Gameplay, User Interface and Cosmetic Issues on Xbox One

Game mode: Singleplayer
Problem: Bugs, Various and Sundry
Region: Local

I’ve been playing the console version on the Xbox One X for a bit now, and by and large it’s been fun. However, I decided to put together a list of issues that I’ve come across. Some affect gameplay, some are UI and environmental bugs, and others are just cosmetic. Some of these issues may (and some definitely do) affect the PC version as well, others are specific to the console.

This is all using the latest update that was released on July 3rd. If anyone from Funcom wants more specifics, I’d be happy to help where I can.

Gameplay Bugs

Xbox licensing checks are performed while the player is actively engaging in an activity (not just at startup or during idle periods). This means that you can be in the middle of fighting an enemy and your game is interrupted with the stock Xbox UI asking “do you own this title? If so, insert the disc or make sure you are connected to the Internet”. The problem being that you are still connected to the Internet and logged in to your Xbox account. This is demonstrated by the “fix” being going back to the Xbox Home screen, then immediately selecting “Resume” for the game and everything continues on normally until the next time. If you can’t guarantee the licensing checks will be performed correctly, they should at least be deferred until the client is in an idle state.

Dying in a cave can result in your corpse being unrecoverable, floating in the air near the ceiling. The only thing you can do is wait for it to decay and drop a loot bag.

Players are unable to do damage under the tents at the Black Galleon. You need to lure enemies out into an open area in order to damage them.

If the rope breaks while you are dragging a thrall, in the time it takes to repair it, the thrall can disappear. In some cases what happens is it actually “snaps back” to some previous location. If you were dragging the thrall over a landbridge or any elevated terrain, the thrall will got “lost” under the terrain.

Enemies do not consistently “leash” when you run away from them. I have had hyenas break combat after running for just a few seconds, and in other cases same hyena has literally chased me from the southern most river to the river’s edge just east of the Unnamed City.

Enemy aggression is extremely inconsistent. In some cases, being at the maximum outer boundary of their aggro radius will cause an entire group to rush you. In other cases, you can literally run up to an enemy, stand in front of them, kill their friend standing right next to them and they do nothing until you explicitly attack them.

You can no longer quickly loot an enemy by pressing the “Y” button. Now you have to open their inventory by pressing “X” and then press “Y”.

Enemy decay rates are extremely inconsistent. Some bodies will remain in the world for up to 10 minutes. Others will decay within 20 seconds.

Falling damage is applied inconsistently, and is usually related to the direction that you are facing when falling (less damage when facing a structure or cliff side, significantly more damage when facting away from it). I’ve been in situations where I was sure the fall would kill me, and it only did minor damage. In other cases, merely jumping down 5 meters from a rock ledge takes 30% of my health.

Fish traps do not work correctly in deep water, only in shallow water. They will return fish when first placed in deep water, but will stop returning fish after a restart.

Beehives do not work correctly. They will return honey when first placed, but will stop returning honey after a restart.

After placing multiple beds, previous beds that have been placed can become unusable (clicking the X button does not update your spawn point). You have to destroy the bed, create a new one and then place it again.

User Interface Bugs

When moving an item from the radial to inventory, the client does not see the item as “there” in the inventory (you cannot get info on it, repair it, etc.) until you select something else and then come back to that item.

When moving an item from the radial to a slot in a crafting station, the current selection “snaps” back to the first slot in your inventory, instead of staying positioned at the slot you selected in the crafting station.

When filtering recipes at a crafting station, icons for items that do not match the filter are not dimmed like they are when the inventory is filtered, and your selection is not moved to the first matching item. This means the UI forces a LOT of completely unnecessary scrolling on the console.

The font sizes used to identify items in the UI is inconsistent (presumably scaled based on length of the item name) and in most cases is extremely difficult to read on a console from typical “couch” distance.

The item counts over icons should use a larger font size and shadowing to make them easier to read. Try reading the item count for a stack of salt (which is mostly white on white).

Standard heavy armor is rated as “high grade”, but exceptional heavy armor is rated as “low grade exceptional”.

The description for Vanir armor indicates that it is made from star metal, yet it uses steel.

The “journey” part of the UI doesn’t scroll correctly, and when you select an item with a “?”, it indicates that it’s an unknown chapter 1 achievement and automatically scrolls you back to the chapter 1 row at the top.

The “feats” part of the UI where it shows all known and learnable feats (the very last group), you can move the current selection off into nothingness (where nothing is selected and no UI element is highlighted), and you are unable to select anything again until it is closed and reopened.

Using the controller trigger to move an item from your inventory to a thrall or crafting station can sometimes cause disabled buttons on the UI to be “clicked” instead and you’re effectively stuck there. The only solution is to cancel out and then reopen the UI.

