Hexxat Rant [All of the spoilers]
Pantalion
Member Posts: 2,137
Okay, I've now taken Hexxat through from introduction to end, and I can't hold it in anymore, I needed a full thread for this.
I hate her.
I seriously, seriously hate her.
Her quests are buggy as anything. Undead monks? Not actually undead. In fact most of the undead people she runs into in tombs aren't undead.
She's buggy too! If she's stunned she can't die, making her the ultimate tank so long as you keep hitting her with power word Stun.
She's the only NPC for whom the choice is tedious micromanagement or a mediocre thief with terrible stats.
Bunch of treasure items you can pick up on her quests, golden statues, bolts of silk, can you sell them? Nope! Enjoy your clutter!
Infinite XP generator in one of her SoA quests. Any limit to that? Nope. Spiders forever!
She's a thief. Any of her quests that aren't full of unpickable doors, undisarmable traps, undispellable illusions and everything else that makes her choice of class pointless? Well... Maybe... the... second one?
Mandatory section in ToB for being so very special/dead that she can walk through a necromantic field and be attacked by a bone fiend she then has to train back to her vastly more useful party mates? Just lay down a negative plane protection and walk through it? Nope! Just like you can't drop a mind shield and walk through her special magical forcefield of emo when you first get her.
She railroads the personalities of so. many. other. NPCs. Aerie? Aggressive? Anomen, the (Chaotic) Neutral cleric, gets so mad about hanging with a vampire he says he'll stab you with his sword? He was sure okay with dealing with Bodhi's faction earlier! Viconia agreeing how hard it is to be a woman? Witch please, send her to the Demonweb pits and fetch me another manslave.
And worst of all? Somehow, for some unfathomable reason, she turns CHARNAME into an idiot. Whoever wrote Hexxat's dialogue had not even the barest glimmer that someone might not be fascinated by the emo black lesbian vampire.
"Ermagerd! Clara! I am shocked and amazed! I have no calm, sensible response to the fact a vampire just ate my party mate!"
"What is this, an unfamiliar word? My options are apathy, ignorance, or rudeness! Please tell me what this word I can understand from context means, Hexxat."
"What's this?! Talking to Cabrina and she's flirting? For some reason I care and am unable to be professional and civil to this person!"
"Oh, three options? All of them daft, so Hexxat can tell me off for all three for being wrong in different ways, and most of them fitting the 'glib' conversation option you can find occasionally as a one-off option in regular conversation dialogue?"
"WHAT?! Remember the names of four people I just met five minutes ago? And remember a mission briefing I had this morning? If only I had a journal, in which I wrote important information I might need to remember, or could retain information longer than thirty six seconds. Instead I must go to the library and pick up a cheat sheet."
"What?! Your deal with Laloch was to make yourself human?! I certainly did not already know this from a previous conversation and can only express my surprise!"
Oh goodness! You'll die if you turn human?! Well I don't know how the ladies handle this but I sure as anything can't say "Cool, enjoy the afterlife. laters", or "About time, bugger off." No, instead I must have three or four options all detailing exactly how much I treasured your company, and if I say I thought our time together was okay, of course I mean it in a romantic sense because a guy valuing the time spent with his female work colleague is totally pining for some necrophilic romance that can never be, because eternal undead platonic friendship does not exist.
No other EE NPC derails everyone else so badly. Even Dorn gives more leeway in characterisation, and the game literally forces you to talk about glorying in blood to recruit him.
Damnit, woman, I have 6 more intelligence, 7 more wisdom a Charisma of 22, and each of my thieving skills is 10 points higher than yours. If anyone is going to be pulling out the trivia and giving best practices, it should probably be the one that's smarter than Elminster. And if you're going to die by turning yourself mortal, pass the vampiric taint over this way before you do, I deserve an extra 4 dexterity for putting up with being a drooling idiot for so long.
[/rant]
So... Yeah, am I just missing a huge amount if CHARNAME is female? Am I only one who has a problem with the restrictive dialogue choices? What are your thoughts?
I hate her.
I seriously, seriously hate her.
Her quests are buggy as anything. Undead monks? Not actually undead. In fact most of the undead people she runs into in tombs aren't undead.
She's buggy too! If she's stunned she can't die, making her the ultimate tank so long as you keep hitting her with power word Stun.
She's the only NPC for whom the choice is tedious micromanagement or a mediocre thief with terrible stats.
