Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My feedback after playing 150+ hours

Hi everyone!

This is my feedback after playing 150+ hours of EA of BG3. I love the game and I’m sure it will grow into an even greater one.

I played all available classes and subclasses. I guess a lot of the following has already been covered by the community. It’s just my honest feedback and I’ll try to be efficient in the way I share it.

If some people from Larian are reading this, show yourself and respond to this thread! Always nice to know you guys are reading.


Stealth and AI

"Hide, move, shoot, hide" seems OP. Imo, AI should be more clever in detecting where you’re hiding.

Suggestion: Players should be forced to change location more often in order to stay hidden and make the stealth game more challenging and dynamic. Enemy creatures should be able to quickly spot where your projectiles come from and communicate with each other. Maybe Intelligence could be a way to boost the ability to detect in which area a hidden foe is located.


The save system

Seems too easy to be able to save or quick save at any time, even during combat. Fights where death for your characters implies a high cost are more exciting. Where’s the risk and the excitement when you can save at any time?

Suggestion: Having no or very limited manual saves, but more autosaves and checkpoints, could solve the issue. An exhausted group of adventurers, scared but willing to take risks to get something in return sounds more exciting and realistic. If Indiana Jones could save all the time, where would be the excitement in dodging the boulder?


Eating food during fights

Seems very strange.


Jump and sneak attack

Jumping behind an enemy to get the advantage of a sneak attack does not really make sense when the enemy can clearly see you jumping behind them.

Suggestion: An advantage when hitting an enemy from behind should only be applied if your character is not only behind the enemy but also hidden.


Multiplayer

I hope BG3 can include a more easy/casual multiplayer game, where you can form parties and explore a specific dungeon.


Here’s a list of spells or features/class passive/class/items I found to be overpowered and underpowered:

Overpowered:

• Magic Missile: 100% hit chance makes it too easy to use and a good choice in many combat situations.
• Bless: Too good compared with other concentration spells like Bane, Resistance or Shield of Faith.
• Hex: Too easy to use when combined with a direct hit spell. Maybe inflicting disadvantage on a specific saving throw would make more sense.
• Agonizing Blast: Too easy/good. Warlocks' limitation in how many spell slots they can use has an impact here, as you need a good cantrip to boost damage.
• Invisibility: Limiting duration to 5 or 10 turns sounds more reasonable.
• Guidance: +1d4 to any check is OP. It should be either limited to Wisdom checks or be +1 to Wisdom and Charisma checks. And no need to re-cast, it should be unlimited turns.
• Friends: It should be limited to select Charisma checks like Persuasion and Performance. Making it a buff with unlimited turns could also make more sense.

Underpowered:

• True Strike: Just strike twice. Suggestion: making it a bonus action and/or last more turns.
• Thaumaturgy: Should be something you can cast during a dialogue.
• Prayer of Healing: Not interesting with the current long rest system.
• Invoke Duplicity: Should not require concentration, to allow a Trickery Domain Cleric to cast other concentration spells. If Mirror Image does not require concentration, it seems strange that Invoke Duplicity would.
• Dueling: Seems not interesting compared with the Great Weapon Fighting class passive. Suggestion: +3 damage and +1 AC against melee attacks.
• Warlock: 2 spell slots seems very limited. Maybe a new long rest system could improve it.
• Daggers and other 1d4 damage melee weapons: Not interesting once you have access to other melee weapons. Maybe adding something special to them? They should still be a good option even if your character has access to 1d6 or 1d8 damage melee weapons.
• Light armor: There should be a mobility bonus or something. Light armor should still be a good option, even if your character has access to medium or heavy armor.

Thanks for reading.

What do you guys think?

This in particular, I agree with.

