Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Wolfheart's feedback on QoL

I just wanted to repost here a feedback video recently posted by Wolfheart.



Hopefully Larian will watch, but just in case, here's the brief summary.

• Inventory : sort does not work properly. Even after Sort>Type, you can still have books, keys, some food, candles, bottles, soul coins, etc, being mixed.
  
  
• Inventory : key ring please.
  
  
• Inventory : let us rename bags. (Or any equivalent solution, like colour them, or change the inventory "skin", etc.)
  
  
• Inventory : Let us access companions' inventory at camp.
  
  Drath's notes. In order to dismiss Gale, add Lae'zel to the adventuring group, (do what you need to do with her inventory,) dismiss Lae'zel, and re-add Gale to the adventuring group, you need 4 cinematic conversation cutscenes (each resulting in 2 transitions, exploration>cutscene and cutscene>exploration) and 10 clicks (talk, dismiss, confirm dismiss, talk, recruit, talk, dismiss, confirm dismiss, talk, recruit). I'm not counting hitting Space repeatedly to skip dialogue delivery because -yawn- I have heard those lines already, it's ok once but they don't change so let's get over with it.
  
  
• Inventory : let us select multiple items at once.
  
  
• Food/Camp supplies : auto-send to camp, auto-consume from stash, dedicated food stash.
  
  
• Party controls. Chain system : yep, a simple task like selecting a single character to move them away from the group is a pain in the back. Maybe improve controls ?
  
  
• Concentration spells : better warning when we're about to cast another concentration spell. No player (newbie or vet) likes losing concentration by accident, because we forgot that our next spell is also requiring concentration, or we forgot that we were concentrating.
  
  
• Party controls in multiplayer : add easy way to follow another player.
  
  
• Inventory : too small. That is, the items/item cells are too small.
  
  Drath's notes. Of course, making the items/inventories bigger, given the high number of items, would lead to most inventories requiring scrolling. This is perhaps a good additional reason to revise itemisation/content design and cut down on the quantity of items, especially junk items (=items that serve no purpose, and are mostly worthless).
  
  
• Sneak Attack : should be a "reaction toggle" ability (like Divine Smite).
  
  
• Opportunity Attack indicator : not visible enough with environmental effects. Especially if you are standing on a surface, like a fire surface.
  
  
• Save file names : allow player to rename them. Don't default to the PC's name.

Not much new for those of us who've been part of EA for a while (and thus for the Larian feedack collectors), but I'm kind of happy to see Wolfheart give a bit more visibility to some QoL issues.

Yeah, these all sound like good things to address.

For me, though, the number one thing that needs to be addressed is the user interface in general. EVERYTHING is too small. Not just the inventory icons, but the controls and tooltips and generally everything about the interface is dang near microscopic. There are functions on the screen I had no idea existed until I watched Youtubers change a setting or access a feature through a tool that was too small to see on my TV screen.

I wish I could make the interface about 50% to 75% bigger.

+11

Gonna give it to WolfheartFPS. At first I thought he will be a teethless butt-kisser, but he has been doing a great job in providing well presented and argumented feedback throughout the development. More power to him for being so positive, while still making a critique. A lot of that feedback has been expressed before, but it is a good compilation. I really wan some of those, and would welcome all.

I love QoL stuff!😊 Not sure if they would be able to add new things at this point, but because many of these were frequent suggestions during EA, some might make it in!

I bet anything to do with the UI is an easier thing to change now and later.

Its a good compilation ... of things that people want.

Not allways best ideas tho ...
I said it thousand times and will say it thousand more ... covenient sending all food to camp and automatic picking destroy all purpose of food requirememt for long rests.

Not allways finished ideas tho ...
For example keychain is great idea, but the futher we get in game the more quest related items we will have ... so i would rather advocate for separate quest item tab in inventory.

And some ideas are completely missing ...
Like there was no mention of UI ... like adjusting size of hotbar.
Or combat log, where is like thousand amd one things to improve.

Still good video tho.

I was just commenting on this video on the megathread about the toilet chain. I didn't realize it got its own thread here.

EDIT - Oh well, may as well copy-paste here the relevant part:

I think you project a bit of Wolfe suggestion.

I would say there are two elements the chain system:

1) the system itself (you only control one character at a time, and AI attempts to follow with the others)
2) the interface

Wolfie criticises the 2nd part - the interface for creating groups - but doesn’t seem to mind the first.


Something I would add to the list is the horrid AOE aiming for targeted spells like bless or bane with me - completely illogical design.