Bunch of treasure items you can pick up on her quests, golden statues, bolts of silk, can you sell them? Nope! Enjoy your clutter!
Infinite XP generator in one of her SoA quests. Any limit to that? Nope. Spiders forever!
She's a thief. Any of her quests that aren't full of unpickable doors, undisarmable traps, undispellable illusions and everything else that makes her choice of class pointless? Well... Maybe... the... second one?
Mandatory section in ToB for being so very special/dead that she can walk through a necromantic field and be attacked by a bone fiend she then has to train back to her vastly more useful party mates? Just lay down a negative plane protection and walk through it? Nope! Just like you can't drop a mind shield and walk through her special magical forcefield of emo when you first get her.
She railroads the personalities of so. many. other. NPCs. Aerie? Aggressive? Anomen, the (Chaotic) Neutral cleric, gets so mad about hanging with a vampire he says he'll stab you with his sword? He was sure okay with dealing with Bodhi's faction earlier! Viconia agreeing how hard it is to be a woman? Witch please, send her to the Demonweb pits and fetch me another manslave.
And worst of all? Somehow, for some unfathomable reason, she turns CHARNAME into an idiot. Whoever wrote Hexxat's dialogue had not even the barest glimmer that someone might not be fascinated by the emo black lesbian vampire.
"Ermagerd! Clara! I am shocked and amazed! I have no calm, sensible response to the fact a vampire just ate my party mate!"
"What is this, an unfamiliar word? My options are apathy, ignorance, or rudeness! Please tell me what this word I can understand from context means, Hexxat."
"What's this?! Talking to Cabrina and she's flirting? For some reason I care and am unable to be professional and civil to this person!"
"Oh, three options? All of them daft, so Hexxat can tell me off for all three for being wrong in different ways, and most of them fitting the 'glib' conversation option you can find occasionally as a one-off option in regular conversation dialogue?"
"WHAT?! Remember the names of four people I just met five minutes ago? And remember a mission briefing I had this morning? If only I had a journal, in which I wrote important information I might need to remember, or could retain information longer than thirty six seconds. Instead I must go to the library and pick up a cheat sheet."
"What?! Your deal with Laloch was to make yourself human?! I certainly did not already know this from a previous conversation and can only express my surprise!"
Oh goodness! You'll die if you turn human?! Well I don't know how the ladies handle this but I sure as anything can't say "Cool, enjoy the afterlife. laters", or "About time, bugger off." No, instead I must have three or four options all detailing exactly how much I treasured your company, and if I say I thought our time together was okay, of course I mean it in a romantic sense because a guy valuing the time spent with his female work colleague is totally pining for some necrophilic romance that can never be, because eternal undead platonic friendship does not exist.
No other EE NPC derails everyone else so badly. Even Dorn gives more leeway in characterisation, and the game literally forces you to talk about glorying in blood to recruit him.
Damnit, woman, I have 6 more intelligence, 7 more wisdom a Charisma of 22, and each of my thieving skills is 10 points higher than yours. If anyone is going to be pulling out the trivia and giving best practices, it should probably be the one that's smarter than Elminster. And if you're going to die by turning yourself mortal, pass the vampiric taint over this way before you do, I deserve an extra 4 dexterity for putting up with being a drooling idiot for so long.
[/rant]
So... Yeah, am I just missing a huge amount if CHARNAME is female? Am I only one who has a problem with the restrictive dialogue choices? What are your thoughts?
24
Comments
It's not even just her personality (which is dull) it's, like you said, the dialogue options provided. You're basically either fascinated or stupid. It's endlessly irritating.
As for what's coming next...
Having said that, you're not far off. There's plenty of blame to go around: Dave Gross provided the story outline, having apparently failed to realize that completing Hexxat's quest the "right" way costs you a party member (which, given that she's the only Evil thief in the game and that's the entire reason she exists, is kind of a problem); Andrew Foley wrote the dialogue, which aims for Rita-Moreno-as-Carmen-Sandiego and hits HeadSix from Battlestar Galactica instead, where she's so opaque she ends up saying nothing at all; Philip Daigle oversaw implementation and didn't notice that Hexxat's missions are more typical of an assassin than a thief (which is how she was being marketed).
When playing Hexxat makes you wish Valen were EE-compatible, that's a pretty big warning sign that something's gone terribly wrong.
