After several hours and characters, here are my impressions:
Launcher
The launcher is missing a "report bug" button, instead of/additionally to the "Feedback" button. Having one in game would be great too.
Save Games
Save games need to be clustered by character! If you have multiple characters finding the right save game is really hard with all those auto saves and quick saves, even if you use proper naming for the saves. If "profiles" are supposed to be used for clustering by character, then "New game" should create a new profile.
Naming your save should be easier, with the cursor automatically starting in the save game name box.
Character creation
The order of character creation seems weird. Picking a name and background first, then race and class seems backwards. That should be the last step, because the name depends on race and background probably depends on class.
Race options are alright for now, but looking forward to Half-Orcs and Genasi
I like most of the appearance options and you can build really neat looking characters, but there are a few caveats:
hair colors: I like the availability of the full color spectrum, but a lot of them don't look at good when actually used. Some like dark green or purple look alright, but with a lot of them it doesn't really look like hair to me, very artifical. I wish the odd hair colors blended a little better to look more natural.
hair cuts: lots of great haircuts, but why are they gender exclusive? why can't the male characters have the large braid hair cuts when the female characters can have beards?
faces: I like a lot of them, but there should be more than 6 available per race. harder faces for female characters, softer faces for male (non-elf) characters, younger faces for dwarves, etc. Sliders would be nice, but not an absolute must
A lot of the basic classes are there, but I'm looking forward to druid, monk and paladin, also more subclasses, but that's a given since we're in EA.
Designing the additional character is nice, but the pastel pink outfit looks horrible on a lot of characters.
Party members
Astarion: Great character so far, looking forward to having him around. Him starting at Level 1 is weird, considerung how old and experienced he should be.
Gale: Like him, his costly problem doesn't bother me much. His backstory is a little much for a level 1 Wizard, same as Astarion, it feels like he should be stronger than he starts as.
Lae-zel: Looking forward to learn more about the Githyanki. She can be a little demanding, but not as bad as Shadowheart.
Shadowheart: A little too contrarian, like she doesn't want to be in my party even after several hours of gameplay. Kinda squishy, even though she has the best melee stats after Lae-zel.
Wyll: I like the over-the-top hero character, but his stats don't really reflect his personality. "The Blade of Frontiers" not really being suited for melee combat makes no sense. He also seems to buggiest character to me, constantly being unaware of what just happend and what he himself said. Wyll after talking to the goblin: "Kill him!" Also Wyll: "Why did you kill him? Now I can't ask questions!"
Gameplay
Fighting: Some of the fights can be really hard, especially if you trigger the conversation that leads to the fight, instead of ambushing them. Wanting to experience the story shouldn't put you in a bad tactical position.
Turn-Based: Turn-based combat is so much better then real time. It's the basis of basically all pen&paper systems and if I have to control more than one character, it's the only way to go if you want to use every character's full potential.
Experience: Fighting and quests shouldn't be the only way to get exp. Finding a peaceful solution by talking shoould give an EXP reward too.
Surfaces: I like the landscape, but there are too many surfaces and explosive barrels. Mud in the wilderness I can understand, but why does the secret trader hideout have an oil slick all over the place, so that a single spark blows up the entire lower floor? Why am I bleeding so much from a single attack that it can be frozen into a slippery surface? Why is every goblin equipped with acid and fire bombs? Why are there explosive barrels where they make no sense?
Containers: So many empty containers... They make the environment look more lively, more used, but looking through everyone of them for useful stuff is a chore. Please mark the not empty ones.
Conversations: You should be able to change the character having a converation or let the character with the highest stat make a roll. Messing up a conversation because it triggered with the wrong character is a problem, especially if the better suited character is standing right behind them.
Pathfinding: Unless the character is undocked, everyone than can savely follow by jumping or climbing should do so, instead of taking the long way around, right through the enemies.
Party-size: 4 is alright, makes you look for solutions to problems with non-optimal characters
Loot: Loot should be more diverse. I regularly find leather armor and chain mail, but helmets, gloves and boots are hardly anywhere to be found except shops and one or two chests. Different designs/colors for things like leather armor or robes would be nice too. Or maybe even an option to customize them.
Shops: Shops should show the actual price you're going to pay, instead of some base value that suddenly gets more than doubled after choosing the item. The value of the stuff I'm selling compared to price they cost if I were to buy them from the vendors is too steep. The buying price is about 4x the amount I get when selling the same item.
User Interface
Inventory: I want to be able to select multiple items at the same time, especially for sending them to the camp.
Camp-Inventory: The inventory box for the camp needs to be more than a simple chest. Looking through a chest with 100 items to find one specific item is horrible.
Item-Icons: Things like potions, poisons etc. should have clearly distinct icons, so that I don't drink the poison in my quick list, because it looked like a health potion!
Camera: In certain places, the camera won't let you zoom out enough to actually be able to target every enemy, for example in the chamber of the hobgoblin. If you're on the bottom you can't really target people walking on the rafters. In other cases, some floors are shown as see through, showing the floor behind it. But when you click to walk at the shown floor, it sets the walking target on the see-though floor.
Keep working on it, and I'm sure this will turn out to be a great game!
