Thoughts on NWN 2 so far?

Q

Quagmire02

n00b
Joined
May 17, 2005
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I have it. Running it on a 4400+ x2 and 7600GT and although the graphics are nice the gameplay doesn't seem as smooth as it should be. Maybe I'm seeing it wrong, but there appears to be command delay.

The camera is just horrible.

I haven't gotten into any serious melee or spellcasting bouts, but the action seems cool so far.

Thoughts?
 
So far, I love it. What I don't like is when someone in your party talks to someone, it halts your action entirely. I don't remember that being the case in NWN1.

Turning off the water effects helped greatly, but I do hope they fix this for Nvidia cards, as having water effects on on my wife's AIW x1900 plays fine.
 
I have 4400x2, 7900gtx running at native res on a 2405 dell. If I have it set on high textures, i have to turn the water reflections off in order to have a decent camera scroll without it stuttering. If i set it at medium textures with everything else cranked i still get some camera stuttering with the water reflections turned on. I guess i'm content on high textures with water reflections turned off. I hate not being able to have stufff turned on though.
 
Far too many technical difficulties. The lack of AI pathfinding being the most game-breaking.

Sold it on eBay after two days.

It had promise though.
 
I have almost no AI issues for the most part. Once in a while someone in my party will stand there and do nothing while I'm getting wailed on, but no pathfinding issues at all. I've seen other complaints about this though, not sure how it wouldn't effect everyone.

Camera does suck, yes.

Overall I am really enjoying it so far.
 
BladeX said:
I have almost no AI issues for the most part. Once in a while somone in my party will stand there and do nothing while I'm getting wailed on, but no pathfinding issues at all. I've seen other complaints about this though, not sure how it wouldn't effect everyone.

Camera does suck, yes.

Overall I am really enjoying it so far.
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That's definitely my biggest annoyance so far. Second would be the graphical performance, or lack thereof. I haven't noticed any significant pathfinding issues either.
 
What's wrong with the camera? You can adjust it a zillion ways, I found one that works for me.
 
I'm having fun with it despite the crippled interface and laggy performance. Having to hold down the right mouse button to get to the action menus is just idiotic. Having to do this, then select a drop-down menu, then a command in order to control your party members is retarded. Whoever came up with this needs to have his thumbs broken.

The fact that I can't drag anything from these menus down to my quickbar is even worse and makes the quickbar nearly useless. There's no quick, easy way I've found to give orders to my party members.

Looting, and selling items are just plain painful requiring way too many clicks. Just trying to see an items weight or stats requires you to right click on it, then click examine, then usually scroll down through the long description to see the actual stats and weight. Why isn't this information shown when you hover the mouse over it? All it shows is the name of the item? The guys who developed the interface should have spent a few hours playing Dungeon Siege or Titan Quest...

The bottom line is that the interface and controls feel like a bad port from a console game...

As for the speed, I have a pretty fast system and this game just feels sluggish - which makes no sense since Oblivion ran silky smooth on my machine while apparently doing much more. If the camera would just turn twice as fast I would be a lot happier.

The dialog, story, and voice acting makes up for these problems, though. I'm well into chapter 2 in the story and I'm having a blast. I'll definitely be finishing the game and will probably try out a few other classes as well. I just hope they come out with some patches to improve game play soon.

AllaXul
 
I'm just completely baffled how you guys aren't having pathfinding issues. Because you're right, how would it not be affecting everyone? My henchmen were always getting caught up on something. Especially indoors.

And a lot of times during combat when they weren't doing anything, it was because they were caught on something that prevented them from getting within range. This happened a lot with melee henchmen where they would get stuck behind my character - unable to get within striking distance of the enemy. If you listened closely you could hear the footsteps sound effect like the henchmen was still running. But visually he would just look stuck, standing right behind me while I was fighting some monster in front of me.

I don't know.... I gave up on it.
 
PoweredBySoy said:
I'm just completely baffled how you guys aren't having pathfinding issues. Because you're right, how would it not be affecting everyone? My henchmen were always getting caught up on something. Especially indoors.

