Sorry if I came across too aggressive. Looking back, it was a bit strong.Mate, the words that you yourself are putting in your own mouth are a bit salty, especially for a moderator, do you not consider ?
See my anecdote in the post above. I had about a dozen crashes throughout acts 2 and 3, but one cause was seemingly fixed via hotfix and the other was addressed by reducing my frame limiter from 144 to 72. I also had a minor bug in the final sequence of companion dialogs at the end of the game, but it was known by the time I encountered it and a workaround had been discovered. The only bug I noticed which affected my progression through the game in a way I couldn't easily fix was a missing NPC in act 2, who also makes an appearance in act 3 so it merely delayed a quest rather than locking me out of it. My experience, of course, isn't universal, and I'm sure there are a multitude of other problems affecting the experiences of others. I've yet to see any of my friends abandon the game because of bugs, though, and most of them have made it into or out of act 2 by now.Well, are you impressed by how Larian " delivered " on Act 2 and Act 3 ?
I mean as an honest, professional, quality product, critique?
Full disclosure, I did have some visual bugs in scripted cinematics where a character didn't render or camera angles in dialogs weren't appropriately adjusted for characters of non-standard height (either large body types or small races like dwarf/gnome/halfling). Camera angles and animations involving multiple characters can get a little wonky if the characters are of drastically different height or are standing on uneven terrain as well. Those are a bit immersion breaking and do detract from the experience a bit.
That's it for bugs and performance. For other aspects of quality, there's a fair bit that I've noticed myself, watching others play, and talking to my friends about their runs. It's long, but the issues aren't straight-forward.
Narratively it's a clear improvement over DOS2's predictable trope parade (and comparisons to DOS1 aren't really fair IMO because of the humorous and silly nature of DOS1). Is it the most compelling and exciting story ever in a video game? No, and it still has a few tropes throughout. I can see why some people feel act 3's story is rushed (more on that below), but I've also observed a trend with a few of my friends and in comments across YouTube of people totally skipping an entire part of act 2 by accident. The game makes no effort to hold your hand or guide you along "preferred" paths, but it does inform you--directly or indirectly--about what will advance the main story.
There is one particular location in act 2 where an NPC gives you a side quest which also happens to put you into a dungeon that advances the main quest. If you haven't gone to the big name-dropped location of act 2 yet as many NPCs advise you to do, or if you haven't completed certain other encounters in the vicinity in specific ways, then you won't know that this dungeon advances the main quest. It is unfortunately placed somewhat between the "hub" location of act 2 and the big name-drop location, so it's easy to stumble upon it, and the natural instinct of an exploring player is to go in. This is only reinforced by the NPC outside giving you a reason to go in.
It's very easy to accidentally advance acts 2 and 3 beyond the point of no return, and it is very easy to think there is more to act 3 after you complete the two main story objectives. The problem in act 2 I described in the spoiler above, and the problem in act 3 is you know from the very beginning what to do, but if you weren't paying particular attention to previous dialogs then you can easily miss the fact that completing these two objectives will trigger the finale sequence. It is also the case that some side objectives simply will not be spoken about because of how you resolved situations in previous acts.
There is a gnome you meet before the middle of act 1 who you can rescue or kill. If you rescue him, you find him again later in that same act, where his survival is not guaranteed. If he survives here, then depending on how you've treated him he may tell you about what he plans to do in act 2. Depending on whether or not you help him and if the core character of his quest line survives, then you can meet them again in act 3 where you ultimately learn about a side quest that will remove the toughest enemies in an act 3 boss fight other than the boss. There are multiple points of failure in this progression, any of which can preclude you from learning about this in the most direct way. If you fail at any point, then you have to do the mental math yourself, or be a diligent explorer and stumble into it. This, I feel, is an excellent example, because in every YouTube video I've seen which shows parts of act 3 where these enemies would be present the presenter is almost always fighting them, meaning they didn't do this side quest.
I still see absolutely no justification for declaring it a scam, though, as perfection is an impossible standard and one that they never set for themselves, or which any reasonable person should set for them. Coming from other quality examples of the genre like Owlcat's Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity, it was a stellar experience from start to finish and the few stability issues I did encounter were quickly fixed by myself or Larian.
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