Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Wormie's Post Patch 8 Therapy Session (Feedback)

Sunk couple hours into the newest Bard patch and I have some thoughts that I wanted to share.

First impressions

The game starts to look very nice! I was impressed by progress that has been made in some of the revamped cutscenes: animations connect far smoother, framing and shots are purposeful. Kagha/Snake scene nicely traced character’s sight, making cuts to different actors feel more natural. Even Wyll’s intro became less buggy! It had a disappearing sword, and Wyll’s hand didn’t quite align with the handle... but baby steps!

I do like the background actors feature! That said I wish that rather than assigning same reaction to everyone, the reactions would be specific to each companion when appropriate. For example this is a shot from the snake trial, and I feel the puppy terror face really doesn’t fit Laez, nor her opinion on the matter.

Also: have PC dialogue choices became more colourful? Or did improvement in cutscene quality improve my ability to roleplay? I really can’t tell.

I also have this small personal frustration – as cutscene takes place I tend to move my cursor to the side for it to not distract from the action. But then the cutscene ends and my screen scrolls to the right. Wouldn’t it make sense to reset cursor after the cutscene is complete?


The new skill submenus are delightful. It is exactly what I was wishing for. I also like the new upcasting UI a lot. I have noticed though, it triggers when the spell is used through the hotbar only. Is there a reason it is not used for spells accessed through dropdown folders? Personally I see no reason not to, assuming that the cast would default to spell level it was accessed it (so if player accesses orb through 2nd level spells, the character would automatically set up to cast the upcasted version and player could use the upcasting menu to cast it as lvl1 spell if he wished to do so).

Having a dedicated cantrip folder is great as well. Speaking of those dropdown menus, lvl2 spell folder is still a bit messy with lvl1&2 spells all squished together. I hope those will get the same special treatment as spell variants and upcastings. The UI for preparation/learning spells is a great upgrade as well. I hope improvements from there can be transfered over to lvlup screen as well.


With hotbar shortcuts being gone in this update, I started to wonder how hard it would be to implement PoE1&2 style shortcuts – the idea would be that if player would hover over a tile and press an unassigned keyboard button, that button would become a shortcut for this tile (it could be unassigned the same way, and both should be doable only when the hotbar is unlocked). I think it would allow players to organise and utilise hotbar in the way that would make the most sense for each player.


Have been said before, but it needs to be said again: trade screen is not great. Why does it exist? Why isn’t barter the default?

Also a long time frustration, of which I am really getting sick off – attack of an opportunity attack indicator. The red circle disappears so many times, it might as well not be there at all. Perhaps, putting some kind of disengagement warning on the pathing UI would work better?

Spherical spells, like silence, don’t properly indicate affected casters when casting. The highlight seems to be flat, and affects character on the same plane only, while the spell is spherical (easy to test during Harpy fight).
Inventory – is there a way to select multiple items and then send them to weres/camp/drop? I know there is dedicated “sent to wares” shortcut, but I found nothing for camp. I feel it would be more natural and efficient if we could tag all items we want and then use drop down menu to do with these items what we want (or drag them where we want, if we sort stuff into containers like civilised people).



Moving around is something I tend to find frustrating in BG3. Not always, but often enough for it to be annoying. It is mostly a problem in busy areas – full of interactable items, elevation, NPCs – like Grove, goblin village, or forge.

My first request is to give me an ability to split movement and interact/pick up. I think that if I could split those two apart I would already erase a decent amount of my frustrations – with those reasons being my character picking up/stealing stuff, when I try to get him to move. I think my favourite set up would be LMB – move to; hold LMB – follow the cursor; RMB interact; hold RMB – context menu. That said, just making move/interact separate in the keybinding menu would give me enough to work with.

Speaking of follow the cursor – I find it to be my go-to way of moving around as it just seems to work better for me the clicking on the ground. Would it be possible for it to take less time before triggering? Or even better, allow me to create a separate “follow the cursor” keybinding for immediate response?

I also wish that the walking animation would play if cursor was slightly farther away from the character – at this moment the cursor needs to be very, very close to the PC, which makes changing direction without stopping/accelerating rather tricky.


I also had two requests for potential, (un)toggable camera modes:

In BG3 one can control the camera and move independently, or follow the character and not touch the camera. PoE2: Deadfire had smart camera that combined both – it followed the party, but players were free to pan around. When giving an order to move, the camera would pan back to the party and follow it. I often find myself wishing for such feature, so I don’t have to double click on the portrait every time I look around.

