1. I was struck by the occasional open-world feel of Acts 1 and 3. In Act 3 especially, I found it interesting to go to any part of the city at any time in any order while being able to go on top of buildings, around them, and in them. Unfortunately, once you visit a place once, you have little reason to return, leaving the discovered section of the map “places I’ve completed.” In open world games, once you discover a place on the map, you can have many reasons to return there: new quests, follow ups, being directed there by quests from different locations, immersing yourself in NPC schedules to see how the place feels lived-in, merchants, idle travel across the world, attempting to uncover further mysteries, new characters, etc.
The verticality in exploration in BG3 and handcrafted environments sometimes remind me of Morrowind, which I’ve made no secret about being one of my favorite games. If BG3 combined the gameplay of DOS2 with the storytelling of DAO and the probability-gaming of DND, I’d like to see if the next iteration could incorporate the world-feeling of Morrowind, or that feeling when you go in the opposite direction of where an adventure module tells you to go and the DM gets to make up a world on the spot, continuing your adventure in every direction. As one might say, being able to pick a direction, go that way, and have a whole world unfold before you. I wouldn’t do this like modern Open World ARPGs; rather, I’d do it smaller, denser, with an emphasis on diverse traversal and recurrence of locations. I’d increase the size of the over world and things to discover, while having more vertical locations like cities and dungeons. In addition to this sense of space, I’d add a day/night cycle for a sense of time. I’d keep the DND-DAO-DOS2 feel for everything else, though, except for the world. Basically Dungeons and DragonMorrowSin 2: Origins.
What if all Acts were freely traversable, and initiating events in Baldur’s Gate changed things in the already completed Druid’s Grove? What if you had reason to travel the Risen Road again and again, and experienced new things along the way? Essentially, I’d like the theme park effect to dissipate and for the world to feel lived-in rather than just waiting for you to happen. I’d also give some (not all) NPCs schedules. Need to rob someone’s home? Wait until they’ve left for the market and you have three in-game hours.
2. I like the destructible environments idea. I think for everything one can see, one should be able to walk to it, destroy it, add to it, climb it, move it, inspect it, deface it, etc. if every object is interactable, make every aspect of the environment too.
3. Consider the use of AI for less important NPCs (keep everything important custom and handcrafted please). The technology is still young, so I don’t think it should be used until it can be incorporated seamlessly into the game without causing a jarring sensation.
4. Companion and party commentary on the wonky bullshit you choose to do as team leader.
5. Let the player to use gold to upgrade different aspects of camp as a home base. Have the party and camp companions react accordingly and change their schedules accordingly. Upgrade a training compound to see how the party reacts to combat with new abilities? Maybe some companions choose to spar there.
6. Smarter AI and upgraded horde AI. Let enemies react all at once as a single unit, taking into consideration each other’s abilities on the fly, making for faster paced and harder combat.
7. Uses for crafting beyond combat consumables and unique equipment. Have rope and a hook? Make a grapple hook to swing across chasms or climb great heights. Have a pole, wire, and a hook? Make a fishing rod. Also make food more scarce and capable of spoiling so one has to produce or find food for long rests. Have ink, quill, and paper? Forge documents or write letters.
8. Let keyboard and mouse players have the controller style camera and ui option as a toggle. Let them customize and mix and match styles for camera and ui.
9. Outside of settled areas and handcrafted combat encounters, make environments BIGGER and GRANDER and LET US LOOK AROUND THEM. This game’s environments can look beautiful with certain camera mods, and I’d like that grandeur to go to 11.
10. Fix the total number of companions at 6-10, but make party dynamics deep as fuck. Choose not to bring a character in your party? Congrats, they’re now doing stuff in the world. Some characters in your party a lot? They get real familiar with each other and follow up on prior conversations. Have dynamics change based on choices and events.
11. Make every item usable in some capacity. Turn my trash into treasure.
12. Give spells and attacks more non-combat uses. In addition to dialogue uses, give them environmental and narrative uses.
13. Since people clearly like it so much, keep the romance system, but make it deeper rather than more horny. Also have friendship, frenemy, and enemy relationships too.
