I've just finished my 9th multiplayer playthrough, this one in the 6th patch, and wanted to compile list of my thoughts:
- I would love some way to set "marching order" for the characters I control, ideally including both (but independently) who goes first through a door/area and who takes the reigns of any conversation over which I should have any control
- Regardless of who starts a conversation it would be amazing to be able to change the person speaking or actively join conversations with multiple characters and/or have party members controlled by different players be involved differently.
- The rest system feels a little weird to me still, I thought that overall the contextual camp was a lovely improvement, and the camp resources is a much better use of food found around the world than direct healing (I'd possibly even expand this system to cover short rests instead of the arbitrary limit per long rest). I still feel like having a risk such as random encounters associated with resting in some locations would be a great addition to the resting "economy" and immersion into the game world.
- Spell memorisation feels a little samey for all classes to me currently, there's not much difference between how I interact with my spells as any of the spell casting classes. I would love to see a prompt at rest to choose your spells for the next day for those classes that are supposed to, with the option to create and single click a pre-set lists so you could have a "travel spells", "combat spells", "around town" etc if you wanted to.
- I quite like the current dice rolling visuals and feel for ability checks, they feel satisfying to me and illicit many happy table topping memories.
- There's few spells that I've found minor issues with, but one that has stood out as memorable is magic missile being capable of missing/being interrupted by a non magical barrier.
- I still don't understand the different shopkeeper tab options (trade/barter), nor have I ever felt a strong pull to try to.
- I definitely prefer the reduction in power of height advantage to a bonus rather than conferring actual advantage.
- I really enjoyed the "weapon actions" additions, I'm not sure about the per rest limits but I understand that's a very common 5th ed mechanic so maybe that's unavoidable (possibly could expand uses with level?).
- The new area opening up was super exciting and I'm looking forward to the full game experience even more now.
- In dialogue with other mindflayer worm holders, it's not always clear when the actions you're being offered are aggressive or done with consent, there were a couple of times that I tried to use the worms connection to help a party member but they reacted as though I was attacking them, in hindsight I could see the intention of the wording but it wasn't clear before I clicked on it that I'd be exploring their mind without their permission in the context of the conversation we were having.
- In some of the more vertical fights, it would be extremely useful to be able to force your camera perspective up or down levels to find targets/locations properly.
I'm sure I've forgotten things but those are the memorable take-aways for now.
Overall I have been thoroughly enjoying EA, and I generally like the direction the game is heading in in most respects. Honestly most of my biggest gripes with the game remaining are fundamental components of 5th ed so I understand their inclusion and why they aren't likely to change (5th ed just happens to be one of my least favourite RPG systems currently, I far preferred the Larian/DOS system which is why maybe I'm more on board with the amount of homebrew than some other people).
Keep up the amazing work Larian, and a huge thank you to everyone who has provided the feedback that is shaping this game.
I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what Larian are even trying to do with that system.