And a lot of times during combat when they weren't doing anything, it was because they were caught on something that prevented them from getting within range. This happened a lot with melee henchmen where they would get stuck behind my character - unable to get within striking distance of the enemy. If you listened closely you could hear the footsteps sound effect like the henchmen was still running. But visually he would just look stuck, standing right behind me while I was fighting some monster in front of me.

I don't know.... I gave up on it.
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Honestly, I don't know. It's only happened to me once when one person in my party got hung up on a building in Neverwinter and I was waiting for them to catch up to me. A couple of times indoors one of my party would be behind a corner and fail to act while everyeone else was in combat. But that's not really a pathfinding issue, just an annoyance in party AI when they don't rush to join in the fray because of it.
 
The command lag does get annoying as well as the camera. I can deal with thease issues though because I like to pause the game and issue commands like a turn based game rather than an rts. However the path finding does need some work. I havent had any graphics issues except for having to turn the shadows down. Other than that the game runs smooth on a:
amd 3200+ @ 2.15
1 gig ram
7600gt

I think another gig of ram would definitley help with this game.
 
I've had good experiences with the game so far. Loading issues are annoying... worse than oblivion was. But once I'm playing the game, it's not that bad at all. FPS is anywhere from 30-60 in normal situations. Intense fights drops it down to low 20s, but definitely still playable since I'm using the spacebar to pause all the time anyway. I have ALL settings on medium.

I have at least 10 hours in the game already and have not experienced AI pathfinding issues either. Fights become a bit too easy once you get your sorceror (4th CPU player?) But I am enjoying the role playing experience
 
tacosareveryyummy said:
I think another gig of ram would definitley help with this game.
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Don't count on it. I threw another gig in yesterday and it didn't help noticeably. When I upgraded from a 6600GT to a 7600GT, it did.
 
My Main gripe with the AI is that they are all team killing Ftards. . . especially the sorcerer. So I basically treat them as though they don't exist, go without them when possible, have them sit in the back on puppet mode, etc.

The number of broken feats is also a bum deal, such as practiced spellcaster, which I was really gunning for to help my arcane trickster class.

All in all, the game has potential, it's just gonna be a really really rough start.
 
The interface is indeed quite clunky in comparison to NWN1. Everything was just much more responsive. Haven't had any major issues with pathfinding yet though. I've seen it happen to one party member at a time, maybe 3 times so far. I just ignored them and kept going and they caught up. One of those times was in battle though, and it was a bit annoying to see that.

Major dissapointment is not being able to kill Qara. God I hate her. Can only have her fall unconscious.
 
Yeah, I'm about fed up with Qara's arrogance. By right clicking her icon and talking to her, I tried to get on her good side, but to no avail. She's still a bitch!
 
The camera thing really does suck, but its easily enough to change with a little nwn.ini tweak.

AI does blow sometimes the AI just stops working and your party just stands there with their thumbs up their asses. I had major gripes with the game at start but after about 2 or 4 hours you get the hold of the new system and the game becomes fun.

I do think tho the game has been KOTORized abit. I frankly don't care about the other characters.

Any way Qara blows Sorcs are second to wizards. With the fact you can rest everywhere Wizards are that much more powerful. NWN1 resting was another issue, you had to be conservative but nwn2 you can "blow your load" in about ever fight.

I play as a rogue I think the best grouping that has worked for me was Neeshka and Khelgar, Elinee. But the best so far Upto chapter has been Elinee, Khelgar, Gnome dood.

Oh and as far NWN2 being better then NWN1 thats another story.

NWN1 > NWN2

That maybe will change with soem good exp packs. Even NWN1 wasn't all that fun until the exp packs were out. Shadows of Unterdite rulled them all. Level 36 Wizy and level 36 bard kobold rocked pretty hard.

I miss my "Munchkin" Gnome Illusionist Wizzy. The game was so easy with just the sheer amount of damage I could do in a short time. Summon a red dragon and a Balor with major globe of invulerability I was unstopable.
 
