I haven’t experience that yet. Are you using quick resume? Or using the quick on option on Xbox?
Because while great feature they tend to cause issues( had some issues with Starfield for quick resume) sometimes.
Ive made sure its not in quick resume and hard rebooted my Xbox. Effectively some NPCs will be moving at 60fps. Then others move as if its freeze frame. Also happens to me in dialogue with some characters where they change body language but it happens at what must be 20-30 fps
That is very weird, so far the only bugs I have experience are a bounty respawning in Paradis, which cause the complete quest to pop up and Lödwyn popping into a conversation.
Yeah I was hoping it was limited to Paradis but im now in the second biome and it is happening more frequently. Annoying!
I think they need to turn the radar into a more useful mini map too.
Something like this but where the radar is:
A custom pin would have been very handy.
Ended up giving up with Avowed. Really, really disappointed with the game. A bit of a shame because for me, first party was clicking into gear with Indy, which was a fantastic game.
Onto the next one.
Indy was a good game, but for me it’s a one and done never going back type of game. Maybe a sequel, but that’s like 5 years away.
Avowed though, I’m in. Second playthrough is on the way and planning a third and fourth in the future. Sorry to hear it wasn’t to your liking though, but as always not every game is for everyone(no matter what people say).
2 Likes
Im glad some people are enjoying it for sure. For me the choice and consequence felt like surface dressing, the world was lifeless apart from being littered with NPCs that stand still / spout endless jargon at you about you being the envoy and those spirit sequences were like something out of a game from the early 2000s. The combat, while good, was also spoilt for me by a levelling and weapon upgrading system that just didnt feel fit for purpose. Never mind the fact that you just fight the same enemies over and over again depending on the biome.
I dont mean to sound so salty I just expected so much more and was looking forward to this game for a while. For me this was a chance for Obsidian to go up a gear now theyre first party but yeah, this was a big miss for me.
1 Like
The NPC are no worse than Indy in my opinion, in Indy they move more but they have less going on than NPC in Avowed, because much less of them can hold a conversation with us. I actually love the crafting in the game, especially after I took Peter420’s advice on deconstructing all common items instead of selling them, as that allowed me to push my gear up quicker than normal and even on the highest difficulty it allows me to go up against opponents that would otherwise kill me if I didn’t have the gear leveled or the hp to survival more than 2 hits.
I get not feeling the game though, I have that with Forza most of the time, they’re good games but I lose interest for them so quickly that often I think I shouldn’t try them at all. Like Forza Horizon 5 is the best the series has ever been, but I still bounced off quicker than I would like. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a racing game, but even as great as the Mexico settings is, I just couldn’t continue for too long.
As for Obsidian going up a level, no thanks, I would prefer they refine what they have now because I really love it. This whole another level is what they were trying for before and they had to pull back because the scope was getting out of control, and I don’t want to see that happen.
Refinement though can mean a lot, as they can keep doing zones of the current size of Avowed, but use the time they would save by keeping the scope as is to improve the NPC interactions, create more events triggers for NPC to do something in the world, improve upon physics and animations.
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Not every first party game will be for you. That should be fairly obvious, surely: their genre, style, focus etc isn’t made relevant to your interests just by being published by MS, when they have such a big stable now.
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Yeah, I just don’t last in Forza(Motor or Horizon), they’re fun for a good couple of hours before I just stop.
I never really played Fable, so I’m hoping Playgrounds take is something I can jump in and love enough to want to do 4 to 5 playthough in 2 months.
My current Envoy and this item I just noticed I can make will have all conversation options available to me in the future.
2 Likes
Completed Avowed. Got the best ending. Hard difficulty. 98+ hours.
- VISUALS - 9.0/10, excellent
Avowed looks excellent in regards to the environments, character models and overall look of the game. Obsidian nailed the atmosphere and immersion from all the various environments. Liked all the enemy designs especially nearing the end of the game. Only negative I had were the facial animations at times.
- AUDIO - 9.0/10, excellent
Excellent soundtrack, voice acting and sound effects. No issues here.
- GAMEPLAY/COMBAT - 9.0/10, excellent
This category is the standout as the first person melee combat is smooth, fluid and responsive. The best I have played after Dying Light 2. The parkour/platforming is also very fluid and responsive. The exploration is a major highlight as Avowed did what no other game before it has been able to do for me which is actually get me to want to explore the world without map icons and whatnot. The rewards are pretty good majority of the time. The different combinations that you can play as during combat is plentiful. I settled on a Wand/Axe combination which outside of a few tougher enemies in the last part of the game, I didn’t have any major issues. There were pauses/stutters at times but were mostly in the first main region of Dawnshore and lessened as I progressed but I did download the current patch once it became available. There was some weird slow motion during dialogue scenes when your companion(s) or NPC’s would be at a much lower frame rate you could say while other characters in the same scene would be normal. Weird and possibly a bug but since it’s during the dialogue scenes, it doesn’t affect anything. I liked the overall upgrading systems and once you get used it all, it’s pretty easy to build the type of play style that you want. No respawning of enemies, resources or items was a huge positive for me. Would have preferred a better map that shows the environment on it as opposed to just being a radar like The Division. A lock-on option would have been nice for some of the spells/attacks from above as you can easily miss those. Overall, a few issues with none of them being major and if anything, gameplay/combat turned out to be far better than I was anticipating and expecting.
