Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Level 12 for 100+ Hours is Not Fun

(...) around 195 hours invested on this playthrough (156 hours on 1st playthrough, 162 on 2nd), (...) no compelling enemy, no mystery left in the story, and my party having stagnated, I eventually run out of interest in Act 3. (...) Just can't get into the game now.

me and many other gamers

So what you're saying is, after 500+ hours of playing this essentially-single-player CRPG, on your third playthrough, you're kind of getting bored. After playing the game for like half a day, every day, for about 3 months, it's getting boring. 500+ hours. Yeap, yeap, I can see how that might happen.

I don't know what the average is, but somehow I don't think the "many other gamers" bit is justified here. It's like a race driver asking for speed limits to be changed because him "and many other drivers" can handle it safely. There aren't that many other drivers on the same level.

You obviously love the game to invest so much time in it. Give it a break. Do something else. Write a guide or three, make some videos, get into modding, whatever. They will probably rebalance the game in a year or two, release an improved "definitive edition" like they did with DOS2. Give them time and replay that one. And by the way, if you haven't played Divinity Original Sin games, try those. They are different than BG3, but similar games.

More levels won't make it a better game. Act III late game is already falling apart and they are introducing nonsense mechanics like Unstoppable that just break the rules in a bad way. A massive power spike with items that makes previous advancement feel redundant.

And the biggest offender that made me stop playing: level 11-12 spellcasters feel really lackluster. At a time when they should start to feel really powerful with 6th level spells. Because of all the goodies martial classes get, combat is just about dishing absurd amounts of damage on martial classes, stacking all kinds of elemental and radiant bonuses, Illithid powers, and hacking away with reckless abandon. Smart D&D play where magic is powerful, smart, tactical and limited, does not exist here.

Slowing down the leveling would make it a better game. As would toning down the magic items, and introducing some form of actual limitations on how often you can Long Rest.

Last I looked, I'm not the only one complaining. See this thread, this forum, check out Reddit and Nexus.

How did you not get that?

I find stupid games were you reached the last level just before the final boss fight or similar, basically not giving you time to enjoy it. It's a good mechanic for neverending games like skyrim but horrible for a game like this

I'm very thorough and spent a good 270 hours on my first run of the game. I didn't finish. I was max level for over 100 hours. That is absurd. I had over 100K XP after hitting the level cap and finally reached the point where zero character progression was just stealing the fun away.

I get that higher level spells are hard. I get that most people don't even hit level 12, but the people that do should not be punished because of the people who do not. If the content is there, we should get credit for it. 30, 40, 50K+ XP with no leveling is simply un-enjoyable. If you can't do higher level spells then allow multi-classing to 20 with no spell slots over level 6 like the popular mod has. Or just add spells and feats that are already in the game with no spells over level 6 being allowed. Something. It might not be perfect, but it is practical. If people choose to over-level content then they should be able to if said content is there. You said you wanted to make it as much like D&D as possible. Well imagine players going on a campaign and earning 35K XP. Then telling them "OK, add 35 thousand XP to your sheets. Great job. You're still level 12 though. Sorry, but progression after that is tricky and I don't feel like dealing with it so for the next 75 hours you aren't going to progress. Kinda like how you didn't progress over the last 25. Cool? Great." Every player at that table would quit. Well, perhaps not everyone, but there would be a ton of compromise offers and a lot of complaining. And then the campaign would fall apart, if it didn't on that first night they got their rewards and were told they meant nothing.

And no, installing the mod is not a solution because it disables all of the achievements. It's also a pain in the ass for a lot of us who aren't used to using mods in modern games. Putting things in the wrong folder, making a folder and putting it in the wrong place, then having to find it again to delete it bc now the game doesn't work etc etc.. Leaving the dev console in and just letting people take the cap off themselves would have been the optimal solution, along with an adjusted spell/feat/skill/hp table that capped spells at level 6 if higher level ones could not be implemented properly in a reasonable amount of time. I agree, levels 1-12 are the most fun, but again, the content is there to go well beyond that. If people choose to do it they really, really should get credit for it.