The thing about the NPCs is that you don't give a rat's ass about any of them throughout the whole story. In NWN1, Arbieth's story was so engrossing compared to any of these characters. I don't know if it's because they are part of your party or what, but it just isn't nearly as compelling and dire as Aribeth's plot was in the original.
 
krameriffic said:
The thing about the NPCs is that you don't give a rat's ass about any of them throughout the whole story. In NWN1, Arbieth's story was so engrossing compared to any of these characters. I don't know if it's because they are part of your party or what, but it just isn't nearly as compelling and dire as Aribeth's plot was in the original.
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Amen to that.

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If you guys think Qara is bad wait until you get Ranger from the Tavern. What his name.. He is a dick but I also think he can have a romantic line with my main since I am Lawful Evil.
 
I've havn't had any issues really. I ran into one broken quest but i think it was my problem. For some reason i couldn't get capitan tamm to follow me.

No AI issues.. everyone seems to follow me just fine and not get caught up on stuff.

Performance is a big problem with me as i have crappy videocards atm.
 
Wrench00 said:
Amen to that.

Spoiler














If you guys think Qara is bad wait until you get Ranger from the Tavern. What his name.. He is a dick but I also think he can have a romantic line with my main since I am Lawful Evil.
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Romances have been confirmed to only work with Elanee and Casavir. You can have flirtations with the others, but that's it. Bishop would be a bad choice anyway, as you will learn once you reach the end of the game.
 
krameriffic said:
Romances have been confirmed to only work with Elanee and Casavir. You can have flirtations with the others, but that's it. Bishop would be a bad choice anyway, as you will learn once you reach the end of the game.
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How far am I away from the end of the game? I got the big roman numeral two after i killed that thing trapped inside the globe. I'm guessing that's the start of act 2?
 
Tzzird said:
How far am I away from the end of the game? I got the big roman numeral two after i killed that thing trapped inside the globe. I'm guessing that's the start of act 2?
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Yeah, and there is still all of act 3 after you finish act 2. Plus, once you get your keep you will probably spend a lot of extra time working on that.
 
BladeX said:
Any idea how long the SP campaign is?
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Thats what we're talking about. I like it so far, the cut scenes and bickering between party members gets kinda old thou.
 
WesM63 said:
Thats what we're talking about. I like it so far, the cut scenes and bickering between party members gets kinda old thou.
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I was referrring to actual play time, you know, 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours, etc.

I also agree, the NPCs are getting annoying and I could care less about them.
 
I guarantee if you do this your performance will increase dramatically :

LOWER DISTANCE IN FAR CLIPPING (clipping distance or whatever it is called)
 
As others have said, I do not like the interface. Party AI sux, have to take control of everyone to get heals to go off, switch to another character and have half my party try to follow them, in the middle of combat. Having my guys sit there and do nothing in combat. Stupid things like that.

Seem to be a lot of bugs in regards to the quest and moving the plot forward. Example, finished the greatest thief quest and still have it as active in my log. Another problem is the cutscenes do not always work and you can't do anything if they dont work. So save often in case you have to redo something to trigger the cutscene or plot related events.

Overall i feel this is a step back from nwn and bg. Sure looks better but the gameplay and interface bite.

Even with all that I'm still enjoying it and will replay it at least once to be evil. Storyline is decent. With luck the tools will turn out to be good and fans will turn out some modules that make up for all the problems.
 
BladeX said:
I was referrring to actual play time, you know, 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours, etc.

I also agree, the NPCs are getting annoying and I could care less about them.
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Oh sorry, gamespot says 50+hrs of gametime. My guess is thats if you do every "side" quest. I have 11-12hrs into it and i'm positive i'm no were near the end.
 
WesM63 said:
Oh sorry, gamespot says 50+hrs of gametime. My guess is thats if you do every "side" quest. I have 11-12hrs into it and i'm positive i'm no were near the end.
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Hell the way I play, I read every little detail about everything. I'm 11-12hrs into it and only in highcliff. lol I treat this game as a ltitle novel instead of trying to rush through it.
 
It probably took me around 35 hours and I had a very good build for my character, so I had no major trouble spots. It's a lot easier to follow the main quest in NWN2 than in the first. You never find yourself saying "what the hell am I supposed to do now?"
 
