Hello and welcome back,
Here is my 2nd round of feedback. (Here is my first:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=94944&Number=739102#Post739102)
I again try to order my post into bugs, suggestions for existing mechanics and my personal opinion on bigger things like story and level design.
And again I have to repeat that this forum (or discord) is really a bad way of getting feedback. Take an example from the Subnautica developers, they had a better way of handling it.
Small Bugs:Jumping over the pillars near the druid camp has problems with the camera and also lets your party stand in mid air. (Maybe limit the people that can jump when space is low?)
The minimap has some problems with different height levels. It sometimes shows enemies on your current level even though they are above/below.
In the druid tunnel there is a chest with a trap. A succesful perception check did not reveal it.
Some enemies are randomly confused and don't know what to do. After some time of doing nothing their turn just ends. (Undead scribe and goblin tracker for me)
After the tutorial the game shows briefly the new map with the character and then after some time the cut scene. Doesn't look pretty.
Closing the door at the hag hut confuses the red heads. They just wait outside for a long time until one decides to attack the door.
If I have my inventory sorted by for example type, then get new items and press type again it doesn't do anything.
If you speak with the dead Miri before telling Benryn where she is, he still appears in the cut scene and is afterwards still outside.
After learning Mol's sign and peforming that sign at Mattis it just stops the dialog. (But the triggers are set, talking with Mattis again reveals new options)
NPC party members still sometimes jump down from buildings and take damage.
Rolling dice can sometimes be cut short by pressing space and sometimes not.
Bigger bugs:The camera isn't really working well, especially when there are different height levels. I had problems in the mindflayer ship, in the hag hut, the worg pens and at some underdark locations.
The camp scenes with companions sometimes don't trigger and you just sit there while talking, a skill check then froze the game and I had to restart (for me with Asterion).
When running the game with Vulkan it crashes after some time. It seems like a memory leak. It even happen when I went afk and stayed in the menu. Dx11 seems to work better.
Suggestions:I also talk a bit about the suggestions from my old post:
Jumping: Works great now!
Perception: Whenever there is a succesful perception check there is a 50% that I have no idea what my characters have just discovered. Please highlight the discovery more.
This is better but still not 100% great. Sometimes I pass checks and don't know what my character saw. (and then walk into a trap)
Dialogs: The space bar is used to skip cutscenes and to select answers in a dialog. This will always lead to accidental answers. (I would just remove space to select answers and only use the number keys)
Still the same.
Dialogs:
It would be nice if we could change the talking person so that I can always speak as my main character (even if an npc talks to my party members) or so that I can switch to another character for special checks. (Checks would need to be a bit more difficult as I say further below anyway)
Start Menu: The start menu seems to behave weirdly. Sometimes it starts on my primary screen, sometimes on my secondary, sometimes in the background. It also stays on after the game is launched which (in my opinion) should not be. Lastly, I propose again a "Continue" button in the menu to immediately jump into the last game you played, for convenience.
The start menu now always is on my primary screen, but the game always starts in the background. The start menue window still stays on after the game has launched. And I still propose a "Continue" button that immediately starts the last save game.
Tactical mode:
There is still no way to immediately active tactical mode. It still finishes the characters last movement. This is terrible when walking through traps. Traps and knockout of a character should immediately trigger the mode anyway. (Like it does with enemies.)
Camp: It is currently impossible to access the inventory and skills of all group members in your camp. (Or at least I didn't find out how) I could only access the 4 characters that you use during the day.
This is still the same unless I have missed something. I would like to arm everyone in my party from the camp without weird party management.
Defending the Grove against the Drow:
I enjoyed this fight but I wish it would be a bit more customizable. Make it a bit like the defense against the Valsharess in Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark (or like the defence of the keep against the shadowlord in NwN2) where you could find allies and place traps yourself. (Btw I hate that the one mage always triggers the traps when only one person is around.) I would also make this a mandatory event for everyone that is triggered by something like passed time, experience gained, quests completed or goblins killed. It is too nice to just let people accidently miss it.
Personal opinion. This is my personal opinion on some bigger mechanics/story:Time pressure: I really don't like it when the game puts pressure on the player to resolve a certain problem but then encourages the player to explore the world at the same time. Now I have to listen every time to go to a certain place to fix the problem and that it is sooo important that we do it right now, but if I would run there immediately I would be totally underleveled. And if explore the world and take my time I don't seem to have any negative consequences. My opinion is: If there is a time-critical problem, it should be possible to solve it immediately. If you want to encourage players to explore, the problem should not be time-critical. (well at least no short-term) In the lore of D&D it says that the time of no return is 1 hour for tadpoles. If you want to satisfy the lore and give the player time to explore you could give Lae'zel (or some other person/goddess) a skill that delays the ceremorphosis for a bit.
I still have the same problem with that. I know that after some time people notice that the transformation takes too long to be normal but we as a player don't know that (and Lae'zel doesn't seem to find it strange either). At least an Arcana check (or Lae'zel) after the tutorial or the first night should tell you "hey normally we should already be mindflyers by now".
Challenge rating: This is a criticism I already had for Original Sin 2: While I appreciate challenging battles, it gets a bit annoying if every single fight (even in late game, where the characters should be stronger than most other characters) is challenging. From what I have seen it is not as bad in Baldurs Gate 3 but I would appreciate if the game also lets the players breath a bit. Otherwise you force a lot players into min/max character builds and less on roleplaying.
I think this is mainly caused by the level cap but at the end the fights where again challenging enough that I needed a long rest to gain my spells back after each fight.
Story: One thing I haven't understood is why the gith dragon riders could immediately follow the mindflayer into the winter location, but not into Avernus and into the starting level. (Maybe add a cutscene how they have to fight the devils in Avernus and therefore get delayed?)
Still the same
Level Design: You are going a similar way that Original Sin 2 and Dragon Age 3 went, where you present the whole world as a couple of big open world levels. I personally do prefer smaller levels that are connected over a map. Your design gives a feeling that everything interesting is super close together and that you can't really travel further away. It also makes it difficult to create different environments if you want to stay consistend (and logical). I would prefer something like Dragon Age 1 or Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir with a map, travel, locations, random encounters, hidden locations that can only be revealed with a perception check etc etc. That would feel more like pen and paper and like a big world where not everything is crammed together in one spot. A mix of both ways with some big areas and a lot of small ones might work best.
Still the same
Rolling dice:
It feels and looks now super satisfactory and it is the first time I actually use skill check boost spells, but the checks are now a bit too easy. I pass like 95% of them. Maybe make them a bit harder?
Skill checks:
Not sure how much effort that is but I would like to see different outcomes based on my dice throw. Like passing with 10 more than required gives you something extra, while failing with 10 or less punishes you.
So much for this round
