Bugs (Dragon Age II)

This is a list of all known bugs, glitches and exploits in version 1.0 of Dragon Age II. A patch for PC and Mac updating to version 1.01 was released on 17th March 2011.


 * Note: When listing a bug, please be as accurate and detailed as possible. Please list the platform you use, and any factors you think may have caused the bug. Hopefully this page can serve as resource to other players in avoiding these issues, and to Bioware in creating patches.

General

 * Befriending Isabela will cause her Thumbs Up ability to activate, which is extremely buggy. It will slowly confer a permanent and increasing penalty to attack speed, eventually making Hawke crippled/unusable. More information can be found here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/305/index/6646855, http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/305/index/6575152


 * The exact same issue exists for Sebastian. His friendship passive will slowly lower Hawke's damage resistance by an increasingly greater amount until he is taking massive amounts of damage and dying very quickly.


 * When turning in a "fetch and return" quest, you can continuously press the "A" button to turn in the item as many times as you want, gaining infinite experience and money.


 * Characters that use shields have an essentially unavoidable bug involving their armor rating. Whenever a new shield is equipped, the difference in armor rating between the shields will be permanently added to the character's armor rating, in addition to the new shield's armor. Essentially, equipping and re-equipping a shield will provide a continously higher permanent bonus to armor.


 * No achievements from The Exiled Prince will be unlocked as the missions are completed. FIXED: Only the initial release version was glitched. Uninstalling the original and re-downloading the DLC should make it work. You will have to re-play the missions to get the achievements.


 * Graphic Errors. People will begin to flicker although scene pieces will not (ie walls, furniture). This will frequently happen when speaking to Wesley while he is on the ground and in many other areas in Kirkwall when interacting with someone during a conversation.


 * When activating stealth/decoy/invisible friend the enemy sometimes is still able to target you and damage you while in stealth.


 * Occasionally the ring formed by Unforgiving Chain will remain after combat, appearing over item icons for or dialog icons next to a character's name. This will disappear after re-initiating combat or switching to another character.

Items

 * The Maker's Sigh potion from the Black Emporium is completely bugged. Using it can grant extra skills on save/load, and will remove the bonuses gained from reading tomes. Additionally, consuming it triggers a glitch that reverts any positive, passive bonuses (provided by currently equipped gear or from skills such as Sunder) into a permanent negative penalties. For example, using Maker's Sigh after taking the Shadow specialization (for Rogues) and unlocking Pinpoint Strikes will give Hawke -25% critical damage permanently.

Spells and Talents

 * The Haste spell is extremely bugged. Even though it is supposed to be a buff spell, it is affected by your party's magic resistance. So, if your characters have high magic resistance, it will wear off very quickly.


 * The Warrior's Rally talent does not correctly extend the benefits of sustained modes to other party members. What this means exactly is unclear, as it was taken from the PC readme file.


 * Cone of Cold - sometimes the area in which you aim the semi-circle to aim the attack cannot be moved, forcing the user to quit the attack or attack directly in front of the user.


 * When using Backstab or Vendetta against an enemy whose back is to a balcony (or similar area), it is possible to teleport over the balcony. This can result in a character being stuck in a normally inaccessible area.

Companions & AI Behaviors

 * Right now where the game will wrongly apply Isabela and Sebastian's friendship bonuses to the PC (+5 attack speed/+5 damage reduction, respectively); basically the game will assume the bonuses are active even when they aren't, and then "remove" them by subtracting 5 from the affected value. Over time, this continual lowering of your character's stats can have your characters taking double damage and attacking in slow motion. More details here: http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2299 (unofficial PC patch) and here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/301/index/6616837 (tips on preventing the bug's effects).


 * During combat, it happens frequently that any AOE talents or spells is locked at a fixed position and the player cannot cast the talent or spell. This happens very often and unpredictable, which seriously affect combat performance. (PC, Xbox 360)


 * Dog will occasionally not follow the party, instead staying in the last place he moved to during combat.


 * Occasionally when using Ander's Regroup Spell, or any means of reviving fallen party members, the resurrected characters will continually regenerate their health as if they are outside of combat. They will not draw weapons unless directed to, and after using a spell or talent, they will revert back to non combat mode. This is often triggered if the revive spell is cast while enemy(s) are stealthed or in the case of the Rock Wraith 'burrowing underground'.


 * Companions will sometimes ignore a "hold position" command.


 * Occasionally companions will shout "AH!" or a similar combat noise shortly after combat has finished and the party is moving on.


 * Near the end of Act 2, before initiating the quest 'Demands of the Qun', walking past the Qunari compound at night while Aveline is standing outside the gates can sometimes trigger Aveline's guards to turn against her and attack her. Coming back during the day returns the guards to normal.


