Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My Feedback & Suggestions

Hello Larian Community, My name is Antoine Retaureau, i am 35 years old, also a professional visual artist working in comics/manga/illustration.
Here is my artstation : https://www.artstation.com/shiroho . I am also a mod creator, my mods are known under the name of radiant mods on several video games (look for me on nexus or workshops). I did some for divinity 2 back in the day (i am the author of Black Sand Tiger Summon mod, the mosr popular i did for the game i guess). I am a big fan of rpg, video game or paper it does not matter. I sent to Larian my feedback of my first slow run of 100hr-ish, here is somekind of a copy of it so everyone can check it out to be inspired or just informed (removed some personal parts) ... I think i just might sounded a bit arrogant, but i am not feeling especially important lol i was just trying to genuinely introduce myself. So ! Here is comes (Talking to the studio)

--------- FEEDBACK AFTER MY FIRST 100HOURS~ PLAY ---------

First things first, the congratulations (i begin with pro, then i ll be moving on to some few animation/clipping bugs, then graphisms suggestions, gameplay suggestions and finally Gamedesign/balance suggestions) :

- Congratulations : On the face animations (Goblin, druids, children,Tieflings, humanoid monsters) some a really exceptionnal. Rarely saw that in a video games even with better graphisms than BG3. Keep it up, i love that tremendous work ! Keep using face capture actors the more often you can !
- Congratulations : On voice acting, all voices are different and alive, cheer your actors on they did a wonderful job so far. Please don't hesitate to go even further i want to hear more screaming, more extreme emotions, more scarry voiced sounds !
- Congratulations : On gameplay design, for now i like it better than divinity 1 & 2. Don't hesitate to do your own interpretation of the D&D rules you were inspired by. Im part of the people who think you should just do what you guys feel the best for us, for game balance and fun. Some people might get pissed at you for not respecting D&D this or that version of rules, well … screw that ! it's your game and you are doing a wonderful job so far imo. Just make sure each class is as much worth as any other and has its own perks, which seems really hard, don't hesitate to update them a lot of times, we don't mind testing the changes.
- Congratulations : Story/battle design, surely some hardwork here, the story telling is way better than divinity 1 & 2 (like having a better GM in front of you), more immersing despite the graphism/animation bugs. Keep going it ll be awesome ! Don't hesitate to go with borderline PEGI 25+ stories haha

- Animation issue : Blighted village = Chief of the ogre trio's body animation is weirdly freezing at the end of most sentences during cutscene.
- Animation issue : Blighted village = Attack cracked wall in forge basement sometimes results a character animation broken (more often with 2 handed sword)
- Animation issue : Goblin fort = If you ask the man tortured inside by Spike about the druid thing, it results a bugged cutscene / animation.
- Animation issue : Goblin fort = While Halsin is in bear form behind bars and during dialogues, his animation is glitchy/bugged/weird when he seems to stand up ?
- Animation issue : Defiled Temple = Moon phase Plates puzzle is glitching hard if you come back to solve it after trying once (implying re-enter the area).
- Animation issue : Alchemist cave = If a skeletton is woken up but dies by an opportunity attack, all coffin will be emptied but will still trigger a "surprised" message on your character. You will also miss all xp from these fights.
- Animation issue : Myconid Village = Spaw animation issues : his body, neck, head, everything is freezing brutally while he talks, but i guess you guys were aware or this was a "early stage of animation"
- Animation issue : Myconid Village = Brew get stucked while making his way to show me the reward (in stairs).
- Animation issue : All areas = The Tiefling tails is often going nuts like weird ragdoll forces were applied, they extend and tremble in all directions. Kinda breaking (hard) the immersion.
- Animation issue : All areas = Npc and team characters clipping while dialogs/cutscene (see the screenshot), may be a forced V formation for the linked members depending of selected character who enters dialog ?

