Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback A 8-year-DM's detailed list of feedback

Hi everyone. I'm a DM for 8 years and an RPG gamer for even longer, so I'm super excited about Baldur's Gate III. The Early Access has done well in many aspects, but I also see things that has room for improvement, so here's a long list of feedback. Currently my playtime is around 30 hrs (not in one playthrough) and I expect playing much more, so I'll probably throw in more feedback from time to time.

Spoilers alert (of course).

1. Surfaces shouldn't be that easy to create.

Combining the elements is a core aspect of Divinity but not D&D. Spells that can interact with other spells or objects have rules written in their descriptions. There can be exceptions when it really makes sense, but cantrips creating surfaces out of nowhere is absurd and have many unintended interactions. And surfaces are less fun without the divinity skills anyway. This has been talked a lot so I won't go into detail.



2. Too many containers with too little loot. And too much trash loot.

Clicking around all those containers are terribly boring. They are difficult to click on. And too many of them don't contain loot.

There are many ways to work around this. For example you can make lootless containers uninteractive or highlight them in a darker color. Or simply don't make that many containers. Or instead make the option to use a skill check (investigate probably) to simply gather all the loot in an area, that players can take 20. Or maybe no skillcheck, just have an options to gather all the objects in an area.

In D&D we don't have to say "I loot the 1st goblin, and then the 2nd goblin, and then the 3rd goblin... and then the 16th goblin, and the 1st crate behind them...". I really hope we don't need to do that in Baldur's gate either. Or at least give us an option.



3. Barrels are so many they are hilarious.

Like, why are there a dozen barrels full of water in a house that's on fire? And no one's using them? Come on we are playing RPG. It can have riddles but they need to make sense in the game world. And my enemies store barrels of oil just waiting for Gale to blow them up. In a fantasy world with fire-shooting spellcasters it's almost like sitting beside a box of TNT.



4. You have good cutscene tech. Use it more often instead of characters running around.

For example, the fire scene. It could have been done so much better, so much more atmospheric if we just put it in a cutscene.

Currently it's like this:

Cutscene. See a building on fire and NPCs trying to get in. Skill check. Cutscene ends. Player goes in, finds some loot and some water barrels (which IMO is stupid, see point 3). Get fucked if opens wrong door. Characters are moving slowly and can loot everything they like which ruins the atmosphere. See door, smash, smash again, door opens, see an NPC, cutscene, NPC gets out, cutscene ends. See another door, smash, smash again, door opens, see another NPC, cutscene, skillcheck, cutscene ends, enter turn-based mode to get the NPC out (very buggy), and if you forget to inter turn-based mode you are also fucked.

It should be like this:

IN A CUTSCENE: See a building on fire and NPCs trying to get in. Skill check. Rush in, dialogue option: some skill checks for more information, loot some valueables or head to 2nd floor where people are calling for help. Can only take several actions in dialogue, if waste too many actions building will go down and NPCs will die. Rushes to 2nd floor if chooses so, a series of skillcheck to notice the possible explotion, to break down doors in time and rescue NPCs. Dialogue options to decide how NPC gets out.

ALL IN A CUTSCENE.

If people like that turn-based mode it can be kept at the end to escape the fire, but the spirit of it is: Cutscenes tell much better stories. In cutscenes there are many actions included in a short period of time. Out of cutscenes there are a handful of actions which half of them are no-brainers, and they are included in a long period of fun. LESS EXCITING.

The cutscene tech is wonderful with motion capture and awesome voice acting. So use them more often.



5. Better camera and movement control out of combat.

The camera can't be pulled up over a certain angle which is stupid. I don't want to do all the exploration in tactical camera, but out of tactical I'm still looking at the damn ground and can't see what's ahead of me. Also WASD for movement control outside combat.

The world of Faerun is beautiful, allow us to see them in all angles instead of looking at the damn ground. PLEASE.



6. Having the option to camp is good, but it shouldn't be available everywhere.

I understand it's convenient. But slaying 2 goblin leaders, take a long rest, and then coming back out of nowhere to finish off the 3rd leader is awkward. It should only be able at outdoors, or at certain spots, or whatever. Long Rests are for characters to regain their strength when they are out of trouble. Therefore, it shouldn't be available when they are ass deep in trouble. Or it loses the charm.

If this increases combat difficulty too much, maybe increaes the number of short breaks.



