Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Feedback suggestions from a fan of BG 1-2 (&3) after completing the game

I really like the game and think that it’s exactly how the original BG 1-2 should be adapted to a modern AAA+ video game. I even think it’s one of the best games ever and surely in the top 5 for me. But there are some things that are not very difficult to change, and I’m sure could make the in-game experience even more enjoyable for many players.
1. Allow switching between the characters in dialogue once per dialogue if they are nearby (make some small distance like 20 m). There are some scripted situations when you can allow a companion to handle dialogue or you can take it in your hands. It should be the same everywhere. For example, when the party meets a certain demon in a certain temple, for me, he started a conversation with Gale, despite that I was going there with the whole party and my leading character selected. It makes no sense why only someone who was walking behind can do the talking, while a persuasion expert, who is also the party leader, and who is in the same situation, should keep quiet. Even with crimes, if another character is nearby, why can’t he speak everyone out of this in the “I’m his lawyer” style?
2. There should be no respecs available in the honour mode. From a roleplaying point of view, it’s even worse than save scumming. Especially for scripted companions. At least limit it to once per character. There are very strong builds available even literally with the first 3 companions, they can beat the honour mode without much trouble, not to mention mercenaries. If someone is playing the honour mode, they should already know what they are doing. But as it’s not exactly cheating, it makes players respec the whole party after every other fight; it’s annoying to do, but players do what they can to maximize their chances for survival. Like in some battles, 3 fighters and 1 cleric will do best, in some - 4 rangers-stalker-assassins, in some it may be good with 3 casters for AoE and summons, etc. It’s a very stupid thing to change the whole party this way regularly. It’s a thing that I don’t want to do in honour mode, but will do as long as it’s not cheating, despite that it will spoil my experience (want to win). To be clear, in Tactician, I only used it once in the late game, to respec Shadowheart as a light cleric, because it fits her story on a good path (and much more useful).
3. I believe there is still no option to include the honour mode boss legendary actions in the custom mode, but it should be there for sure. Some people exploit saves in honour mode only because they want top difficulty but without permadeath (or rather permadeath from bugs that will end a run).
4. Buried stashes that we should dig up are so monotonous, boring, time-consuming, and even almost annoying for most of the game. They almost always contain something minor, never completely useless, but never something really significant (with an exception of something like 4 in act 3, but also so-so). The chest is almost never locked and looks the same (exceptions in act 3). Add some more chest diversity, something cool at least in a few of them in acts 1-2. Some chests could be locked, trapped, etc. It also feels that at the very least in act 2 there are way too many of those. It would be better if there would be at least half of them, with double loot. Moreover, digging them isn’t fast and the process looks ugly for a modern game, it would be better just to have the chest instantly on the surface. If I will play again not in the honour mode I will just ignore all of those.
5. Add more of the useless funny trash, similar to the djinni circus rewards. Could be nice in some chests, especially buried ones, so there would be not only rotten vegetables (which are ok). More useless easter eggs, not only in the form of books, but also as descriptions of items.
6. Make the skin of Viconia look younger. It doesn’t really end up looking so old for a drow, even for a very old one and even in the current D&D where they’re mortal. I’ve read so many discussions in this regard on other forums. Lots of the original BG fans truly hate this. It’s ok for Jaheira though.
7. Switch back for Minthara to be unavailable in a non-evil playthrough. Decisions should matter in both directions. It’s so casual for her being available in a good playthrough. It was one of the better parts when she was unavailable. The camp is almost empty if to play a true evil, while if to play good you can have literally everyone now. Why even play it evil then if there is nothing that good guys can’t get. You can remove the whole evil part with equal success. There rather should be some more pure evil companions that will not be available in a good playthrough.
8. I think it’s obvious that there is a lot of work for the devs to do in act 3, with these bugs, crashes, lagging, and loose ends, and I hope that most of it will be fixed eventually. But one thing that left me especially annoyed is the quest of Aylin and Lorroakan. If to not kill him she and Isobel are not joining the final battles. I’ve missed it at first because I’ve not picked an option about Lorroakan in the dialogue with Aylin when it first appeared and it never reappeared again (bug?). I’ve convinced him that she’s dead and it was a seemingly good solution, there was no option to start a fight in dialogue neither with him, nor with Aylin, nor with Rolan (though all related quests still can be completed by killing him “manually”). It makes no sense that she’s not joining the final battles after all these situations and travels only because I didn’t kill some wizard she probably never even heard of.
9. From the same series as the previous one. In the underwater prison if Duke dies as a result of Mizora’s action (she got me, didn’t expect this to happen and decided that it's worth not loading a save) there are zero consequences, no related dialogues. There should be a real mess in the camp after this, but there is only something like “I’ve seen the duke dead in the iron throne” and “oh no... well, back to funny stuff” in response. Like seriously? Just “seen a body” and nothing on how this happened?
10. Would be nice to have an option to choose in the beginning if the player wants gay/straight advances from the companions (but not from non-companions, mind flayer thing could be there for fun and for some possible hidden context, as well as twins are ok). Even a possibility to switch romances off completely would be nice. Sometimes it’s really annoying and there is so much hype about it. For instance, it was just annoying enough with Astarion, Gale, and Wyll, but it really made me sick with Halsin in act 3, especially when I’ve already completely romanced Shadowheart at this point. Little bit too much. Like, can my character make a sign “I don’t f$#k bears” to put it in the camp somewhere as a precaution from mental trauma? Seriously, I think that Halsin is completely messed up as a character by this romance-related stuff, probably even for most of ladies and gays (imho).
11. On the other hand, I don’t think that romances suck. It would be nice to have more romance-related content and options, especially in act 3. Like to story-wisely restart romances with previously rejected companions and some fun interactions related to (not)multiromancing, not necessarily without clothing. How about someone leaving the party because of this? It’s a side thing not related to difficulty, so it’s not so casual as to respec characters all the time and not that meaningless as having an evil character in a good playthrough.