The only problem I got with her was related to SCS, when she was afflicted by Cursed Wounds from the Clay Golems she cannot be resurrected because as soon as she rose from the dead with 1 HP, she is unable to regenerate and die again in an infinite loop.
Enjoyed it far more than the one and only time I went to the tomb and actually took the idiot along.
I cannot express how much I didn't care about anything she did, said or the quests, purely box ticking and none of BG has ever felt like that.
I get that Mask thing stuck in my inventory.
With a quick visit to WK for a potion case and an ammo belt, plus buyable gem bag and scroll case she can keep her BoH................I hope she is very happy with it over the eons she will be stuck in a coffin.
Hexxat : I have a mother.
Charname: Fascinating. What was she like?
Hexxat: I don't want to talk about her.
Hexxat: I'm from Chult.
Charname: How very interesting. What's Chult like?
Hexxat: We don't talk much.
Charname: How intriguing!
The thing that annoys me about Beamdog's response to the widespread dislike of the character is that they have allowed the opinions of a small number of trolls to stand for the opinions of the majority. I'm not a homophone or a racist and I *am* a fan of vampire fiction -- I'd be happy to play Sookie to her Eric, Louis to her Lestat. But It just didn't care about whether *this* character lived or died. (yes, I know)
When people were unhappy with the IWD expansion, Black Isle created the Trials of Luremaster as a free download to make up for the perceived lack of content. When BG2 fans were upset that only the pre order folks got the robe of vecna merchant, they gave it everyone. Other companies have done a better job of responding to critiques and I wish Beamdog would follow suit.
And I like @typo_tilly 's idea. Take her to cleric, the fog lifts and we have a neutral thief.
However, the thing that's most frustrating about their major failure with Hexxat, as an inappropriate character with risibly implausible interactions and a buggy implementation of an unimaginatively repetitive questline leading to a nonsensical resolution, is that in other cases Beamdog have actually done much more competent work instead of this garbage.
They actually display a lot of creative talent some of the time, but they don't seem to know when to scrap poor work. Maybe they just need a stronger editorial function.
So the end result is me not wanting to run through Hexxat's buggy, poorly-written content a second time, and at a loss as to a replacement thief, to the point where I go looking for mods and they're either not EE-compatible or just as bad in terms of the writing. And that's the last thing Beamdog should've been willing to settle for.
And yeah, I have to agree with @typo_tilly: if they were going to fix her, they would have by now.
To manage my own cognitive dissonance, I just ctrl-Y Clara before she has a chance to say anything and continue onward. Not even the coffin of holding is worth it for me.
I gave her a couple of tries; first time as soon as I realized 'Oh no... yet another vampire pseudo anti-hero character in pop culture I'm supposed to feel sympathetic towards'... I killed her before letting her out of the tomb. She's also a clearly evil vampire that charname just witnessed using a human being as nothing more than a dominated tool and food, then she wipes her mouth and says 'ok let's go, where's my cloak so I can get out of here'; most good or even neutral parties would consider her a foe at that point, especially given that unless you make specific choices for the rest of the game (side with Bodhi) known vampires by default are going to be foes.
Second time I tried to force myself to take her on board, rationalizing it with 'charname feels responsible for letting a vamp get revived' or some such.
Then her dialogs/banters with other PCs started. A lot of them felt like:
NPC X: 'i don't trust you, you're a vampire, i saw what you did and what you continue to do when you're hungry'
Hexxat: 'stop oppressing me you ethnocentric bitch, I'm just misunderstood!'
I couldn't take it, left her behind at the Copper Coronet.
Besides that, her quests are not *so* bad. I mean, I prefer exploring a tomb than herding 8 cats in a huge map where you cannot haste (becausz wild zone). Hexxat's quest might not please you but it is still light years behind the Cats Quest in terms of annoyingness
I'd also mention that, though buggy, her quests have many interesting, small variation.
For example, in her last SoA quest, did you know that the furious djinni would not appear if you did not pick the lamp from the chest in the first area? That the gold boy statue thing would weigh 1000 instead of 2 when walking in the spike area (same quest)? That if you turn back to flesh the mage statues in that same room, they would put up a fight and once they're dead a secret chest would appear (with boots of Elvenkind within, quite a nice item to get early game though not game-changing).
Now I know of, and agree with, the problems with her poorly-written dialogues. Beamdog did not do their best performance on that one. But I cannot say it is that terrible. I mean, I've many NPCs mods and some of them had yet-unreached levels of terrible writing.