I love it so far. I have good framrates that drop to the 30's with a Opty 165 at 2.8 and a 7900Gt, I run it in 1280X1024 with high textures, no shadows, and water reflections off. I found that the only time I had issues with the camera was when I was trying to turn on too much stuff at once. I can run at 1680X1050 w/ water and shadows off but the FPS gets into the 20's which I dont like, but the camera is still smooth, once shadows or reflections is turned on it gets choppy, same with 1280X1024

Havn't experienced any AI problems really. What I have noticed is that if your AI is set to attack someone and that person gets blocked they will stop attacking. So, for example, you tell them to attack someone in a room and you block the door with 2 NPC's then the AI will turn off the attack since you can't reach the opponent.

So far I have made a Wood Elf bard lvl 5/ Red Dragon deciple lvl 2 (or 3 I think?), a human warrior lvl 6/ weapon master lvl 3, and a deep gnome monk lvl 2 I just started last night.

I really enjoy all the different race/ class combos and like looking at different ways to get to prestige classes. The Deep gnome monk is sick w/ 22 AC at lvl 1! BUT he levels up slow as crap, 10,000 XP to get to lvl 2. Yes, 10 THOUSAHND, not 1,000 like normal characters. But, 22 AC at lvl 1 is crazy.
 
I am in the first hours of the second act and am in the Collector's Mansion...










































After getting the two keys for the vault, what is the 3 digit code that opens up the vault? I think you were supposed to get the code from the bookcase, but a fireball from my wizard fried it up.
 
Now that I have actually played the game for a while I do have some complaints. I would rather not go into them in length. Check out the NWN2 messege boards and see what the main fanbase is saying about some of the games issues. I am a really big rpg fan and was hoping for another BG equivalent game. My biggest gripes are probably the games interface, there are some useless classes (they seemed to push the melee classes) and your parties A.I. (Why don't druids/clerics ever heal your party when they have a spell book full of healing spells?)
Anyways it seems that obsidian worked their black magic on this game like they did with KOTOR 2.
Hopefully Dragon Age will be awesome...
 
I've put in 4 hours, no complaints thus far, pretty good actually, doesn't look THAT much better than NWN1 though honestly, but its got tieflings :D

(yes yes, Im still in love with annah from Planescape torment)
 
I was a pretty enthusiastic NWN1 player; especially multiplayer; I was active for 2-3 years. It was a good game, but I got tired of it. Despite the pretty graphics in NWN2 screenshots, my interest in NWN2 is only mild. I have a hard time explaining why, but all along I had doubts that 2 would bring any gameplay improvements over 1, and I'm not noticing any big advances mentioned in players' talk here.

For people who have played both, is there anything new and improved in 2, or is it just NWN1 with new bugs, out-of-the-box sky, and prettier spells?
 
krameriffic said:
It probably took me around 35 hours and I had a very good build for my character, so I had no major trouble spots. It's a lot easier to follow the main quest in NWN2 than in the first. You never find yourself saying "what the hell am I supposed to do now?"
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Disagree with you, at one point I had a phone call, at another point i was laughing at the return the bears made the other night. Both times I missed something an NPC said that was very importent in telling me what i had to do next. Yet no entry in my log. Poor design.


Shark-MegaByte said:
I was a pretty enthusiastic NWN1 player; especially multiplayer; I was active for 2-3 years. It was a good game, but I got tired of it. Despite the pretty graphics in NWN2 screenshots, my interest in NWN2 is only mild. I have a hard time explaining why, but all along I had doubts that 2 would bring any gameplay improvements over 1, and I'm not noticing any big advances mentioned in players' talk here.

For people who have played both, is there anything new and improved in 2, or is it just NWN1 with new bugs, out-of-the-box sky, and prettier spells?
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It is less over all a lot of people think.

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=519407&forum=109

On that page search for the post by Plagueis. Sums up a lot of the problems. I do not agree with everything he says but 90% of what he says is true in my opinion.
 
Grrr I say, Grr. Just not fair. Having FF12 to play. Then having NWN2 on the other side. Then having the unfinished Xenogears (40 hours in), FF8 (12 hours in), FF9/FFX...f'ing argh man, NOT ENOUGH TIME FOR THEM ALL! ;)
 
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