My intention was to play the honour mode with an evil durge right after completing the tactician as a good Tav (got 50/54 steam achievements, except “hot date” from possible ones), but act 3 is so bugged and crashes so often by far that I seriously doubt that this is achievable without cheating with saves, at least with my PC. So, I’m looking forward to a stable optimized version (“definitive edition”?).

As well as a DLC/extension would be more than wonderful. I know that there were none for both of D:OS, but both BG1 and BG2 got one large original extension each, so it would be in the series’ spirit, I would definitely pay for it as much as for a full-scale game.

Why then limit saving in the honour mode, you can equally say that the save scamming is only an issue of someone lacking any self-control.

Because Honour mode mimics a real campaign. It's not about self control, it's because your DM rolls with your decisions.

Respec and the magic mirror, on the other hand, are quality of life features. They're in the game as a separate layer to increase the player base. Having one misclick haunt you forever can be funny when you accidentally turn all of Moonrise towers hostile, but it just sucks if you gimp your build.

If you don't like these features, don't use them. Eventually, you'll stop thinking about them. Yes, they break immersion and suspension of disbelief. It's still better than removing them, though.

The invisible 5000 pound bear strat still works in Honor mode. Respec is really one of the least cheesy mechanics. Taking it out will make some multiclass builds come online closer to level 9-10, and therefore less often used, but that's it consequence wise. It doesn't actually increase balance.

All sounds good to me. An expansion pack would be great.

I agree that Honour Mode is essentially a means to lock yourself into playing a particular way, one that meets the game where it's at, according to what the devs thought would be entertaining. I have zero self-control. I would not hold myself to a single save if the game mode didn't make that the whole deal. I also wouldn't respec for every encounter either, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't seek out every advantage to rework stat blocks till my companions are all pretty beast mode. Not having established Stat blocks for the companions removes an element of replay which was present in the original games, like trying to find the optimal itemization or multiclassing for a given character based on their starting block, though I'm not sure the game would be all that enjoyable without the Companions being able to change class and such now. Clearly it would have been better to have a dozen more companions so we didn't have to do that just to get the party comp we're after, but locking us into Class would feel a bit much, now that I'm used to redesigning the companions in this way.

Still they could place more limits on it at the highest difficulty, if they wanted to recapture some of that stuff from BG1. You know like Dual classing and such to hit the right breakpoints. Here though I do all the things that are allowed, camp casting zombies, rotating characters for their spell slots, using a bunch of consumables and OP spells. Everything I would typically ignore as too tedious/annoying, but for some reason seems worth it once you slap "honour" on it all. Of course this changes a bit once I've got the Golden dice, but until they see me rolling, I'd just do whatever it took.

For Minthara, I agree that she's just about the only thing the Evil path has going for it. I think it's a little annoying that she received probably the most feedback of any companion during EA, but then she's all instantly eclipsed by Karlach upon the game's full release. Don't get me wrong, I love Karlach, but she wasn't available for recruitment in the game for most of the EA. I feel somehow positive that Karlach will be on the box cover and the banner art by the time BG3 is made all definitive, but Minthara has been just as patient right? She should have been an Origin so people would know to look out for her.

Her recruitment path and romance has been the buggiest of them all though. I've played so many runs now where she goes all wonky at some point, and yet here we are, still trying every conceivable trick to get her in the mix, just because the performance is that fantastic. I think we were crystal clear about wanting more Minthara, like pretty much from day 1, which makes it frustrating that her recruitment is not very obvious. I suspect most people will play this entire game not realizing what they traded out there in terms of Classic character, just for some leather armor, pajamas, and a nice pair of boots. It's too bad, cause this might be one of my favorite performances ever in an RPG. I mean Lae'zel still has my top spot, of course, but Minthara has been neck and neck pretty much the whole time.