 * When Ander's Regroup Spell is in the tactics, when a Companion fall, it will be used even if Panacea isn't activated.


 * The cursor used to interact with an object (doors, quest items...) sometimes will not appear and prevent the player from interacting with the object. Switching characters seems to fix this(NOT always, sometimes only save-load can fix it, or restarting the game). In cases where character portraits are stuck highlighted during this bug, it can frequently be fixed by mousing over the highlighted portrait until it is no longer highlighted.


 * It is possible that despite completing a conversation and having the NPC walk away from your character, the conversation will begin again, complete with diaglogue choices and the voice of an absent NPC forcing you to complete the entire conversation again to end the quest/conversation.


 * During combat, after felling an enemy who was stunned, the enemy, although dead, will still be seen to be staggering in a standing position, though will not attempt to attack the party or exit the stagger to fall to the ground. The only fix seems to be leaving an area and then returning, required if the staggered individual is carrying quest necessary loot.


 * Companions will occasionally stop fighting during combat, or not initiate combat at all. Manually switching to that character and beginning combat, then switching back, will start them fighting.


 * When placing characters, the game does not always check if there is another character there. In dialogs with NPCs, other NPCs (such as guards or passers-by) will often stand in literally the same location as Companions, so you might see a companion's face sticking out of a guard's back. Companions will sometimes all generate in exactly the same place when entering a new area, appearing as one body with several heads/limbs. They will sort themselves out once they start moving after the player.

Main Quests

 * Demands of The Qun - Using Decoy (Dragon Age II) during the fight with the Arishok will sometimes cause him to freeze up and simply stand in place. This makes the fight incredibly easy.  This bug is only confirmed when dueling the Arishok one on one.  It is unknown whether it occurs when fighting with the whole party.

Companion Quests

 * Sometimes Isabela's outfit doesn't update after she's romanced (Act 2). Reallocating her points with a Maker's Sigh potion can correct this.


 * A Bitter Pill - It is possible to begin the quest without Fenris in your party. After entering the Holding Caves it is impossible to leave the area to reform your party. During cutscenes, you will hear Fenris' voice and the camera will pan to where he should be standing, but there will be nothing there. You can still receive friendship and rivalry points with him, despite his not being there. However, killing Hadriana will not trigger a cutscene and it is then impossible to finish the quest, even if Fenris is later brought to the caves. This can be avoided by adding Fenris to the party through the use of "runscript zz_dae_debug" in the developer console prior to defeating Hadriana.


 * Questioning Beliefs (Anders) - In Act 3 you will receive a message in you journal - active quest - saying "Meet and talk to Anders at his Clinic." When you go there Anders will only say that he is busy with his preparations and can not talk to you despite gloving quest marker above his head - preventing you from successfully completing the quest.


 * A New Path - Merril seems to break her Act III quest, regardless of whether she is a friend or rival. The quest is received after "Best Served Cold." Upon visiting Merril to start the quest, you will see the quest chain's last scene, making the chain unfinishable even though you can start it afterward.


 * Alone - After finishing the fight with Danarius, in the following conversation with Varania, choosing to not kill her will result in the following conversation at Fenris' mansion not triggering.

Secondary Quests

 * Bait and Switch Reward Bug. Hawke will NOT receive any Gold reward despite Fenris insisting that he has made the payment after the quest was finished. This bug occurs when Hawke first meets Fenris and chooses to help him in return for a payment with dialogue option "You better make it worth my time". After clearing out the mansion, Fenris will approach Hawke and claim to make the payment via a Cut-Scene Dialogue which Does NOT physically give Hawke any amount of Gold.

Side Quests

 * Who Needs Rescuing?. In The Wounded Coast when you go to the right of the main entrance and go right again, you will see the leader of the bandits standing there, but you can't talk with him and there won't be any bandits to kill.
 * Sketchy on the Details after the completion, from the Chantry Board, the quest may still be under the active quests section of your journal instead of going into the completed quest's section.
 * Finding Nathaniel After killing the first darkspawn mob with the help of the explosives, when you move to the second room, Nathaniel's dialog may not trigger, thus leaving the quest unfinishable.

Locations

 * In Act III during the day, the gate to Qunari compound is visible but cannot be opened due to it being boarded-closed from behind. At night, only the boards are visible.


 * Best Served Cold, during this quest a platform in the warehouse section has an invisible floor, though it is still safe to walk on.

=Patch Notes= List of all bugs which has been fixed by Patch.

Patch 1.01

 * Save game issues on single core machines
 * Game asking for non-existent drives
 * release control issues where some players were unable to unlock correctly
 * Steam-specific issue related to VO not playing after switching languages