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Topic: NWN2 First Impressions - MP (Read 997 times) |
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Mulu
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Other observations:
AI is smarter now. We nearly tpk'ed when the group decided to skip a door and move down the corridor to attack some hostiles around the corner, only to have *two* doors open and have more hostiles charge into the rear and flank of the group....
Using items is a PITA. You can quickslot an item, but not it's functions. We found a magic drum with three spell effects, but to use it you have to equip it, then right click on the icon again, which brings up the drop down menu, then select "use", then click on the use you want, which then gives you a targeting cursor....
Needless to say, trying to summon a zombie during the aforementioned front, rear and flank attack didn't work. I got dropped before I could get through all of the menus. In NWN1, I would have simply quickslotted the "summon zombie" use. This game is designed for play with a pause feature.
I'm really really hating the "one inventory square fits all" in the inventory. Not only are the icons small, they are vague and gritty. I still have a very hard time recognizing just what all the items are in my inventory, when in NWN1 I could even recognize them from a quickslot.
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TheBaldMan
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Hmm... to be honest somethings are cool, others, well disappointing most of which are mentioned in previous poast. Hopfully the updates will fix these. I guess after the pre-release reviews and the system requirement demands I got my hopes too high.
I do have one question that is baffling me regarding the quick slot bar.
You can quick slot up to 10 bars which is a great improvment IMO (I always ran out when playing a Bard most the time) but the only way I can figure to "cycle thru" each bar is to use the mouse on the arrow key.
Isn't there a way to do this via the key board(like the tab,shift,ctrl in NWN)? Maybe I missed something in the tutorial but I cant find anything in the manual about this.
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Lazybones
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on Nov 18, 2006, 12:57 AM, TheBaldMan wrote:| Isn't there a way to do this via the key board(like the tab,shift,ctrl in NWN)? Maybe I missed something in the tutorial but I cant find anything in the manual about this. |
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Shift + the appropriate number will take you right to the quickbar you want.
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GateCrash
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on Nov 10, 2006, 8:38 PM, GateCrash wrote:
I think I will like the new quickbars better as soon as I get used to them. It's only one extra button press to get to a different one (not sure if it was a documented feature or if I found it accidentally, but Shift + (#) brings up that number's quickbar), and I like being able to put movement modes on one, combat feats on another, rogue feats on another, etc.
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Hey! I was potent earlier in this very thread! 
Speaking of which, thanks, Venture, for pointing out that the speed at which the context menu appears can be adjusted via the Options. It made me realize that I could do the same with zoom speed, which erased another complaint I didn't even need to make.
One more new feature I love as a rogue: turning on search mode while hiding no longer slows your walk to a snail's pace. Your speed with both activated is the same as with either one individually. As the character most adept at both, I always hated that the rogue had to choose between the two modes while scouting, or turn both on and watch the fighter go charging by you right into the traps, clearing a path a mile wide to the treasure horde. (Hmm...wait a minute...)
--GC
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Purple Puppy
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I agree with the above posts about the icons and inventory, it's very annoying and badly setup. If it had a quick sort function that would be great.
The only game that comes to mind that handled convenience really well (though the actual game was really dull and repetative in my opinion) was Dungeon Siege. It had functions that would make a charcter automatically collect all the loot of the ground and in the inventory it had several options to sort through the items in the inventory by type. It'd be great is something like that was added to NWN2, since one of the least fun parts of multi-player is sorting through your inventory items trying to find some plot item.
I usually like to provide a fair few plot items, such as letters for the players in my campaigns, and I don't want to waste time sorting through inventories needlessely in search of the info. Plus it usually take them a while to get around to having all the lastest items identified and after that comes sharing things out, and I might be being picky, but having things so much more difficult to identify by appearance in the inventory is going to slow things down needlessly.
It took me a while to catch on to it, but the way spells are setup now is an improvement, hitting F and also the icon for spontanous casting is much faster than the radial menu in NWN1, I might even try playing a mage type now. Actually, it'll be much better to handle NPC spellcasters so we can actually get some good spells in before the PCs hack them apart and maybe stand a chance. Also probably my lack of practice with spellcasters and trying figure out what the spells do, picked some awfully useless ones to throw at the PCs a few times in NWN1.  
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Lazybones
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More observations from our ongoing MP run of the NWN2 OC:
- The new chat mode features in 1.03 are nice, but the game automatically resets to local talk every time you make an area transition. Annoying if you're used to using Party chat mode.
