Small Update After about 10 more hours of gameplay:
Saving, Loading, and Performance:
Please make saving work during cut scenes by the next build. The lack of saving during cut scenes and the long load times makes testing permutations really annoying (that said what permutations I have seen are really cool, so keep it up). The game runs terribly, and its only gotten worse the longer I play. I've watched people like Pat Stares At, stream BG3, and his machine is way more powerful than mine, and he's still getting performance issues.
My specs:
GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB
16 GB of RAM
Windows 10
803 GB free disk space
Surfaces:
You guys need to tone down the surface gameplay ALOT. Unlike DOS1 & 2, where the player has just as many defensive options for surfaces as offensive, BG3 does not have these options, and when you combine this with the the fact that surfaces are significantly more lethal in BG3 than in DOS2 it just makes make me not want to fight things, where as in DOS2 I was always excited to get into a fight with someone. Everytime an enemy throws fire or poison at my party my response is a groan and burning hatred at best. Make surfaces less lethal, make sure less enemies have access to surfaces, and make help less powerful.
Inventory Management:
Its still not good. Please add some multi select functions, because its taking forever to sort my inventory.
Skill bar:
Its should have 3 rows for reach tab instead of 2, and it should be able to stretch further than its current maximum.
Conversations without the main character:
Either prioritize the main character for automatic conversations, or have a pop up that asks you who you would you like the speaker to be, which might also help in multiplayer, so you can choose among your friends who the speaker will be in an automatic scene. Also I should able to benefit from the insight, nature, arcana, etc of other players in the party.
Multiplayer Conversations:
https://youtu.be/3tKc5_lracI?t=549 I like that we are getting DOS1 style multiplayer conversations, but there needs to be more than just 2 dialogue responses for every exchange. There should be 3 at bare minimum. What you have here in this video is not good.
Thoughts on characters after playing more:
Custom Character:
It may be because half-elf drow is bugged, but the more I play I feel like the less dialogue options i'm getting. I feel like the more I play the more instances I run into where I can only say 3 things, which isn't good.
Gale:
Most of my criticism above still stands, but he's still my favorite character. Please add more arcana and class tag checks for dialogue with him. Gale said he'd talk to me the next night after the party and didn't. I had to gain more approval, and then go to rest at camp, which was annoying, and then I got a repeat scene of needing to feed on artifacts, which I shouldn't have gotten, because he already trusts me.
Astarian:
There should be various insight, nature, and arcana checks with him that if I succeed I should be able to tell he's some kind of vampire before the camp scene where he attempts to feed on me, and also before talking to the hunter. He makes it way too obvious all the time for it to be some kind of big reveal. He also never talked about how the reason he can walk in the sun is likely the tadpole, and in my brief looks at streamers they haven't had this talk yet either. This talk should happen pretty much as soon as you learn he's a vampire. When Astarian attacks the player, the player should also be able to ask whoever is in your party at the time for assistance in dialogue, that includes the friends in multiplayer. Maybe even have approval from Gale, Shadowheart, and Lae'Zel for handling it without their assistance.
Lae'zel:
I'd like the option to tell her I never had any interest in having sex with her anyway, when she starts talking about how great it would have been to feel her up, but the way I treated her ruined that chance.
Shadowheart:
I like her alot, but there is alot of bugs with her dialogue. Like certain things we have already talked about shouldn't keep showing up if they aren't going to lead to anything. Also my approval with her is high but when I ask her what she thinks of me the answer has always been the same, and that shouldn't be. Also she lists Guts as one of my options for curing that tadpole, but we killed her along time ago (because the game turned most of the people in the Goblin temple hostile after I attacked the drow women, which broke some of the story beats, so I never got to learn the type of person Dror Ragzlin is among other goblins), she should either not mention her at all, or there should be some sort of alternative line.
Wyll:
I feel the longer the game goes on the less and less I'm seeing unique warlock and arcana checks, not just with him, but with other characters as well, so please double check all interactions throughout the game to see if you could add some where none were previously.
Us
I have yet to see more of them since the tutorial, so far and thats a shame, because they are really cool, and they remind me of the nonstandrd party member of Morte from Planescape: Torment.
Halasin:
I wouldn't mind him becoming a full on party member. He's really cool, and I love his design. It would be nice if I could ask him to fix me in my camp if someone like Volo or Auntie Ethel does permanent damage to my body. It would also be a nice reward for keeping him alive.
Ethel:
A really cool character I'd like to see more of in the future. I killed her in my run, because I'm trying to play this according to what my character would do rather than just straight good or full evil, and she crossed a few lines for him. Also got a bug where she wouldn't fight back.
Spike:
He's neat, kind of like a replacement of Han, except you don't get to choose what he brings back to you, so I guess its more like Dog from Dragon Age Origins. He seems to be a cheap way to max out aproval for Shadowheart, Gale, and Wyll, which I don't think I'm a fan of. There should more interactions with him than just petting him and taking actions from him, like playing fetch, and doing those actions increase approval rather than just letting you constantly gain aproval by petting him over and over.