- STORY/CHARACTERS - 7.0/10, good
The overall story/plot is good and kept me interested throughout but as someone who will never play the Pillars of Eternity games, a decent amount simply doesn’t hit like it should and im not going to read hundreds of notes and whatnot just to understand all of it. I didn’t like “the voice” aspect at all but it does make sense and fit in with the overall story and premise. I will say that the last few story quests is where everything comes together. Main quests themselves are really good though. Side content wise, most of them are standard but it’s the combat/gameplay that entices and incentivizes you to want to do it all or at least that’s how it worked for me as I wanted to fight more. The bounties and boss fights I thought were really good, again all due to the combat. Character wise, I liked all four of them. I don’t think that any of them are amazing or anything like that but none of them are bad or poor. I see them all as good and solid. Didn’t love them but didn’t hate them either. They get the job done. Writing wise, had no issues with any of it. One character in particular is freaking funny during the companion interactions at Camp. Issues for me besides the voice aspect was mainly not knowing what dialogue option ends a conversation which is annoying and whenever I had an item to give an NPC, I gave it to them right away. I didn’t bother asking questions or anything. It was just “here you go”. Definitely the weakest aspect of the game overall for me personally but the first three aspects won me over so this category being weaker than the rest didn’t bother me at all.
- OVERALL - 8.5/10, great
Avowed for me personally is a great action RPG (emphasis on action) that isn’t hardcore at all so anyone expecting that going into the game will most likely be disappointed. The world, visuals, atmosphere, immersion, environments along with excellent music, sound and voice acting all come together with an excellent combat/gameplay system that is addictive and so much fun and enjoyable to play. Exploration is great as due to the combat, you really want to see everything and what else you can come across and find as you’re exploring each region. out of the now ten Microsoft published games that I have completed this generation, Avowed is their third best game behind Starfield and Halo Infinite campaign respectively. So yeah, I loved Avowed which I knew I was going to once I went through the prologue. Hoping Obsidian adds a new game plus mode but knowing how everything plays out, I understand why they didn’t. At the very least, im hoping for an expansion as there’s definitely some areas on that world map that can definitely be used for the future. If not, then im hoping they just go straight to the sequel. With my first completed Obsidian game under my belt, I look forward to later this year barring any delays to what Obsidian will give me with the sci-fi action RPG, The Outer Worlds 2.
7 Likes
Just wrapped it up too, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would score it around a high 7 / low 8.
If they add New Game+ so I can finally finish upgrading my character and gear I’ll definitely jump back in again for sure (frustratingly I had most the mats, I just didn’t have the 5000 for each upgrade).
I have seen a few complaints about the NPC’s, however I didn’t have any concerns there at all, my complaints all stem around the lack of materials and money. Unfortunately I did encounter quite a few bugs in my playthrough where quests got bugged out, bits of the map didn’t seem to update after an action, and I also ended up under the map at one point (just casually walking around). I’m not sure if anyone else had the same but I also experienced quite a few frame drops in the final two areas, especially the ‘final final’ area.
3 Likes
I think the game is pretty lacking in terms of the world simulation and NPC interactivity, but that is kind of a matter of expectation. I almost see this game of more of a first person Diablo than I do a RPG with detailed simulation.
The fun is in the gameplay loop of combat, finding materials, and upgrading your gear.
I think what it tries to do, it does successfully but understand that it’s a little different than what people might have expected.
I personally hope for a sequel they continue where they are headed and go more immersive sim than RPG. Go all in on combat with more environmental interaction and don’t worry too much about giving the NPCs a life (though they can definitely make the cities more dynamic).
2 Likes
I have had a relatively bug free experience, but I’m also seeing something currently when the NPC that do move around outside of Fior by the docks are having some issues with the terrain, that makes it look like they’re shaking as they do and makes it look like they’re skipping their animation. But even when doing so they’re moving fairly smooth.
As for lacking mats, you have 15 items in the weapon menu some that we get at Dawnshore. Like dang, that’s way more than I invest in games that give me all the mats I would need to level upgrade every weapon in the game. It’s damn impressive to me that you committed yourself to getting all those weapons to as high a level as possible.
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I was maxed out level wise which is 30. Probably could have hit 31 since I was still gaining XP after hitting level 30 in the end game. Had the two weapons I was using completely maxed out along with my armor.
Yeah, that was me pretty much me, just with one extra weapon maxed out.
My current playthrough I’m pretty much planning on having just one weapon type and spec into it like I do when playing most fantasy RPGs. Like in Skyrim, I just made one weapon from Dwemer metal and enhanced and enchanted it to do the max damage, with only making, enhancing and enchanting more weapons to give my companion.
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Thanks, yeah I pretty much kept all the uniques I found in all the areas, as I didn’t know if I would want them later (the rest is in camp storage).
I kept trying to switch buildouts so I had different weapons for each fight. The issue was this screenshot was just before you go into the very final fight and I didn’t get to do most of these legendary upgrades until the camp just prior (as the legendary mats were abundant here), so although it looks good in my inventory I didn’t really get to use any of these weapons at this quality.
I guess I could open my earlier save and just keep replaying that final fight with my new weapons but meh… if we had NG+ I could then use them though a new playthrough which would be more enjoyable.
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Avowed is a FPP platformer in a WRPG wrap. You can’t tell me otherwise !
Exploration is so much fun. I wasted so much time searching for hidden chests yesterday. Going up the lighthouse was also a WOW moment for me.
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