Hi all,
I'm a huge RPG and D&D fan from Brazil and have been for around 15 years and, as the news came to my ears I couldn't contain my excitement, specially since BG3 will be based on 5ed, which is a middle ground between the complex 3.5ed and the action focused 4ed.
So, let's cut to the business. I would like to offer some suggestions, and my reasons for said suggestions, based on my experience as a player of both tabletop and PC RPGs so to make BG3 potentially more enjoyable (maybe this can become an official thread where other players can also post their suggestions):
1. Party Customization : BG3 should have a customizable companion system or allow for stats customization by the player.
Game devs are not necessarily good at games, that is, in this case if companions come with preset stats and feats, they might not be optimized or even make sense for their class. A good example is Pillars of Eternity, a fantastic game but it does suffer from the aforementioned issue.
Some companions in PoE have poorly allocated stats, which leads to an incentive to not have them on your party. It doesn't matter how well written a companion is, if he/she becomes a nuissance when in combat.
This leads to the next suggestion.
2. Have the companions be recruited early in the campaign:
If companions' stats will be customizable by the players, it would be better to recruit them early, so to build them in whatever way the player would like. Specifically, it would be better to recruit all companions before level 3, which is a turning point in D&D for you are allowed to choose an archetype for your class, and every player has his/her preferences for each class.
3. Have at least a companion of each class:
Every player has his/her optimal party composition. Having all the classes at your disposal allows you to try them all and will lead to less frustration and moments such as "How I wish I had someone to use Crown of Madness and make this two dragons fight each other" or "How I wish I had a Bard to use an enchantment and convince this NPC to allow me passage without combat".
This was done in Dragon Age: Inquisition, where you have a companion that represents each subclass in the game.
4. Dynamic companion quests/Dynamic quests:
The previous suggestions lead to a very interesting question: What if the companion quests (something standard that I imagine is already planned) change according to their archetypes?
For example, you have a companion Paladin that can choose between several oaths at level 3. These determine his tenants as well as have a lot to with his personality and motivations. An oath of vengeance Paladin would have the same objective as an oath of the ancients Paladin?
Just imagine how much replayability this would add to the game.
5. More magical items (besides +1-3):
5ed suffers from a lack of magical item variety. There are entire weapons types that have no magical items of that type other than +1-3, such as rapiers and crossbows, whereas you have a ton of magical daggers, scimitars and longswords (specially longswords).
6. Better poisons and poisonmaking:
Poison in 5ed sucks. You might require up to a YEAR to craft a single use of poison that is not even that strong. So more potent poisons and just needing the matherials to craft them in a click of a button would be nice.
7. Interactive environments:
Some classes such as the Rogue need an interactive environment to work better. For example, using trees for hiding (through cunning action) during combat, or use a window to sneak into a place of interest.
These are the ones at the top of my head right now, but I will edit this post with more. If some developer could read and give some feedback it would be amazing.
Would be cool if the other members put their suggestions here too.
Just a couple things to consider in this list of suggestions, comments numbered based on the original post suggestion numbers.
1. Perhaps, but IMO better left to the legion of modders that will flock upon release. Frankly, the joinable NPCs is so integral to Baldur's Gate as a franchise I do not believe that customizing them to the individuals player desire is a good thing. Thinking back there was a STORY behind Minsc's low INT/WIS, Khaleid had famously low morale "Better part of valor!" and there was simply something to be said for the fact that the NPCs were not optimized (leave that to the main character, 'Charname')
2. Again, this goes against the fundamentals of what Baldur's Gate IS... It's about telling a story, and in a story everyone is not located at one convenient 'hub'. I frankly dislike how games today allow you to collect a legion of companions, but you only take 3 with you and the other dozen sit at 'camp' or 'home base' or whatever. In Baldur's Gate you can recruit companions, or not... Some will stay where you find them, some will move to a different location in the game world, and others will leave forever, never seen again if you don't bring them in to your party. There is nothing wrong with a companion that is recruited later in the game, if anything the mistake made in the originals was those late game PC's were not properly set up to compete with how your other NPC's leveled. For example Alora's thieving skills were not distributed well and she probably should have been a level or 2 higher (based on charname XP rather than level, perhpas). In fact, I always saw Alora and Eldath/Skie as being late game party members you might grab should you decide to dual class Imoen in to a mage.