I'll fight to the death over saves. I'm a saveaholic. I save during fights, during dungeons, whatever. I'm the kind of guy who finishes a game with 1,000 saves. And especially in EA but it will be true no matter what stage of the game, glitches can happen at any time. Maybe I'm old school, but I don't want to lose my progress. I don't want a good run in a fight, for instance, and then glitch out do the whole thing over. Back in the day I'd chuck a CD in the trash. Limiting saves is grotesque and I will riot. Can people save scum? Sure. Let them. The game designer's job isn't to stop every possible exploit especially when any possible cure is worse than the disease and entirely at the player's discretion. Trust the players, don't infantilize them.

I'm also confused about your critique of warlocks. They're supposed to have an easy/good cantrip to balance out the fact they have only 2 spell slots, since you take issue with that too, I think you just don't like warlocks. Luckily there are other casters you can enjoy.

Me too!

I'm divided, it can turn very badly if AI would insta spot us and alert all creatures. Also it should count when we attack enemy (and his pals don't see that) in the back or its frontal attack. Projectiles coming from the back should give AI less precise during search.




Many people tend to save scum and its personal desire. If you want go harder route then don't do that but not take it from someone who wants it. Game with rolls and checks gives another reason to save scum in the first place.




What can I say?
Lelelelelelele

I get it, clearly a matter of personal preference. I guess I'm a different kind of old school!



In its current state, I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Warlocks and this is mainly due to the 2 spell slots limitation. In combat, I would often spam Eldritch Blast, and the familiar is fun. Warlocks have access to so many fun spells, I wish they could use them more! Maybe adding 1 or 2 spell slots could do the trick.




Agreed! I'm referring more to stealth fights where, even after 4-5 turns shooting from the same location the AI is still not able to locate you.

No. Absolutely no. No game should tell me when, and when I cannot, save (except for technical limitations). I have a life outside of games and who knows when I need to stop what I'm playing and go attend to real life. This is a (mostly) single-player game, don't try to control when I can, or cannot, stop playing. Mass Effect: Andromeda did this (e.g. cannot save in the Vaults, some of which may take an hour to clear, depending how thorough/good you are at the game, and you don't know ahead of time how long it will take) and it pissed me right off.

Also, perhaps I want to try something new in some scenario just to see if it'll work, without having to "redo" the last X amount of time of my life when it breaks the game, breaks my save, crashes the game, or in some other way ruins the continuation of my play through.

Stealth and AI: Agree but detection should be based on Perception (Wis) and movement on common sense (use cover or retreat/advance). The current system is yawn inducing, especially considering stealth is my favourite way to play pretty much any game.

The save system: Don't screw with my saves. Other games that did this gave me nightmares, especially with all the crashes. Also the battles here take so long that sometimes you have to stop playing in the middle due to rl issues. I have enough discipline to not savescum if this is how I have decided to play and it does not affect me how others play their game.

Eating food during fights: This is a typical video game thing but doesn't make sense for a 5e game. I would like to have a menu option to remove it but not to see it taken away entirely since some people like it.

Jump and sneak attack: I like your suggestion for this, however would rather have an actual disengage not attached to jump, we are not kangaroos.

As for spells and other things, I don't have much opinion other than this should be kept as close to 5e as possible.
Magic Missile will always hit unless the target uses the Shield spell (not in game yet.)
Warlocks only have 2 spell slots, however these can be recharged on short or long rests. Other spellcasters get their slots back on long rests
Light armour and some types of medium weigh less and do not give disadvantage on Stealth checks. Still reason enough for me to wear them.

Great feedback! Agree!

There certainly should be more autosaves ...
Either at least one per 30 minutes, or everytime you enter or leave building ... perferably both.

