A Big Shout-out for a Job Well Done!
I just want to start by saying how much I really admire this game and how awesome I think the folks over at Larian Studios are for making such an incredible piece of art. It's really cool to see how much effort they put into making this game great, and they've gone above and beyond what people expected. This is a really impressive achievement that has gotten a lot of people talking in the world of top-notch game makers. This chat about it reminds us that aiming for high quality can sometimes push against the usual ways things are done, kind of suggesting that not everyone always agrees with those standards in our society. With that in mind, I'd like to share some thoughts on things that could maybe be made a bit better. I get that these ideas might not be something that can be done right away with an update, but I'm curious if you see where I'm coming from. It's possible that these thoughts could be helpful for the future RPGs that Larian Studios creates, making the experiences even better. I do want to say that most of my suggestions revolve around the idea of feeling really engaged in the game. The game itself is made well, but there are certain parts, especially how immersed you feel, that could be improved a bit.
Creating Your Character, Making Initial Choices, Racial Cantrips, and Immersion
To start talking about this, let's go back to the beginning. When you're making your character, there's a first question: Can you change the abilities, simple spells, and magic tricks of new friends when they join our group? Well, right when they join, you can't do that. But the NPC named Withers does give us the nice option to mostly reassign things later on. This option comes after playing for a while and spending some in-game gold. It seems that we can't change the racial cantrips that come with each new companion, and that's a bit disappointing. For example, Astarion and Shadowheart having the Fire Bolt cantrip doesn't really fit them well. It might be better if we could choose cantrips that suit their classes more. Like, Astarion could have the Minor Illusion cantrip, and Shadowheart could have something like Blade Ward, Light, or even Bone Chill. This could help us feel more connected to the characters and make the game world feel more real. I was thinking that maybe the game could let us change these cantrips with the help of Withers. And it would be really nice if we could respec companions without any extra cost when they join our group for the first time. This way, we could match them to how we want to play the game, and it would make the experience even better.
Concerns About Character Voice Variety
I was a bit disappointed to see that there aren't many different voices to choose from. I know our characters don't talk a lot, usually just when we tell them to move, pick up things, or fight enemies. But I was hoping we could have more unique voices. For example, it would be nice if a Half-Orc's voice sounded more like a Half-Orc. And maybe Gnomes and Halflings could have slightly higher voices if we wanted. I also think that Dragonborn characters could sound different from humans, since they have different mouth shapes and structures. I understand that this might not be easy to do, but having more voice options would make our characters feel even more special. Also, the available male and female voices don't seem very different from each other. Unfortunately, these voices don't really show distinct personalities.
Weapons and Attire: Enhancing the Gaming Experience
It seems that when we make our characters, we can't choose our starting weapon(s) or pick the color of our clothes. Also, we can't match the color of our weapon to our outfit. Even though these might not seem like big issues, I believe they're important. Adding these options to the game would make me really happy. It's also a bit strange to me that the characters don't have proper sheaths for their weapons. Instead, the weapons just float on their backs or sides. This unrealistic way of carrying weapons has been around for a while in modern games. I think a simple change, where each weapon looks like it's realistically attached to the characters, could easily solve this issue. I've also noticed that characters often don't have anywhere to put their arrows, like a quiver. Another thing that seems odd is how shields just disappear when characters put them away. It doesn't quite make sense to me. I think it's a reasonable idea to imagine a way where weapons and even a torch become a part of how the character looks. Also, I'd like to propose adding a cool backpack, pouch, or container that works like a 'bag of holding'. This extra feature could take inspiration from the many nicely designed examples you can find online. I believe these improvements can make the game more immersive and enjoyable, without making it seem childish. It's about making the gaming experience feel more real and advanced.
