Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Master List of why BG 3 feels like DoS 3

To be clear, this is not for stating changes to the base rules of 5e or even decrying some of these elements. This is to create a master list of all the elements of the game that make it ‘feel’ like a DoS game, rather than a Baldur’s Gate/D&D game, given that it is such a popular forum topic. I also acknowledge that I have shamelessly stolen many of these items from other posters, I cannot thank you all enough. Generally speaking, here is the logical process I used for inclusion on this list:

THIS IS NOT A LIST OF COMPLAINTS. THIS IS A LIST OF FACTORS (GOOD OR BAD) THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMPLAINT THAT BG 3 FEELS TOO MUCH LIKE A DOS GAME

Step 1 - Was the 'thing' something that does exist in DoS?
Step 2 - Was the 'thing' something that is well known for existing in DoS?
Step 3 - Was the 'thing' something that does exist in BG?
Step 4 - Was the 'thing' something that is well known for existing in BG?
Step 5 - How often have I experienced the 'thing' being discussed?

I will keep this list updated if people wish to add to/remove from it:

1. Choice of color palette
2. Origin characters vs NPC companions
3. All Origin characters discovered nearly immediately in the game rather than organically throughout the entire story.
4. World full of meaningless items
5. World full of meaningless containers/locked chest with very little of value in them
6. Battles based in the environment and not in Character Class
7. Height (King of the Hill gameplay)
8. Backstab (only lacking the ground indicator from DoS)
9. Removing Class identity by making each character a Swiss Army knife, able to do everything (converting many Actions into Bonus Actions that normally only a Rogue would have, all classes can use scrolls, all classes have massive mobility in combat due to Jump, etc.)
10. Exactly the same starting pattern. Start as a prisoner on the vessel (boat/nautiloid) of our mentally flogging enemies (Magisters/Mindflayer). Vessel is attacked and we must take advantage of this to escape. Only everything does not go as planned and we fall off (void/water) and we are saved from dying by a mysterious force. Then we arrive on a beach and we wake up. Proceed to small settlement nearby.
11. Barrelmancy
12. Surfaces *everywhere*
13. Surfaces having overpowered effects beyond just damage
14. Food everywhere that is better healing than everything else
15. Encounter design that assumes you are fully rested for each fight.
16. Every fight involves flashy gimmicks and enemies using a host of special items (elemental arrows, grenades, healing potions)
17. No normal enemies
18. Reused DoS items that don’t exist in D&D 5e (Trap Kit)
19. Succeeding on a thieving check but the target magically knows you stole from them a few seconds later.
20. Enemies have insanely high HP values, needlessly lengthening combat
21. Chaining party members and movement system
22. Shared inventory space
23. Inventory management and UI
24. Swap any gear on and off in combat
25. Screen shake on ability selection, regardless of activation
26. Overly flashy effects for mundane actions (Jump, etc)
27. Stealth sight cones
28. Swap spells nearly at-will
29. Limited to 1 summon per character
30. Being knocked prone ends your turn
31. Turn Based vs Real Time with Pause
32. Overpowering low level characters via magic items (Doubling Magic Missiles damage)
33. Closeup character models for Portraits
34. Teleportation fast travel accessible from anywhere
35. Narrator’s voice is Malady from DoS 2
36. Normal attack with duel-wielding weapons attacks with both at the same time
37. Reused ability names and animations (Great Weapon Master is called “All In”)
38. Same highlighting mechanic of climbable surfaces
39. Same blocky item reveal UI that doesn’t actually show the item (pressing Alt)
40. Same revealing a hidden item graphic
41. Terrible pathing that will lead to allies unintentionally walking over surfaces and traps
42. Merchant UI
43. Giving free items to the merchant increases your ‘likeable’ score for that merchant, resulting in lower prices
44. Stealing from someone with one character while you are talking to them with another character
45. Giant contiguous maps rather than small and more discrete maps
46. 4 party limit
47. Same map and minimap UI (showing interactable ground, map markers)
48. Hotbar UI (primarily functionality)
49. Resurrection mechanics, animation (being able to magically teleport someone when resurrecting them)
50. Needing to double click to cast ‘self’ range spells
51. Inability to target party members for spells/abilities via their portrait
52. No non-combat exp or reward for avoiding combat
53. Only able to customize 1 character at the beginning
54. Excessively long ‘AI thinking’ delays in combat
55. Lockpicking progress bar
56. Most books and item descriptions extremely short
57. No need to identify magic items
58. Showing the percentage to-hit
59. Being able to right click on an enemy an ‘examine’ them to learn all of their stats
60. Moving cursor around a target can change whether you hit the target or the ranged attack is intercepted.
61. Companions completely block movement
62. Same party management UI in multiplayer
63. No day/night cycle, it’s always the same time of day in the location
64. Cannot adjust starting gear
65. Overabundance of magic items that remove the need to pick certain spells or abilities (Amulets for Speak with Dead, Misty Step, staff with Create Water, etc.)
66. No Fog of War
67. Ability to keep one or more party members out of combat via Stealth
68. No tracking of normal arrows
69. Wallhack scouting via camera manipulation
70. Aimbotting AI (automatically knowing which party member has the ‘least’ in a defensive stat and focusing solely on them)
71. No random encounters
72. Infinitely summonable Zombie companion
*edits below*
73. Access to enemy statistics by "Examining" them. (Note: DoS has this mechanic but locks some information behind spending points a particular skill, while BG did not have this at all).
74. Main theme music (credit to Endolex for demonstrating the audible difference a BG based theme would sound like -> https://soundcloud.com/endolex/baldurs-gate-iii-alternate-main-menu-arrangement)

Excellent list.
They dont have to change everything but as the list shows... there are just way too many things taken more or less directly from dos which makes this game feel too much like dos rather than its own thing.