- Graphism : light piercing tree in the swamp under illusion : give the dust particles a faster move, a more realist touch will be gained like that im 100% sure of it.
- Graphism : Can you add more beautiful faces for women in character creation ? No offense but … there are very thin possibilities of beauty. I know you can do it, i saw some perfectly handsome/pretty faces on npc's ! Mostly more delicate faces with good eyes ratios and more feminine jaw bones.
- Graphism : Can you add more short hairs for mens ? May be also a "2-3 weeks shaved skull", etc.
- Graphism : Can you allow us to change a little more the physical aspect of main characters like you did in divinity 2 ? (For instance choosing Laezel with a blu-ish skin instead of green, Will with a different haircut, etc.)
- Graphism : Too much npc you can see a shaved skull below hairs, especially those with colourful skins, please use a very quick texture of the hair color sticked to the top of the head with a helmet shape ?
- Graphism : Can we have a glamour system to wear the outfit we want different than the armor we equiped for stats (I mean some piece are beautiful, too bad we can appreciate when its stats sucks). As well as a dye system, that would be epic (but that require way more work i am aware of that, i did a mod on divinity 2 about it called "Radiant Origin Gear").

- Gameplay : Would it be possible to get a more faster movement on map outside combat, like double clicking for speeding things up like in divinity 2 ? This would be amazing.
- Gameplay : We surely need some better way to deal with books and documents. May be a scribe who write everything you read in a journal ? (all read book can be consulted in camp or idk)
- Gameplay : Too many times i missclick on a member while wanting to do a precise move and he start a conversation which really gets on my nerves. Conversing with members should only be accessible on rightclick on member imo.
- Gameplay : When you read a book in the menu, the container pop in front of the menu without closing it (forcing you to re-open the menu if you want to read another book). Pretty annoying the menu in the background is shutting down that way.

- Level Design : Since divinity 2, your levels are … getting more and more compact. I sometimes have the feeling to suffocate, always too much elements on a little place (quest related or not). Previous baldur's gate, 1 and 2, if you remember had big wide fields, i loved that, searching one big breathing open space this tiny detail … you know ? Searching big spaces also helps on the realistic/immersion page. It doesn't have to be complexe everytimes, it doesn't have to be filled at 100%. You can add places with big spaces but not so much in it, which will slow the pace, make for ambiance and mystery. That will also help to hide your stuff better, hide your npc better and ofc make us search harder ! I want you to think about that matter and discuss it.

- Gamedesign & Balance : Since divinity and here again in BG3 the weight carrying limit was always a bit weird. Yeah it's unrealistic to carry 20 enemy swords and 3 barrel, but also a Hero that re-sell his enemy gear is … you don't see that in Lord or rings or any fantasy book haha. You can still keep a weight rule, but may be you could ease our life by creating containers which allows object inside to be consider half or no weight ? Or may be equipable bags (invisible on models, but with a specific slot) who could add a carrying value like +30kg.
- Gamedesign & Balance : I am really sad of what is happening to crossbow, bow and light crossbow in the game. I Would have prefered more differences between them, something like : Bow = normal damage, crossbow = increased damage but one bonus action to reload, light crossbow = far less damage but only takes a bonus action to shoot. And also, a specific ranger sub-class to gain bonuses on these.
- Gamedesign & Balance : Limiting the "camp for the end of the day & sleep" action !!! This needs a serious nerf, that easily kill the immersion and difficulty by pressing long rest too often. A lot of player are agree on this on your forum, please listen to us, may be you already had the idea of nerfing it and was it just a test ?
- Gamedesign & Balance : Food complete rework. I am giving you the full suggestion later. To sum things up, we are a lot not wanting food to be consumed in fight and for HP instant healing.

And that's all for now folks !
I hope nothing in this would have upset you guys. I know making and dev a game is a fucking hell and these critics are so easy to make ! You are all great, BG3 is looking so nice already i think it might become a legendary game. I wish ya all much courage to keep going, stay focused, try not to rush any sensitive part, don't sell your passionate soul to devils !


--------- FOOD REWORK ---------

Keep in mind this is a personal idea. I am of one of those who love the pre-buff moment before a fight (contributing to make the tension grow !), there is not much of these in the game already and i would like the food to be the items that helps you to achieve that. ofc i know some of you might not be agreeing with this. It's just a suggestion of a rework, based on some mods i did and some old school "paper and dice" Role playing game i ve experienced.

