto-pause

5. Sorcerers have never been able to "trade-in" spells. There's a sorc variant in one of the D&D magic books, but variants aren't being used in this game - otherwise I'd take the pally variant .

6. Summoning familiars like that was only a 2e thing, I'm not sure why NWN1 allowed it. In fact a beholder eyeball familar required a level 7 feat to get.

7. Take 20 technically only applies when there is no negative effect for failing. Thusly you can't take 20 on moving silently/hiding/disable device, but you can take 20 on search checks.

8. Spells aren't stopped by people in the way, are you sure it's not something different? I've run into this bug with running into melee, I've had to manually run around a group of friendlies to get an attack around the back of an unfriendly... would've hoped the AI wouldn't get WORSE from NWN1, (it's improved in some respects, but worsened in others).

9. Melf's Acid Arrow has always required a ranged touch attack - fortunately armor and natural armor and shields don't apply to touch attacks, only dex, insight and dodge bonus to AC applies. Most things thusly have 10 touch AC giving you a 50/50 chance to hit before BAB and dex.

Heh, Hope this clears some stuff up for ya .

 

A sorcerer should use at least some ranged offensive spells before running headlong into melee.

In puppet mode, characters still move to follow the point person, and still initiate actions.

They could in NWN1. I exected and would have preferred consistency with NWN1. If they did not plan to maintain consistency with NWN1, they should have provided some information to this effect.

It was an NWN1 thing (not just a 2e thing). Since this is NWN2, I would have preferred consistency in this regard.

NWN1 provided a take 20 for disabling devices. Again, I would have preferred consistency.

I think you misread me. The spell is not stopped. The problem is the script that leaves the caster in limbo until he can perform the assigned action.

I'm not sure what you mean by "always," but it never missed in any of the BG games, and I don't recall it ever missing in NWN1 either.

 

It is my understanding that there are a few million significant rule changes between BG (2e) and NWN 2 (3.5e). Thus, comparing the two is rather pointless.

 

From my understanding, NWN1 deviated quite a bit from the 3E rules. With NWN2 they were determined to get things back in line with the rules (3.5E this time) where ever possible. There are some things that are still different - such as Knockdown, I believe - but in general, from what I've read (haven't played the game yet) things seem much more in line.

As omnigodly rightfully pointed out, most of those things are what they are meant to be. If you check the SRD here, you'll find more information about most of this.

 

Well, first off, and meaning no offense to anyone who is into PNP D&D, I personally don't care a bit about 2e or 3e or 3.5e or whatever. I'm interested in a fun CRPG, with an emphasis on "fun" and "C." Most of the other D&D-based CRPGs change things in favor of a better CRPG experience. In my opinion, for my play style, this one didn't. As a money-paying consumer, I'm disappointed.

And rules aside, the bad programming is still very annoying.

 

The BG's and NWN's are D&D games and they can't be D&D games unless they abide by the rules of D&D :-/. (This is why DDO is the worste excuse for a D&D based CRPG I've ever tried to play. If only they had just stuck making the RPG about the RP and less about the Action.)

As for knockdown, in NWN2 it's the same thing as trip without the chance of being tripped back if you fail.

 

One of my biggest gripes is related to party control. The 1998 Baldur's Gate series had an infinitely better and easier party control system.

Unless the tactic I want to use is "Everyone charge like raging monkeys!!" it's almost not worth it to micromanage your party members. I mean, I can't even hotkey (that I know of) commands like "Hold ground," or "follow me." So if I want the enemy to come to me I have to pause the game, right click... wait, navigate to the broadcast commands menu, navigate to the hold ground option. Unpause game. That takes like 5 seconds every time. So most the time I just let them run into the room full of enemies only to get their a$$es handed to them.

Another option is to turn the AI off, but then you have to tell each party member exactly what to do, or they just stand there like a bafoon.

That wouldn't be so bad if I could select all party members and give them a command. Having to select each of them individually (and having the camera pop around each time I select a different party member) gets really exhausting. It just isn't worth it.

In Baldur's Gate I could easily turn AI on and off. I could select all my melee characters and tell them to charge into battle when it made sense to do so -- and keep my casters in the back to safely cast spells. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but it worked and rarely seemed like a chore. I'd take the BG/Infinity setup over what I've got in NWN2 any day of the week. And god do I hate it when my NWN2 party members realize there's an enemy in the next room and just run in there by themselves only to become surrounded by 8 enemies!! Grrr!

Yeah, I think I can safely say that I'm not a fan of the way party control works in NWN2. Didn't like it much in NWN 1 either, but at least I could hotkey some basic party commands. Plus, I just had lower expectations of NWN henchman, because they were supposed to be henchman rather than party members.

 

It's NWN though, not BG so is more geared towards having a single guy and the rest following.

Honestly, can't you accept the game for what it is instead of constantly hoping for a BG3?

 

Well, the game has oft been called a "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate," so I don't think the comparison is inappropriate.

That said, regardless of the above statement, my point is that it is a major pain in the butt to maintain what I would call "control" of my party. Just because it's NWN doesn't mean this isn't a valid gripe

 

It can be awkward to control your party. Like Neeshka running off headlong into 10 bad guys and aggroing loads more mobs, completely off her own back, then dying. That's happened to me a time or two. But that's exactly why they've given you the option to tweak behaviour how you want it. I don't think you'll get an RPG like this, with this kind of setup and camera angles, with BG's party control system. It wouldn't be possible.

 

Well tweak the behaviour to how you want it then, don't turn it off altogether. The idea of the party members here is to be mostly automated, like hencman from NWN, but you control how you want them to behave. It's not meant to be like party members from 2D RPG's.

 

In theory, yes. But it doesn't actually work that way. Characters in puppet mode still move to follow the selected character, still initiate combat actions, etc.

Yes, they would be. Everything I griped about was present in one of those earlier games, and they were still "D&D." I'm just saying I wish they had adapted the PNP rules for the CRPG format, just as they did with all the other games.

 

Man, I think I'll be waiting until a few more patches come out before I shell out a month's savings to buy this game as it sounds a bit buggy.

 

That's kind of my impression, too. I am sure it wil be a great game eventually, but at the moment it seems that it still needs some polishing.

 

There are so many minor little bugs that just annoy me and make the game seem of poor quality.

1: dozens of enemies and NPCs with the Aasamir voiceset. This is a very amateur mistake that one finds in many low-grade modules for NWN. It's the first voiceset in the toolset when you create an NPC and unless you change it it gets used. Very amateur and yet Obsidian made this mistake dozens of times.

2: graphics glitches abound: have a character enter stealth and they go translucent. Then they attack and remain translucent. They are no longer in stealth but they look like they are.

Cast stoneskin and then use the bard song that gives damage reduction. It gives the appearance of stoneskin but wears off after 4 rounds at which point the stoneskin appearance goes away, making it look like your character's stoneskin is gone even though it's still there.

There is no persistent graphic effect for the Fear spell, so enemies that are feared just run around and you're not sure if they're feared or not.

3: lots of, I suppose, minor things were left out: RDDs no longer get wings; Pale Masters no longer get a bone arm. There's a tiefling NPC who refers to her horns and tail, but she has no tail.