7. Camping should move the world forward.

If I butchered the 3 goblin leaders, Camping should make the goblin crowd outside disperse. If Nettie forced my hand, the other druids should have discovered something when next time I return. I understand currently Camping has some consequenses, but I really hope that more things would be affected by this.



8. Waypoints should be fast travel points, not TELEPORT points.

Using waypoints inside the goblin stronghold after slaying the 3 leaders to bypass the goblin village is very awkward. We should only be able to use it in the wilderness, or have some other restrictions.



9. Not-in-party companions shouldn't have approval changes apart from the most important choices.

Like how it's executed in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Companions in camp having opinions on something I said to an irrelevant NPC is absurd (and bothering), it's not like they read every memory of mine with illithid powers when I'm asleep. It's probably more of an oversight than a feature, because, uh, what a stupid feature that would be.



10. More minor approvement floats for in-party companions.

I think it's important to have minor floats of approval, because this way we can learn what the NPC loves or hates more easily, and makes the character more consistent in the player's eyes.



11. Longer banter.

It's really good to have banter, and some of them are very well written, but some are too short! Some banters are like "-- How's the weather? -- Good." At least have some back and forth between banters to not let them end so abruptly! Cheeky remarks, ripostes, grunts, anything to make the banter less abrupt and more confortable.



12. More visible initiative (or at least an option).

I'd like a screen that every character has a dice, rolls, and gets re-arranged in initiatvie order. Initiative is important, I don't want to skip the rolling.



13. Don't turn off cutscenes due to NPCs becoming hostile.

Hostile NPCs can have badass cutscenes! Even if we lose all the diplomatic options, at least show how badass they are with a cutscene instead of letting them attack on sight! Or to solve this another way: don't make important NPCs hostile ("red") easily, instead make cutscenes but cancel some of the more peaceful options. Again, we have awesome cutscenes, USE THEM.



14. Don't make combat "spreading" to other places too easily.

I understand it's a decent design idea, but it's executed poorly. The most common result of combat spreading, apart from more difficult combats, is boring turns in which me and my opponents trying everything we can to approach one another.



15. If a jump is going to leave a character damaged and prone, show it.

It's difficult to estimate the height in tactical mode.



16. Dipping can be fun but should be limited.

Dipping metal weapons in fire is not something adventures should do commonly, it's bad for the metal. It shouldn't be a no-brainer action, it should be a special tactic in rare occations.



17. Magic that influences communications should be usable in-dialogue.

At least some of them should. Maybe some occations should need some check to cast spells at opponent's faces, but still. For example, "Detect Thought" definitely looks like a spell helpful in dialogues, but if the option never shows up I really don't know when to use it. It's terrible if I use it but recieve no extra infromations, so maybe the game should give more instructions on when's a good opportunity to use them. I understand in Pen and Paper it's usually not like this, but I think CRPG shows its limitations here and should make adjustments to adapt.



18. Make characters stop moving or enter turn-base mode if they spotted a trap.

No need to explain this one.



That's all I have to say for now. Thanks for reading. Any discussion is welcome!

Great points. Specific ones to call out:

1.) Surfaces shouldn't be that easy to create.
THIS. Even cantrips create surfaces. That's their D:OS mindset. This is D&D and surfaces should be much less frequent. Sure, your fireball can set highly flammable stuff alight (e.g. wooden desks) but it shouldn't make a stone floor catch fire. The surfaces are so common that they're annoying and actually make me hesitate to use spells.


17) Magic that influences communications should be usable in-dialogue.
Agreed. A lot of scrolls are kind of useless in that you can't always predict when a cutscene will trigger with NPCs, when you would have wanted to use one of those scrolls or spells. Having a little button in the bottom left that allows you to cast it at the start of dialogue would be good, even though not the way you'd due it in PNP. Its a limitation of the CRPG format so it doesn't bother me if you had to implement a feature like this to circumvent it.

But agree with all your other points too.

Great Analysis. +1 to it all

Yea teleportation really breaks immersion. I would honestly remove it all together. Traveling into the Underdark should be like an expedition. Be prepared or die not just tp out half way.

Great points. The jump damage has annoyed me some, and there should at least be the option to have turn based mode turn on when traps are spotted.

Great thread!
18. Make characters stop moving or enter turn-base mode if they spotted a trap
If not at least do a perception check for traps. I ran over 2 of the snare traps with a ranger and never did a perception check.....

+1

Unless stuff "respawns", its pointless to have to walk through cleared rooms manually. When your character goes on a journey you dont narrate it round by round. You move along until something interests you, rather than say "I ride my horse forward. I ride my horse forward this round too!".

