First of all hello to the forums! First post here. Came here looking for some constructive discussion after being burned by the official Reddit sub, where anything even remotely negative about the game sends you straight to downvote hell. Hope it's better here!
As for my biggest fear, it's this: I dread that the game will be as combat oriented as it is in the EA. I hope it isn't and EA is so skewed in that direction because Larian wants to test the systems, but their previous games don't inspire much positivity in that regard.
Now I'm not saying that BG1/BG2 weren't combat heavy. They could be and sometimes were. But playing those games, even nowadays, I never feel like *the combat is the game*. Sure it's part of it, but exploration, dialogue, plot, etc. - all that seems to be more important and combat is just something to gel all those things together, add some stakes and make the world a bit more dangerous.
In BG3, at least currently, I feel like the balance is in the opposite direction. Combat *is the game*, and other things are here just to add flavor to it. I don't know if it's the turn based system making encounters needlesly long or Larian insistence or making each encounter "meaningful" (which isn't a bad thing in itself, but - maybe I'm in minority - but I also like some "trash fights" to just play with my skills, learn them and become ready for the important ones - in BG3 every one is an important one and I feel it takes away something from the game or at least make it a bit more "turn based strategy" than RPG).
I really hope that once we get to the city of Baldur's Gate the game gives us more quests that are not only about killing a bunch of mobs in an hour long exhausting combat scenario that I have to reload once or twice to get the hang of. Investigative quests, decision-based quests, quests about aligning myself with various factions and seeing how they think and operate.
I hope I'm not alone.
I'd quickly just like to say that I mostly agree with Domoslaf.
Yes, there are various alternative ways of dealing with situations, but the sort of....main vehicle of taking the plot forward seems to combat. If you look at the social mechanics with which you interact with the playable world, they mostly still resemble the way games like Fallout or Mass Effect worked. You use dialogue choices as the "switches" between branching trail tracks that take you to differring narrative paths, but the train's engine is being powerred by combat. Occasionally getting XP for non-combat progression is a welcome addition, but it doesn't fundamentally change the way this game is played. This XP is still meaningful specificially beacuse of the strength it grants you for fighting. Combat is the mechanic with most development time and the gameplay cycle is mainly focused around it. Levelling up, gaining spells and abilities, acquiring loot etc. are all mostly related to getting more powerful specifically for combat. Figuring out how to do the non-violent way of progressing is presented as the hidden alternative, not the norm. The only time you're reading books for progression is to solve some kind of side-puzzle to acquire more loot to get stronger, you're crafting to make weapons, and social relations you have with your companions are very much seperated from the day-to-day in-world progression.
At least in Act 1, the amount of major *purely* political or social encounters (that are not just in camp) are kind of few. The arena of BG3 isnt the tavern, the town, the grove etc. as these are sort mostly sort of "breaks" from the action rather than being it. I hope this changes in the later acts, specifically when we get to Baldur's Gate. More different factions mingling in social situations, more political intrigue, more situations that require the player to actually think and strategize in non-combat situations. Not making the dialogue be the thing that leads to the mission, but instead make the dialogue *be* the mission itself. Also other non-combat stuff that isn't limited to just social situations: having to infiltrate some place to steal something, taking part in some contest, some in-game minigame like Gwent to play.
I think this kind of stuff would be super important for the immersiveness of the world, so I wouldn't mind a little less time being spent creating combat encounters and the machinery of the skill-system to grant more dev time into all the other stuff. Even though I assume the combat encounter is much more efficient in terms of time spent creating it vs. time spent playing through it, I'd rather have more other content regardless of if it makes the game even significantly shorter overall. My favourite part in many RPG's are always the non-combat things, because they are what makes the world feel real. Think the first few bits in the College of Winterhold in Skyrim.
Really looking forward to the game though! If the rest of the game was just like the first act, this would still be a great game.