I agree with everything except Magic Missiles as its the only thing wizard tend to actually hit with 3/4 of the time lets face it and your issue with daggers, in the Sanctum there are two extremely OP daggers, one is on a skeleton where the Warg were locked up after you rescue Halfin, the other is by the Masochistic self harming guy who needs some time with a psychiatrist, One dagger makes you virtually immune to all goblin damage and the other you get bless for free on a hit making you super awesome as a rogue and able to one man army the gobbo's if you want, also a dagger made with the bark from the blighted village quest is OP too, hence Astarion virtually screams at you to make one for him, to get the bark early in the game steal three invis pots and go with shadow alone using sneak with BOTT on herself, drop invis pots at tree as magic is nulled, sneak back out and done (please note I havent done this since patch 2 so dont blame me if it doesnt work and invis is nulled too now kk). PSS- drop a speed potion whilst sneeking and cloaked to get up the tree fast to your left otherwise what i laughingly call the giant komodo drago pops up on you, if you are quick enough you can hysterically laugh if you have many invis pots and watch him die to the mob there, get xp and res him with glut later for a super easy kill of them all.

I agree that hide,hit,hide and jumping over an enemy to backstab are both wierd in their current format and make combat repetitive (and its just act1!). Also yes please give different save options. What makes battle beothers really interesting is that you cannot save in combat. Its much more tense with the rng if you are not able to save anytime. But thats to be a toggle as many people wants easy, not too tactical combat.

Daggers: yes there are powerful daggers in the game, I still think basic daggers do not have to be less powerful than basic shortswords. Some characters can be very good with daggers and here, their damage is reduced to 1d4 VS 1d6 for the shortsword. Daggers should be, in some situations, more interesting than shortswords, with a special attack different than Slash and maybe more related to Sneak Attacks. In the current EA, there is no point choosing a dagger over a shortsword when given the choice.


Agreed. Although not for everyone I suppose. Maybe a "nightmare" mode?

Appreciate the time you took to post such detailed feedback. Agree with some, disagree with a few.



100% down for making the AI smarter, as long as it's not blatantly cheating.

In 5e PnP, there is a distinction between you being "100% unseen, unaware", vs. "can't been seen, but they know where you are". You won't be targeted in the former, but in the latter, the enemy can still attack you with disadvantage, or use AOE to flush you out. So in my dream implementation, shooting and immediately hiding should result in the "can't see, but know where you are scenario".



Hard disagree with this one.

Sacrificing expected quality of life features for "artificial hardcore" across the board is a poor design choice IMO. Combat can last minutes in this game (i.e. taking on the whole Goblin Camp) and I'd much prefer to be able to quit without losing progress. If people save scum, so be it (if they are willing to deal with the load times, more power to them). This should be implemented as an option (along with Hardcore/Honor mode)



I'd love for Larian to simply completely rethink food. It's implemented like in DOS 2 right now which I think has no place in 5e DND. Throws the entire spell/item economy out of wack. Would much prefer an implementation similar to POE 2 (for resting and buffs) may be a better way to go.



Agreed, I would love to see Larian rebalance melee/ranged combat. The current system is quite immersion breaking, although I do appreciate that Larian is trying to add more strategy to melee combat.



In regards to your notes on overpower/underpower spells - unfortunately there are quite a few I disagree with:

Overpowered:

Magic Missile: Disagree. Magic Missiles (without the Psychic Necklace) are pretty weak right now, since getting Height Advantage is so easy - other lvl 1 spells like Guiding Bolt are far more devastating right now.

Bless: I agree that it's stronger than most, but not to the point of unbalanced IMO. Bane has the rare ability to affect saving throws (very useful later on), although still definitely weaker. Shield of Faith is still useful since you don't really need 2x casts of blesses (fulfills a different role). Resistance is a cantrip.

Hex: Warlocks don't get many slots, hence the spell needs to be flexible and easy to use. Inflicting a saving throw disadvantage is INSANELY OP though. Affecting saving throws is a very rare effect in 5E.

Agonizing Blast: I think you've explained it. With their 2 slot per short rest, Warlocks operate much more like ranged fighters than casters. This invocation is pretty fundamental to their class. If you remove this, any CHA caster can just pick up Eldritch Blast via magic initiate and be equally as good as a Warlock with it.