- The more I play, the more I dislike the character animations. Watching the NPC allies follow the party leader is just... well, it's bad. Worse than NWN1. I think I'm getting spoiled by my 360, since the NWN2 graphics are looking increasingly poor to me. I do have them on fairly low settings on my rig, and the "backgrounds" buildings, terrain, etc.) are fairly good, but the creature animations are really ruining immersion for me.
- I know I've mentioned it before, but the fact that you cannot even sit in a chair is pretty lame for a 2006 game, especially when that functionality was present in NWN1.
- I don't see what people mean when they talk about 1.03 improving the camera. Maneuvering through a dungeon is still a huge pain, especially if the rooms are small.
- There are some portions of the OC plot that are, IMO, rather weak.
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| « Last Edit: on: Dec 8, 2006, 1:58AM » |
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Lazybones
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A few more weeks into our MP run, and we've gotten to Neverwinter. Some more comments:
- There are no "change weapon" animations. Weapons just appear and disappear magically in your hand when you equip/unequip them. Other players noticed the same thing once I raised the issue.
- I experienced some weird day/night transitions in Neverwinter. One minute day, then night, then back again a little bit later. I experienced generally higher lag in the city area, but some other players did not experience the same issues, so it's likely my poor video card (ah, I miss the days when a 6800 was cutting edge).
- I found the city AI overall to be very poor, ruining my sense of immersion in Neverwinter. NPCs would appear and disappear in front of buildings (no doors would open, to suggest that they possibly went inside). Guards standing 30 feet away would ignore violent battles in the street, and citizens were not even fazed by these melees.
- I noticed weird shifts in volume when NPCs spoke, especially Neeshka. Sometimes the volume changed significantly several times in the same conversation with her in Neverwinter.
And the adventure continues...
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| « Last Edit: on: Dec 24, 2006, 1:35AM » |
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R00kie
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on Dec 24, 2006, 1:29 AM, Lazybones wrote:| I noticed weird shifts in volume when NPCs spoke, especially Neeshka. Sometimes the volume changed significantly several times in the same conversation with her in Neverwinter. |
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For some odd reason most of Neeshka's personal plot conversation seems to be very quite. So quiet the only way to actually hear it for me was to turn off the music. It becomes apparent the first time you wonder through Neverwinter with her.
I also seem to have a sound issue were sometimes the sound starts to stutter (usually after several hours of play) and the only way to fix it is to reboot the machine (restarting NWN2 doesn't help, I have to reboot the whole machine).
As for the plot..well the end of part 1 is a slaughter fest with very little actual plot. I got thoroughly fed up of killing things - fight after fight (the section at Old Well seemed particularly annoying). I've just started part 2 - we'll see how that goes.
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Mulu
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I had the Neeshka variable sound too, so it's not a computer issue. In fact, I had decided to turn off the music for the next game session, which is no loss as it's annoying anyway.
And I really don't understand why people keep saying this OC is so much better than the original. I don't recall the pedestrians walking through combat in the original. SOU was the highpoint of OC's in this franchise.
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| « Last Edit: on: Dec 24, 2006, 3:27PM » |
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R00kie
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on Dec 24, 2006, 3:25 PM, Mulu wrote:| And I really don't understand why people keep saying this OC is so much better than the original. I don't recall the pedestrians walking through combat in the original. SOU was the highpoint of OC's in this franchise. |
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I'm going to dispute that and say Pirates of the Sword Coast was...Now back to the thread topic, which I belive was NWN2 OC.
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BlatantlyOriginal
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Its obvious why Obsidian have skimped on the multiplayer. The reason? They make more money from it. They spotted a good scheme when KOTOR was a sucess and decided to cash in here.
Casual gamers look at the graphics and single player, as that is usually all they play, which is the reason Nwn2 shooted to the top of the charts.
Hopefully with all the cash they make from the game sales they'll invest some in helping the MP community out,
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Conor Knoxx
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just to update on own MP experience:
I am running 2 MP groups - different players/characters in each - Wed and Friday nights, plus playing a MP campaign with my wife, when time allows
So far, from a stability standpoint - Flawless. Not a single crash (except on one night, but the trouble was a faulty video card, everything on my system was goin nutso lol ) Transitions have been smooth, bringing in new players after we have started the main quest, etc.. all without trouble.
odd day night cycles? - This is a common problem in many new games, if you have dual core CPU's. I believe there is a patch from both AMD and Intel - I have the AMD one applied, with no further problems. (this came up way back in beta for me - in fact, NWN-1 had some serious issues when I upgraded to dualcore)
Sound - I have some odd variances in dialogues, but... it does support surround sound, and I found where I was positioned when starting the convo could make a difference, and (grrrr.. ) you can't move/reposition one the dialogue starts.