- RULE 1 : Each food or ingredient, when ingested, create a unique buff for a turn duration (20-40-60). That extended duration allows player to eat then engage the upcoming combat with no stress. Like i said i always loved that specific moment in rpg's, it participate to my video game pleasure and i am sure a lot of player also do aswell. On another hand, It will help players to succeed a hard fight they failed multiple times, after reloading a save knowing the moment it occurs, giving them somekind of little help that time if they feel stuck.
- RULE 2 : Any food or meal can't be ingested during a fight. They don't have instant healing properties anymore to let this job fully assigned to potions (Like most of your players would like it to be). This is also meant to preserve immersion/realism of such an action in a life threatening moment … because cracking a gruel in front of a 3m troll aiming at your neck is not a good idea.
- RULE 3 : When a new food or ingredient is ingested while there is still one in effect, it will simply erase the previous buff for obvious balance issues. Since 2 food effect can't be active at the same time, this will motivate player to keep (or craft) more complexe food dishes for hardest fights in the game.
- RULE 4 : The more a dish is complexe, the more the effects of the buff will be rewarding. With the complexity/rarity level of these food, effects will grow in nature, duration and power.
- RULE 5 : It's up to you dev to implemente a crafting system for food. Honestly i don't think it's such a great idea no matter how appealing it may sounds (taking time to craft multiple dishes would ruins a bit the pace of the game, i already experienced that on other games/mods). If we decide not to implement cooking craft, the Ingredient/meal/dishes will only be left to be found around the world to land directly in inventory for later consumption or sell. When you think about it, it's logically a little too far fetched to find a skilled warrior or mage who is also known to be a famous cook. But i would not mind you decide it otherwise if you hold to it. Another big issue you might guess : it will surely require a lot of tedious work for you (all receipes, additional ingredients, etc).

Here is an exemple of what the food buff would look like to me, but feel free to correct me with more realism/logic

- Fish dish = Intelligence / Wisdom (fish pie, grilled fish, fish and chips, etc.). In my country, we use to say that fish make you more clever, it's actually kinda true while Fish's vitamin D & B participate to neuronal cells sustain.
- Meat dish = Strengh / Dexterity (sausages, grilled meat, smoked meat, etc.). A Meaty meal for the warrior ! A cliche that works everytime and never dies.
- Potato dish = Constitution / charisma (fries, puree, gruel, poutine, etc.). Heavily nutritious, these allow your character to inflate his chest and belly and looks stronger and thicker !
- Bread = Hp + / Armor boost (baguette, bread, cheese bread, garlic bread, egg sandwich, baguel, Sourdough bread, etc.). A bit like above, but in a different way. Could use some other ideas.
- Alcohols = Status immunity (Biere (Silence), Expensive wine (Charm/paralyze), Rhum (Cold/Fear), Wine (Fear), etc.). I wanted to give alcohol a very useful effect here : defuse horrible incoming status effects. And since this could be OP if you already know what kind of enemy is coming to you, the side effects would be to be drunk, meaning also debuffed at the same time. This deal might be fun to take, for exemple getting drunk in purpose of resisting a very fearful enemy ! which is not out of realism haha !
- Tea = Poison immunity, Tea and Infusions are known all over the world to have some body purifying properties.
- Coffee = Sleep immunity, the obvious … you are way more excited after a good cup of coffee. Several kind of Coffee could have different resisting power.
- Milk = Movement boost / Bonus Action boost, Milk would somekind be a rare drink that will greatly help your overall presence in a fight. Milk is indead a drink full of nice and nutritious elements for body.
- Water, Fruit juices, fruits = Health regen, 1 or 2 HP per tick. Even if Potion are here for instant Health healing, having these in your metabolism is crucial for the healing process over time. They could do the job, out of fight around a very very slow Hp regeneration.
- Vegetables = ???, I don't have any idea for these beside the one where they could only help to craft more complexe meals, thus create more powerful meal effects in combination of other ingredients ? IF crafting system there is …


Eating only the ingredient or basic dish : Normal effect
Eating a complexe dish : Longer effect or more Powerful effect or Split effects
Eating a very complexe dish (or High quality, could be a %chance to occurs while crafting) : Longer effect or/and more Powerful effect or/and Split effects


Exemples (It's made in a hurry, just to have the big idea) :

Salmon : +1 Intelligence [20 turns]
Grilled Salmon : +1 intelligence, +1 Wisdom [40 turns]
Salmon Skewers : +1 intelligence, +1 Wisdom, +6 hp [40 turns]
Salmon Pie : +1 intelligence, +1 Armor, restore a spell slot I. [60 turns]
Salmon meuniere : +2 intelligence, +1 Wisdom, +10 hp, restore a spell slot II. [60 turns]

