Honnestly I think everyone agree that the game has a huge potential but it's strange to see (some) D&D and DoS fans dissapointed.
The game has it's ass between 2 chairs and is not fully satisfying whatever you like more one or the other.
I really think that they should try to keep the whole balanced (their mechanics + D&D).
Choices for fun are 100% fine (like barrelmancy, unlimited items to stole,...) but a lot of players also enjoyed DoS because it's a strategy TB game. On the other hand a lot enjoy D&D because it has hundreds of possibilities.
Not sure how combats could be satisfying if those hundreds of possibilities are close to useless and if at the same time, the strategies to use are always the same.
"Don't like it, don't use it" works for fun choices like barrelmancy but not with the main features of the game. By main feature I mean verticality, close combat rules, how magic works,... But ofc even dipping and throwing items are main features of this game (we have a specific bonus/action)... And I'd love being able to choose them among many other possibilities rather than "don't use it because it's OP".
The problem is that DOS mechanics are inimical to 5E. Couple that with Larian's cavalier rule changes, and you've just got a poorly balanced game, that plays like DOS2 with characters built for another game.
The problem with just saying "barrelmancy and the other Larian tropes are optional", is that they really aren't. Barrels litter the landscape, and if you don't use them or at least acknowledge them and plan around them, then the AI will. Same with push, same with height for automatic Advantage.
If their goal was to make a game that differentiated from DOS, and didn't feel like a 'reskin', then at the moment, they've failed.
I don't really know what DoS mechanic you're talking about but if surfaces is something you have in mind, I have to disagree.
A new Baldur's Gate game should definitely have surfaces effects and environment interactions. This also exist in D&D and many spells can create surfaces and I guess a lot of DM would allow players to electrify a water surface.
What's going wrong is not Larian's ideas at all... It's only a matter of balance and the result is 100% contrary to their desire to give us more choices/tools.
Their basics homebrewed mechanics are just too powerfull and they will be the only viable choices to survive higher level of difficulty.
Our tactical skills or D&D knowledge doesn't really matter in combats - what matter is your knowledge of the OP mechanics Hundreds of things become a bad or unoptimised at all choice because : there are way better choices in the basic mechanics of BG3.
- I love having highground bonuses in tactical TB games.
- I'd love being able to flame my arrows in a fantasy tactical TB games.
- I'd love being able to throw traps/throwable usefull items to my ennemies during combats.
- I love that my position in melee really matter.
- I'd love being able to put power on the ground to ambush ennemies and put the ground on fire...
- I... Don't like being able to eat during combats... Honnestly I can't live with this one.
But what I hate more than anything else is that those mechanics are totally broken.
At the moment it completely ruins the "tactical" in "tactical combats". After 1 playthrough in a normal game mode everyone is going to be a Baldur's Gate 3 master. There's nothing to really know about classes uniquenesses or encounters to beat the game... you have to know those homebrewed rules.
I have to choose which cool thing to use or not because it's a meaningfull question that have a HUGE impact on the game's difficulty.
After watching 30 minutes of youtube video I know everything I have to know about "how to win in Baldur's Gate 3 ". Higher level of difficulty will only be a bit more "die and retry".
They just have to tweak their homebrewed to give us an amazing tactical game. (and add 1 party size slot, for many reasons)
Honnestly I don't share your though at all about barrels.
I think I saw ennemies using them at a single location, in the entrance of the blighted village.
It has no impact on my experience and if being in BG3's guiness book for the "greater explosions category" is something other players like... Why not ?
It's fine that you love DOS-style games. I like DOS as well, but 5th edition DnD is not DOS. The entirety of DnD combat isn't about managing and avoiding environmental effect the way the DOS and now BG3 are in its current state. Firebot doesn't create a burning surface, acid splash doesn't create a permanent acidic surface, ray of frost doesn't create a frozen surface. The grease spell is volatile and doesn't create a burning surface. Phase spiders don't spit poison that creates permanent pools of poison that somehow poison you for standing in them with boots on, nor do they die and form permanent pools of poison. Barrels of oil are just laying about the world , strategically placed to be picked up and destroyed at will to create burning surfaces.
You may like this type of gameplay, but it's not DnD...not in the least. Couple that with the myriad of other rules Larian has changed, and what you have is a game that is DnD in name only.