In the video Wolfie addressed the topic - he suggests making food in the chest appear in rest UI (I don’t think there is currently a valid argument against it) but he is not behind automatically moving food there or abstracting it, as was suggested on the forum before. He points out that some food items (like alcohol) can be used during exploration - so it has some use, even if purely a roleplaying one. He also suggests there could be further interaction with food, like cooking.

And bouncing of it, finding gameplay for those systems would always be a preferable approach - and if it is what Larian has planned for 1.0 I am stoked for it. However, I don’t like to count on “what ifs” too much, especially if those haven’t been communicated, and as we had it for months in EA food have been little more than a vapid time waster.

I agree with Wolf's video. Good ideas.

I don't think I've ever made any secret of hating both passionately, but that aside what he "intended to criticize"exactly is a bit beyond the point.
Which is that his observation contribute to highlight once again what was known for years: the system is poorly designed and insufferably clumsy to use extensively, IF you are someone who wants to have full control of your party.

I'd say the AOE targeting works quite well for what it is. The issue is that it simply shouldn't be one. It should just let people select individual targets, like Magic Missile.

I know ... thats the "automatic picking" part of my post ...

Me neither ... thats the "covenient sending all food to camp" part of my post ...

Time: 6:57
Exact quote: "and also in your inventory i would like there to be an option to where you could right click on one food item and send all food to camp"

Whats invalid about my argument then? O_o

Lets imagine it in practice, shall we?

I roam trough Risen Road ... gather all free food i can find ...
I never bothered to count how much is there, but lets say i gater around 100 units in total ...
Then i went to Goblin camp ...
Again, never bothered to count, but there is lots of heavy meat that gives 10 units each ... so lets say i gather another 200 units ... probably even more ...
Ok?

What happens next?

I click to any food item in my bags, and send it all to camp with two clicks tops.
So my bags are light again ... as if i never gathered anything, its just minor inconvience of gathering some things wich i do in meere seconds.

Later i need to rest ... so i go to my mat, click on it, and i see there 300 units worth of food ... naturaly i dont really care about what will be picked, since the rest will still just lay there forewer waiting to be eaten ... so i just click to pick automaticly and rest.

I still have 260 units of food ... meaning enough for 6 more Long rests, and that only apply if i never ever again pick another foor item OR supply pack ... and we all know there is plently of both around in EA.

What does this scenario tells you?
To me its screaming unlimited Long Rests. :-/

And i really cant help the feeling that removing food requirement for Long Rest and left it as just junk items/projectiles to throw ... would have same effect, with much less effort.

//Edit:
Dunno ... maybe this is really just in my head, but i would swear that Food Requirement was implemented as reaction to people who were complaining that we can rest any time we want and there is no limitation ... but there was other group that liked it that way, and didnt want to be limited ...
So Larian picked middle road ...
Implemented limitation, and offered enough resources so it dont limit anyone who dont wish to be limited ... but also made it kinda tedious and anoying, so there is some obstacle those people need to overcome.
You dont have to be limtied ... but there is a price: either you have to sacrifice part of your carry weight OR you need to undergo tedious way to pick your food and bring it to your bed.

To me, this system works perfectly as it should ...
And the only thing that could improove it without destroying it, would be option to set amount of food required for Long Rest to 0 in difficiulty settings.

And people who are sending armors and food to their camp, so they have still perfectly light bags ... are simply using exploit that was (in my honest opinion) never meaned to be used this way.
Same as with ... well, many others exploits there ... i dont think i need to list them.

Your argument here is interesting Rag. But when you mention that sending food and armor to camp so bags are light is an exploit it makes me wonder. If that isn't exactly what the send to camp button was for to begin with, then what was the point of it? I at least can't see any other use for it than sending items away that you don't want in your inventory. I think calling it an exploit is wrong because of just how OBVIOUS that use is. To me it seems so obvious that it can't not have been intended. There are things like gaming stealth systems or the approval system that players at least have to think about and realize they can do. This really does seem like a natural use for the system.

I mean yea most of these a great ideas.
And most of them have been hammered repeatedly to Larian for the past 2 years now...

Damm that darn toilet chain system. The most broken thing I have ever seen for a Baldur's Gate RPG game, one of the most important things you could do :

"a simple task like selecting a single character to move them away from the group is a pain in the back."

That alone is a huge gameplay fail. If Larian wants to cater to Multiplayer, then KEEP THAT CHAIN SYSTEM just for MULTIPLAYER GAMES and CONSOLES.

This UI party selection system is "great?! isn't it" until you realize not having it is SO MUCH BETTER.

Well choosen words.
Exactly this, but there is a catch!

You know, Woodaxe is great tool to chop things appart ...
But does that mean its purpose is to separate limbs from other people bodies?

