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Avowed |OT| Is an oath worth the weight of a crown?

About 2 hours in. Really enjoying it so far. Voice acting is a real standout, and so is the sound design/music.

It also looks really great. Have it fully maxed out.

Only small complaint is that I had a crash to desktop once, at the first camp I found. I hit Start to bring up the menu and the game froze, then crashed. Started right back up just fine and haven't had an issue since, however.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
About 2 hours in. Really enjoying it so far. Voice acting is a real standout, and so is the sound design/music.

It also looks really great. Have it fully maxed out.

Only small complaint is that I had a crash to desktop once, at the first camp I found. I hit Start to bring up the menu and the game froze, then crashed. Started right back up just fine and haven't had an issue since, however.
Crash happened to me right after the tutorial level.

I’m having fun fighting bears. Beats the hell out of those cartoonish looking ogres in DA.
 

Hollywood Hitman

Gold Member
Really loving it to be honest, I miss rpgs like this and I think the game looks awesome.

On a 4090, getting a slight tear nothin major but for anyone on Xbox playing, is your frame limit staying or defaulting back to unlimited? I want to lock it at 120 but when I go back into the menu it's on unlimited.

But yea enjoying it. Love the art direction.
 

Fess

Member
How deep is the UI settings?
Can the enemy health bars be moved to not clutter up the center of the screen?
 
Found a rifle and cleared my first dungeon with it. As soon as I found the first bounty board I loaded up on all of them. One is in a spider dungeon and was easy to beat. The next I tried was a three skull which I assume means they out level me quite a bit because they beat the shit out of me and the group also has three bears running around with them.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
Screenshot-2025-02-13-234456.png



This ring is perfect early on for a dagger build. Loving this game.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
How would you guys compare m/k and controller in this?

I strictly play controller and I think its great. Their are more options using mouse in keyboard though. like you can toggle between first and third person by pressing "U". To my knowledge I don't believe there is a button that lets you toggle view on controller.

Edit: I found it. You hold down Right Stick to toggle view on controller.
 
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Roberts

Member
I think the game is everything I want from a modern RPG. I don't really have 100's of hours to play a single game and embrace all of their deep RPG mechanics anymore and that is probably the reason I could never get far in Baldur's Gate 3. But I also want something more than just a bare-bones standard action RPG to experience the ability to customise, play around with the loot, just in a more compact way and in that regard this game delivers.

My only complaint so far is the performance on XSX. I couldn't get into 30fps they way I could Starfield at that framerate. It just feels to choppy and sluggish. I'm also OK with clearly visible visual downgrade on 60fps, but while for the most part the game runs smooth, there are places where the the framerate drops in what feels like mid 40's
 

Mister Wolf

Member
I think the game is everything I want from a modern RPG. I don't really have 100's of hours to play a single game and embrace all of their deep RPG mechanics anymore and that is probably the reason I could never get far in Baldur's Gate 3. But I also want something more than just a bare-bones standard action RPG to experience the ability to customise, play around with the loot, just in a more compact way and in that regard this game delivers.

My only complaint so far is the performance on XSX. I couldn't get into 30fps they way I could Starfield at that framerate. It just feels to choppy and sluggish. I'm also OK with clearly visible visual downgrade on 60fps, but while for the most part the game runs smooth, there are places where the the framerate drops in what feels like mid 40's

Did you try Balanced Mode at 40fps?
 
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N0S

Al Pachinko, Konami President
I think the game is everything I want from a modern RPG. I don't really have 100's of hours to play a single game and embrace all of their deep RPG mechanics anymore and that is probably the reason I could never get far in Baldur's Gate 3. But I also want something more than just a bare-bones standard action RPG to experience the ability to customise, play around with the loot, just in a more compact way and in that regard this game delivers.

My only complaint so far is the performance on XSX. I couldn't get into 30fps they way I could Starfield at that framerate. It just feels to choppy and sluggish. I'm also OK with clearly visible visual downgrade on 60fps, but while for the most part the game runs smooth, there are places where the the framerate drops in what feels like mid 40's

Isnt there a 40 mode
 
Given the massive financial and critical success of Skyrim, I was always kind of baffled by the lack of clones.
From spawned a whole genre of Souls clones, why the Skyrim-like never became a thing is weird to me.

My early impression is that this isn’t like Skyrim. You can’t pickup and manipulate everything in the environment.
Combat is much improved, not a high bar to clear as melee in Skyrim was mostly crap.
Voice acting is pretty good, the writing is mostly shit, if your looking for writing on par with PoE, I don’t think you’ll find it here.

I feel like the adaptation of the PoE ruleset is kinda whack too. The stat block remains the same, but values start at 1-3, which is way different from the core game.

Also, why force me to make a Godlike character and then leave out all the cool character gen options? Godlike in PoE could have funky death masks or fire/ice effects n such. Here you choose between flower/fungal face or wood boy. Lame.

initial impressions are overwhelmingly mediocre, this is not the Skyrim successor I was hoping for.
 