The plot, though many trade-offs were made that I have issues with, seems pretty much bullet proof.
I've not gotten real far in MP so far (*sigh* yes, it SURE is slow playing once a week, with some RP thrown in! ) but so far has been quite enjoyable, and bug-free.
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Ghool
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I agree with Conor (although I'm in one of the two groups he plays in each week), and I haven't experienced many problems, aside from NWN2 being a complete resource hog.
My biggest peeve is with the conversations....who the hell decided that everyone needs to sit through a cutscene convo each time any PC wants to buy something? The group transitions are fine, but the conversations are what just drives me bonkers....sitting through the same cutscene 8 times in 5 minutes because the group is buying and selling is brutal.
And, not being able to supply feedback to team-mates whilst they are in an NPC convo is also a major pain. Aside from those two things (which IMHO, needs to be fixed, BADLY), everything else is fine.
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Lazybones
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THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS
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Okay, so another week played in the OC, and I came very close to quitting (only the excellent play of my fellow sufferers is keeping me in at this point). We're in Neverwinter, and things are getting a little silly.
- Okay, I know this has been around since NWN1, and maybe I'm the only person this bothers, but the whole huge-interior-small-exterior mapping issue is just getting out of hand. We head to a building that's maybe 30' wide and 20' deep (using a 6' tall PC as a reference). Inside, the place is easily at least ten times that size. I know it's a necessary compromise when using tilesets (and in NWN1 I would at least try to keep the proportions similar, with maybe 2x2 interior tiles for each 1 exterior), I wouldn't mind just a little attempt to follow the laws of physics. I never noticed this with Oblivion, for example, but then again they had some very large structures in that game.
- We learned last session that you cannot use area transitions if one member of the group is even just a room away. Never mind if everyone is down/dying except you, and there's a half-dozen bloodthirsty rogues seeking your blood, an invisible forcefield blocks the stairs. I can understand this I guess from a design perspective (I wonder if the engine can even handle more than one area open at a time), but it's yet another example of how MP-unfriendly the OC is. I am hoping this is just another thing you can toggle off in the toolset, like the mandatory "Everyone stops when a scripted conversation starts" issue.
- (here's the spoilers I promised) The city plot is just getting nutty. I already mentioned the hoops you have to go through just to get back into the default plot (i.e. the whole reason you went to Neverwinter in the first place). Last night we clear out a warehouse full of naer-do-wells on behalf of the Watch, and as we're leaving, a bunch of Nasher's elites greet us. After they point out all the corruption that exists in the Watch, they then take the word of a complete stranger in Watch uniform (a tiefling to boot) that everything at the warehouse has been cleaned up for them (i.e. we've completed the "vital mission" that they were sent on), and then they all decide to all go drinking at a pub rather than report back to their superiors (or check first to see if what I was saying was true). Maybe it's just me, but I was shaking my head for a while after that one.
- More crashes; game hung twice (once last week, once this time) as we were leaving aforementioned warehouse. I can't see how using multiple modules for one PW server can possibly be a solution for the PW problem, as I have seen suggested on the Bioboards; it takes a very long time (3-5 minutes, I didn't clock it) to exit one module and start the next. The OC uses modules of only about 10-15 areas, as far as I can tell, loading them all into memory when the module loads. I can only imagine how the engine would handle my typical 50-100 areas.
BTW I'm glad to see that the crash problems aren't global; it leads to hope that once I upgrade my computer I may avoid some of these issues (currently hosting with a P4 3.2ghz, Geforce 6800, and 2gb RAM).
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| « Last Edit: on: Jan 5, 2007, 2:27AM » |
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Mulu
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I spotted even more issues in mp and now in sp, after spending the last two days gaming my brains out. 
- When I AT, all buffs usually drop. They always drop on a world map transition, even just going from docks to merchant. I really only noticed this in SP since we are rarely buffed in MP. So, between fear of crash bugs and buff losses I find that before AT'ing now in SP I rest, save, then AT, then buff, then save. Slows the game down a bit, to say the least. Sure wouldn't work in a rest restricted mod.
- I can't get the call lightning spell to target anything. Not the floor, not an enemy, not a friend, not an object. Nothing.
- If you are in melee, when you kill your target, your PC stops fighting. If you have a bow equipped he keeps shooting, but if you have a melee weapon equipped you have to select a new target and "use" it by pushing the attack button, every time your target dies. When you are distracted, it's easy to stop fighting for extended periods.
