I don’t know if Larian is actively seeking player feedback at this stage, nor if they read through these posts?
I’m assuming that taking the chance on an early access grants some kind of equal chance to offer thoughts on the game.
My angle is this. When Baldur’s Gate 1 came out many years ago, I called in sick for a week, so I could play from morning until late night every day. I was completely hooked. Baldur’s Gate 2 felt strange at first, such a big shift in style, but ended up being an even greater experience. Those two games have been the yard stick for every CRPG I played since. BioWare broke new grounds on Neverwinter Nights (2002) and I spent years playing it online with friends and strangers. It was a different experience, but it had a creative aspect - you could create your own worlds and play through them with friends, and customize things to make any character or scenario you could imagine. I think it’s still the closest we have come to being able to simulate a D&D experience in a video game.
When I first heard Larian was making Baldur’s Gate 3 I was very excited. I’m a big fan of Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2 and was very confident Larian was the right studio to take on this challenge. D:OS have their own vibe, and are somewhat loony, so I couldn’t wait to see how Larian would handle a more serious tone and story. I normally don’t buy games before they’ve been released and patched a few times, but I couldn’t wait any longer on this one and wanted a taste of what’s to come. I got the early access a week ago, and have played through it. So for what it’s worth, here’s my impressions.
WORLD, STORY
Well done! Story, characters, world, all feels alive. I’ve felt eager to explore every corner, and there’s relevance and urgency to every goal, and the companions are genuinly interesting. Lae’zel is a classic, already, in my oppinion. Auntie Ethel, a brilliant example of infusing personality and complexity into an evil creature. I loved how she would be ever so nice, as long as I tip-toed carefully, not asking the wrong questions or poking my nose in the wrong corners. This is amazing writing, and the mechanics for her illusions in the bog were both entertaining and very well executed (passing a check and then watch the whole place transform). There’s aspects of moral relativity in the quests, but without sacrificing the classic D&D experience on the altar of wokeness; although you can negotiate with the goblins, they’re still nasty little swines.
It was my impression that tieflings are rather rare, especially in the Prime worlds. Yet we have a ton of them in the druid grove, and all of them look like Hellboy, yet are very nice and polite. Fair enough that they’re gathered together as refugees, but they appear as a common race, all sharing the same traits. As I understand, the fiendish traits are random, sometimes very subtle, and tieflings tend to be antisocial, because of how they’re viewed by others.
CHARACTER CREATION
Something that is very important for me (and I guess many others) is freedom in character creation. I’ve passed on many RPGs because they wouldn’t let me create a character to the look and style I wanted. I don’t expect Black Desert level stuff, but some freedom beyond type casting. In general, being able to tailor a character to what you have in mind is just so very important for breaking down the wall between your idea and what is on screen.
FACES: The character creator in BG3 has some really great looking presets, and with genuine appeal in the eyes and all, but is relatively limited. I do prefer this over some other games where you can pick between hundreds of variantions of dead looking puppets. But because these are so good, I want a lot more. If we don’t get sliders to control facial features, then at least consider adding more heads. They all appear to be about 30 years old, neutral in appearance. Let’s have some young and innocent, old and grumpy, frightfully hideous, and drop dead gorgeous - if not the tools for altering the faces a bit in the editor! Or you could perhaps easier take the existing ones and make some sub-variations with different eye position, jaw size, nose, texture, overall expression.
Elves could look a lot more…elven.
Hair is amazing. Awesome.
Tattoos: Some seem oddly specific, given the relatively small number. How many will think the tentacles-around-the-eyes tattoo was just what they needed? It shouldn't be too hard to create a large quantity of face paints, for example. Line across both eyes, left eye only, right eye only, etc. They don't all need to be wildly unique, many minor variations is not a cheap trick, it's a feature.
BODIES, STATURE: Since there already must be some mechanics in the game for handling various body types (humans vs. dwarves, etc), could we please have the ability to vary bodies? You can neither create a fat old wizard or a skinny young rogue with the one standard body. Perhaps some limited sliders on height, buffness, curviness or body fat. Tiefling tails should be optional!
ARMORS: Again, great job on the existing ones. Design, material and detail is excellent. But we need variations, already at the character creation screen. One plain brown leather armor is not enough. First on my mind is the ability to change the colors a bit. My half-drow rogue only wears black. When I finally found a real drow armor, it was sand colored. And the mage robe was way too conventional for my tiefling wizard - had to run around in underwear (good job on that design, by the way) to appear properly edgy and defiant.
Overall the armors and outfits are somewhat elegant and conservative. Minthara, for example, isn’t really dressed accordingly for a drow cleric - where's the spiderweb-leggins? We need sets for the edge-lords and the hillbilly barbarian types, too. Or even the ability to switch sleeve types, etc, like in the Neverwinter Nights system. But maybe that would open up a huge can of worms.
GAME MECHANICS
Overall I like how it works. Here’s a list of things I have observed, and some of them are probably just temporary issues given the unfinished state of the game.
Sorting Inventory: It’s a mess. D:OS had a sorting button, I assume we’ll have one?
Sorting Keys: It was the same in D:OS. Inventory full of keys, couldn’t get rid of them, not knowing which ones were redundant. How about a key ring, seperate from the inventory? Keeping them all there.
Miss: A miss in combat has the sound and visuals of a hit. I assume that would be changed in final.
Jump and Dash: Looks like a spell. Maybe less effect on it?
Redundant Clicks: Clicking your character after clicking Dash seems redundant. The same can be said about many self-only spells.
Target on Portrait: When picking the target for a spell, would be nice to be able to click the portrait in the combat queue and not only the character on screen.
Shared Initiative: Sometimes when characters are linked with shared initiative, pressing Space to get to next character will end the whole linked groups’ actions, instead of skipping to the next, so the others don’t get their turn.
Assisted Healing: It would be great to be able to offer an ally a healing potion as a free action (or have healing kits). Way too many times, I helped a downed ally on his legs, but before it became his turn so he could heal up, an enemy would knock him out again…
Ability Check: The dice roll routine feels a bit slow, with the fade in of the result and pauses.
Conditions: My characters had Rotting, then went to camp, next day the effect timer was counting from the same round as the day before. Effects should be stripped after long rest?
Force Party Together: As much as I appreciate self-preservation in companions, getting the party to cross a small patch of flames to follow you is a bit of a click fest. Maybe a ‘Get Over Here Already’ button?
Acid: Contrary to above, they seem to enjoy walking straight through acid.
Gale magical items: Please let us choose what magic item to offer Gale. He only wanted the sword we already used.
Thank you, Larian, for making real and amazing games!
Last edited by Gimbal; 14/02/21 11:58 AM. Reason: Forgot tattoos
