After playing EA 3 times (1 good solo, 1 evil solo and 1 neutral multiplayer), here are my thoughts on the game. It is going to be long, so I will split the text in categories. It is mostly written to get feedback to Larian, since it is the goal of an early access game. My apologies if some things are not clear, as English is not my first language. Now, here it goes.


PREFACE

Let me begin with a bit of background on me, since that might help you understand my point of view. I played BG1 and BG2 (plus expansion) when they came out and, to this day, BG is one of my favorite franchise. CRPG are my favorite kind of games. I am also a DnD player since the second edition of the game (started in the 90s). I picked up early access mainly because it was BG3 AND advertised as a DnD game. While I also played both D:OS games and would have certainly bought D:OS3, I would not have bought the early access for that. Note that there are more fantasy game coming, like Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous and Solasta: Crown of the magister, so the game will have to “compete” with them for audience.

Now, I think the game is good. It is what I expected, i.e. a D:OS game with a DnD skin. I hoped for a DnD game based on a D:OS engine, but I don’t think it is what we got. I purchase the early access in hope getting that, or at least helping move the game towards that. Here is hoping that the rest of my thoughts can help with that.


CHARACTER CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT

I think the character creation part is a good start, but is incomplete. I expect we should have all the PHB races and classes at launch. And hopefully all subclasses too. I would also like to see more face options and body type. I don’t think sliders are necessary if we have a bit more choices. I had a hard time creating an older character (on a human) and could not do a muscular type. It is going to be especially relevant if we get half-orc, for example. I like the hair options, but some beards look… weird? Patchy? I am not sure how to say this, but some look incomplete to me. My just be a graphic issue though. Quick note here though, I don’t like “clownish” character, so for me, some options given are never going to see use. But I will never say no to more option, since others might use them.

As for the character progression, it’s hard to tell since we only have 4 levels. I like some of the change to the ranger. The new options are great. One thing that I am not sure if it’s a bug or not, but we cannot have a familiar and an animal companion at the same time. So if you want to do a beastmaster ranger and you pick beat tamer (I think that’s the name), well, you can’t use both at the same time. And since familiar have no more use than animal companion, why use the familiar at all? I tried to use it for scouting, but apparently, monster will attack any random raven they see.

Speaking of animal companion, I like that we have some choices, but since they are more summon than actual companion, they won’t be useful for long. I would have love to have a bear or a wolf with my ranger, but at 19 and 11 hp, they die to quick at level 4. So farther down the line, they are going to be useless. The spider is tougher at 32hp, but it did not fit my character concept.

Otherwise, I thought some options were missing to get a good feel of some subclasses. No shield/absorb element spells really hamper the eldritch knight and the abjuration wizard for example. Some feats are also missing for some build (crossbow expert and sharpshooter come to mind for archery build, Warcaster or resilient for concentration spells, etc.) We are in early access, so it’s not big deal, but at launch, not having those would kill some builds right off the bat.

I would also have liked to be able to choose my starting equipment. I did a strength ranger one time and started with light armor and finesse weapon. Would have been nice to get a medium armor and a battleaxe for example.

Tools proficiency would be nice too. Traps are disarmed with thieves’ tools, so it should use that proficiency, not sleight of hand. Smith tools could be used for smithing/crafting. Mason tools for opening breaches (instead of bashing it).

Last point for this section concerns the attributes. Point buy is not going to work for me. Since the game is punishing in its combat, you cannot justify having a 15 in your main stat from the start. And with point buy, that’s what you get if your race to give a bonus to your main stat. So no dwarf wizard for example. I know that you have talk about rolled stats already, but it’s a must for me. All BG games had them and we all spent countless hours rerolling those dices to get what we wanted.