GymWolf

Member
vNaSxCo.jpeg


What the fuck is this?
A dwarf with a questionable sense of fashion??

Jokes apart, one reviewer said something that paused me from picking the game, he said that very early in the game, after just 5 levels, he unlocked a skill that made the rest of the game easy and monotone, that sound terrible because no early skill should make a game a cakewalk so it made me doubt about the whole balance of the combat...

The skill is the war scream that aggro enemies on you and give you super defense and attack, can someone playing the game tell me if they think the game is easy to break? (I know it' hard to answer but very experienced player usually can sense op build after a couple of hours just by looking at the skill tree and if i hate soemthing is not having a challenge after a couple of hours of a 40-50+ hours game.



I know some media said that the game is hard but i trust the videogame prowess of journalist as much as i trust a priest at a child party.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
A dwarf with a questionable sense of fashion??

Jokes apart, one reviewer said something that paused me from picking the game, he said that very early in the game, after just 5 levels, he unlocked a skill that made the rest of the game easy and monotone, that sound terrible because no early skill should make a game a cakewalk so it made me doubt about the whole balance of the combat...

The skill is the war scream that aggro enemies on you and give you super defense and attack, can someone playing the game tell me if they think the game is easy to break? (I know it' hard to answer but very experienced player usually can sense op build after a couple of hours just by looking at the skill tree and if i hate soemthing is not having a challenge after a couple of hours of a 40-50+ hours game.



I know some media said that the game is hard but i trust the videogame prowess of journalist as much as i trust a priest at a child party.

Put it on the highest difficulty and you'll die plenty.
 

GymWolf

Member
Put it on the highest difficulty and you'll die plenty.
I always play on the highest difficulty and i'm pretty sure the reviewer did the same, that's why i asked.

Hard mode of today are easy\normal modes of 15 years ago, hard mode in the outer worlds was a joke after a couple of hours.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Luke Stephens says in his review that the game is very broken. Broken quests, softlocks, crashes, corrupted saves, etc. Anyone experience any of that stuff yet?
 

Mister Wolf

Member
Luke Stephens says in his review that the game is very broken. Broken quests, softlocks, crashes, corrupted saves, etc. Anyone experience any of that stuff yet?

Haven't experienced any of that and I'm 4 hours in. Was he on PC. Did he have the drivers that released yesterday from Nvidia? Did he have an unpatched version of Avowed? Is his computer fucked up with a bunch of things running in the background?
 
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RoadHazard

Gold Member
Haven't experienced any of that and I'm 4 hours in. Was he on PC. Did he have the drivers that released yesterday from Nvidia? Did he have an unpatched version of Avowed? Is his computer fucked up with a bunch of things running in the background?

PC yes. I think most of that stuff happened way later in the game.

And while having a bunch of stuff running in the background might affect performance, it wouldn't cause bugs and softlocks. He doesn't normally have issues like this with games AFAIK, so I don't think he's to blame here. He's a pretty professional streamer/YouTuber.

He did say it's more stable on Xbox, and corrupted saves seem to be less of an issue there.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Luke Stephens says in his review that the game is very broken. Broken quests, softlocks, crashes, corrupted saves, etc. Anyone experience any of that stuff yet?

I’ve watched a lot of reviews and while a couple mention that they crashed while loading a save, or a quest was bugged, it happened rarely and just restarting the game fixed it. Nothing major. Don’t know why Luke has so many issues. Seems nobody else did to that level.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
PC yes. I think most of that stuff happened way later in the game.

And while having a bunch of stuff running in the background might affect performance, it wouldn't cause bugs and softlocks. He doesn't normally have issues like this with games AFAIK, so I don't think he's to blame here. He's a pretty professional streamer/YouTuber.

He did say it's more stable on Xbox, and corrupted saves seem to be less of an issue there.

There were Nvidia drivers that released for Avowed yesterday. Him not having those could be the culprit. Who Knows. Mortismal plays on PC exclusively and has already 100% the game and mentioned no issues. ACG didn't mention anything either.
 

Gorgon

Member
Given the massive financial and critical success of Skyrim, I was always kind of baffled by the lack of clones.
From spawned a whole genre of Souls clones, why the Skyrim-like never became a thing is weird to me.

My early impression is that this isn’t like Skyrim. You can’t pickup and manipulate everything in the environment.
Combat is much improved, not a high bar to clear as melee in Skyrim was mostly crap.
Voice acting is pretty good, the writing is mostly shit, if your looking for writing on par with PoE, I don’t think you’ll find it here.

I feel like the adaptation of the PoE ruleset is kinda whack too. The stat block remains the same, but values start at 1-3, which is way different from the core game.

