Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Feedback after completing EA chapter

I have just reached the party milestone for the first time so I guess this is a good point to give my first feedback.

The last RPG I played was DOS2 so I was not totally lost when I have started BG3. From what I have seen, BG3 seems to be very good.
Similar in many aspects (good AND bad) with DOS series and different from NWN1 or BG1 if I remember well.
After reading many posts, I will test BG2 which seems to be very good but anyway, this is not the topic right now.

In the following feedbacks, some spoilers could be present. Be warned

Scenario :
I was not surprised to find a good scenario made in Larian Style. The nautiloid escape was a bit disturbing for me because it is more SF than medieval fantasy but ok.

The only true negative point for me is about the urgence feeling not respected. You are supposed to transform into a mindflayer in a very, very near future but you have time to settle a nice camp, explore a large map...
If a count the number of long rest I used, more than 7 days have passed without single effects about this emergency crisis. Ok, some clues have been given about why process could take so long but the feeling remains.

Some odd points :
- wake up in the nautiloid with equipment and clothes. => should prefer find a chest not too far from the starting point with random weapons, armors and clothes => include potential dialog (and fun ) dialogs => specific armor for La'zrael and ShadowHeart can be found elsewhere
- first use of regeneration device deserves a cinematic

After the crash :
- Except some dialog texts, I didn't feel the emergency of the situation. A bit disappointing.
- Fast travels, portals are mechanisms already present in DOS2. My feelings are mixed on the subject.
- Using portals to go to another portal, ok, no problem.
- Using a shortcut to use portal even if characters are not activating the portal is not realistic but avoid boring travel through an empty map.

With Larian's games, when a part of the map is cleaned, there no need to return there. But for me, a key point of D&D is the random encounter. It could have been interesting to be ambushed by a goblin pack, fight a drow assassin, meet a travelling merchant, help someone in distress. Some sections of the map will fit perfectly this role.


Halsin
Why not let Halsin becoming a playable character ? It gives me the feeling that he just want to stay at the camp for the free meal ...

Camp

Good idea here but not very well used.

I don't like at all the concept of big camp at the same location, with a cage, a desk, a workbench, some chests, some party flags...
Does not make sense at all because you have just survived to a nautiloid crash, you need to rush to remove the parasite in your head so there is no time to make a fancy camp. From where are coming all these stuff ?

Mini camp is better. At least, when you are underground or in a temple, you got a place which makes sense.
However, how the dog, the undead and the chest arrived in this place ? It is so kind from he undead to carry the dog and the chest when you are exploring the map....

I am a big fan of being able to camp on specific spots in the map which can identified by a standard voice / visual text hint.
=> At a such spot, camp button become available. marker can also be set on the map.
=> when clicking on it, a mini camp based on the location is triggered.
=> in chapter 1, nothing fancy. Roll beds, fire camp, chest (spawned from nowhere but ok), rest of the team. Basta.

Don't get me wrong. I will LOVE to get a base I can improve later in the game with improvements which can be crafted, ordered or bought.
I have read that this base/stronghold/tavern/cavern/lair could be related to the main class. Why not ? It is a good idea.
But NOT when we are on the road and NOT until the parasites have been removed.

- Undead in the camp should not be there. Especially as a merchant.
There is absolutly no interest for an undead to buy your extra tomatoes, hammers, empty bottles, ropes, etc
Additionally, nobody is worried about sleeping near an undead...
I prefer to be able to find him in a specific location in the map, isolated, where I can exchange resurection for one group member against the consumption of a magical item or a rare book (it does not need gold...),
If needed, it could visit the team at camp to deliver some messages needed by the scenario.

- new utilisation of food is ok but not going as far as I expected.

If you want to sleep outside, you need something confortable, you need to have water, you need to get some heat.

=> bedrolls ? You should find them, craft them, buy them but every character should have a bedroll in its inventory. If not, full restore can,not be achieved.
=> You want fire ? So you need to get some rocks and some wood which are consumed (at least the wood). Without fire camp, full restore can,not be achieved.
=> Water ? Use bottle, gourds, bucket, water pump or even torrent in some location to get some. WIthout x units of water then full restore cannot be achieved.
=> with crafting, you can improve your fire camp to cooking station and prepare with raw materials, better dishes which can fulfill the quantity of supply needed more easily and perhaps give you a bonus

Objects are already present. Mechanisms and animations are present in DOS2 so this is not something to develop from scratch.

It leads me to one conclusion. I hope to see one day a survival and realistic mode (as an option because not everybody want to play like this)
In DOS2, there were alternative modes so why not a realistic one here ?
Or as a player mode ? (And I will be happy to collaborate to this )

Battle UI
In two words : improvements needed.
How many goblins have rushed against a wall then waiting for death ? Tyr paladins have used the same method against gnolls and have been kindly and efficiently slaughtered.[sneer included].