STORY AND COMPANIONS

The story is good, but not great. At least not yet. I don’t like how the “tutorial” is handled at all. I would have like to see something more “beginner friendly” than an illithid ship. Have us in a town where we do some basic adventurer stuff to get us to level 2, then have the illithids attack and capture us. Then we go on the ship and go from there. You could also have something like Dragon Age Origin had, so you could differentiate by race for example. Drow and Gith don’t really fit in a small town, but you could have the same for human, halfling, half-elf, etc. Or you could think of something more generic that fit everyone too. But right now, it seems out of place and too “high fantasy” to start a BG game. It’s not that it’s a bad story, it’s just not as engaging as it could be. For now. But it’s super nice that there are multiple ways to advance the story. The druid grove part in particular is surprising as an evil character (my drow enjoyed it a lot). Kudos for that.

However, I like how our race and class can influence the dialogue a bit. I don’t know if that will impact the story, but it’s nice, if only a bit inconsistent. Not everyone react how they should towards you when you pick some races (drow in Waukeen’s rest for example). But when they do, it’s super satisfying.

The companion now. First Astarion. Oh Astarion. I really dislike him. Like all of him. And the way he is introduced, if I was playing my character properly, I would kill him or send him away every time. If it was not for the fact that I wanted to give him a chance, there is zero chance he makes it to my camp. That companion does not work for me. He acts like he is a higher level villain. Which is weird considering he’s level 1, like us.

Shadowheart. Beside the name, I like her. There will obviously be a story with Shar/Selune somewhere down the line. She is secretive, but our alliance makes sense. I thought it was funny though that she tells us that we must find a healer since she is a cleric herself. I took her with me on all my runs. She is not really well built though. Trickery domain, half-elf, urchin, but 9 DEX. It looks like you realized we needed another frontline and give her STR instead. Weird choice.

Gale is nice too. Super confident. Act like he’s powerful but choose not to show it too much. I Like it. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that given his backstory and attitude, I don’t see how he is a level 1 wizard. Unless he is a lying piece of s***. But then again, he’s cool enough to bring along for the ride.

Wyll has a good concept, but a poor execution. But that might be an early access thing. Once again, he has a the “blade of the frontier” thing going on, but is a level 1 warlock. And no hexblade or pact of the blade. And his STR and DEX are too low for him to be a good melee character, so I don’t get it. Something seems to be missing here. I will admit though that I did not explore the character too much in my playthrough since he didn’t fit into my 4-man party.

Lae’zel is really well done. She’s an a**, but she is a Gith, so that fit perfectly. I think she is one of the better written one, but that makes her hard to like at the same time, from a character perspective. As a player, I love her. As my character… a lot less. My only gripe for her is her stats. I thought that she would be the perfect eldritch knight, since that’s a Githyanki thing, but her intelligence is too low for that, so I picked battlemaster everytime.

We also had glimpse of characters that could join us later and I sure hope it’s the case. I hope to see at least another 3 to 5 more companions, otherwise, replaying the game will get a bit more boring everytime.

I will end this section saying that I don’t care for the origin story of the companion. I will never play them. I like my character to have a story, but not a protagonist story.


LEVEL DESIGN AND GAME MECHANICS

Let me start with the level design. I think they are gorgeous. I love the verticality of it all. Just the ruins at the start where you find Shadowheart at the door and can go around and end up on top, then going in by crushing the ceiling… wow. Awesome. I like environmental hazard, when they are well done and not everywhere. The rock that crush the ceiling, nice. The beam that can make the ceiling fall on the ogres, superb. Fire everywhere when I cast a cantrip, enough wine and oil barrels for a whole city scatters in every encounter: not okay!

I also like the throw action, but would like it adjusted to better simulate thrown weapon. Might be a bug though. I threw a dagger at someone and it didn’t add my STR modifier to damage. I don’t like the dip action, unless you use it to dip arrows in fire. But dipping a sword? Not going to do much, except maybe heat it up too much for you to handle it.

By now, it’s been said enough times, I think. But DnD is not about surface effect and DoTs. Sure, some spells have them, and those are fine, because they are limited. But as of now, it seems to me that the game is design in such a way that you are forced to use them or everything is more difficult. Cantrips should not cause “puddle” of effect on the ground. Yes, a firebolt can ignite a barrel of oil, but not the grass/stone/wooden floor. Ray of frost don’t create ice patch, etc. Keep those effects for higher level spells. And reduce the number of flammable barrels in the game. It doesn’t make sense. I’m on the fence about the arrow. As magical arrows you get later on, maybe. Darkness arrow at level 2, not a chance.