And thats the point here ...
Obviously i dont *know* (duh) since i dont work in larian and they never bothered to comment on any of this.
So all i can take under concideration is common sense.
And my common sense say, that if usage of something bypass, or even worse completely negate "some other rule" then its not used properly.

If we are supposed to send any heavy armor that would case encumberance to camp ... why encumberance exists in the first place?
If we are supposed to send any food that only incerases our carry weight to camp ... why there even is carry weight in the first place?
Therefore logicaly ... we are NOT supposed to send any armor we cant carry around, and every piece of food to camp ...

What is the point of this button then?
Well, easy ... its there for us to "send things we dont want to carry around in camp" ... just as you said.
But there is important difference, between sending things to camp in order to keep them in camp ... and sending things to camp in order to just leighten your bag, and pick it back few moments later to either use (food) or sell (armors) it.

And that is its purpose in my opinion.

You know, many players are sentimental ...
I, for one, really like Shadowheart's starting armor, so i never sell it ... but when i find better one (wich is soon) i want to keep it anyway.
Without "send to camp" button, i would need to return to camp, find a box, and drag it there ... nothing that would take too long, but still unnecessary delay from the actual game ... so i click this button and the armor is stored for me.
And i dont see this as an exploit, bcs this isnt something that would "just free my inventory for now" ... i would store that armor anyway, this just make it faster and more covenient.

Same goes with Magical items ... i loot some really nice Heavy Armor (for example) but no one in my party actually use Heavy Armor ... i can sell it, ofc ... but i dont want to, bcs i know from Larian AMA, that after Act I. something will happen to my party, so i presume there is possibility that this armor will be usefull in the future.
What would i do? Store it obviously.
The same process as abowe ... click and done ... no need to bother with teleporting in and out.

Same goes with story artefacts (you know, Iron Flask, Staff of Crones, Book of They, ...), or in other words, things that Gale wants to eat. Ofc you can feed him every Rest ... but if you dont want to, why drag 4 story items with you all the time, if you dont plan to use them in any way?
And as you probably guess > store them!

So ...
In conclusion this button itself allready is just QoL feature.

I respectfully disagree ...
And as any person who ever tryed to desing "user friendly interface" will most likely confirm to you, there is no such thing as "obvious use".
Bcs no matter how hard you try, no matter how obvious you make things ... there will allways be someone looking at it and saying "How the hells was i supposed to know that?".

Same things goes here ...
Abusing stealth, or approval may seem like something you "have to realize" ... but that doesnt mean they actually are, it only means they are that for you specificaly.

Person that will never even bother to try stealth in Heavy Armor ... never find out how easily Stealth can be abused.
Person who would never even think about donating gold to a vendor ... never find out how easily they can get the same (and much more) gold back, bcs their approval gets so ridiculously high.

In my vocabulary, exploit is a thing that helps you bypass, or negate a rule ... doesnt matter what rule ... doesnt matter how hard it was to find that exploit ... and it doesnt matter at all if developers leave it there on purpose for you to just mess with things around, or if they just oversighted this possibility.
You dont follow set rules > you are cheating ... or exploiting in this context, simple as that.

Sending all things to camp bypass carry weight rule ... therefore sending things you would otherwise carry around to camp (no matter if its armor, weapons, food or anything else) is exploit.
Feel free to disagree with me, but thats how i see it.

That said, just for the record ... no, i dont really care how much people are using exploits (this one included) ... and yes, sometimes i do that aswell.
But i honestly see little to no reason from Larian to negate their own work (you know, implementing carry wieght and food as limitation for long rest) by allowing us to abuse their function even more than they allready allowed us (willingly or not).

Hope we understand each other better now. ^_^

I’d certainly opt for all these QoL suggestions over none of them, but I agree with Ragnarok on Send to Camp and am not fussed about making it any easier to use, especially for food, though I wouldn’t mind Wolfheart’s suggestion as long as food wasn’t auto-sent to camp. I also see sending to camp’s primary purpose as being to fast forward through the trek to camp when we find stuff we want to keep or store for use later, rather than bypassing encumbrance, and don’t think it should be made any easier to exploit for the latter purpose, particularly when it comes to making it easy to collect unnecessarily huge amounts of food (though hopefully there will just be less food to collect in the full release).

That said, once food is in the camp chest, I think it should be available to select in the rest interface without having to manually get it from the chest as per Wolfheart’s vid. Sure, that would make it easier to exploit the abundant food available in EA, but it would also save me walking back and forth when I need to raid my stash as, personally, I tend to try to collect enough food each day to rest that night (keeping that food in my inventory), but keep some extra rations in the chest for lean days (such as when I’m in Grymforge) or special occasions. It would also make it easier to actually choose specific menus rather than just eat a bunch of random ingredients that were picked up that day, which wouldn’t have any mechanical significance but I’d find fun from an RP perspective.

