Now I agree there are many aspects that I definitely feel like the game is a sequel to DoS. However, in this regard I think a lot of the items people seem to point out are just engine/gameworld/interaction related stuff that have been directly carried over from DoS2 to speed up deployment. These are more surface details and don't really have anything to do with BG'ness, so to speak. Since we are quite a ways off from release I think there's not too much concern regarding a lot of these as I'm sure they are looking at the feedback very seriously. Many things like the combat balance (spells/hp values/surfaces) should be easy enough to adjust.

The harder part will be, is what I think I resonate most with, is the broken party system. Of all the things in the game this is what makes me think I'm playing DoS and it's definitely also the most frustrating. Here are my issues, in no particular order of severity (all need to be fixed).

  • You find all, except one, of your companions straight off the bat and they are all also playable characters with backstories. When I was thinking about BG3, for some reason I remembered The Red Prince being in it. This sucks. I always thought it was cool to find new party members along the story. Even ones that you may not realize the first time you meet them. Also need mercs! What if I don't like any of the possible party members, but I need a cleric, so if I'm not playing one I need to take Cut-Myself-Emoheart. For a moment I thought Halsin was going to join the party, and I was really excited about it! Camp site advisor! He gets to hang out with Lazael and Astarion all day. I'm sure by A3 you find him swinging from one of the trees in camp.
  • The way you meet them is also super lame. Like such that it makes me even question their competence. Lazael is caught in a cage, Shadowheart can't pick a lock (also clearly lying about killing all those brain thingies), Astarion... you can approach him head on, so that's all I gotta say about that one. Gale is just waiting inside the waypoint plane or whatever. The only companion that feels cool to meet is Wyll. Coincidentally he is also the best companion - good natured with a dark side that are both visible, already had a bit of history with the environment and the other inhabitants of the zone, is a defender and fighting instructor. All the other companions seem brain damaged and their predicaments of being cast out/sent on mission but need memory wiped type of thing suddenly makes sense in this context.
  • Party members reactions in dialogue are incongruent with player choices in open-world environment and resting system. For example, Lazael is a massive jerk, she cares nothing except to ASAP get to the creche and fix this problem. There are many dialogue options where she judges the effort to be a waste of time. This fits her. However, if you are simply spending days and nights long resting running, combing the wilds every nook and cranny, etc., she says nothing. IMO the player should begin losing opinion after a certain amount of long rests or actions such as never talking to the NPC in the grove with the info, or if you are exploring and doing quests in a different direction from the creche. Otherwise her entire character is completely undermined and you are only in the party with her in dialogue. Like b*tch please, we just snaked all through the swamp, up and down cliffs, a whole bunch of other tangential 'time wasting' roaming, and you never had a SINGLE comment - or more importantly - any opinion shift of my PC! Every single playthrough I've had with her in my party I've thought that she should have left ages ago if she had any self respect. What a wimp, I knew she's super weak and can't hack it on her own. Powerful Gith Warrior my a**! Anyways, companions need more compelling and immersive reactions to the player's choices in the game besides dialogue. Also can those companions left at the camp NOT change opinion from dialogue choices? Which one of my 3 companions is that one that literally tells everything said in conversation over the day to those left at camp? Most of them don't even like or trust each other.
  • Romancing before A1 even complete and also when it's available when, from my perspective, I've just been acting compassionately, not romantically. Is everyone in the party such an abused wretch that the first sentient being to treat them with compassion has them fall in love? Granted we had 122 nights together before we found Halsin, but mostly I was petting and playing fetch with Scratch. OK, some members are a bit more obvious than others. Nevertheless, it's just so quick that it feels more like Larian is a madam lining up her selection and asking which one you'd like to bang.
  • Would be nice to be able to switch characters mid dialogue with options like: - Hey Wyll, why don't you take this one. - Zael, show this idiot what they're dealing with. This would be such a refreshing way to do party dialogue where the PC leader can at will include companions organically, instead of rolling checks simply based on highest party skill level, or when companion has a direct interest like quest based. This would be equally nice if a companion other than PC initiated dialogue and the companion could quickly defer to PC with something like: - Hey, PC, I think this person here wants to talk with you / You should talk to PC instead. This would drastically reduce the tedium of beginning dialogue with the "wrong" character and be forced to do the whole thing with that character, as if no one else exists.
  • The other part is just the player management of the party, which is honestly so cumbersome. There need to be formations. One for normal exploring and one when combat starts, as it is super annoying to keep in mind/track when to switch around characters. The way the party is chained also leads to so many awkward motions, e.g., where a sudden U-turn will mean that the rest of your party will still run into the poison, or what have you, in order to keep the directional movement of the formation. Honestly I don't even understand why this "chaining" exists, just let us select the whole party - visually depicted as all portraits highlighted (also hotkey for that) - or just click or hotkey (should be able to hotkey pairs and such) one or more we want to move individually - also respectively highlighted. What we have now adds this pointless mechanic for no other reason than to add awkward mouse dragging and frustration. There needs to be customizable rule sets for how each party member acts (ala PoE1+2).
  • In combat turn orders must be much clearer and initiative rolls should also be visible. Moreover initiative should be re-rolled after every round of turns! Pretty sucky that a high dex character can roll low and then be last for the entire duration of combat, especially in long ones. It would also make the longer battles a bit more interesting and dynamic instead of rhythmic and predictable. Party members that are on the same turn need to be highlighted together in portrait and also optionally with a visual marker, like a soft pulsating ring around their base. Additionally to showing initiative roll and turn order, the portraits need to be differentiated better. Right now everything is reddish-grey and party needs visually to pop out a lot more.
  • I know party size is a major grief for many people at the moment. I'd like to see more as well, but then I think there should be at least another 4 other companions if the party size would be 6. Otherwise it would just seem, weird I suppose. Another issue is that with 6 characters the management issues I listed above would be heavily multiplied and may even make the game borderline unplayable within the current system. Other than that I whole heartedly agree with the core reasoning surrounding this limited party size


That's all I've got regarding party right now. I'm sure I'll find other things as I play. Overall I'm having a blast with the game. Despite palette similarities the game looks gorgeous and runs pretty well too! This definitely has the potential to be one of the greatest RPG and PC D&D games of all time. Back when I was still pointing out to my mom which game I wanted and seeing her roll her eyes at the cover arts/titles, one of those games checking both eye rolling criteria, she bought for me was Divine Divinity. 2002, damn it's been a while. Anyways I'm really confident that Larian can pull it off because over these two decades they have demonstrated their love for RPG.

Sometimes I read posts where I think the person thinks Larian is appropriating D&D and BG for their own, and I just really can't see them as a studio that would do something like that, rather than give the setting the flavor and justice that it deserves. We are all fans of D&D here so I'm 100% sure that they are aware as everyone else that this setting is something that belongs to all of us and as such I think they're the type of people that are 100% listening to all the feedback regarding the feel of the game.

Last edited by Kvasir; 29/10/20 10:10 AM.