Temple of Elemental Evil was AWFUL with no quick travel. It just ate your time to walk through floors where you've wiped out all the enemies.

The cut scene issue can be very jarring. One of the main things that really makes a RPG feel immesive if when your actions alter the NPCs and reactions to your character. I have seen a bit of that but not much.

When there is a trap or a object of interest around I see the Die Roll above the character. This clues me in that something is there that I may have missed. I can swap to one of the NPCs and wait for their Die Roll. In real table top this is what players tend to do, one failed a check and another wants to roll. First, lets hide the die roll so we aren't alerted to something we might not find. Take the average of the party's roll or just the active character. It seems strange I can enter the same dialog or situation with a different party member.

Very good crits a around.

Great points.

Dipping should require coating like oil on the weapon and certainly not be common enough to warrant it's very own UI button. Wooden weapons should be destroyed a few rounds after setting them on fire.

I don't understand why the Devs at Larian feel the need to push all the gamey stuff so much. The surfaces, barrels, dipping, eating food in combat, climbing contests for high ground... There are a lot of great RPGs that didn't have gimmicks. BG3 has so much going for it, it doesn't need silly gimmicks added on top of 5e.

+1 with special mention 17 that is so necessary

+1, except for fast travel. Good option would be to prevent fast travel when enemies are within the area

long rest is just too powerful now. I can rest in the room before enemies and just cheese my dungeon spamming long rest spells. Again short rest classes are indirectly nerfed by removing any limit on long rest classes power creep

i would completely replace dipping with crafting. Combine sword with oil and a fire source -> weak fire sword! Place proper limitations within crafting formula, but dipping as it is its somehow insulting

special mention to

surface are also MORE dangerous without divinity skills. We dont have 3 turns cooldown status purges like Armor of Frost, once your spells are done but surfaces arent you better have brought some throwables, or else hide in that that corner and pray to survive the surface duration and enemies. Fortunately durations are not as crazy as DOS2

I haven't gotten to the DoS series, so the use of surfaces I am enjoying. It adds a tactical layer to the game that is much needed, since it adds some level of immersion and realism to it. Like why would w wizard want a fire bolt that doesn't set things on fire?

Pretty much agree especially with 1

Because the way it's set up now makes firebolt stupidly OP? In 5e the firebolt cantrip should deal 1d10 fire damage and not set the person on fire, meaning the max damage you can deal with a single firebolt is 10. In BG3 right now, it does 1d6 fire damage, sets the enemy on fire which does 1d4 fire damage, and it applies that right away and then a second time at the start of the burning enemies turn, as well as when they move out of the fire surface that was created underneath them. So, assuming I luck out and get max damage rolls on all of that, that would be 6+4+4+4=18 points of damage from a starting cantrip. That's a chance at getting a 1st level spell worth of damage out of a cantrip that can be used as many times as you want without resting. Not to mention, even if you miss the firebolt altogether, it will still do damage. Not even kidding, I've killed enemies with a firebolt that got a "critical miss" meaning I should have missed them so badly that it would be embarrassing, and instead it just exploded in their face for no direct damage, but still set them on fire and dealt 3 damage. Then, when it swapped to their turn, they took another 2 damage, and then when they went to move out of the fire surface it created under them, they took even more damage which killed them. And I missed the attack. It's just not fun and completely broken to have a cantrip that I can spam as much as I want without penalty be able to kill enemies that I miss attack rolls on, when by all means they should have laughed in my face for missing my attack and proceeded to smack my wizard upside the head. As for it be "realistic" how is setting a floor made of stone on fire? Last I checked, stones don't exactly burn well. Setting a wooden object on fire should be possible obviously, but just being able to spam a line of fire across the stone floor to force enemies that have to get close to me to literally walk through fire to reach me is just plain stupid.

I wholeheartedly agree! Very good observations.

There are so many containers that I don't bother checking all of them, I check two or three at most and then I move on :'D I am lazy like that. And I was thrilled to see that there is party banter, it was one of my main requests when the game was first announced, but a few more lines really wouldn't hurt.

Setting "things" on fire is OK, assuming the things are flamable, like oil, fabric, etc. Leaving a bunch of fire on stone floor for 1 turn is awkward because there is nothing to burn.

I've triggered a lot of traps right after I detected them, there's no time for me to react. Or maybe this can be blamed to bad optimization (or my old PC) and can be fixed overtime. We'll see.

Your title sounds like a spell name