Also, why force me to make a Godlike character and then leave out all the cool character gen options? Godlike in PoE could have funky death masks or fire/ice effects n such. Here you choose between flower/fungal face or wood boy. Lame.

initial impressions are overwhelmingly mediocre, this is not the Skyrim successor I was hoping for.

I'm not sure why you expected this to be like Skyrim. They always said it wasn't. This is basically The Outer Worlds: Fantasy Edition. Importantly, it doesn't have any of the world/NPC life simulation you see in Skyrim/Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3&4, Kingdom Come 1&2, etc. It also doesn't have any of the other "deeper sim" elements of those games. Notice that I'm not saying the game is bad, but it's a different kind of RPG from those.
 

Roberts

Member
Voice acting is pretty good, the writing is mostly shit, if your looking for writing on par with PoE, I don’t think you’ll find it here.
I understand this. But the thing about PoE writing is that it is written to be read. It feels like reading a fantasy novel written in rich and thoughtful prose and here the simplified way of communication, I think, is understandable because the pace is different and the rules of the game are more straight to the point. It is more gamey and I'm fine with it.
 
I understand this. But the thing about PoE writing is that it is written to be read. It feels like reading a fantasy novel written in rich and thoughtful prose and here the simplified way of communication, I think, is understandable because the pace is different and the rules of the game are more straight to the point. It is more gamey and I'm fine with it.

It’s a bummer, when vo became the standard, it really killed writing in video games. We used to get lengthy dialogue trees with tons of options and decent writing. Now it’s just a few canned responses and everything is pared down.

The companions constant inane chatter is killing me, hopefully they add an option to reduce or eliminate it.
 
It’s a bummer, when vo became the standard, it really killed writing in video games. We used to get lengthy dialogue trees with tons of options and decent writing. Now it’s just a few canned responses and everything is pared down.

The companions constant inane chatter is killing me, hopefully they add an option to reduce or eliminate it.
It depends.

I was thankful Baldurs Gate 3 had VO, which means less chatty npcs, so less lines to skip. DOS 2 had long paras I had to skim and skip.

Long novel style writing is good only if writing is exceptional. I did liked writing in POE 1 though.
 
About 2 hours in. Really enjoying it so far. Voice acting is a real standout, and so is the sound design/music.

It also looks really great. Have it fully maxed out.

Only small complaint is that I had a crash to desktop once, at the first camp I found. I hit Start to bring up the menu and the game froze, then crashed. Started right back up just fine and haven't had an issue since, however.
I'm really enjoying the game too. The sound is REALLY good, but I'm talking sound effects. The voice acting is all over the place. It's kind of weird hearing bubbly girl voices from military captains for instance. The music is just kind of there.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
There were Nvidia drivers that released for Avowed yesterday. Him not having those could be the culprit. Who Knows. Mortismal plays on PC exclusively and has already 100% the game and mentioned no issues. ACG didn't mention anything either.

That could definitely help with performance issues and crashes, but not really quest bugs I'd think. Maybe he was just unlucky.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Supposedly no HDR on the PC version and auto HDR equivalent on the console.



Ah shame. I don't have HDC on PC but anyway it seems impressions of it are always borked, but I was heavily considering bringing the PC on my Sony TV for HDR if it had good support as the colors and bioluminescent mushrooms would have popped like crazy I imagine if they had done a good HDR job.
 

Hollywood Hitman

Gold Member
I really believe that if someone likes ES they'd like this, it is totally in the same light as a Bethesda game but feels a bit cleaner and little more polished.

A shame that Matt hansen had to put a stain on the game, but whatever... Hopefully it just lands for folks as a good rpg at the end of the day.
 
I really believe that if someone likes ES they'd like this, it is totally in the same light as a Bethesda game but feels a bit cleaner and little more polished.

A shame that Matt hansen had to put a stain on the game, but whatever... Hopefully it just lands for folks as a good rpg at the end of the day.
I think it'll largely be forgotten this year because of upcoming games and general negative vibes prelaunch. I also think people will go back to the game down the road and realize it's a fun game. The next gen hardware should make the most out of it with the unlocked framerate too. The environments and level designs (not sure what else to call it) are really good. It's really fun to look for ways to get to loot, jumping on stuff is fun, and the melee and shooting are pretty responsive too. It's just fun.
 

WoodyStare

Member
Mostly echoing what others have said but I’m also really enjoying this (about 3 hours in). I was worried about the combat when it was revealed but clearly a lot has been improved since then and it’s fun to play. I think the menus are a little clunky at first but I’ve gotten used to them. It very much feels like an Elder Scrolls game with more polish, but of course some items in the environment are static comparatively. The music is also good but not as memorable as Oblivion/Skyrim. Can’t say much about the story but I’ve liked the characters so far. I was initially skeptical about the game but I’m glad I gave it a shot and I can’t wait to get back to it later.

The game looks beautiful for the most part (some things look rough) and it runs well on Series X in quality mode with unlocked frame rate/VRR.
 
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