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.

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. (ie:Puppet 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 :) .

Not all spells are useful all the time, especially at lower levels, melee is inevitable for any caster at low level.A sorcerer should use at least some ranged offensive spells before running headlong into melee.
Puppet 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 ownIn puppet mode, characters still move to follow the point person, and still initiate actions.
Sorcerers have never been able to "trade-in" spells.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.
Summoning familiars like that was only a 2e thing, I'm not sure why NWN1 allowed it.It was an NWN1 thing (not just a 2e thing). Since this is NWN2, I would have preferred consistency in this regard.
Take 20 technically only applies when there is no negative effect for failing.NWN1 provided a take 20 for disabling devices. Again, I would have preferred consistency.
Spells aren't stopped by people in the way, are you sure it's not something different?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.
Melf's Acid Arrow has always required a ranged touch attackI'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 (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) here, you'll find more information about most of this.

They made a few reversions to the by-the-book D&D rules, some of which make the game less exciting. I might agree with such points as disable device use, and less powerful familiars (No, really, in NWN did anyone ever pick a familiar other than a pixie? A high-level rogue in your pocket), but some are silly.

Melf's Acid Arrow, while it does require a ranged touch by the book, makes for a rather poor battle spell in a game where you fight more than one enemy per "session".

And some things I'd love to have by the rules didn't make it - spell books for assassins and blackguards is a pretty big one. If after all the complaints and wishes they managed to not give that issue any consideration, then I don't know what they tried to make of that game.

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? :shake:

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.

^ The AI can be turned off (character sheet - behaviour - puppet mode), leaving you with exactly the system the BG/IWD/PST games had, only without the ability to frame-select all of your party at once.

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.

^ The AI can be turned off (character sheet - behaviour - puppet mode), leaving you with exactly the system the BG/IWD/PST games had, only without the ability to frame-select all of your party at once.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. 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&DYes, 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.

^ I noticed that they still follow, but for the life of them will not initiate combat even when my little girl rogue is getting raped in the bum by four burly men and the party is standing ten feet away.

The whole behaviour AI is glitchy, and I sure hope they'll be fixing it. But seeing how they have nearly everything about the game to fix, you never know when they'll get to it. :skeptic:

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.

I noticed that they still follow, but for the life of them will not initiate combat even when my little girl rogue is getting raped in the bum by four burly men and the party is standing ten feet away.IIRC, that is the definition of puppet mode in the manual.

^ The game defines it as "The character will not use any Artificial Intelligence", and I sure as hell hoped that would mean they're just standing there like the plastic mannequins that they look like. Alas.

The AI is horrid. There's no other word to describe it. The party control is just as horrid. Whose idea was it to give you control of everyone, but not let you frame-select your party? I know, it's just KotOR's legacy that they didn't bother to modify. Half of the gameplay I struggle through battles, trying to prevent my characters from being slaughtered because there seems to be no reasonable logic in the commands.

If I broadcast a stand your ground, the character who was in control during broadcast will follow as soon as I switch to someone else. So I leave the party behind, and lead my rogue to scout, then switch to my fighter for an ambush setup, and what? My rogue suddenly runs to the fighter! Great. Neurotically hitting spacebar to correct the situation.

The only way to make sure that everyone follows is to broadcast a follow from every character, or click on everyone individually and tell them to follow. Idiotic. And why can't I click on my character to select them? KotOR's legacy.

Turn the AI on, and the only thing they do is commit suicide as they drink all of my potions while executing their [bleep]ed up pathfinding scripts and collecting AoOs from everyone around.

Attack nearest in NWN2 means not "Quickly help me deal with this one remaining enemy next to you", but "Hey, why don't you go attack the dozen guys standing half a mile away that we can barely see?" One more case of suicide by AI.

Why am I impeded by this misconception of a battle system during my progress through a linear storyline? I have no idea.

I'm sure they'll patch the AI (or I hope so anyway, because it can be annoying when Neeshka keeps trying to tank all nearby mobs on her own, instead of just hitting mine or Khelgar's target).

Anyway, what's 'AoOs'?

Attacks of Opportunity, what you get when you run around the enemy like an addled monkey instead of attacking them.

Maybe I haven't played enough, but I haven't had any problem with characters running all over hell's half-acre. I haven't even modified the default behavior.

I think the default is protect my main character and that seems to keep everyone close by...

I haven't tried to keep people in one place while another scouts though, so that's probably part of it. The "track" ability has just about obviated that for me so far. I know where the monsters are before I can see them (even behind doors), and even though I don't know what they might be exactly, I have a pretty good idea based on where I am.

Have you not been near some enemies, then had your party members run off to attack them when you didn't want them to? So you select the offending party member(s), only to have your main character go chasing after him? That's happened a few times to me. They also take it upon themselves to use your healing potions when they land themselves in the ****. Starting with your best ones, then working down to 'Cure Light Wounds'...

It's a fun game, but can be a bit annoying (that's probably part of its charm, when an easy fight is made challenging because of party member behaviour :p )

Bah. This game sounds terrible!

I think the default is protect my main character and that seems to keep everyone close by...For me the point is not to keep them close by ;)

I'm trying to maximize the advantage of my two rogues' sneak attacks with bows, while luring the enemy into melee with the fighter, so I need to keep the rogues well out of reach.

I guess if you play a ranger, you have less problems with fighting, thanks to high BAB and higher direct damage of weapons, but I try to make use of every arrow shot. In essence I spend the battles paused, since every round I need to pause, right click on every enemy to evaluate their HP, choose the most likely target to go down next, and attack it. Really missing NWN's Uninjured-Near Death highlights, but since this game is missing everything good that NWN had, I'm not even asking why or hoping it'll be fixed anymore.

