After a week of testing the game, I have seen and experienced firsthand the potential of Baldur's gate 3, but there are things that move to improve, in some cases change or add.
Baldur's gate 3 looks like a sequel to the original series but at the moment many are complaining that there is nothing that brings it that close to the original Blackisle and bioware adventure,For me what one should do and try to find a "meeting point" between the old BG and Larian's modern style of divinity,And that's why I want to scour a list of suggestions that I hope will improve the game.
The list
1-User interface:The user interface at the moment is all "
pushed" on one side of the screen and incorporated into the minimap, at first I didn't give it so much weight but playing it I started to wonder
<< it could be better than that >> the minimap does not even drive me crazy with no "
N" indicating the north and something that indicates the direction to follow for the quests, a sort of traking for the quest I am following.
The BG3 minimap in EA
But according to me apart from the game panel concerning all the useful information (character shit, Equipement, Backpack etc...) it is not the only bigger and quite passable problem for now, even if as already said before it could be improved, the problem and that at the moment the BG3 UI is not scalable with all types of screens of various sizes, my Monitor and a 1440x900 for example and in some cases as in the creation of the character in multiplayer or while I am navigating through the menus of the characters and the vendor interface many things overlap with each other this because the BG3 interface at the moment has been designed in my opinion for a certain type of screen format, it would be useful if there was an option to "
adapt" the 'Game UI based on the screen resolution, this would ensure that in many situations some elements do not overlap the game screen.
Regarding the style instead of the UI...I don't mind at the moment the style that was used in EA which has already improved a lot from the demo presented at the beginning of the year,but I admit it doesn't give the impression of remembering the old Baldur's Gate games in general,but before talking about the UI graphics I would like to focus on the UI "structure" in general.
Manny modern games at the moment have adopted an interface style similar to IcewinDale 2 / Planescape Torment, which gives you a wider impression of the game environment by leaving the party interface on the bottom and then in the center, to right or left the control panel (Character sheet, equipment, options, spell book etc...)
On the left the IWD2 UI and on the right the PST UI for comparison
From my point of view, frankly, I would not mind having a UI similar to the old titles of the saga, perhaps with the addition of a modern touch without distorting the aesthetics too much,in this way maybe with a simpler and less "
pushed" UI maybe there is the possibility to insert the feature of "
customize" with the mods the game UI, in the sense of aesthetics and all the rest, and one thing which could make gaming ui even more awesome.
The Baldur's Gate 2 user interface
So in short, it's simple, nostalgic (in remembrance of old saga titles) and easy then to be modding in the future,and that can scale according to screen resolution to avoid overlapping windows and other elements of the on-screen game UI.On the left the user interface of Neverwinter night's 2 and on the right that of Neverwinter night's 1
2-Party size, export/import Characters and Multyplayer:Let's start first from the party, the party at the moment is of only 4 characters (player and other 3 followers to choose from among the 5 available in EA followers I will talk about later on), in the original series the maximum number of characters was 2 members in more then 6 adventurers for the campaign, this was also reflected for the multiplayer,cCurrently having a limit of 4 heroes per group is very limiting, in D & d there is no real limit to the party, I understand that for many having 4 adventurers corresponds to an optimal group, but why then you cannot increase the number of players / companions available to invite in the party?This would also give more people in case the game has already started, to be able to enter the party without problems (about this I will talk about it later),Basically then many fights are quite difficult at the moment in EA and doing them with only 4 characters is sometimes not easy, and with only 5 companions available, the creation of a well-structured and dynamic group is not easy (I'll talk about the companions later).
So I'd like to see the number of party members increased from 4 to 6 at least.
As for the multiplayer instead, here there can be a great indeed
HUGE potential, but always limiting the multy to 4 players is very sad, especially when a new player wants to join the game and cannot create their own character... but let's go with order... first of all the interface
Current BG3 multiplayer panel
The lobby interface is very simple for now, the server settings are all left and right there is a window to invite players and a chat that is currently only available in this dialog in BG3, currently one player chat is not yet available in game,frankly i would like to see something similar to Baldur's Gate Enachement edition multiplayer ui, i think it is more functional and is accessible at any time during the game, below is the demonstration.
Giving more control to the Host based on the actions that party members can do like buying things from merchants or interacting with NPCs could be useful in case you don't want to get into unpleasant save reload situations because dude bought something I didn't want , or maybe he started a dialogue that I should have started because I have the highest stats for tests of strength or other skills.
