I've played a bit more. Arrived at the point where Pelican, through a conversation, gives me the scrambler. I checked my inventory: no scrambler. Nor is it on the ground. Reload a save, go through the conversation a second time, and now I have the scrambler as intended.
Yeah, I fear that at one point, I won't be able to recognise a bug for what it is, and end up hardlocked.
Jesus. I mean, neither of them struck me as overly athletic, so they may never have seen a spear or javelin thrown before, but wow.
Basically, they took the spear as it looks in the inventory, and made it gently glide across the screen. I'm not a betting man, yet I'd bet good money that this is a placeholder animation (that will forever remain the final animation).
It's especially sad to me that it seems like (tons of bugs aside) this could have been a decent game, (...)
The more I play, the more everything about the game screams wasted potential. And I mean
everything.
Take drones for example. There are Drone Kits, which, using the Repair skill (more precisely your number of dices and pips in Repair, plus any possible dice in Learning, vs. the gun's Aim Challenge) successfully allows you to create a drone from said gun. The drones are kinda cute, floating about you as they do.
But, how the hell do they work? They're gun drones, so they shoot, right? Well, no, not really. I can switch their A.I. setting to melee or distance, and it doesn't seem to change how they behave. Once in a while they shoot according to the log, but I don't see any projectile, though it does indeed damage the enemies. But in truth, most of the time they sort of hover about me, and frequently use 'Whip' when near an enemy. 'Whip' being the same ability you have, to smack a gun's butt straight into someone's face. And when a drone does it, it bumps forward into the enemy, as can be seen in games like Tales Of Maj'Eyal or the old Ys serie. Moreover, even when they shoot, no matter that the drone is made from a slug, plasma, or laser gun, it doesn't change anything.
But you mention broken debuffs at character creation, and I have to say that I find quite a few genuinely interesting.
If you pick professions such as Street Doctor or Nurse, your selection of side effects includes Oath To Heal. This one forces you to share the medkits you might possess with any vagrants you talk to.
A side effect for Dock Workers is Cough.
Constant air pollution has inflamed your lungs. In practice, every ten in-game minutes your character coughs violently, causing a ruckus that attracts attention. Since—apart from a sub-menu that only indicates the top of every hour—you don't have any on-screen indication as to how much time has passed, unless you use a third-party program or a good ol' stopwatch, you won't know when the next cough is coming. And if you cough while sneaking around a dozen of guards? Trouble.
There's actual potential for roleplay with some of these.
But then there's things like Bad Lungs. +1 to time used for jumping. Uh... ok? That's nothing. Nothing at all. The definition of a non-problem.
And of course there's the Flawless side effect, which robs you of any advantages from the profession, but also forces no maluses on you. Flawless, I'm given to understand, was not there at launch, only added in a patch. And it reeks of an attitude that says, "Oh shit, we didn't think beyond the first draft and made not a semblance of effort to balance our side effects system, and now people don't like; quick, slap a dirty band-aid on it!"
Most questionable design choice: you read a note from you inventory, upon closing the note window, the note disappears from your inventory with no explanation. Where did it go? A microscopic icon appears on your map with the note attached...why? Who the fuck knows.
I can appreciate the fact that where the note ends up on your map is the
exact place in the world where that note is supposed to be useful. Find one with an apartment's adress and the code to its door? It'll end up on your map, where said apartment is located.
But the problem is that it's quite confusing—in no small part due to the map being an absolute shitshow—and more importantly there are many, many informations you find here and there that do not get transcribed to your map. So in the room of a syndicate's boss I find a note, on the wall, mentionning how someone from the Faith is snooping around some apartments in Old Town, and the apartment's number as well as its code are given. But that doesn't end up on my map. I mean... why? This game houses some of the most bizarre design decisions I've ever seen.