Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback BG3 Feeback - Controller oriented

Baldur’s gate III Early Access FEEDBACK

1. PREFACE

a. Here is my feedback concerning the Early Access of Larian’s Baldur’s gate III. For information I’ve been playing exclusively on Stadia with a Chromecast Ultra and Stadia’s controller. I have a good internet connection that offers me a stable game experience and zero stutters (at least on RDR 2 and FF XV). I won’t write about graphic artefacts, missing textures, fps drop, animation missing, lighting and technical details because I strongly believe it’s not on Stadia’s end and it will get properly done for release (from what I saw there are glitches on PC too).

2. CONTROLLER SUPPORT

a. I’m going to start with what’s been bothering me the most: controller mapping and controller usage. My guess is: controller support was implanted little time before Early Access OR it’s down in Larian’s priority list.
b. I’d like to change the DPad behaviour: At the time being the only usage it has is to navigate inside menus. I believe it should be mapped differently to fill missing shortcuts.
c. Right stick (RS) have a weird configuration, left and right axis = horizontal rotation of the camera. Up and down axis = level of zoom (3 levels iirc). With a controller you CANNOT look upside down freely. I REALLY want to have it changed so that RS Up/Down = vertical rotation of the camera. It’s very penalizing to not be able to clearly look around you when the fights are based so much on verticality and be prepared. I won’t talk about the R3 « free mouse » view because I feel it’s 100% bugged and won’t be here when game launches.
Actual controller layout

Idea of D-pad usage


d. I’m having the hardest time to aim at something specific (object, characters, traps) when they are many things to be looked at. For one characters are VERY clumsy when you try to move them accurately and then when you try to loot/inspect something specific good luck spamming R1/L1 to realize you are facing the right way but are unable to interact with the desired item.
e. Same button different task. Oh boy I don’t know how this went through:
When action bar is active: pressing X will make you add a spell/item/skill on desired location. Holding X will clear a slot on the same location. However pressing X also serves to switch between dual wielding or not. The dual wielding switch is not doable with a controller. I had to play on pc to make adjustments.
f. Sorting is also not doable, button is greyed out (while working on PC):

(tri means sort, don’t mind the PlayStation icons). It seems that tooltip and sorting shares the same L3 button.
g. We can’t choose which direction we are facing when moving (in combat). It’s crucial for a tactical game to be able to position correctly if we want to live longer. We should be able to hold A to do so (keep holding A then you can orient your character in the desired way).

3. USER INTERFACE

a. Font size: I’ll make this one quick because everyone already said it: make fonts adjustable. My eyes are killing me with how small it is + Stadia slight blurring/pixelisation.
b. Overlapping/unnecessary text: Make stuff smaller and delete un-needed text:

Here L2 text is not needed, user will know that having 4 portraits + L2 means character switch. There’s a big ass text that overlapping the spell row (I believe it is due to localization being different from English). Also I don’t think it’s necessary to have L1 and R1 texts too. There are only 3 pages that cycles between them it’s not necessary to have text. Remember that less is more!
c. Might be me but the UI when using a controller is too big. It would be better if it was smaller, maybe adding a second row can be useful. Having to scroll all the way to the right then back left is tedious.

PC layout

Controller layout
d. When using a controller there is no way to know what your character status is. I had to check on PC to find out that I won’t be doing critical hits anytime because I’ve lost one eye due to my poor lack of judgment. Jokes aside it’s sad to be clueless. Sometimes there’s a lot of information and I can’t know what’s happening.
e. On the minimap the player’s location must be on top of everything else, and companion’s icons must be smaller, it’s often a mess with big blue arrows and you don’t know where you are looking to.
f. When bartering with a vendor you cannot switch player! Pressing L2 doesn’t do anything. Another small fix that will be a big QoL.