- Your PC will also stop fighting in melee if it's reach gets blocked, it's path gets blocked (very easy in MP with all the other PC's around), or really anything interferes with it. I couldn't tell if weapon reach was implemented.
- Your PC is not smart enough to go around others in combat, and frequently you have to manually run past whoever is in front of you, drawing AoO along the way, in order to attack. Now, NWN had a bit of this issue too, but it's much worse in NWN2.
- Maybe this is intentional, but disable traps is a roll even without hostiles present. Would be nice to have a take 10 option at least.
- I never thought I'd see the day, but the enemy AI abuses your PC's AI. Specifically, the enemies like to engage in melee, then run away and drag you around. Very hard to prevent being dragged. There's a specific place in the crypt of tyr where it gets abused to the point of absurdity. I suppose it's a form of comeuppance.
- Overall I find a tremendous lack of response in the game. I give a command, especially a move command using the mouse or a melee attack command (both pretty important), and nothing happens. Targeting even stationary objects like remains bags and NPC's is very hard for me. I still play NWN1 frequently, and I never have problems mouse targeting. But in NWN2, just to talk to an NPC I usually end up clicking next to it and running just past it. They put some sort of single pixel microdot valid target on everything. Well, everything except gates, which are hard to walk through since their target is so huge.
I think it's still too early to say anything for sure, and obviously there are huge issues with DM client, mod size, build time, PWC downloads, etc., but it's beginning to feel like the bottom line on this game, for us middle-aged PnP'ers anyway, is that the twitch skill increase has killed immersion. Simply put, I can't get my PC to do what I want it to do. The effect may very well be that campaign style combat will have to be done with either a pause, or the DM holding back the enemy long enough for the party to prepare, unless your players are all korean teenagers.
Well, I'm hoping that patches and practice will alleviate this primary problem.
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| « Last Edit: on: Jan 5, 2007, 6:48AM » |
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Starbuck79
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| I can't get the call lightning spell to target anything. Not the floor, not an enemy, not a friend, not an object. Nothing. |
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Target the caster. The ring will show up around you showing the AOE.
| Maybe this is intentional, but disable traps is a roll even without hostiles present. Would be nice to have a take 10 option at least. |
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Don't you automatically "take 20" without Hostiles or is that just Open Locks. I'll check.
As for targeting and AI issues, I HIGHLY recommend using Evans AI scripts at the Vault. They help alot. Also make sure your Tanks are not in Puppet mode and have use abilities and use combat modes set to on. I have the opposite problem with Tanks just running off into other rooms.
If anyone hasn't already used it go to the vault get get the xUI interface. It makes a WORLD of difference. There are clearly still some issues, but I believe that some of them are solved with a) better UI mods, and b) people having a better understanding of the controls vs. NWN1. Things doesn't always work the same, that doesn't mean they don't work at all. I could be wrong here but it seems like some of the issues people are having is just getting use to the new systems.
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| « Last Edit: on: Jan 5, 2007, 2:33PM » |
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Mulu
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on Jan 5, 2007, 2:27 PM, Starbuck79 wrote:| Target the caster. The ring will show up around you showing the AOE. |
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Ah, thanks. Though, that means that spell is broken. If the spell's range is zero/caster, you shouldn't have to target it at all, and if it isn't zero (it used to be pretty long) the spell should be targetable on enemies at a distance.
Another thing I remembered, Druid's lose their buffs when they revert to natural form after a wildshape. Also, though purely cosmetic, when the mirror image spell wears off, if you have a barkskin or stoneskin spell up, you keep the texture but not the color, which makes your PC look like a severe burn victim.
Though I will say that the game is much more stable than I remember NWN being in the early days. That game was crashtastic. Still, we aren't playing NWN in the early days anymore....
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| « Last Edit: on: Jan 5, 2007, 3:52PM » |
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Starbuck79
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on Jan 5, 2007, 3:52 PM, Mulu wrote:
Ah, thanks. Though, that means that spell is broken. If the spell's range is zero/caster, you shouldn't have to target it at all, and if it isn't zero (it used to be pretty long) the spell should be targetable on enemies at a distance.
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Try it out. I think it works like Fireburst (AWESOME spell BTW). You Target yourself and it effects creatures around you. I believe it might have a pretty wide radius. It may infact still be a large radius that centers around the caster. I know in NWN that always seemed broken because it would attack EVERY enemy on the screen. I love the New AOE targeting radi
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| « Last Edit: on: Jan 5, 2007, 6:20PM » |
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