Inventory
Weak point for me for Larian's games. This is absolutly not realistic. Having 12 swords, 6 armors, vegetables for one months in one backpack is just impossible.
Perhaps the survival mode can solve this by introducing features like equipment size (like in NWN1) and limited equipment slots ?
Some tools are missing anyway (multi selection, selling "to be sold " items for the all group option, ...)
Send to camp is also not realistic and too looter convenient ( I use it only when i was in camp to store food ; something which should be done automatically)

Origins characters
Well, I was not a big fan of them at the beginning.
After several discussions, I found their background a bit more complex and interesting (ShadowHeart, Gayle, Gythianki (I always not remember her name).
- Astarion ? Killed everytime, directly ( i was forced by my wife to see all vampire diairies and twilight episodes so I can't stand vampires anymore )
- Blade of frontiers (recruited but not used)

I have the feeling that mercenaries will be available for hiring in the game (by Volo ?). Could be nice if not too late in the game.

A cool stuff could be also to be able recruit some PNJ found in the game.
For example, there is a tieflin archer (Laknis ?) I saw for the first time at the party who was searching for a job at Baldur's Gates. Hey, I am ok to recruit you. No need to go there
I also hope mercenaries should have some mini quests (based on their background like noble, guild apprentice, etc) with dialogs and can be friend or more... Probably, a lot of additional work.
Perhaps some mods can make them available for hiring ?


Sneak attack
Generally, I don't play rogue. I have tried an rogue halfling and with patch 4, I got a great pleasure to eliminate one by one goblins in ruined village, returning to shadow between each of them, chosing the right path to not be discovered [sneer included]...

With patch 5 and the new rules, sneak attack is a bit weird. It is not clear sometimes why it is not possible to use it so it creates some frustration.
The DOS system was working quite well so I am a bit surprised this is not used again.

Surfaces
Visual aspect of some surfaces (oil on sand for example) is not always clear like it was in DOS2. I have been tricked sometimes by this.

Items
So many items in the game and no use for them. Crafting system was great in DOS2. Hope to see this soon.

Conclusion
The experience is very positive.
Inventory management , camp and battle UI should be improved, Some points are weird from a scenario point of view without being blocking.
I have also the feeling there is still a lot of work to do regarding bugfixing...

“Astarion ? Killed everytime, directly ( i was forced by my wife to see all vampire diairies and twilight episodes so I can't stand vampires anymore)”

Lol

— he has some good scenes if you give him a chance…tho he and Wyll are my least favorite as well.

It's interesting to see someone who uses DOS as a gameplay reference rather than D&D, it's a refreshing change and I think a good reminder that both systems have their pros and cons.

I personally am somewhere in between. As someone who has never played tabletop D&D (big regret, I was more of a warhammer fellow) and who has played the hell out of DOS, I feel like BG3 mixes some of those mechanics in a very compelling way. There are still some balance issues to solve IMHO, but it's getting there.

Combat can definitely feel a little bit one-sided at times, especially when you know your way around the game. I'm sure the difficulty modes will fix this. Regarding your sneak attack feedback, the way it's implemented now is actually the correct D&D implementation. It activates only if 1) you have advantage, or 2) another friendly character is within 1.5m of the target and you don't have disadvantage. I find this super interesting because as a solo player, I do not like to have to depend on another character, so I am constantly looking for sources of advantage (e.g. hide), whereas when playing multi player, that opens up more interactivity with your friends ("hey dude go stand close to that goblin so I can nuke them"). I find it interesting that you say that you were hiding in between goblins in patch 4, since this is the exact behavior that I think patch 5 is trying to incentivize. Before, I didn't bother to hide since I could just position myself behind the target. No cost, full rewards. This time I have to be a little more deliberate with my positioning and movement, which makes it far more rewarding imho. It's a different style of gameplay, but you get used to it, and in the end I prefer it a lot . Patch 4 definitely felt more "DOS-esque", since backstab is a mechanic that was copied and pasted from that game. Patch 5 is the D&D focused version. My ONLY regret is that any character can hide in combat with a bonus action, so fighters (and even spellcasters like cleric) are just busted at the moment when this should be a defining rogue characteristic. Fix that (only rogues can hide with a bonus action, other characters would need an action), and rogues will definitely have a very distinctive "feel" to their gameplay style.


Concerning puddles, I don't think they are a thing in D&D as much as they are in DOS. You'll find a lot of posts in this forum advocating against barrelmancy, which is using barrels to make everything explode like in DOS2. I don't mind either way. I noticed that surfaces were definitely less of a thing, but I don't feel like it's taking away from the game.