Dried pork sausage : +1 strength [40 turns]
Dried spicy pork sausage : +1 strength, +1 dexterity [40 turns]
Grilled pork Ribs : +2 strength, +6hp [40 turns]
Pork ham sandwich : +1 strength, +1 dexterity, +6hp, restore a Superiority Die. [60 turns]

Bread : +10hp [20 turns]
SourDough Bread : +10hp, Speed +3m, +1 Armor [40 turns]
Butterbun : +10hp, +2 Armor [40 turns]

Milk : Speed +3m [40 turns]
Honey Milk : Speed +3m, Bonus Action +1, +1 Armor [60 turns]

Biere : Silence resistance + 50%, cold/chill resistance +20%, drunk status, +1 HP Regen, [20 turns]

Water : +0.5 HP Regen [20 turns]
SourceWater : +0.5 HP Regen, +6hp [40 turns]
Lemon Juice : +1 HP Regen, restore a spell slot I [20 turns]

A good write up! I appreciate the color coding to make it easier to read!

For your ideas about food: In games that allow me to eat during combat, I usually end up hoarding potions I rarely use and devouring a bunch of food instead. In BG3, I'll use the big pieces of meat as healing items over potions or spells. I would actually prefer taking this out and making food and cooking a passive buff instead that lasts until long rest. I think there's a mod already on Nexus (DnDon't Starve) that changes how food works - although I it's a required survival system rather than a buffing system.

I feel like the game needs to emphasize pre-fight buffing, and an overhauled food system could do that. As someone who tends to play mmos solo, playing many games of this type as a tank, and having played tabletop only a few times, I've been having trouble personally synergizing the attacks of the party and casting too many spells during combat rather than outside. I know this is a personal problem, but I feel like this may be a common issue for some players - hence why a lot of players aren't using very powerful spells (was it Bless or Protection from Evil maybe). The problem might not be the spells, but that there is an unspoken learning curve that goes without saying to some, and is a complete mystery to others.

Imagine when the nice old tiefling lady in the Grove offers you her gruel, she could offer you the option to try to spruce up the brew by using the cooking pot - perfect tutorial on cooking that's short and sweet with an in lore hint at pre-buffing (full belly for the trek to Baldur's Gate). You learn that crafting/cooking meals gives better buffs that last till you long rest.

Yea stop with D&D, focus on food buff please.

I believe a lot of people on the forums would support changes to crossbows and long rest.

The food buffs are mostly equivalent to gaining 4 levels, which would remove difficulty from combat.

I appreciate you taking the time to address all of these components of these game. I'm just gonna comment on a few of your points that would be most important to me.

1) Food

I very much agree with you that food should not be consumed in combat, as this makes food function just like health potions. I don't agree with the food buff idea however, because it would essentially turn food into a magic potion or spell by another name. Our attributes like Wisdom or Intellect are hugely important, and even increasing one by a small amount has a large impact on the bounded accuracy system of 5e. Adding another buff to players would reduce the relative importance of class abilities/spells, magic items, and the potions we consume, and make food way too important a feature in the game. Not to mention encounters would need to be made more difficult so the content isn't trivialized by the added power.

I actually think food is too powerful as it stands, even if it couldn't be consumed during combat. Currently, it already invalidates numerous class spells and abilities, such as "prayer of healing" for example, which heal players when out of combat. Why would a cleric waste a spell slot to heal their party members out of combat, when the party could just eat the overly abundant food offerings to heal to full every time.

I think players should only be allowed to benefit from a certain number of food items per day, and only while outside of combat. As players level, they will prioritize keeping higher quality food with them to make each use count. This also creates more player choice and strategy, to decide when it is worth it to restore health out of combat, rather than mindlessly auto healing to full after any damage is taken. Higher quality food should be rarer, so that the common items like apples would still be used at times when the player doesn't suspect as much need for healing before the end of the day, since they want to preserve the good stuff for more important moments.

However, even if these changes were made, the players still have way too many resources at their disposal, which speaks to another point you made.

2) Camp

I totally agree, using a long rest should come with story consequences so as to dissuade its constant use. The fact that players enter every encounter in the best possible condition makes the game less fun, and too easy. These consequence could relate to the condition of our tadpole, or how certain events unfold in the world. This would force players to choose when they think it is worth it to fully restore themselves, rather than take long rests for granted and using them after every minor event.