But a basic problem with this game, is that as in DOS1 (
and from what they told me also in 2) there is no way for a new player entering the game to create their own character, frankly... in a game like Baldur's gate this feature in my opinion must be inserted, ok that many say that this can break the balance of the game, lies because in the old BG1-2 and IWD and then also in NWN you could "
create a copy" of the character currently in use ready to be used in other games, this function from the stupid point of view helps a lot in cases where you want to already have a character ready to use to help your friend, in fact a problem that I have always known when I play DOS1 and that if there is a new player joining the game he can't find himself with the controlled character, this is frustrating because not understanding the build I'm using his gaming experience is not fun, and recreating a new game from 0 only because the 2 ° player can have a new character and do the whole game over again is not fun at all, I'm frank from a game like Baldur's Gate 3 I expect the possibility for anyone who enters a game to be able to play with a character created or saved according needs, then it is up to the Host and the other players to decide whether to import characters already at an advanced stage of the game or import / create new characters from scratch, everyone must be free to choose.
Honestly, the import of characters from one campain to another (and from one game to another as it happened for the BG1-2 and IWD games) has been lost over time, I think the last game to have had a feature of the genre was NWN2 or maybe even Dragon age origins, in subsequent modern games this feature has been lost... by transforming the characters that are created nothing but pixle on screen, I am of the opinion that when you create a character and how it comes to life, with a story of emotions and a purpose, with which you face adventures and discover new worlds and distant lands, but unfortunately for many this is not the sense of creating a character, for others, as I said, they are just pixels created to always reach the maximum potential of the game by finding in any way the most broken and easiest combination to finish the game in the shortest possible time.
Here's how the character import and export system works in Baldur's Gate 1-2 and Icewindale, bottom right going down you can see the character import process, when saving a character during a game or at the creation stage of the character will appear in this list, just click on the character you want and you are ready for the adventure, if you want you can decide to change the aesthetic appearance of the character such as color of clothes etc. and insert an alternative voice set if you don't like the basic one of the exported file, you can also decide to change its name.
While in the lower left we have the export process, this is only available if you are creating a character from scratch and not while importing
a character already created, the function is activated in addition only in the final phase of creation after you give it a name to the character, when exporting you must then give a name to the file so that you can recognize it in the list of characters to be imported, in addition, the saved characters can be found in a document folder in the characters folder so that you can send the character files to other friends or to share the character on social media such as forums or exchange groups.
In addition to the top left I want to point out that in the old "
infinity games" it was possible to create the characters directly from the main game menu, this to avoid even repeatedly the intro every time you start the game over.
In addition, it is possible to import the character while you are playing through the character shit (this is to be able to create multiple copies of different levels of that same character in such a way as to be able to have at different levels the character you want to import).
If you don't want to add a character import and export function... you can insert a feature that allows new characters to create their own characters during the game, already in the past with NWN2-Storm of Zefirith and Pilars of Eternity there and such a function, through an NPC or an innkeeper it was possible to recruit/create new characters ready for the adventure in PoT and slightly simpler but you could create a character of different level (
with a precise gold cost) to be able to recruit, in SoZ instead you can create a real party! with a lot of motto and company name! really not bad right? I would not mind having such a function in the future... maybe in the camp a sort of "
hero recruitment board", I propose this because in this way every new player who enters the game has the opportunity to create their own character... to feel yourself.
On the left the PoE adventurer recruitment panel while on the right the NWN2-SoZ Party creation panel.
3-Dialog conversation UI:Already from the first preview demo last January / March, I immediately noticed how much the dialogues in BG3 reminded me of the good memories lived in Dragon Age origins! many say it looks a lot like DoS2 but to me this game feels like an improved and revised version of DA: O for me what Bioware couldn't do with Inquisition you guys are succeeding !, now that I'm done praising the dialogues and the films of BG3 he he he... let's go back to the list, then for me the dialogues have nothing to add... maybe you need to remove some transitional texts from one scene to another type "contina cinematic" and "end cinematic "but being an EA I think it is normal for the rest I think it is not to be added... however... I would not mind if there was a way to identify certain choices with symbols, perhaps to distinguish the different type of approach that presonage can take, like fierce or compassionate, but that's just my personal taste.
An example of dialogue in BG3