BG:EE Beta - The Good, The Bad, The Buggy
Ulfgar_Torunn
Member Posts: 169
Greetings fellow Bhaalspawn!
I, like many of you, have been participating in the open beta for BG:EE over the last two weeks. Unfortunately I've been very busy lately and I didn't have time for a full run-through.
But in the time that I played I managed to gather some feedback that I think I should share with Beamdog and the Baldur's Gate/Infinity Engine community.
Some of these issues may have been fixed with the most recent update, but I checked the changelog and I don't think I saw any of these bugs mentioned.
Much of "The Bad" is complaints about the interface. I know that it will be fully customizable, but if I were a new player these are issues that I wouldn't want to deal with out-of-the-box.
Without further ado, here are the observations that I made while playing: the good, the bad, and the buggy.
The Good:
-I love that character portraits change color when moving items between inventories. Makes sorting between weapons and armor even easier, even for a veteran.
-The black borders around character/creature sprites makes the game look much sharper.
-The health bars are incredibly convenient. It's so nice to always know how healthy the enemy is without having to hover/tab every time I want to check. I don't like how digital they look (maybe they should look like glass vials filled with blood/potion), and I think they should only display when the player presses tab (either toggle or hold), but they really are helpful, especially in larger encounters.
-The new journal is super useful and looks great, even better in 2.0 since it's more legible. I love it.
-The addition of buttons on the spellbook screen is very helpful, especially for new players who may not understand D&Ds Vancian magic system.
-Being able to see the traversable parts of the map is incredibly useful. Really takes the guesswork out of walking behind obstacles, between elevations, etc.
The Bad:
-I really dislike the black & white screen on pausing. Black & white should be reserved for Time Stop effects. Draining the color out of the environment constantly is not pleasing to the eyes. It was never hard to tell when the game was paused anyways.
-The character record interface is just bad. I don't see why I can't just have all the information in one place like it's always been. Stylistically it doesn't fit with the skeuomorphic interfaces of the rest of the screens.
-Reputation is on the proficiencies subsection of the character record screen...?
-The travel button on the world map is an unnecessary extra step. All of the information I need is already displayed, and I can make a decision that way, why do I have to click twice?
-The 'world map' button isn't obvious enough on the map screen, and is in a weird position that is too far from the map button.
-The removal of scrolling while in dialog in favor of this new annex atop the dialog box forces me to make an extra click, and then scroll anyways.
-The quest popup window and the dialog window both look kind of out of place. They use a shade of bronze/gold that is different from the rest of the interface, and the sharp corners of the journal icon do not play nice with the rounded corners of the popup window.
-The red highlights instead of stone buttons in general. It just looks out of place. I'm hoping to see mods to return the character record interface to its previous state, and the character generation interface as well.
-Where are my tab/hover parchment scrolls??? These weird gray/brown boxes look completely out of place for the same reason that the red does.
The Buggy:
-Sprites for birds are often frozen in place (but still animated) outside of the bounds of the map. Seems to be the case everywhere.
-The experience bars on the character sheet display total experience gained out of total experience to the next level instead of experience gained this level. Therefore after first level the bar is always at least half full. If it works that way in SoA and ToB it will basically be useless, as it will be almost completely full after level ~15.
-A handful of items have their images displayed incorrectly in the description panel. Off the top of my head Kiel's Buckler and Spider's Bane, but I'm sure there are others.
-The game keeps crashing upon entering the Ice Cave on the third floor of Durlag's Tower. Why? No idea.
-The inventory screen stat preview (ie. Hitpoints, Armor Class, THAC0, Damage) displays incorrect information when affected by buffs/debuffs (it will calculate the preview value without considering the current status effects).
-The intro music and main menu music play simultaneously, i.e. the main menu music doesn't stop for the opening cutscene.
-Fighting styles list the weapon proficiency text (+1 to hit +2 damage +1/2 attack etc.) instead of listing the correct text on the proficiencies screen.
-Enemies on Basilus's map misbehave when aggroed, running away instead of attacking, until they are attacked.
-Some objects render on the incorrect layer. The best example is as you leave Candlekeep, there is a wooden beam that renders in front of the priest's spell sprite.
-Can't deselect items that you want to buy once you've exceeded your gold amount.
-The map screen 'display background' setting doesn't seem to be retained upon saving & loading.
-On the map screen many maps have small blue dots (part of the 'display background' option) scattered at various locations.
-Custom portraits go directly into the normal portrait selection interface. I have the Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale portrait packs installed: this is not okay. I don't have time to click through several hundred portraits instead of scrolling for the one I want.
-Durlag's Pride has a human shadow. Heh.
I hope it doesn't seem like I'm being overly critical, I'm simply a long time fan of the Baldur's Gate franchise and I want SoD to do as well as possible.
Hopefully this information is of use.
I, like many of you, have been participating in the open beta for BG:EE over the last two weeks. Unfortunately I've been very busy lately and I didn't have time for a full run-through.
But in the time that I played I managed to gather some feedback that I think I should share with Beamdog and the Baldur's Gate/Infinity Engine community.
Some of these issues may have been fixed with the most recent update, but I checked the changelog and I don't think I saw any of these bugs mentioned.
Much of "The Bad" is complaints about the interface. I know that it will be fully customizable, but if I were a new player these are issues that I wouldn't want to deal with out-of-the-box.