For example *spoilers*, with Auntie Ethel. If you talk with Auntie Ethel and Mayrina in the cottage, but choose to take a long rest after you speak with them, Marina can no longer be saved, as Auntie Ethel has already sent her away to one of the other Hags in her coven. Therefore, once the Auntie Ethel encounter has been triggered, you must defeat Auntie Ethel before taking a long rest, or you lose the ability to rescue Marina. The player must ration their resources through the different layers of Auntie Ethel's hideout, or they will suffer the story consequences that accompany their decision to take their sweet time while on a rescue mission. Perhaps dialogue would be added to the initial conversation with Auntie Ethel, so that first time players are given a hint that this is a time sensitive encounter.

This preserves player choice, where for example, players become too injured after fighting Auntie Ethel's servants, and therefore decide it would be better not to chance the Auntie Ethel fight without recovering first, even if it means losing Mayrina. It also increases the value players will place on their abilities, and increase the value of using strategy while in combat.

Currently, I often find myself indifferent to most consequences I suffer from fights, due to the knowledge that my characters will be completely restored as soon as the fight ends. As long as my characters have at least 1 health after each fight, it makes no difference how much damage they took, or how many abilities/spells they used, etc. The changes to both food and long rest would help change that for the better.

3) Weight System

I personally prefer the weight rule as implemented, although there are magic items in DnD such as a portable whole, bag of holding, or Heward's Handy Haversack, that allows you to carry a fixed amount of extra item weight at a drastically reduced cost. I think it would make sense if our characters found some of these items, but they should be rare and meaningful. Otherwise, I think it makes sense for our characters to store items we don't plan to use regularly at camp, and spread important items across the party. I think regular bags could be useful to help organize our inventory, which can become quite a mess, but shouldn't reduce the weight burden of items stored in them.

Heya Shiroho, thanks for adding your voice ^.^

Most of the animation bugs you point out are well known and have been reported by many people, but it's always good to get another independent report on them; if you can spare the time and effort, it may be worth dropping the bug-specific reports of this post into one of Larian's formal bug reporting forms (https://larian.com/support/baldur-s-gate-3?ver=4.1.90.6165#modal), or posting them as a thread in the technical issue and bugs section of this forum ^.^ The more individual voices they have on these issues, the more certain we can be that they'll get picked up and seen to.

I agree that a cosmetic system would be nice; giving characters the ability to settle on a 'look' that they like, without having to sacrifice their formal mechanical gear choice is always welcome in games that can manage it, and it would be nice to see them manage it here.

Having a log of texts we've read would be neat, too. I'd be in support of that.

In terms of carrying, Bags of Holding are a common find in low level games - quite quintessentially D&D - and I'd fully expect to start seeing them show up to answer carrying issues here.

In terms of ranged weapons: would it please you to know that in the core rules, which the current game design has mostly ignored, heavy light and hand crossbows, as well as long and shortbows, are differentiated enough to feel meaningful, and they have their own niches for different situations and different characters? The current game design has thrown the majority of that out the window, and that's why they feel homogeneous at the moment. A return to and use of the weapons as they're actually written, in the system they're written for, would solve this.

I don't agree with the majority of what you say on other elements, in terms of opinions and changes, at all. I think that they are, for the most part, bad ideas that would be bad for the game... But every voice matters and is relevant, and it's what these feedback forums are for, so despite the disagreement I'm about to explain from my own perspective, thanks for putting the work in to make a write up!


Can someone, anyone, please explain to me why people keep saying this?

The face captures are exquisitely detailed! Amazingly so! What they are NOT, in any way, is well animated or convincing. They are dull, flat and bland for the most part, they have the emotional range of a soggy paper towel, and this is especially visible in scenes where they're meant to be showing heightened emotion. They are immersion-breakingly bad in those situations - and all the fine detail in the world doesn't make up for that. The emotional expressions we have are a flat-ish range between "vaguely aloof" to "vaguely interested" to "vaguely content" to "vaguely miffed", each focused around key parts of the face, with nothing at all in between or radiating out from those key point. We have lip expressions that change and slide about while absolutely nothign happens at all in the cheek or jaw areas to compliment the, as one example.... and then we have a few specific expressions of "Angry gremlin mode", and "Oh gods that hurts/is bad", both of which the faces slide to from their flatter expressions in a painfully unrealistic way whenever they show up, with individual parts stretching into place while the rest of the face remains static in a very off-putting way, and then they slide out of them again a moment later back to flat blandness, regardless of the situation... and in all but one or two cases, the body language never even remotely reflects those sudden extreme slides. In scenes in this game where facial expressions actually matter the most, they are one of the big let downs and immersion breaks, currently. Why do people keep saying that they're good? They need SO MUCH work. (If you want some excellent examples of just how bad they are, go and watch Minthara's camp scene a few times with different characters/choices. Another good one for how sloppy and immersion-breaking they are is Astarion's feeding scene.)


