Hey everyone,

Hope you're enjoying this game as much as I am; I have to say, it is maybe my new favorite game already!

I just made this post to share a few random impressions as they come to mind:

Criticism:
I LOVE JUMPING! But, in single player it's annoying to make all 4 characters jump. That being said, it's fun when only my athletic character can clear the gap and they have to do some solo exploring.

The indication that your character will have to move before jumping is probably not enough. It's a very common occurrence (so I imagine it's all over the forums) to have your character move into position before making a jump thus provoking an attack of opportunity (often the entire reason you wanted to jump to begin with). Is there a way to avoid this I'm missing? If so, I missed it, which is feedback in and of itself.

My girlfriend got really frustrated trying to figure out the game but she's new to the genre. Also, some people online cried because they thought the controls were hard but they probably just want attention. I think the ease of controls (just click to move) are great for a vet who wants to issue commands quickly, but for a newbie maybe some sort of confirmation system would help? Not sure.

Gale never hits anything with spells and thus it's usually best to just use magic missile.
The mystra's blessing buff
does do some work for this, and I understand that verticality and light play a role as well but... I never actually figured out a good way around the shrouded in darkness debuff; dancing lights? Darkvision? Anyway, I think it's cool I would just appreciate a bit more information on how to deal with the darkness. In general, maybe more of a complaint of 5e. Why miss with scorching ray when you can end an entire encounter with a couple uses of shatter?

I hate save-scumming and definitely do it 80% less in this game than in BG1&2, but nevertheless I feel like there is some criticism shrouded somewhere in here. It feels like every time I forgot to save for a few minutes I would find myself doing a poor job engaging in a fight. Really just a problem with my own reckless playstyle, and I feel like most of the encounters and dialogues in this game were manageable even at a disadvantage which speaks volumes to your design, so, honestly you could move this one to the praise section.

One pretty minor thing but it vexed me for quite a while on my ranger playthrough and then again on my Eldritch Knight. Does the True Strike cantrip only work for one turn? If so, I think the tooltip should definitely reflect that. I seem to recall reading that some people got two charges out of it, and I went on quite a rabbit chase to see if there was some reason it kept saying 'Concentration Broken'. A message like 'spell-effect ended' would be clearer.



Praise:
There is so much depth to this game. I thought the underdark would be a small foray but,
then I found the arcane tower, the druergar, and I know the myconids are still out there but I still haven't found them. Also, the bulette aggro'd me during the minotaur fight. It was good to be reminded of my frail mortality.
The first multiplayer playthrough I did I was amazed at how many things my friends uncovered that I had looked over.

The combat moves so quickly. D&D has always suffered from boring combat IMO; having characters next to each other in the initiative order is so fun and in multiplayer it makes for actually some pretty cool action in a turn based game which is crazy.

I. Love. The. Companions. I understand some people might be frustrated with their greyness or darkness, but that's the tone of Baldur's Gate and it's awesome that you committed to that rather than making them wishy washy. Remember in KOTOR when you could influence your companions to make more evil or good decisions? I don't know how deep Larian will go on that front but I am excited to see the decisions that my companions make. I love it when they pitch in their opinions in dialogue (so I ask for more!);
I loved how much of a leading role Wyll took in the goblin camp and then how different the story was when I didn't bring him.


Verticality is the coolest addition (some neckbeard will surely point out how it's been done before) I've seen to this genre in years. Jumping is my new favorite past time in real life now too.

The dialogue success/failure system is fun both ways! Don't let the complainers change your mind on this please. Also, once in-dialogue saving is enabled they will be able to do their save-scumming and will probably stop complaining *shakes fist in disdain*.

The pie chart that displays chance to hit with debuffs/buffs works so well.

All in all, Larian has done such a good job with this game from every angle. The game feels like D&D, it has all of those multitude of options including silly ones, but still keeps such a serious tone (something that bothered me about D:OS2). The game to me thoroughly feels like a sequel, a push forward for the CRPG genre, a Larian game, and most importantly a game that is true to the spirit of D&D. I really think you nailed the lighting, the art, and all of the character models are just dripping with 5e fidelity (and you even made them cooler in most cases IMO).

Anyway, I love your game, and will continue to post feedback that I find and will do my part to yell at the inevitable hordes of angry, attention-craving trolls that will arise. I pray that you will not take our feedback too too seriously, as ultimately, you are the designers and you have succeeded fantastically thus far.

A DIEU!!