There is no way to cancel an emote selected from the raidal except by equipping a tool or weapon.

Environmental Bugs

Multiplicative volume adjustment to sound effects for crafting stations that are near one another is too high. Place several furnaces and cauldrons near each other, and the volume level is a dull roar.

When furnaces and/or cauldrons are active, at the maximum rendering distance from their location (just before the client renders lighting effects), proximity volume calculations are incorrect. Instead of preventing the sound effects from those stations from playing at a distance, the client plays them at maximum volume. The only solution is to significantly reduce or turn of effects sounds altogether.

During sandstorms, extreme wind effect animations are displayed indoors (torches, clothing, etc.) where you are fully sheltered.

During sandstorms, banners do not move at all and exterior torches do not show any wind effects.

Climbing certain rock faces will have you actually moving inside and through the rock, not climbing over it.

The climbing animation does not always end correctly, and you can be left “climbing” on horizontal ground.

Planters use a proximity sound effect that is identical to firebowl cauldrons, and it is extremely loud when you have more than one of them positioned close to one another. Planters should have no associated sound effects, at all. Plants do not make noises. They’re plants.

Cosmetic Bugs

Under certain conditions, primarily when falling from heights and taking damage, your character’s head will permanently turn towards the right or left (i.e.: looking over their shoulder). The only thing that can correct this is relogging / restarting the game.

Taskmaster thralls installed at a wheel of pain kneel at the wheel the same as a cook does at a campfire. Obviously, taskmasters should not be kneeling before the thralls they oversee.

Cook thralls at a stove have a nonsensical animation where they stand there looking like they’re contemplating the nature of the universe instead of cooking. Contrast to smelter thralls who have a relevant animation.

Non-crafting thralls do not return to their correct positions after engaging and defeating an enemy. They return to the general location they were in, but often end up facing the opposite direction, staring at walls, etc.

Fence foundations can no longer be directly attached as a “veneer” to foundations, they will only attach to the midpoint of a foundation.

When harvesting large animals (crocodiles, rhinos, elephants) the rag-doll animations that are done are ridiculous. Using a skinning knife on a rhino should not “kick” it 20 meters away from my location. It shouldn’t move it at all, period.

Dusk and dawn lighting effects are incorrectly applied underwater. Water and the ground underwater does not turn a bright, bio-luminescent blue at dawn unless you’ve been eating too many puffball mushrooms.

When adjusting the configuration to increase harvesting rates, this modifier is applied in ways that do not make sense. For example, if you have harvesting rates at 3x and kill a rhino, you should not get 3 heads from one animal.

Crafting reductions from thralls should not effect the number of certain cosmetic resources required. No matter how good your armorer thrall is, he shouldn’t be able to magically turn one horn into two.

When killing an enemy with a bow and arrow, effects such as the body being cut in half can be used. I don’t care how good of an archer you are, you’re not separating anyone’s torso from their legs with an arrow.

Sitting down with a torch in your hand literally places the torch up your backside. Ouch.

Sitting in certain chairs has you actually sitting inside the chair, not on the chair seat.

You cannot switch to a first-person view when sitting, your camera is always forced into a third-person view.

Moving with the “surrender” emote active looks absolutely ridiculous. For all the effort that was put into realistic movement animations, this was clearly not one of them.

Two other cosmetic issues that I forgot to mention, both with regards to The Dregs.

First, if the Abysmal Remnant has been defeated, the audio and dialog triggers should be disabled. She shouldn’t be telling you that you’re “almost there” after she’s just been killed. It would also serve as useful indicator that if those cues don’t trigger, no one’s at home (so to speak) and you should come back later.

Also, when inside the dungeon, if you pull up the world map your current location should be positioned at the entrance, not off in an unreachable portion of the map. Undoubtedly that’s where you have the dungeon actually located, but that shouldn’t be shown to the player.

A few other issues that are also worth mentioning.

The problem with corpses disappearing or being unrecoverable is still very much an issue on the Xbox. Unless you really hate yourself, disabling dropping loot on death is the only real solution.

Furnaces and cauldrons always reset to coal as the current fuel after a restart, even if you were using a different fuel (such as dry wood). For example, put a stack of dry wood in a furnace, turn it on, it’s the current fuel. Restart the server. Coal is now the default fuel and the imaginary “coal” will burn off and then the furnace will shutdown because it thinks the fuel is depleted. Restart the furnace, it now burns wood again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Any crafting station that uses a fuel source that must be explicitly started (furnaces, cauldrons, stoves, etc.) that is active when the server is restarted will not automatically resume. They require manual intervention to resume whatever they were doing before the restart. Other crafting stations (carpenter, tanner, etc.) will automatically resume what they were doing before the restart. Consistency and whatnot.