4. GAMEPLAY

a. Jump/disengage: This is a hot topic at the moment and it might be tricky to balance it. For now it’s extremely op and overused by anyone anytime.
Jumping shouldn’t be a free escape card and you should get challenged by near attackers. Jump must be used as positioning tool only. Disengage should use 1 action instead of 1 bonus action. You might need to separate jump and disengage.
b. Hit %: the changes of % hit can be gigantic, I feel the malus and bonuses regarding light/height/type of attacks are too strong.
c. Combat log is broken.
d. I think we need a glossary in the game. There’s a lot of information in the game that need to be summed up (races, places, damage type, past lore etc)
e. Just because I played with a controller I had no tutorial at all. I had to discover everything by myself. It was a good experience and a painful one at the same time. Had to check on PC to see if this was controller or Stadia related (turns out there IS a tutorial when using mouse and keyboard).
f. Once again it’s controller related but everything seems more tedious to achieve, menuing, looking around, aiming, selecting (everything BUT moving, it’s nice to be able to move without left clicking everywhere)
g. Characters balance :
i. I kinda like like Wyll personality but he lacks power. He’s the Blade of Frontiers and hits like a cripple. Maybe I didn’t understand the archetype. Good survival spell but costs too much.
ii. On the otherhand Lae’Zel hits like a truck and might need to be tuned down. Having the ability to do 2 special attacks is very strong. Also her roll dice (superiority dice?) is insane.
iii. Shadowheart is gone so I don’t really know, feel like she had a lots of buff/debuff spells and could take a beating.
iv. Gale’s spells feels on the weak side, he’s more a debuff/surface machine than a dps. Gets obliterated when someone snooze toward him.
v. Astarion: I don’t like the character but he’s doing VERY fine. I don’t know why he can burst every turns without requiring to be hidden… Where everyone else needs to rest (long or short) to re-use red abilities. If conceal gets a better treatment Astarion will really play like an assassin and that’s cool: get in, burst, conceal, rinse and repeat. He can dodge quite well thanks to having high DEX I guess.
h. General stats: I think having the choices you make impact your stat should be greater. My avatar lost one eye so she can’t crit anymore. BUT I could have +1 on persuasion rolls because having one eye left is scary or whatever. A bit like Disco Elysium did, on a lesser extend though (almost every choice you made impact your avatar). It would bring more uniqueness to every run of the game you do.
i. Rolls dice: Imo we could have better explanation when rolling. At the moment the result shown=roll+bonus/malus. It would be more impactful gameplay wise to have the bonuses shown to the player. You rolled 8, but here’s +4 because of X trait and Y stats, so final result is 12.


5. BUGS

a. Missing companions: I lost Shadowheart plain and simple. I looked on forums to see if smth was off and it’s seems that’s a legit bug. She kind of disappeared and if you go too far in the story you can’t get her back. I also lost Lae’Zel but I somehow managed to find her back! (She was wandering where I told her to get back to camp)
b. Turns auto-cancelling: when aiming with an AoE spell and press B most of the time the B button keep registering and your turn is cancelled. Yikes… I need to be much focused to press B another time if I see this happening. Happens with items too.
c. If you kill Zarys without triggering combat state (via stleath etc) games bugs out and you can’t save anymore. Stealth mechanics are very weird atm.
d. Sometimes when using free look (R3) the cursor/camera goes into oblivion through the map.
e. Sometimes camera cannot regain “height” when hovering certain area





EDIT : Formatting kinda sucks sorry for that.

Wow this is very in depth and helps the large number of players that won't frequent these forums, but will still play the game on steam or future consoles using a controller.

I don't know if this in depth or not but I tried to gather my grief against the controller through my play. I believe the minority will use a controller to play, and if nothing is changed it will piss people off.
It's still cool (and pretty new) to Larian to have implanted controller support!

Quote

f. Sorting is also not doable, button is greyed out (while working on PC):

Patched with patch 4.1.85.1780

Additional bug :

Combine is not working while using a controller.

Gameplay :

Hunter's mark should cost only 1 action bonus (and no spell). Atm it feel very expensive to use.