3. Agree. And in fact one thing that annoyed me in Dragon Age: Origins is the fact that you either play rogue class or you accept that until you get to Lothering you can't open any chests at all, losing out on 100's (1000's?) of XP as well as loot/gold/potions. However, D&D has insane numbers of classes, so perhaps better to say 'have at least one of each role' You don't necessarily need to provide a Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Barbarian as NPCs. I would still prefer that Larian offers the player the option to PLAY all of those classes, but doesn't need to actually provide an NPC for EVERY class and race.
4. love it, so long as it is determined based on player / npc interactions and not just a selection. BG NPCs are supposed to have their own personalities and just giving an arbitrary selection doesn't make sense. Selecting an oath that doesn't align to the paladin's conversations/personalities is arbitrary and has no meaning to the story. However, if it designed where the paladin has a default oath, but the oath could be changed based on conversations and actions of the PC (and perhaps the PCs status with said paladin) and then the companion quest is adjusted accordingly that would be a win. However, it is unrealistic to expect to have a dozen possible companions, five of which you can take with you, all of which have 3 or more potential companion quests. That would be like Dragon Age Origins, but instead of 6, you have about 36 quests. These quests will either be very small or the variations so minimal as to be nearly unnoticeable. Quality over quantity should be the order of the day so discretion is needed.
5. Nope. 5e is not about MORE magical items, it is about more meaningful magic items. In 5e you have plenty of weapons that, instead of +1-3 do other things, such as doing an extra damage die on critical hits, expanding the crit range, providing for circumstantial advantage, etc. You also have goggles to allow humans and other non-dark vision having races to see in the dark (hopefully important!) etc. Regardless, I would rather see MEANINGFUL magical items, like in the original games, with cool back stories, extra powers etc. rather than a +2 weapon of every type. Varscona Long Sword +2, +1 cold damage with interesting back story is far better than +2 of every weapon type. Too much magic cheapens magic and it is supposed to be relatively rare, even in Forgotten Realms. Too many video games even all the way back to gold box games do not accurately portray this. In a PnP campaign a party of level 5 PCs might have 3 or 4 magic items, not including a few potions or scrolls. In most CRPGs by level 5 every character is generally equipping 3-5 magic items... Easier to balance difficulty when magic is at least somewhat rare. This also makes taking an Eldritch Knight Fighter have benefit over Champion or Battle Master, whereas if magic is everywhere there is less reason to focus on being able to cast it yourself.
6. I would hope they would make poison something that is a bit more realistic and usable, but to be honest poison hasn't been frightening since 2e... poison has gone from you better get a neutralize poison or you will be dead quickly, to take a couple points of stat damage that in many cases you don't care about, to simply a damage type. Depending on how much ability they have to change core mechanics of D&D it might be interesting if they are allowed to make poison cooler, but if it's left as just a damage type with different poisons equating to different bonus damages than better to spend their time elsewhere IMO.
7. Agree and would certainly hope for this. Even in BG1 you had a better chance to hide in shadows when in the 'shade' of a tree vs. out in the open... Expectation would certainly be to enhance/improve upon environmental variance.
Overall good ideas, just felt I needed to add my two cents (for as little as it's worth) as some things I feel are integral to what defines the BG franchise and should not be lost in favor of giving more options. Options can be good, but giving too many options can make for a looser game and story, which would be a poor outcome since the BG Trilogy was all about tight story telling at the end of the day. (that and amazingly complex spell mechanics leading to some really interesting tactical battles.)