Hotbar, Inventory, and Trading
Let's talk about making the hotbar menu, inventory, and trading interfaces look better. I want to share my thoughts openly, and I think the way things are now is a bit messy, like in Divinity: Original Sin 2. But I believe we can make these parts look nicer instead of keeping them the way they are. It's a bit confusing that we don't have certain filters in our inventory that traders have. Also, it's strange that when we try to move via shift or ctrl-click many items, it doesn't work the same way when we're trading. Instead of focusing on lots of filters, how about we just set up specific parts in the inventory for different types of items? That way, things that go together make more sense when they're shown. Also, I'd like to talk about Trader attitude. Unfortunately, it seems like trying to get a perfect score of 100 by investing in gold and items doesn't really matter because the game seems to prefer selling everything. The discounts don't seem to make up for giving away valuable items to make them like us more. And as for the hotbar menu, even though we now have four rows available, the organization still needs improvement. To explain, let's take the example of how things are arranged in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. They group specific abilities together in separate menus. Here's a simple idea: we could have separate menus for Weapon Actions, Class Actions, Common Actions, and different Schools of Magic like Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Necromancy, Illusion, and Transmutation. Having a hotbar that's too big can be unnecessary. We could have it more compact without losing any functionality on the screen.
Trivializing Theft Consequences
As we keep talking about traders, I want to bring up Sleight of Hand and the missing Heroic mode, also known as Ironman mode in other games. These things together seem to make the consequences of stealing seem not so serious. From what I've seen in the Druid Grove, the results of getting caught stealing don't seem that big. The main thing is you end up in jail, but even that is not a big problem because you can get out of jail pretty easily, although you might need to rearrange your hotbar items, which can be a bit annoying. After escaping, there's a short time when it's a good idea to avoid guards, but the outcomes are either going back to jail or trying to talk your way out. Sadly enough, if you use the Disguise Self ability after escaping jail, it doesn't really do anything, which is a bit disappointing. Adversely in the Goblin Fortress. If you try to steal from the Halfling Zentharim merchant, it makes the merchant angry right away, which is a much bigger consequence, especially if you're playing the game in something like Ironman mode. Now I don't expect this to happen in the Druid Grove considering their more goodhearted nature, but at least up the repercussions or something. Sleight of Hand also undermines the potential challenges associated with acquiring items through legitimate means such as gold. Did you know that each time a character undergoes a respec, the inventory of merchants refreshes? Consequently, if someone were to respec at, say, level 5, they could repeatedly exploit this five times to obtain substantial amounts of gold and items from Arron. While one might argue to simply avoid this practice if it's disagreeable, the underlying issue pertains to the source of Arron's newfound items. Considering the remote location of the Druid Grove, it's perplexing how he manages to conjure new items after a single night's rest or one of my characters leveling up.
Mystical Transformation Dynamics: Understanding Disguise
I just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who've taken the time to read through my wall of text. I really appreciate your interest in what I'm talking about. Before I wrap things up, there's one more point I want to bring up, which will be the last thing I talk about in this post. It's about how the Disguise Self ability works, and I think it's kind of interesting. So, basically, I use this ability before I use the cantrip Friends, and then when Friends wears off, I simply go back to looking like myself. What's cool is that the person I used the magic on doesn't seem to be mad at me afterwards, when playing on Tactician mode. It's a bit funny, though. When you think about it from inside the game, the magic only changes how someone's face looks, but their clothes stay the same. And even though I change how I look, the group I'm in doesn't change. You'd think the person I used the magic on would figure out that I'm the one who did it, since everything else looks the same. But sadly, that's not how it works and breaks the immersion. There is, however this special magic spell called "Seeming" that can at least solve the problem of the party looking the same. It makes everyone look different, not just me. It's like a group makeover spell, but this also does not change attire. I know this might seem like a really small detail, but I think it's worth talking about. The game makers, Larian Studios, are always trying to make the game better, and as players, we can have high hopes for what they do next.
Closing thoughts
The game encourages me to mix up my party, but it turns out to be pointless during conversations. They claim it would have taken too long to program each companion their individual responses, but I have my doubts. It doesn't seem like discussions would change much even if every party member chimed in. Ultimately, it's up to the player to pick a dialogue option and see where it leads. I don't think this would create countless new lines as eventually a conversation reaches its end at which you can't retrace your steps. Unfortunately, this leads to a disappointing dialogue system where the rest of the party just stands around. Occasionally, they will comment based on what the character I'm talking to says, but that's about it for immersive conversation. On top of that, I would have really appreciated it if all selectable dialogue was spoken by either a custom or original character. This would have made the experience much more engaging. I understand this would mean recording many new voices, but considering Larian Studios' track record of going the extra mile, I'm hopeful they'll do the same in their next game. That's basically what I wanted to share with you all in this post. Thanks for reading and discussing!