Otherwise, I think you should revisit the DnD rules and take a good look at the game. Because right now, it’s a game inspired by DnD at best. Others games have done it better (or will, if you look at what’s coming). I understand that some rules need to adjusted for a video game, but you should keep it at a minimum. For example, I’m okay with monsters giving less XP, since there are a lot more fights. I’m ok with drinking a potion as a bonus action (especially if the difficulty is up there), but I’m not ok with a bonus action shove that push people super far, or a disengage jump that ignore attack of opportunity. Jumping is fine to get you where you need to go, even in combat (meaning using the verticality of your maps). But monsters (*cough* minotaurs *cough*) should not be able to jump from 50 feet away and kill everyone on landing. Not cool. Not DnD. And unless you come out and say “yes, we only use the DnD brand to up our sales, not to use the ruleset”, then you should stick to your marketing and make it a DnD game. That’s my biggest issue with the game at the moment: it would make a good D:OS game, but it does not make a good DnD game, which the BG franchise are.


COMBAT AND MONSTERS

If your intent is to keep the big fights everywhere, you need to find a way to speed up combat. I’m not talking about RTwP since that’s not the way you went. But when there are multiple monsters between two of our characters, you could have them act at the same time maybe? Similar to what we can do in multiplayer. Otherwise big fights are super long… It may be a early access thing, but some monster do nothing on there turn, or takes forever to decide what to do. And when there is 20+ monsters in a fight, it gets tedious. Besides that, I like combat (minus environmental effects, once again) and I’m excited to be higher level and see what we can do.

On the monster side, I think there is a problem. There is too much “unique” variation of monster. Goblins ranger, rogue, warlock, cleric, etc. That makes no sense for 5th edition of DnD. It’s fine when you have a boss monster, like Priestess Gut for example. But for the rank and file, use what’s available in the books, please. Otherwise it’s kind of defeat the uniqueness of bosses. And some monsters should be revisited for how you “play” them. As mentioned before, some monsters have new abilities that makes no sense. Again, it’s ok for bosses, but not everyone of them. Or you have monster like the Annis Hag, that are melee monster primarily (look at her stats and attacks) and in all of my fight with her, she never attacked me once in melee. Always casting spells. It’s like you decided to keep the look, but not the stats. I’m supposed to play a DnD game, remember?


UI AND GRAPHICS

Graphics are gorgeous. Not much else to say here. There are bugs and glitches, but it was expected in early access. From what I saw, the aesthetic is on point.

The UI, much less so. Either the tutorial does not explain the interface properly, or the UI is not intuitive at all. I was still discovering things on my third playthrough. The combat UI needs a revamp in my opinion. As does the inventory management. The combat log should be revisited too. At least give us different tabs, like combat rolls, skill check rolls, etc. And make sure that when we open it, it shows the last roll. I hate having to scroll down every time.

The map is not good either. We can’t put marker on it (maybe a bug?), the zooming is bad, and it doesn’t show much.

One more thing, concerning the dialogue UI: I like being able to skip a dialogue have heard before with spacebar. But I hate it when pressing the aforementioned spacebar automatically chose the first option in a dialogue choice. Pressing the number is fine. Pressing spacebar should not work there as to not chose something inadvertently.


FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall, like I said in the beginning, I like the game. I’m just disappointed that it does not feel like a DnD game. At best it’s an hybrid of DnD with D:OS. At worst, it’s D:OS with a DnD skin. I would prefer a DnD game with some D:OS elements (based on the engine you use, not because you want to change DnD rules because you don’t like them and prefer the way D:OS work).

In any case, I will still play the game because it’s fun. But if you can make me think I’m playing DnD while playing your game, that would be awesome for me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my (long) feedback. I hope it helps.