I think I see what you mean, but I feelas though the distinction is such a fine one that in practical terms it becomes moot. I honestly think that the examples you gave of why the button is there are actually way more niche rationales than trying to keep your inventory weight low. Hell, you even used 'moving armor I don't need at the moment' as an example. I think that the difference you describe isn't something that a person just playing the game is going to think about. I think that they're going to see "oh I can send stuff to camp directly? That's convenient" and then just do it without applying any further thought to the matter.

You point out in the latter half of your post that people who never try to stealth in heavy armor would never realize it's a thing they can do (though group stealth is a thing so it's not as unlikely as you might think) but that still requires trying something that isn't immediately obvious. You might be able to stealth and not figure it out because you never bother trying to stealth in heavy armour at all. However any time you pick up an item, if you want to give it to someone other than your selected character, you'll see that send to camp option and know you can send basically any item to camp. I think that the option is so blatantly apparent that it's not bypassing a rule, it's making use of another rule. It's too clear and frictionless and requires too little thought to be cheating. If you can break a rule purely by using a pretty obvious use of a thing, then that's bad design and something needs to be changed one way or another. How is using the send to camp feature to manage carry weight any more exploiting the system than using certain dialogue choices to avoid combat is?

To me saying it's an exploit is wrong the same way that saying the Skickpit going hostile when he sees you trying to poison the duergar's ale is a bug is wrong. It's not a bug, it's the system acting as intended and that behaviour clashing with the narrative of the story. It's an example of poor design that needs to be fixed. And for an average player playing the game, they're not going to be carefully thinking about how every menu choice impacts their play. They're gonna just do the thing and pay attention to the part of the game that's actually interesting. That's the problem with saying it should be up to the player to limit themselves when it comes to supposed exploits (though again, I think this is not an exploit); it expects each player to always be aware of what is and isn't going to give them the best experience, while removing the expectation for Larian to actually create well-designed systems.

I don't ultimately care if Larian changes the rules for food or not, but in my opinion the system is just one in a pretty long list that's sloppy and careless and should be recognized as such.


(Also very aside, but I have never even heard of the Iron Flask. What's that?)

How have you felt about Wizards being able to learn Cleric spells?
Was that ok?

What rule are you bypassing, or negating by using dialogue choice?

Thats the difference.

I do disagree with you on the mechanics, though. I’m not saying they can’t be improved, but while some cRPGs are designed with the expectation that you’ll do anything they let you, personally (and within reason) I appreciate the more sandbox/permissive approach in BG3 that lets me do lots of stuff but expects me to ask why, and in some cases maybe decide not to. I agree that in some cases this can lead to frustrations or puzzlement for newer players, but personally I’d rather have that learning curve and then, once surmounted, be able to play the game in the way I want, than have a more prescriptive engine that railroaded me. I think the trick Larian are trying to pull off is that of encouraging or discouraging certain behaviours around which the game can be balanced by making them easier or harder, while still allowing players to bypass drudgery and do things their own way if they want to. Sometimes this works, sometimes not, but generally I get the sense that the failures are because this is a really tricky balance to strike (or just because of bugs) than because of sloppiness or carelessness on Larian’s part.

+1

I don't like it in principle because it entirely breaks the lore. But I also don't think that's an exploit, I think it's the way Larian wants things to be, a new rule. And a bad one at that.


Not so much a rule, but you're bypassing a challenge. The challenge is, there is a fight waiting for you here. If you choose wisely and make use of this clearly presented option, you can bypass that fight and the loss of resources which would result. I think is also the case with the send to camp feature as it currently exists. Your character can only carry a certain amount of weight. If you choose wisely and use this clearly presented option, you can bypassthat. Same principle. Otherwise, why isn't giving the high-strength members of the party the bulk of items not an exploit? It requires the exact same level of thought and consideration, and it lets you get past your main character's carry capacity.

And Red Queen, I hear the point you're making. If that IS Larian's goal, then they need to do a far better job of making it clear that's what they're doing, because I think they're failing miserably currently. But I'm willing togive them grace because I know tutorials are the last thing to get done in a game. But I think that without guidance, their efforts do end up coming off sloppy. But then, this game probably just isn't what I want from a crpg, because so many other people are just singing its praises for things I do not understand at all. It took me days of conversations and a reddit thread to understand why people found roleplaying in the game so great when I feel it's quite weak compared to other crpgs. I think Larian's approach just doesn't work for me and I'm lucky that I enjoy the game as much as I do.