The second idea is for camera to follow the cursor as well, in “follow the cursor” walk mode. Right now I use “Q”&“E” to turn when following the cursor which is a bit clunky. I feel that an ability keeping the camera behind the PC when using this feature would be a nice QoL improvement.




Those are really annoying. I think the problem is that BG3 is both real time and turn based title, and it’s not optimised for real time interactions. Using skills outside combat feels pretty clunky because of it. For example I walk and see a gap I need to jump through. My reaction is to press z, at which point my character stops and makes a silly pose. Or I walk around grove, where you first meet Wyll and the cursor hovers over attackable manekin – which promps my character to stop in his tracks and get his weapons out. It makes sense in turn based, but it really doesn’t during exploration.

I think that the set up animations should not trigger in real time, if the character is doing something else. It is fine if he is standing still, but not if he is walking. Allow me to set up my jump, without having to stop dead in my tracks.





Bard – Performance is a nice touch, but I wish there were arrengments better suited for solo performance. I tried violins and lute and they really don’t work without the band. I get they are meant for coop play, but there is no way I will be wasting valueable and limited feats on my party so they can make my bard sound not bad. I think it would be nice if each song had a “solo” arrengment – isn’t it likely that most players will have only one performer in their group?

Bardic inspiration – geez, it doesn’t feel good to use. For one, setting preferred use for the thing through toggable passives is unwieldy. On top of that, those can be accessed only in that characters turn – so cast it on someone who is about to be attacked and... what exactly? It’s inactive? It chooses if it wants to be used? I honestly don’t know. In general, I feel that buffs like that are really poorly handled in BG3. Buffs can by fun only if the player knows what he gains from the buff and when they are used. I am playing Into the Breach on my ipad, and dang, absorbing one damage can feel so good if it’s properly communicated. Bardic inspiration is not only difficult to use, it also doesn’t communicate well when it is being used and what one gains by using it. An attack buff is slightly better, as one can toggle it on&off to see the difference, but man, it is not good.

And you know it – you revamped your dialogue system specifically to highlight buffs, instead of hiding them before pre-adjusted DC. Yet you do the same thing for combat rolls. Your combat buffs are very unwelcoming. Your reactions are unwieldy to the point of being irrelevant in tactical consideration. As the result Bardic inspiration is just not fun to use.

Song of rest – yhhhh. What’s the benefit of it exactly with current implementation of rest?

Detect thoughts in dialogues – good! I finally use it! I have no clue how anyone managed to make a use of it before.

Diggable chests – cool? But hilariously big, and filled with even more junk to eat/sell. It can be developed into something worthwhile, but for now it is yet another empty, unrewarding thing. [when hilarious, I don't mean "funny ha-ha" but "funny peculiar"]


This is first time I was personally annoyed by people getting dirty without clear idea, as to why and when. Let short rest clean us up! Let water clean us up (I tried it. Also Astarion doesn’t seem to mind water anymore)

Mandatory AoE for spells is annoying. Why can’t I use chromatic orb, or Melf’s Acid Arrow without hitting my team? If you want outright get rid of this stuff, at least give us a choice. Homebrew less damage plus surface. No surface but normal damage. THAT’s a passive toggle I can get behind.

Chaining in stealth seems to work even worse in this patch After group stealth party doesn’t seem to want to follow my PCs lead – until they do, some of them, sometimes.

Non-lethal attacks still seem to be pointless. Why give me an ability not to kill someone, if the game will treat it as kill? That would be a lot of reactivity, but either you will have to do it, or you need to remove non-lethal attacks. If you create limited reactivity to non-lethal attacks, players will be unlikely to search for those, after the game ignores their non-lethal actions couple times in the row. Also, I much preferred dedicated non-lethal strike that was present at the start of EA, rather then the toggle.

Arcane recovery – I find myself forgetting about it’s existence... or rather I remember of it existence when I enter combat. With it originally being tied to short rest – can’t there be a way for it to trigger/be offered to trigger after making short test. I feel I could use some kind of reminder that it exists.

Grave robbers – they are planning to rob the grave, they hear the crash and want to investigate it. I convince them not to go to the crash, so.... they abandon the grave and run who know where? It doesn’t make sense. If that’s the desired outcome, shouldn’t we rather deceive them to go to the ship (and get killed?) and abandon the grave?

Yes, having to use Thunder Chromatic Orb all the time is not immersive for my real character in the full game. That is not my element and I wish the damage revert to original without surface.

Larian lost it here. If people complain about Fire Bolt and Ray of Frost initially, why would you put it back in the same place just a few patches later?

The surfaces are the worst.

I like them. It makes for a reactive environment, which I think is interesting and fun.