I agree with a lot of your feedback on camps, NPCs and companions, but I think those are also being improved (the immersion is much improved since Patch 4 with the introduction of mini camps for example).

Thanks for taking the time to post this feedback !

Thanks for the explanation about sneak attack sheffie01
I missed it in-game.

Also check out this build by Blackheifer if you're looking for a decent rogue build. I played it and really like it, feels very close to your comments about "sneaking and disappearing after hitting". Guerilla-style warfare in the making with this build .

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=784086#Post784086

In fact, I am not looking for optimized characters. I choose a character class that I haven't played yet and I build my PJ using dices for its appearance, race, gender, abilities. Based on his/her looking, I select the background which fit the most

I feel you about Twilight, Vampire Diaries andI would throw in True Blood too. For that reason, Astarion is my least liked companion, hebis too twilighty.

I do agree mostly with you in the other Points, especially enemy AI ist a bit off sometimes.

Regarding the sneak attack implementation, I'm pretty sure it actually isn't implemented correctly right now. I haven't done much messing around on rogue characters yet, so I could be wrong, but from memory I believe they made it a separate action to use your sneak attack, when it should just be something that happens automatically on your first attack in the round as long as you have advantage or an ally is engaged in melee (threatening) the enemy you attack.

As for the barrelmancy and surface effects, those were a major thing when the EA first dropped. I remember there being quite a large thread that a lot of us, myself included, commented on about removing the insane amount of surface effects because they were applied with basically every single spell including cantrips. The big problem with this is that while the surfaces were fun and cool in DOS2, they were just kind of stupid in BG3. Literally everything made them it seemed, and it turned cantrips stupidly powerful. Firebolt is a 1d10 damage, so the max damage you can do with it is 10, but when surface effects were in they nerfed the damage down to like 1d6 I think but it made a fire surface underneath the enemy. Problem with this was, if applied the surface whether the attack hit or missed, and they took damage from the surface I believe instantly, at the start of their turn, and when they moved out of it. So even on a miss, you could deal 3 instances of damage, and if you hit you dealt 4, which actually pushed the damage it could do way over the proper 1d10 up to like 18 damage or so I think. Plus it made the entire area just covered in surface effects after a battle, it was a mess and one of the very blatantly DOS2 things when they are working on making a D&D game.

A little bit of tweaking and homebrewing here and there, like making healing potions a bonus action to use, is fine and great even if they do it right, but crazy things like being able to stockpile tons of barrels to nuke any enemy with, surface effects all over the place, magic items littered throughout the world and you instantly know they are magical and exactly what they do when you find them screams DOS2, not D&D.

Making such things just in front of any potential ennemy should trigger immediatly the fight.
But preparing an ambush to lure some tough ennemies is quite interesting to do I made it several times here instead of rushing against a bunch of ennemies.
In DOS2, I really liked being able to use the environment to help to eliminate some tough ennemies. So it does not bother me here even if it is a D&D based game.

To be honest, as GM and player, I am not always following the official rules. Key word for me should be fun and there are too many D&D rules, sometimes not user friendly.
Trust me. I took a great pleasure to throw a Greek fire bottle
My point was just about the visual aspect of the floor. Not barrelmancy.

I'm not saying ditch all the barrels or anything, they can be pretty fun, I'm just more of a fan of them staying to a small scale in certain areas and not being able to carry them around. Place them where it makes sense is more of my thing for barrels. Like, a random barrel full of oil in an ancient tomb/ruin? Why is that there exactly? But a barrel of alcohol of some kind near a merchants cart? Plausible, makes sense that a merchant would be bringing a barrel of alcohol with them to sell perhaps. Defending a place from an attack, such as the druid grove defense? Having the defenders prep some barrels of oil or some such wouldn't be outlandish if they had any, and I'm sure they have something flammable laying around at least if not oil that they could put out there to help with the defenses somehow. But just random barrels in places that make little or no sense, or being able to carry around a bunch of barrels in your backpack? Not a fan of that.

And the ground effects were interesting in DOS2, I admit I rather liked them in that game but the game seemed to be balanced around them decently well. D&D just isn't balanced around the surface effects, and Larian's attempts to balance it didn't really work. Not to mention it just makes a general mess of the screen with everyone and everything on fire, and all the blood frozen or electrified.

That's fair, it's a good way to try all classes/looks


Thanks for clarifying. Again, never played TTD&D . Looks like this is linked to how they implement reactions then? I can see how this would change the current implementation. What I meant is that at least the core activation criteria were fixed, since the backstab mechanic was discarded in patch5.