And I would mention one last point. You may criticize Hexxat for her dialogues. I'd say there is one NPC that is even worse about that, and he is from the original BG2. Valygar litterally has no personality, very few, not very good banters.
It is true that the dialogue+ micromanagement (which you may not like, though I do, I find Hexxat overall gameplay more interesting than that of Korgan for example, who really is a click-and-wait character)+ bugs (particularly in her ToB quest) are quite annoying. But saying that all about Hexxat is shitty is abusive.
Oh and simply the fact that you can get a bag of Holding early game is an huge point to me.
By the way I would certainly not reproach Beamdog with all of the bugs involved with Hexxat (the character itself, not the quests). She has very unique mechanics and thus bugs are to be expected. Oh and as for the "Just stun her at 1HP she cannot die". That's a bug exploit, and if you are unhappy with it just don't use it. I never used it purposedly, and it happens really rarely if you do not trigger it. I mean, I won't tell you how to play your game, that's your call entirely, but if you are unhappy with something YOU trigger on purpose (most of the time), then just don't do it. It's like those occasionnal debates we have had about how "cheesy" are this and that item. Well, if you dislike using the Shield of Balduran against beholder just don't buy it. If you find that going invisible as many times as you want with SotM is cheesy, then remove the invisibility component, or just don't spam the invisibility buy reequipping the staff.
TL;DR: I am not entirely satisfied with Hexxat, but I'd not say she is quite as terrible as you guys tend to say.
I don't know nothing about Hexxat, as I don't play EE.
But to compare the work of official developers to the one of modders is not fair.
Everyone with the tecnical knowledge can create a NPC mod, in few hours or much more time. With no quality control. And he share it for free, don't ask money for it.
There are bad mod NPCs and really good ones out there, some at the level or better then official NPCs (original and I suppose EE). Every mod NPC is a gift to the gaming community, if you like it you take it, if you dislike you just don't download it. For free.
The new EE NPCs are part of the reason why people pay EE more then original or if upgrade from original pay the whole price. Compare Hexxat with Valygar is fair becouse they are the work of two official developer teams.
And compare them with the choices a player can do in the game is a whole different thing.
There is a lot to blame about the work of the original developers, bugs never fixed (or fixed by modders), inaccuracy in manual and ingame descriptions and a lot more. And there is a lot to praise becouse they made one of the best CRPG.
I can not praise or blame EE developers, since I don't own it, I don't play it and I don't know it.
And I don't know if the negative opinions I read here are prevailing in the EE users community or just the opinions of a few.
But comparing the work of professionals who sell their work to the one of volunteers who give it for free is not fair.
And overall, one optional cat quest with mediocre reward and an absurd trigger for quest continuation are annoying, but they offend me less than four glitch filled gimmicky quests where CHARNAME is transformed into a moron, has to fight Mind Flayers, Level Draining Undead, high level instant kill monks and none of the ghosts are undead. I know that it's supposed to. I've never seen the furious Djinni, despite taking the lamp, never been weighed down in the needlessly undisarmable trap, and never triggered the statues, despite actively trying to trigger all three events. Here I would note that "Crappy NPC I Downloaded For Free" and "Poorly Written NPC I Paid For And Turns Up In Every Game And Have To Take Along For The Bag Of Holding" are a little different from one another, and Hexxat in many places is downright worse than many mod NPCs, particularly where CHARNAME responses are concerned. That Hexxat isn't Saerileth doesn't mean she's not pretty bad herself. Really? I found him far, far more useful than Hexxat, his dungeon is one of my favourites, his plotline dealing with Lavok alone is very humanising, and while quiet (asides from when being bullied by the ladies) he doesn't cause CHARNAME's brain to forcibly eject from their ears, Anomen to start talking about using swords, Minsc to be incompetent at dealing with vampires, Korgan to git scurred, or Viconia to start complaining about how hard it is being a woman. He also doesn't tell you that you're missing out on his "awesome powers" or "losing a powerful ally" if you ditch him, despite having virtually nothing to offer to any party that includes Imoen, Jan or a larcenous CHARNAME.