If Larian had announced and advertised that they were making Divinity: Original Sin 3, I'd be right there with you. That is not, however, what they announced, and is not what they promised. They announced a D&D video game, and promised people that they would make as faithful an interpretation of the 5e ruleset as they could. The promise of a new generation D&D video game is what drew many people here - a large number, judging by the commentaries - and it has become very clear that they are not delivering on this at present. There is another contemporary game being made by a much smaller studio, along side this, that has implemented the 5e ruleset very faithfully with only a handful of 'tuned for video game' changes and tweaks, and it shows that 5e works VERY WELL in a video game environment, and provides tactical, satisfying, engaging combat if adhered to. This game does not do that. This game does not even feel like playing D&D for the most part.

If they want to go and make Divinity3, then they should go and do that, and more power to them - I'd play it, and probably enjoy it. If they are going to get permission from Wizards to make a dungeons and dragons game using the 5e ruleset, and advertise that to their fans, and promise them to make it as faithful to 5e d&d as they can, then that is what they should be doing. That's what many of us came here for. That is why many of us are feeling lied to right now.

If they had started from a full rules implementation and then tweaked and balanced as much as they felt they needed to from there, there would be very few complaints... but that isn't what they've done, and the result is something that feels utterly unlike playing D&D in any real sense. I'm not saying that the game as is can't be fun (though it's combat is pretty much not. It's mindless and lacking in any kind of tactical decision making at all, because of how badly they've misunderstood the value of various things), but it isn't what was advertised or promised, and it definitely isn't what I paid for in good faith to receive...


Lots of others agree on the cramped, 'theme park' feeling of the current design. Larian seem pretty fixed on ti for the time being though, so no-one is really sure if it stands any chance of being changed. I agree with you on this one - space is required to make a world feel like a world, rather than a theme park, and if they don't do wit with bigger maps, they could do it with travel spaces and transitions, with a chance for generic events and intervening small environment spaces.



I'd actually be very much in favour of food as a buff that affects you/your party until your next rest, especially if it would remove consumable-in-combat food from the game.

There are a lot of ways it could work, and your suggestions are interesting; I'd favour having meals be available to eat at long rests, or possibly at short rests, and lasting either until your next short rest, or until your next long rest, depending on what was made/eaten.

The buffs, however, would need to be subtle. Your suggestions are exceptionally overkill, to an extreme extent. Consider Heroes' Feast; it's a 6th level spell (so, mid to high level - level 11 characters minimum), available only to two classes, which has a costly material component that is consumed when you cast it (worth 1000g, which is a lot to a party under level 5, and still a moderate consideration to a level 10 party, to spend on buffing). It offers a Hp increase of ~10Hp, immunity to one status condition, and advantage on one type of saving throw. Meals that can be made for the party and available from low levels would need to only be a fraction as strong as this. Meals granting advantage on a single type of saving throw, OR advantage on saves against a particular condition, OR a small increase to max HP, OR a moderate amount of Temp Hp, OR improved/maximise healing on spending Hit Dice.... those sorts of small, subtle benefits might be acceptable though.

Are you talking just about Tav or the other characters? The animations of pretty much every other character as far as facial expressions go are very emotive. Mannerisms in the hands definitely needs some work, but I find much of the behaviors when talking to party members very believable. Tav is extremely lacking and your description does match how I'd describe them though.

The player character is certainly the biggest offender, by a long margin, but I've not been too impressed with the others either, to be perfectly frank. In their cases, it's more often a case of various expressions not matching body language well, or being too sudden in their shifts from one expression to another, and back again. It couples up with what are frequently jerky or stiff body/arm/hand animations to create a "marionette" feeling that just makes most scenes laughable for me (shadow is particularly bad for this - have a chat with her at the first meeting off the ship and tell me it's not like talking to a marionette puppet).

