Lets go straight to the feedback. Only 6 hours in (and only in the Druid Grove) and already hate the game. No fun so far, only frustration. After every "situation" I fear what Larian will throw at me around the next corner.
That for the short version.
The long version:
I am GMing D&D games for about 35 years now, so lets say I have "some" experience. When I look at what I went through in BG3 so far, Larian falls into a typical GM trap: they mistake difficulty without reward with challenge. If a game becomes too difficult without reward, it is just frustrating. And yes, when its too easy, it could become boring. I can say, all the people I ever GMed a D&D session for, noone would return to that "campaign" after the first evening. Maybe if some "difficulty" settings would be introduced (like easy + 2 to saving throws/+2 to skill checks, but do not fall into the trap to think "well its easy, so lets reward the players with less exp).
So lets dive a little deeper... it starts with the tutorials, that are shown as extra videos. That is not going to work, especialy when not everything is explained, and right now, not everything is... ie my first jump, tutorial says jump, ok, but then I had to search for 5min before I found a spot from where I could jump to the other side. That is frustrating.
Then we go to the first battle with 3 imps, again, not much explained there (actualy nothing). And why is there no "wait" option that puts the character at the end of the que? So I can actualy just perform my actions or skip. Hm (do not forget, this isnt just pen&paper d&d but also a video game). Then I activate a spell, select a target, it all looks good, the character moves on her own to a spot closer to the enemy so she can actually cast (good) but the char moved to a spot from where she could not cast and it failed, and I could not revert it.... f... sorry, reload (learned lesson: do it yourself, funny enough, original sin had that sorted out and worked)
Then you run a bit more through the ship and finaly enter the helm.
Thats where it gets interesting for the first time. 3 imps in the way, actualy you do not have to kill them (d&d style) and just rush past them to finish your objective, but that is not said anywhere. How shall a regular player know it? Its a video game, that is usualy "first kill everything in the way and then go for your objective". The not so funny part here is, if you rush past the imps and dont kill them and you activate the device, you are rewarded no exp!... so it would have been better to kill all imps fast enough... btw I only figured out I can skip the fighting, because the game crashed after the cutscene and I had to go through again, not wanting to waste my time with the fight... surprise it worked, surprise no exp. yay
And then you are in the wilderness. At some point you encounter a dying Ilithid with 3 charmed people. They stop fighting in the second round. Then you can approach the Illithid. And you have to pass 2 "rather" difficult (both times 14) checks one for wisdom and one for int to not die and kill the mind flayer and... are rewarded no exp for that. So, totaly pointless (btw no skill check so far rewarded anything).
And it continues, first, it is a video game and party based, so why isnt the best person available taken for a job automaticaly (like Wasteland), why do I have to manualy select a person who does the interacting? I can understand it when just one person does the interaction (like with the Ilithid before), but when the whole party is involved? When that happens, it is as if noone else would exist. Second, a good gm offer his players a variety of options so they can succeed with different means (ie checks for str, dex, con, int, wis, cha and/or even various skills), BG3 not so much, there is always the default option that is like 99% the bad one. And just one special option, and you do not dare to fail that, or it gets worse even more. Like with the girl you have to "save" from the druids, no matter what you do, she dies. Except you pass various checks (not just one, nope, its always at least 2), and difficult ones at that too... I had to pass all with 16... wtf, at level 2? (what is the goal of the game, fail everything, finish the game, somehow, export your char, import it, replay BG3 with a lvl 20 char for real now, is that actualy a good plan? I dont think so.)
Same with the Druid Healr (Netti?)... so she poisons me, and then I had to pass 3!!!!!!!!! checks (and no reward)... sorry but who designed that, why do I have to pass 3 checks? Well of course 2 were 14 and one 16... fail. Had to reload, so I did not let her poison me... learing from the situation before, I took my high dex rogue wo talk to her and did an average dex skill check, succeeded and ... nothing, had to pass 2 more. Again no reward, but why 2 more (btw there is a bug, my companions talk to me now as if I were poisoned, I had to talk to Nettie again, so now I have 2times the wyvern poison) and no exp reward. So frustrating and pointless.
To sum it up: default action = bad, failed skill check = bad, skill checks are so difficult that they 90% fail, at least 2 skill checks in every interaction
There is no progress unless you reload and reload and reload (thats why I am still in the grove after more then 6 hours)
And last but not least, the fighting... my party lvl 2, enemies so far lvl 2, enemies 100% success at saving throws, 100% hit chance. my party 0% saving throws and every 2nd hit is a critical miss. do you know why d&d is so good (at least in my opinion)? Because npcs follow the same rules as pcs. A lvl 1 fighter is a lvl 1 fighter, does not matter if it is a hero or a bandit. But in BG3 the npcs act all like as if they were at least 5 levels higher.
so, after about 1 day of playing BG3, just frustration, no fun