Having less to say isn't automatically bad. ... No, I can't agree here. I concede that Korgan is very much a fire and forget character, who barely even needs to be told to berserk occasionally... and that's beautiful. I play mage heavy parties of six, having someone who is actually useful - aka not a single class thief whose quests don't even have thief skill requirements - without having to babysit is great. Hexxat isn't just high maintenance, she's a fraction as useful. Yes, her purse is her best feature. It's a shame we can't just have Clara start out holding it so we can bypass the whole first dungeon. ... No, I certainly would expect Beamdog to create a decently bug free experience with Hexxat. Most of the bugs with her quests aren't anything to do with mechanics, just sloppy mistakes that slipped through QA. And if they can't produce a reasonably bug free vampire, then the answer is simply "don't make a vampire", it's not like she even displays any but the barest vampiric traits, that the party needs a vampire in the first place, or that her vampirism adds anything to her plot. Fun fact: I never did.
Funner fact: I never had to. She was constantly, constantly tanking entire groups of enemies, either in human or mist form. She cannot be chunked, she cannot permanently die, the script is slow enough she can easily take multiple hits at 1 HP before turning gassy, and her saves against hold and other disabling effects are pretty terrible. The only way you can't "exploit" the fact that she's broken is to simply never use her.
And why was it even necessary? If she was simply immune to chunking and just "appeared" in her coffin instead of being stuck at 1 HP forever? Or her mist form was undispellably invisible or untargettable like the bats are, then we could have at least avoided some of the worst excesses, but they didn't. The unnecessarily glitchy, buggy cherry atop the unnecessarily glitchy, buggy NPC cake.
First of all, the comparative approach doesn't solve anything. Even if Valygar is as poorly-written as Hexxat (I wouldn't know, I've never had cause to use him), how does that make Hexxat any more palatable? How does that make her story any less riddled with plotholes and inconsistencies? How does that make her dialogue any less opaque?
That aside, good/neutral players don't have to use Valygar in the first place, there are more than enough alternatives for characters in that mold. The whole reason Hexxat exists in the first place is because there weren't any evil thieves in the game. For better or worse, she's it - that's what rankles a lot of people who've criticized her. Like Dorn, this character was marketed as having been designed to round out an evil party, and as @Pantalion is absolutely correct to point out, she's paid content. The fact that you're comparing her to crappy NPC mods implies that expecting a modicum of professionalism from actual game developers is somehow asking too much? That, I don't understand.
Bugs and glitches can be fixed over time, that's not necessarily a dealbreaker; but if Hexxat is good for anything, it's in demonstrating how low a priority Beamdog placed on having solid writing for their new content. And when you're "enhancing" one of the most popular RPGs ever made, and you don't even bother trying to meet the standards of the original? You're going to catch hell for it, and you're going to deserve it. That's just how it is.
Now I admit my comparison with mod NPC was not appropriate. But once again I find Valygar to be just as poorly written, and he is paid content, I find Cernd to be much more underwhelming, and that's only BG2. Well, that's my opinion and I get that you do not share it. And anyway it cannot excuse Hexxat. That was more of a response to the "Enhanced content being of lower quality than original content".
By the way I do not understand your "no thief requirements quest" point.
No quest actually has a class requirement, it is all about roleplay. Korgan does not HAVE to be a berzerker to pick a book from a tomb, Jan does not HAVE to be a thief/illusionist to go find some polymorphed mind flayer in the sewers. And I find that roleplay-wise, being a tomb-pillaging thief sounds find roleplay-wise, and there is a rather big need of a thief in her quest, because of the traps. There is one undisarmable trap in her quest, and it's just a spiked area, just like that of Bodhi's lair.
In my first post I did say I was not entirely satisfied with Hexxat, but I am not satisfied either with ALL of the vanilla content. I am not seeking excuses for how much of a mess Hexxat is, I am just saying the "Spit-at-Beamdog-and-Worship-the-Oh-So-Perfect-vanilla-content" attitude is not legitimate, because Vanilla content is not as perfect as some tell us around here.
As for the "not useful at all", well I have to agree she is not very useful as such lategame, but making her a shadowdancer really changed that. And it's very easy to do those slight tweaks with EEkeeper.
And I already told that Vanilla is not perfect.
I agree whith the sentence that I have quoted.
But I think that original developers have an advantage that makes me somehow forgive their errors, they invented the game, without it all the fun we have after all this years would not be possible.
Not that Beamgog could do it again..... but who only enhance, and ask money for that, has not that advantage, is supposed to enhance in a good way.
I let EE players judge about, as is something I have no way to do.