This post contains all the things I’ve found in my 40-ish hour playthrough and testing of BG3’s early access content, and let me say, it has been an absolute joy! I have made a separate, quite large, bug post in the Gameplay and Technical part of the forums as to not clutter this with bug reports. This is, however also pretty long, 1200 words, so I hope it is not too confusing to read through. Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see the finished game.
UI/UX - Missing clear distinction between ‘slot’ spells and class abilities such as domain spells or pact abilities. You only have the name to distinguish them when hovering, and a different icon or border would go a long way to get a better overview of your action bars. (The crimson ilithid powers are a good example of this done right.) This is the case in character select as well where, when choosing cleric spells, there are 2 sections labeled 'Spells'. I found it incredibly confusing to figure out which spells were domain spells/warlock pact abilities compared to normal ‘slot’ spells. - There is a lot of missing info when opening class ability dropdown menus in the character sheet. Well, some of them contain descriptions but as an example there is nothing when I open ‘Warding Flare’ or ‘Domain Spells’ from level 1 on my Cleric. - Would it be possible to implement some sort of right-click-inspection of spells or along those lines? I often want to know a spell's duration before I cast it, but could not find this information. Good work on adding saves/targets/range/damage/action cost though. I finally realised that the small number by the icon when hovering is the duration, but it'd be very helpful to have that clearly displayed like the other stats are. - When reading books/notes/letters from the inventory, don’t close the inventory screen. When reading multiple notes/books/letters in a row it gets really annoying to have to reopen every time. It’s a new window already, why not just have it overlap the inventory screen? - Would be nice with some better inventory management. I’ve seen requests to sort bags within bags within the inventory but I find that really confusing. I would really like a button to sort all items and not the sections we currently have. I have so many ‘in-between’ inventory slots that new items get lost in the clutter. Sort by newest, sort by weight, sort by type would be so good; and make them sort it all towards the top automatically. - Please make it possible to access the inventories of all companions, not just the currently active ones, while at Camp. Really awkward to keep telling companions to stay/join me to manage inventories and items. - Would be really nice with an animated load icon or the like on the loading screens. I prefer it to the cycling images. Could perhaps be one static image per load screen, that would give more time to actually look at the art as well. - If mundane items have -any- use at all, highlight them along with all the other items when pressing ‘alt’. We can already use that highlight option for hard-to-see more valuable items and with how good food is for example, it would be nice to be able to find it. - I would like the ability to collapse/open quests that have multiple solutions/stages as well as a better distinction between completed/ in progress. The list quickly gets very long and difficult to quickly scan through. I wouldn’t mind a separate section for completed quests so I don’t have so sift through them to find the active ones.
Combat - Would it be possible, or too powerful, to be able to sneak attack with elemental arrows? - The Help action seems -very- good. Specifically to revive downed characters. If one of my characters are downed I can use another character to continually Help them up, the creature that killed them will attack them again and I can use the remaining 2 characters to kill them without being in any danger. - Food items are basically potions in all but name and as such are -very- good. It was nice to always be able to heal, but felt a bit too powerful. Hoard food items from containers and you’ll never be at low health out of combat. Once you start finding the really good ones like the meat items you don’t even need potions anymore. Despite eating 6 raw carrots, 5 raw potatoes, 7 lemons and a pork loin there was no hint of an upset stomach or any downsides to munching tons of food.
- Celebration/victory party: Was kind of strange that every companion, except Shadowheart who was gone, was thirsty AF and jealous of the companion I did choose. The only character whose flirtiness felt ‘natural’ was the one I already wanted to choose, given the option. I feel like different companions would develop feelings differently and not at the same time. It was neat that Lae’zel decided to go poach Wyll, though. It makes it more natural if companions can develop feelings or friendships other than the player character. (The “UNDER CONSTRUCTION” gave me a good laugh though.)
- Companions: Now, I know that there are more companions/origin characters planned, and I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with! That being said, I thought the current lineup could benefit from some more racial diversity since the 5 current companions consist of only humans and elves. (I know Astarion is a vampire spawn but he feels like an elf. And that Lae’zel is a githyanki.) Where are my fun, larger-than-life companions?! Give me a big, strong, goofy half-orc barbarian, a power-hungry, untrusting tiefling, a happy-go-lucky, unapologetic thief who knows what they are or a hearty, fun-loving dwarf. I don’t mind stereotypes, stereotypes can be fun! The current lineup feels very miserable sometimes. The unfairness of the world happened TO them and their situations were forced upon them. The only one who feels like they chose their path themselves is my own character! Shadowheart and Lae’zel are both arrogant but hate each other and don’t like anyone else. Astarion is arrogant too and despite having a good relationship with him he still greets me like I’m dirt every time I talk to him. The section where he admits he needs blood was cool though. Gale is the best boi though and nothing can convince me otherwise. Wyll is okay too. Will there be evil companions for evil player characters? I suppose Lae’zel is close.
- Rules: I’ve seen many people argue for “rules-as-written”, and I respect that viewpoint. I just want to put out there that not absolutely everyone feels this way. My example is Cantrips: Bonus effects make them much more interesting, especially where, when out of spell slots or conserving them, a Wizard feels useless unless you buy all the scrolls. I feel this is a situation where it’s okay to make changes to make BG3 a good video game and not hold it back because it has to adhere to the tabletop rules. It feels really bad to ‘cheese’ and spam spell slots and long rests, when the rest of the party has tons of resources. Having put more than 130 hours into Divinity 2 and never played the original Baldur’s Gate games I understand why this opinion might be considered invalid, but in my experience “rules-as-written” is rarely the case in reality. Many, many DM’s make changes to fit their style and players.
- Containers: I don’t mind that there are containers or container assets around the world. An abandoned town is bound to have those all over the place after being ransacked. What feels silly is when we have to check every single one for potential loot and most of them are empty. (I know we don’t have to, but my gaming-instinct tells me a rare weapon or item could be anywhere. Even in that broken box over there.) Possible solutions could be to make them uninteractible, unlootable or labelled as already being empty.