Now make one for how its like BG 1/2 and then a third one of what they need to change

I'm actually already compiling one of those Orbax (for the similar to BG 1/2) but this list took quite a while to compile so if someone else wants to do it I'd be game haha.

Great list.

Isaac Springsong that's a great list. I'd suggest submitting it via their site form as well to ensure a human at Larian sees it.

Hi Orbax, it’s me again

To find what’s BG2 just do this math

BG2 = BG3^(-1)

That’s the equation

Now, being serious, BG1&2 is a clean game. It’s like getting an rock and cutting it into a diamond. BG3 feels like you had a diamond and decided to put it into a necklace with multicolored chains. Too much information. Feel incredibly unpolished.

There’s this phrase that links to BG1/2 perfecly

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I don’t feel that in BG3 & DOS series

Hope you understand my artistic point of view

You do realize bg3 is in EARLY ACCES right?

Honestly I just see a list of complaints vs an informative or insightfull post that can help them.

+1000000 to OP, good list.

OP made a great job by listing things for Larian to consider improving. What ere you doing besides complaining others effort?

Hi Demolius,

Do you realize that feedback is “expected” for early access right?

In customer experience you don’t tell a car company how to make the seats. They’re the owner of technology. They are the ones who should find the best solution. It’s the customers role to tell them what feels bad “oh, this seat is not comfortable at all”.

Let’s be professional handling with bad reviews. It happens in the market more than you can imagine I’d like to think that Larian is mature and they can handle it. They do not need defenders.

Wish you all the best my fellow comrade

Overall, excellent list, many of which made me laugh sadly because they are so lazy (43).

However I'm not really sure if #15 is true. In my playthrough of like 50 hours with Ranger/Laz/Wyll/Gale I only long rested like 4 times. And that's not exploiting barrels or stealth etc. (shrug)

I wasent complaining about the list itself but if you insist... Half of these things are nitpicks or things that have already been brought up a dozen times. Some of these things are issues that are already confirmed to be subject to change or features that they are working on. Some are the same exact point as others in the list which made the list bloated. (4 and 5 easy example of this)

So in short im rolling my eyes and sighing because I see a post like this at least twice, if not more times; per day. And each time the posts come across as if the OP doesent understand what an early acces is.

OP is free to share his list. Just like others are free to have reservations about the lists.

Nice list, how/when is Larian going to adress this?

.....

Did you read the title? Or the introduction paragraph where I blatantly said some of them are sourced from other posters?

And by all means, please, point out (and provide the source for) which ones:
- Are confirmed to be subject to change
- Are confirmed to be features they are working on

Next, do you know the difference between a meaningless Item (rope, tongs, sheers, aka all of the copied DoS resources with no function) and a meaningless Container (chest and barrels with nothing in them)? If Larian wishes to keep the meaningless Items for flavor, but lose the meaningless Containers for ease of gameplay...well there ya go. Different elements.

Please, provide more examples. As noted, since you appear to not have actually read the introductory paragraph, I am happy to add to/remove from the list

Good job on compiling these points. Hopefully this will be the place where all such discussions are redirected so we don't have a new post every day regarding one or more of these issues.

As to the points themselves, there should be no surprise that there are a lot of parallels. It would be wasteful for them to change certain things just to be different (e.g. 49, 38, 35). Some are wrong (e.g hotbar UI). A good amount we can expect (or at least hope) to change (e.g 7, 8, 14, 15 and so on). Some are so subjective as to be meaningless (e.g 1). Moreover, a lengthy list can also be compiled that shows why BG3 doesn't feel like DOS2.

It is certainly possible, and if the game ever fixes the litany of problems one suggestion I will provide is to introduce (a non-5e mechanic even) that encourages or rewards Ironman-style gameplay where the less you rest the more the reward (difficulty level based).

But their encounter design is straight out of the DoS playbook that assumes you're spamming the bedroll between each encounter. This is demonstrated, to me at least, by several of the other points such as the abundance and power of surfaces, item usage by enemies, numerous sources of unavoidable damage, and generally the complete lack of any 'standard' fight that exists just because it makes RP sense for some weak goblins to be there, rather than the full elite crew of special ops ones we face now. This is exacerbated by Larian spamming food items that provide better and more easily accessible healing to try and compensate for the DoS style encounters.

If people feel that #15 is inaccurate however, I am happy to remove!

Great job with the list, OP! I don't necessarily agree with every single item on it, but the overall picture it paints is spot on.

+1 for around 90%, great list overall

Several of the items were condensed for brevity, such as the Hotbar UI. In particular I was trying to reference how it both appears similar stylistically and functionally. For example, the automatically placing of potions, scrolls, items, abilities resulting in a cluttered mess that doesn't keep its arrangement, as well as the automatic removal of 'abilities' that are no longer available (such as the Recast Hex/Hunter's Mark) that then get filled in by picking something up, making for a tedious process each time you use those 'temporary' skills. Should I provide more detail on some of them?

Other items like #1 were straight up lifted based on seeing the same comment repeated on this forum or the Discord server. I suppose someone could do a full color palette analysis, but admittedly it was ultimately a subjective call on my part. The plural of anecdote is not data, but until someone can do a more objective analysis I do agree that the color palette is more similar to the DoS series (bright, exaggerated lighting, overly vivid colors) than anything else, much less the Baldur's Gate series (duller, subdued lighting). Undoubtedly some of that is due to the progression of time and expectations of visual fidelity, but the comparison remains (compare BG 3 to something like the PKM/Wasteland 3 color palettes to show what the feel could be even on a modern engine).