They also take it upon themselves to use your healing potions when they land themselves in the ****. Actually, I keep all the good stuff for myself, which is why I almost always have my main charater selected: I don't want him guzzling all the goodies :lol:

Really missing NWN's Uninjured-Near Death highlights, but since this game is missing everything good that NWN had, I'm not even asking why or hoping it'll be fixed anymore.Yeah, I miss that too. Even in the KoTORs the selected enemy had a health bar didn't they?

Yeah, I miss that too. Even in the KoTORs the selected enemy had a health bar didn't they?Yep. You only had to put your mouse over any creature to see the healthbar.

Here I rightclick, then the stupid context menu pops up. If I increase the delay it doesn't pop up fast enough to give out commands efficiently. Either way it's bad.

So far, i've found this game incredibly easy, in comparison to other DnD titles this is a walkthrough... so far. The K.O.T.O.R system has been implemented unsuitably, characters are basicly immortal as there is no permanent death, if for instance your in combat and your party is all but destroyed, simply save your game and reload and your party is magically revived, though they have little health, with characters like Qara all you need is a few seconds to mop up.I also find there is a lack of "epic" memorable battles, remember Kangaax, Irenicus and the Demogorgon? Remember frank Horrigan and the master? Remeber Sarevok? You bet your ass you rembember those guys, but so far no bosses of merit have been seen in this title.

Heh, word up.

Low on hitpoints? Walk ten feet away from the enemy and rest...

Is anyone else annoyed by the lack of real freedom? You get one or two big quests at a time and can only really follow them and not do much else. There are very few operable doors in towns and cities (most of them locked and unpickable until you do this or that). You can't really speak to anyone but the main quest givers. Most shopkeepers seem to be outside (why? I don't understand that). I've run into 3 party members so far, who were pretty much foisted onto me (I had to take them as I had no other options). It's like the game developers wanted you to play 'this way' and don't give you much rope to do what you want and explore. I resent that really.

Mmm. It's a pretty straighforward singleplayer game where the linearity of the storyline is thinly veiled with fresh dialog. Once you realize that it makes very little difference what you say to people, the game starts to seem annoyingly restrictive (much more so than BG2 ever was for me). Side quests are next to none, the "travel" is limited to skipping from one small plot area to another one.

Multiplayer future of it is really dim, so it loses on that count as well. Modders are nauseated by all the problems they foresee. The only thing apologists have to offer is: "The OC is good, and multiplayer doesn't matter anyways". In the shape that it is, maybe it could have the shelf life of KotOR, but heh, face it, it doesn't have lightsabers.

Hmm, the comments are getting worse and worse. Maybe I won't ever bother getting it at all.

What I like about other RPG's is the realism and freedom. If I'm walking past a building, I like to just pop in and see what's in there (forcing entry usually), snoop through people belongings and see if anything strikes my fancy. I've gotten increasingly frustrated in NWN2 when I hover my cursor over a door only for the pointer to stay the same. I can't go anywhere unless the game wants me to. It's so restricting. Even if I play this through to the end, I don't think I'll be playing it again. It's so NOT replayable because it's so restrictive. Once you've played it once, you've seen all it has to offer. Bit sad really.

Hopefully we'll get user created modules at some point. One might hope even for improved Ai from the community. If it's as easy to script as the original NWN, that is.

Is anyone else annoyed by the lack of real freedom? You get one or two big quests at a time and can only really follow them and not do much else./Raises hand. I'm currently in NWN and working for the watch, and I must say that I'm finding the long string of "we need you to do this," followed by, "okay, now we need you to do this," repeated over and over, to be laborious. I guess it kind of captures the reality of what having a job can be like, but this doesn't seem like a prudent accomplishment for a game. Occasionally I'd like the flexibility to take a break from the main quest, but being that there aren't a lot of other options on what to do, I'm finding myself shutting down the game and doing other things with my time.

This game certainly hasn't "hooked me in" the way that I expected it would. I'm not saying that I'm not enjoying it, because I am, but I'm not totally convinced that I'm going to make it through the entire OC, either. When I played BG1 and 2, IWD 1 and 2, PS:T and NWN/SoU/HotU, my biggest challenge was forcing myself to stop playing. With NWN2, thus far, I don't think I've missed a wink of sleep. In fairness, I'm a lot busier with family obligations and work than I was when I first played those other games, so that could have something to do with it as well.

Anyone else think that magic in general has been dumbed down, made worse even? I never recall
Horrid wilting sucking so much, It used to be my disgusting cheat spell (A.W.P.) Now cone of cold is a better spell, or even call lightning! Because you can cast it indoors! Also for the love of everything that is unholy, bring back imprisonment! Just for me. Oh and shouldn't finger of death NOT kill undead, i killed me a few Baelnorns, using it. And shouldn't dark vision (I'm a drow) make you immune to darkness?

[ November 13, 2006, 10:48: Message edited by: Man_Solo ]

Anyone else think that magic in general has been dumbed down, made worse even?Yes. The settings seem to be such that you can either cause offensive spells never to damage your party, or always to damage your party. I don't know what 3.5 spell descriptions look like (and frankly I don't care what they look like), but I find it annoying that casting missle storm does more damage to my own party than to the bad guys.

Area of effect spells should hurt my party, but some spells are supposed to target only enemies. I haven't found this to be the case with the spells I have been using. Set on normal, not only do the missles hit only the bad guys, but my party is immune to my fireballs. Set any higher, every spell hurts every person. I had to delete body of sun from Elanee's list of memorized spells so she would stop frying the party every time she tried to follow us into battle.