Without further ado, here are the observations that I made while playing: the good, the bad, and the buggy.
The Good:
-I love that character portraits change color when moving items between inventories. Makes sorting between weapons and armor even easier, even for a veteran.
-The black borders around character/creature sprites makes the game look much sharper.
-The health bars are incredibly convenient. It's so nice to always know how healthy the enemy is without having to hover/tab every time I want to check. I don't like how digital they look (maybe they should look like glass vials filled with blood/potion), and I think they should only display when the player presses tab (either toggle or hold), but they really are helpful, especially in larger encounters.
-The new journal is super useful and looks great, even better in 2.0 since it's more legible. I love it.
-The addition of buttons on the spellbook screen is very helpful, especially for new players who may not understand D&Ds Vancian magic system.
-Being able to see the traversable parts of the map is incredibly useful. Really takes the guesswork out of walking behind obstacles, between elevations, etc.
The Bad:
-I really dislike the black & white screen on pausing. Black & white should be reserved for Time Stop effects. Draining the color out of the environment constantly is not pleasing to the eyes. It was never hard to tell when the game was paused anyways.
-The character record interface is just bad. I don't see why I can't just have all the information in one place like it's always been. Stylistically it doesn't fit with the skeuomorphic interfaces of the rest of the screens.
-Reputation is on the proficiencies subsection of the character record screen...?
-The travel button on the world map is an unnecessary extra step. All of the information I need is already displayed, and I can make a decision that way, why do I have to click twice?
-The 'world map' button isn't obvious enough on the map screen, and is in a weird position that is too far from the map button.
-The removal of scrolling while in dialog in favor of this new annex atop the dialog box forces me to make an extra click, and then scroll anyways.
-The quest popup window and the dialog window both look kind of out of place. They use a shade of bronze/gold that is different from the rest of the interface, and the sharp corners of the journal icon do not play nice with the rounded corners of the popup window.
-The red highlights instead of stone buttons in general. It just looks out of place. I'm hoping to see mods to return the character record interface to its previous state, and the character generation interface as well.
-Where are my tab/hover parchment scrolls??? These weird gray/brown boxes look completely out of place for the same reason that the red does.
The Buggy:
-Sprites for birds are often frozen in place (but still animated) outside of the bounds of the map. Seems to be the case everywhere.
-The experience bars on the character sheet display total experience gained out of total experience to the next level instead of experience gained this level. Therefore after first level the bar is always at least half full. If it works that way in SoA and ToB it will basically be useless, as it will be almost completely full after level ~15.
-A handful of items have their images displayed incorrectly in the description panel. Off the top of my head Kiel's Buckler and Spider's Bane, but I'm sure there are others.
-The game keeps crashing upon entering the Ice Cave on the third floor of Durlag's Tower. Why? No idea.
-The inventory screen stat preview (ie. Hitpoints, Armor Class, THAC0, Damage) displays incorrect information when affected by buffs/debuffs (it will calculate the preview value without considering the current status effects).
-The intro music and main menu music play simultaneously, i.e. the main menu music doesn't stop for the opening cutscene.
-Fighting styles list the weapon proficiency text (+1 to hit +2 damage +1/2 attack etc.) instead of listing the correct text on the proficiencies screen.
-Enemies on Basilus's map misbehave when aggroed, running away instead of attacking, until they are attacked.
-Some objects render on the incorrect layer. The best example is as you leave Candlekeep, there is a wooden beam that renders in front of the priest's spell sprite.
-Can't deselect items that you want to buy once you've exceeded your gold amount.
-The map screen 'display background' setting doesn't seem to be retained upon saving & loading.
-On the map screen many maps have small blue dots (part of the 'display background' option) scattered at various locations.
-Custom portraits go directly into the normal portrait selection interface. I have the Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale portrait packs installed: this is not okay. I don't have time to click through several hundred portraits instead of scrolling for the one I want.
-Durlag's Pride has a human shadow. Heh.
I hope it doesn't seem like I'm being overly critical, I'm simply a long time fan of the Baldur's Gate franchise and I want SoD to do as well as possible.
Hopefully this information is of use.
Post edited by Ulfgar_Torunn on
6
Comments
This behaviour is toggleable. Shops also don't display a GP suffix in the items price, it does show it in v1.3 EE (It never showed GP for the gold in the Inventory UI though) but I think this was already reported.
Anyways, unless their devs really start putting in some serious time I think their still going to have lots of major issues by the time the deadline arrives. Edit: Their definitely making progress, I just don't think their pace is good enough to hit the deadline and have most major issues resolved.
- when selling items, you cannot open the gem bag to sell your jewelry from the inside as before. I have to pull them out, then sell to the merchant--thats not nice.
- may be my video card but, sometimes the black border of the characters on game screen blink as white (as if you hover the mouse over the character, but the mouse pointer is not even near it).
- similar as above, stealthed characters sometimes appear not translucid for one second or so, then goes translucid as usual (it keeps blinking that way, tho)
Everything else is super amazing, I'm really looking foward to it. ^^
That's an intentional design change and it doesn't make much sense.
You can right click on the bag and open it to sell from it directly for now.
So it's just Double-Click that doesn't work for opening it?
Not for now I guess. Hopefully it will be fixed, I think I remember seeing someone mention it already so hopefully it made it into redmine.