I’m rather happy with patch 9.
My focus here is purely on game systems. Graphics are hard to judge on very low settings and I can’t speak to DnD’s story or lore.
Patch 8 felt designed to antigonize its players. Playing it, it wasn’t clear whether the engine was even capable of delivering satisfying reactions. On top of that, many common player requests remained unadressed nearly two years into early access.
If patch 9 did one thing, it was to showcase a functional reaction system. Sure, it needs to be fixed and augmented, but a week ago I thought reactive reactions might not happen at all!
Patch 9 did more than one thing, though. There are a bunch of changes that weren’t mentioned in the pfh. Wizards can’t learn cleric spells anymore. Looting has been made cleaner in spots by making “treasure piles”. Overpowered items (like the saphire spark) have been nerfed.
The inventory’s search function has been improved (meh) and auto-sorting the inventory is no longer cosmetic, the items stay sorted (yay).
I’m not exactly sure this is new, but since the party inventory auto-crashes the game, I’ve used the single panel inventory a lot more than before. Between selective looting and auto-sort, this is the first time I’ve enjoyed BG3’s inventory, which is saying a lot. (Though it should be noted that playing a Paladin helps a ton, as they’re both party mule and party face.)
I view patch 9 as a proof of concept, our first glimpse of what the final product will achieve. In july, I thought BG3 would be a 6/10. Now, I’m thinking it could be 8 or 9, depending on what they add between now and then. (It won’t be a 10 without better time and space.)