The capture for specific cutscenes is often good - even if their cinematography and understanding of scene composition is sorely lacking (I'm especially aggravated by their over-love of the extreme face close-up, while the expressions on those faces is flat) - but that just makes all of the other animations that surround those moments feel even more crude.

Anyway, I don't want to draw attention away from the actual OP's topic and posts here, it's just something that's bugged me as I've done my various break downs of things...

I agree with some parts of that, though I think it's a poor job rather than "wonderful job" so far. I think there are 2 closely related issues here, on the topic of asking for the exact DnD 5E rules.

a) Advertisement and communication : what Larian said vs what Larian does.

I have no acquaintance working at Larian and have never played a Divinity game, so I have pretty much zero a priori reason to have trust and faith in Larian. That being said, I don't want to allege the worse when I can make sense of things without making assumptions of them purposefully lying. Larian did say there were making a DnD 5E video game. And they did say that they would bring tweaks to the rules where needed, notably if they needed to modify them to make the game more fun or if some TT rules don't work in a video game setting. It is possible that they said this in good faith, truly believing that the changes they made were mere tweaks and indeed making the game more fun.

But it transpires from a number of interviews that Larian has their own vision of what is more fun, and they intend to make combat heavily influenced by this vision. There is no right or wrong here : "more fun" is relative, not absolute, to each their own tastes. In addition, Tactical Adventures came up with Solasta, which Larian probably didn't anticipate and which is a lot more faithful to 5E rules. I haven't tried it myself, but most of what I hear is that it works, and it's obviously in a video game setting. So Larian's claim to a faithful adaption of the 5E rules really cannot stand anymore.

And so players understandably feel that they have been lied to (as Niara carefully and correctly said).

As I wrote here, I haven't played TT 5E. I don't believe it is absolutely and intrinsically superior. So I don't really want 5E for the sake of having 5E, and I initially bought the "tweaks" talk. I was excited when I heard that BG3 was coming. For a large part, I'm excited to be back in the Forgotten Realms, and I'm looking forward to a game that encourages roleplay and where players' decision are meaningful. I was also really looking forward to trying 5E. I'm gradually mourning that hope, and this is made easier by the fact that I know that Solasta exists so I'll satisfy that 5E desire elsewhere. So I'm personally not requesting the 5E rules (just a ruleset that makes sense).

But I can understand that some people came for the DnD 5E rules, are perhaps very fond of these rules, and are asking for these rules. That's what was advertised.

Side note : Larian hasn't been great at communication since the start of EA, and this is an issue where they would really benefit from having a dedicated community manager, from communicating more, acknowledging the issue, and reformulating what they intend to achieve.

b) Building and balancing the ruleset : starting with 5E and then tweaking vs starting inspired by 5E.

Large chunks of the BG3 ruleset is missing. If Larian had started by implementing a first-order decent rule for every single thing (say, the 5E rule with minimal tweaking), to get a global first draft, and they had released that for Early Access, then players would have experienced something that at the very least flies. Because the combat-and-adventuring system would have been complete. Instead, they started modifying plenty of rules locally (action economy, sources of Advantage, etc), before every thing in need of a rule had received one (last-minute decisions and out-of-turn decisions, the passing of time, the rules surrounding rest, etc.)

As a result, the balance in combat and adventuring is largely "broken", and certainly doesn't not feel much like DnD.

I believe Larian will bring the game to somewhere playable (and hopefully very enjoyable) in due time, with sufficient iterations, additions, and fixing of previously-introduced problems.

But it is very understandable that some players have no trust in Larian's ability to provide a DnD experience and no trust in the Larian changes to the rules doing anything good. So they are asking for the 5E rules. Indeed, the 5E system is complete and is certainly ok-fun to play at the very minimum, so implementing these would at least yield something that flies.

Here again, more communication would have helped. In particular, communication about how combat-and-adventuring feels presently, the fact that it's perhaps not representative of what they intend to do at the medium-and-large scale (days, Acts, campaign), but only meant to provide an idea of how things could unfold at the local scale (one encounter). For now, if anything, they have demonstrated that they don't understand the DnD resource economy (spell slots, Ability Dice, items/scrolls, rests, etc).