Thanks Wormerine, that's great feedback (in my opinion, at least). I think you should send it to Larian through the feedback form linked to in the Larian launcher. Maybe in a couple of days, after seeing if the forum adds or corrects anything worth changing.



I also wish the Perform action was better, but in a different way. I wish it had non-musical Performances, instead of just three variants of the same thing (i.e. play music). This is sad for all Bards who don't play music, but can tell stories, recite poetry, dance, etc.

Having said that, I think it's the first time I see this feedback mentioned (solo vs group performance).

I'm a bit conflicted on this area.
On one hand it's starting to look better, yes, but on the other hand this is not an area that is improving as significantly and especially as quickly as I expected to the start of EA, to the point that there's a lot of what I considered "probably temporary junk" that I'm starting to get use to the idea will probably land on the final game.
And I say this as someone that at the beginning of EA was being vaguely dismissive of people's criticism of the "cinematography" in the game.
Now that some cutscenes went through several iterations, I'm starting to realize that maybe it wasn't just because stuff was "placeholders". Maybe Larian just isn't that good with direction, camera work, etc. I mean, without even mentioning some of the "heavy hitters" in this area like Naughty Dogs, even a direct comparison with something like 2015's The Witcher 3 (which as BG3 used a lot of "automated" stuff) is a bit harsh.


Good point. I have also another personal minor gripe... I wish the placement of companions in the background was a bit more dynamic/procedural. Right now if you tweak the game to include more companions in your party, they end up occupying the same exact spots and overlapping on each other.
Especially since Larian seems to be completely unwilling to give the option for a larger party a chance and determined to leave it to modders, they could at least put the foundations to not make the experience more miserable that it has any need to be.


Eh,reasonable but sorry, we don't do QoL here.


I don't know if I'd go so far to describe it as delightful, but yeah, it feels a NET improvement over what we had before. Especially upcasting.



Barely related, but I was just giving it another go at Temple of Elemental Evil yesterday (turns out it's basically unplayable if scaled up at modern resolutions, by the way) and I found mildly amusing that even a game that old already had this type of "on-the-fly keybinding" as QoL feature.

Everyone likes a reactive environment I think, but not when everything is an excuse for Larian to create another surface. They go too far with their one track mind of "more surfaces = better".

With Chromatic Orb I want my 3d8. I'm casting it because I want to do damage. A big part of the spell's usefulness is the ability to switch elements to take advantage of a vulnerability, which can make that 6d8. I wouldn't be opposed to having a choice to aim it at the ground instead, to create a surface without the direct damage for other tactical uses like slowing down an incoming mob or AoE damage. But cutting damage potential for a surface I don't want is extremely annoying.

Also, the real surface spells start coming after level 5. Sleet Storm, Wall of Fire, Stinking Cloud, Evard's Black Tentacles, Cloudkill... We don't have to start spamming surfaces right away from every spell that remotely deals with some element.

Will do! Thx I always forget about feedback feature


Yes, I have seen your thread earlier - I think it is a very interesting point. As with other classes Larian's take on Bard is very specific.

Let's just say I have been somewhat disappointed to click perform and have my violin player awkwardly play just one note. I think that violin, flute, lute and lyre could benefit of having a melodic version for solo performance. Then if we combine melodic instrument (violin, flute) with a harmonic one (lyre, lute) then melodic would play the melody and harmonic would give the background, and if we combine the two from the same category, then one would play the melody and the other the background chords. It could even allow for combining same instruments for one, layerd performance. With how the basic the songs are, I don't think it would be too difficult to come up with different versions.

As I am feeling nerdy today, I am also somewhat disappointed that while Larian modeled their string instrument after a viol, they still call it violin (though I am pretty sure viol should have 6 strings, being a rather different type of a string instrument). That's a minor thing to point out, as with it being a fantasy world, I am happy to accept it as a stylistical choice. That said, I would love it, if it would be possible to acquire a more violin-like looking violin in the game. The closer to my baby, the happier I will be:-):


I would lie, if I said I don't share your worries, especially that what we have is just a small fraction of the whole game. I don't expect nothing near the quality of Mass Effect or Witcher3, due to much lesser reactivity and customisability and potentially a silent protagonist. But I do feel the cutscenes are moving away from being a distraction and some of them start to look rather coherent. I have no clue if they will get there before the release, and if they will work well for every race. But a jump in quality is something I noticed, so I think it is worth giving a word of praise, even if in my personal opinion the whole idea is misguided and creates more problems then enhancements.

haha! After fighting with UI for so long it feels SOOO GOOD to be able to just play the game. Now, if only they did the same with chaining system