Invisibility: The duration is so that it has application outside of combat. I don't think the duration is too bad, unless you're deliberately being very cheesy with it (but that's mainly poor AI).



Underpowered:

Dueling: I think your suggestion is way too OP. Dueling is already better than Great Weapon Fighting. The +2 flat boost is higher than the reroll on 1s and 2s, which amounts to 1.33 on 2d6 Greatswords. Giving +1 AC for free also makes Defense fighting style useless.

Daggers: they are supposed to be weaker since they are easier to access (simple proficiency). Boosting daggers will punish martial specialists who have martial proficiency

Light armor: Similar to the daggers situation, classes with access to heavier armor proficiencies should be rewarded for it. This is a change from previous editions where heavy armor is often the weakest option, and I personally like it.

About your overpowered and underpowered stuff:

- Warlock and its spells work as intended: Strong cantrip but very few spell slots.
- Magic missle works as intended: low damage spell with 100% hit chance. Without amulet, guiding bold is better
- Invisibility breaks when you do anything but moving, and you can sneak almost anywhere. Its useful but not OP.
- Guidance should select one skill to boost, not work on all skills at once, as by PnP rules
- Daggers are as they are supposed to be. Its a weak weapon, but together with quarterstaff and light crossbow the only weapons everyone can use.
- Light armor works as intended. Light stacks with dex infinitely, medium allows only 2 dex bonus, heavy gives no dex bonus.

I agree that dumb stealth AI and jumping is bad.

Dueling Style underpowered? If anything it's the most OP style. Plus 2 to damage and you get to use shields? It's a no question always go there choice.

I'm rethinking a bit my opinion on Magic Missile, the damage per missile is not huge, which might compensate for the 100% hit chance. I just found myself picking it so many times. Guiding Bolt seems more suitable for single targets with many HP.


If I'm correct the description for Dueling mentions that the other hand needs to be empty, so no shield!


I agree the +1 AC would be too much. I had forgotten the Defense class passive already gives +1 (and not +2 like I thought).

I'm thinking Dueling is maybe more (only?) interesting for Dexterity characters, who will use a rapier.

With a great weapon, the character has either 2d6 damage (7) or 1d12 damage (6.5). Plus can reroll 1s and 2s with the class passive.
With Dueling, and a one handed weapon, the character has 1d8 (4.5) +2 = 6.5 damage. The good thing is that the minimum damage becomes 3 (and not 2 or 1 like with a great weapon). I'm not 100% sure about the maths here, but I would still pick the Great Weapon Fighting class passive over Dueling, unless playing a Dexterity character.

You're right, Larian's description is changed from table-top (where it's clearly worded to be okay with shields), and does state "empty hand", but it is not currently implemented as such.

In game, dueling works with shields, which follows the 5e Table Top ruling.




Dueling does sound like a thematic choice for DEX characters. Mechanically though, as long as Dueling works with shields (minimum +2AC) like in Table Top, it's often the better choice from a pure min/max perspective.

If we're only looking at damage, I also actually prefer the +2 from dueling. Damage boosts only have a tangible effect when it changes the # of hits you need to kill an enemy.

The flat +2 (44% increase to 1d8 avg (4.5)) is much more likely going to change that for you than the Re-roll 1s/2s - (average 19% increase on 2d6 avg (7) - which is the optimal weapon for GWF).

You have to remember that GWF doesn't trigger on 3s or higher (which is terrible on 1d10 Polearms and 1d12 Greataxes), and when you get to re-roll, you don't even get to take the better of the 2 rolls.

This will be problematic if they implement invoke duplicity in full, as I suspect the current version is just a placeholder.

You would be able to cast Spirit Guardians on your duplicate, send it into the middle of the fray, sit back behind a rock, hitting things with spiritual weapon, and hiding every turn.

Got it, thanks! Dueling makes a lot more sense to me now.