Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Feedback after full playthrough

First of all, the game will be great.
I like it already much more than D:OS2 because
- No stat inflation.
In D:OS with each level enemies had more HP, weapons and spells do more damage and the numbers change from a few points in the beginning, hundrets of points later and thousands of points even later.
Thanks to 5E rules numbers stay relatively small and one level more makes a difference, but its not worlds apart anymore.
Some enemies still have very high HP for low level DnD ( spider queen at lv4 with HP like a dragon from BG2 ), but its much better than D:OS2
- No random items with random stat bonusses.
All magic items (except generic +1 enchantment) are hand crafted.
So in the beginning of the game you have a normal sword and at the end maybe a sword+3 with unique on hit effect and a spell to use.
- Environmental effects are toned down.
In D.OS2 in every fight the whole map was filled with necro fire after the end of the first round.
BG3 has much less, but its still more than in PnP which causes problems (see later)
- There are several ways to approach most quests and the game rewards some unusual ideas.
The game mostly reacts to your actions in a way it makes sense and its hard (but not impossible) to completely break quests.
With some patching this will be the most reactive game I have seen.

The game was fun to play, but as EA there are still many bugs
CRITICAL BUGS:
- The game gets often stuck in the dice rolling screen which forces you to close the game and start it again
- When returning to camp Lae´zel was hostile and I had to kill her to continue

ANNOYING BUGS
- Characters are often inside walls, objects or other characters, especially during cut scenes
- Dice rolling under the influence of guidance will lead to false numbers, like you fail when the display says you win or vice versa
- camera and pathfinding are terrible sometimes, especially in very vertical environments.
Chars climb up/down repeatedly, they run into a totally different direction (potentionally starting other events or combat) and sometimes its hard to place the camera

some issues:
The changes from PnP ruin the game balance quite often.
- For example concentration breaks very easy. In PnP spells or items do not cause ground effects or status effects that do so in BG3.For example in PnP if somebody misses you with firebolt nothing happens, in BG3 the ground is burning you your char burns too for several rounds. Also prone does not break concentration, in BG3 it does. In BG3 almost every enemy has a grease bottle, acid flask, alchemist fire, elemental arrows and so on.
- Jumping behind an enemy gives advantage and does not cause AoO
- Dipping a sword in a candle gives you a flaming weapon for several rounds
- The game encourages you to rest after every encounter. Resting has no downside, some events trigger only when resting and some companion quests only progress when you rest.

suggestions:
- Do NOT allow changing of equipment during combat.
It feels wrong when during one turn you first attack with a 2h weapon, then you equip 2 weapons and make an off hand attack, then you equip weapon+shield and end turn.
Switching between melee and ranged weapon is fine.
- Dipping a sword in a candle to do fire damage feels wrong. It would be OK to use poison bottle, acid flask or alchemist fire to enhence your weapon. You consume an item to improve a weapon for some time. Maybe you can use oil bottle on weapon and then you can ignite it on a candle or torch.
- You should not be able to give items from one char to another when they are far away, especially during combat
- Sometimes enemies need better AI. When attacking from stealth many enemies just stand there. When enemies are attacked by something they do not see they should walk around to search for the attacker. Attacking from stealth will still be powerful, but you have to move to stay hidden.
- You should only be able to use scrolls if your class can cast this spell
- Wizards should only be able to copy wizard spells into their spell book.
- We definitely need a way to read the rules in the game. DnD is a very complex system. You cannot expect players to know the whole PHB and you cannot expect players to know all changes from PnP to BG3.
- There need to be massive changes to the UI. Most importently we need a spell menu. You can cast spells at their base level or any higher level. With the current system you have to drag a lv1 spell 9 times into the hotbar if a high level char wants to cast it at any level. Also you need to change spells that can be used later after you cast them once. Players will miss that a "cast spell x again" icon appeared some hotbar pages later.

When you reduce some changes from PnP (see above) and reduce enemy HP and stats in some cases it would be a more balanced experiance.
It looks like there are only 2 types of players at the moment: Those who use some OP tactics and say the game is way too easy and those who have problems to hit anything. OK, this forum is probably not a good representation of all players.

I am sure I can think of some more ideas later.
This game will become one of the best RPGs ever. I think it would be even better if you stick a bit closer to PnP rules.

+1

Great breakdown! I agree with everything.

Spell menu is definitely needed. something like the UI in BG1 and BG2 would be great.

One more thing about spell menu:

There need to be changes how you select spells during normal gameplay, but we need to change the character screen for spell books too.
At the moment lv1 shows every lv1 spell ( thats fine ) and lv2 shows every lv2 spell and every lv1 spell (with the description what it does when you cast it at lv2)
If this continues the list of each spell level would get bigger and bigger until the lv9 list has all spells that character could cast.

Each spell should only be listened once, at its base level. The description should be as in PHB, like fireball :
"A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 3rd."

With the new spell menu you can then select what spell to cast, at which level you want to cast it and THEN you see the effect and spell slots for this level.

the spider is pretty easy; even if you fight her legitimately. you have upto 4 characters, how is 138 hp too much? the minotaurs after her are stronger, as they can send you flying off a ledge, leap on you, while you're prone, hit you again(not complaining it was fun).

That spider is stupid. u only need to hit the net she always stops on. dang, 50 hp dmg :P

I beat her by sneaking and shoving her into the underdark. insta death because of huge fall damage.
I beat the minotaurs by sneaking, shoot and hide again. They just stand there and wait to be killed. I entered underdark through the temple.

If you compare some (not all) enemies to the PnP version, in BG3 they have much more HP.
Thats why I said: Stick closer to the PnP rules, remove some changes to rules (dipping with candles, many things that give advantage in BG3 but not in PnP, and so on) and make some enemies a bit weaker in return.

It is possible to win all fights in the game and if you know how to cheese the hell out of the game its very easy, like rest spamming, barrel mania and enemies who don´t do anything if you attack from stealth.
There will be higher difficulty settings with no reload option later. We can only play on normal now and I think this should be relatively close to PnP.