It would be different if she had a supporting cast for Villainous recruits, you know like Sazza or Nere or whoever to balance things out, sorta like the good guys have all their hangers on. As it stands though, the path of Villainy just locks you off too much to make it feel worthwhile, especially if you're not even sure you can get a romance out of it without things breaking. Much is tied to that stuff for a sense of completeness in the 3rd act. I'd hate to lose her now.

Villainy is more fun when there are "Good guys" to manipulate. She's more interesting to me as a Villain, when she has characters like Wyll and Karlach in tow. Those interactions are more interesting than her banter with Astarion or Dark Shadowheart. I feel like they want the Evil party to be way too concordant the way it's set up. This doesn't fit with my remembrances of BG1/2, where it was totally possible to have a party with say Edwin and Minsc together, or Jaheira partied up with the Zhents. Just going by the first people we met, the initial party comp in BG1 would have been Charname & Imoen, Monty & Xzar, Jaheira & Khalid, so basically covering all the bases for a mixed alignment party. In BG3 the party breaks come super early, which doesn't leave much time to have fun as a Villain before the Good Guys just bounce. Like we don't even get a blackmail option, or some way to pin the blame or stoke the flames of internal division to stay in the drivers seat.

I think the aging on my favorite returning Elf was a bit extreme for creatures who can live hundreds of years, they could dial that back and I wouldn't complain. Mainly though I just want a chance to recruit her myself and bring her into the fold. I think if we could change Companion haircuts that would also go a real long way. There are a lot of trims that will probably look dated in pretty short order. Nobody ever realizes that hair trends are happening until after they're over hehe. I think we can get a lot more mileage out of some looks than others. Like any of the Classic haircuts from Princess Bride or big 80s hair, things like that are going to hold up because they're timeless, but just looking back at any game specifically for the hair and you can usually date it pretty accurately, like down to 5 year increments.

I'm fully attached to the other aspects of their visualization, but hair and makeup just seem like things we should be able to tool around with at the mirror. I have zero interest in changing anyone's facial morphology, but I also find it frustrating that Shadowheart's portrait doesn't update after she changes her hairstyle. For Characters that had incremental changes to their visualization, it might be cool to have some pre-established alts. So Minthara with Rocker hair, Scratch as a Labrador etc. I can get behind that a bit more than just a wholesale reimagining of a character's visualization which would irk me at this point.

I also just want an actual Expansion so it will dove tail the same way the previous games in the BG franchise handled it, with a proper curtain call and anticlimax dungeon crawler. I would be much more interested in that than a Definitive Edition, or an Enhanced Edition, or a Special Edition. Any Rehash Edition of that sort is kind of annoying, since it makes me think of Star Wars post 1997, when all I want is the OST from 30 years earlier hehe. Granted one can't really keep tinkering forever without running the risk that you ruin the thing everyone fell in love with in the first place, by making it feel overwrought or like it's trying to reinvent or one-up itself constantly, instead of moving on to the next chapter. I don't know though, once you float the suggestion that more things can change, then we just don't know until those changes are made. The thing I tend not to dig is when the newest version supplants the earlier iteration such that it's just lost. So like sure, make whatever special edition, just give us a bonus disc with the theatrical release too, if that makes sense.

Anyhow just some knock ons and nods

In BG 1-2 it was working only to some extent with companions of opposite alignments, only if to keep it all neutral, or they would leave. But some companions were not able to be in the same party for long. Edwin and Minsc would not just leave party, they would kill each other, both in BG1 and BG2, and I think there was no way to talk them out of this. Same if to keep Jaheira & Khalid and Monty & Xzar in the same party for some time they would also start fighting. Though Jaheira is true neutral, so it was possible to keep her in evil party, especially without Khalid in BG2. Perhaps it was possible to cheat the game somehow and to keep them together, but it wasn't devs' intention, in general it was not a good idea to keep such companions together in the long run, you don't want them to kill each other in the middle of some dungeon. In BG3 we have very little of this and it's always possible to talk them out.

As I recall there were a few ways to do it, the simplest being a pathing choice, e.g. rescuing Dynaheir before recruiting Edwin, which was fairly straightforward. Then with a high enough Charisma and reputation management you could keep most parties together and avoid the party break banters or kick the can on it via save scum. Many classes required the high CHA anyway, and with rolling for stats that was hardly a stretch, plus you got the tome to boost it. The game also incentivized an alignment/reputation swing a bit, since the dream abilities gained would key off that. Even a goodly character might dip in rep just get minor drain as an interrupt, or horror for crowd control, likewise a villain might swing the other way for Draw upon holy might. For mechanical reasons I mean, rather than story reasons. There were plenty of characters that didn't get along, Shar Teel and Eldoth hate each other, Viconia can't stand Kivan etc, but they drew that all out a fair bit even in the vanilla game before ToSC. Then like probably one of the earliest Weidu mods would have been the one that prevented the party breaks so players could have fun with it and game out the more unlikely pairings. I don't think BG3 needs to be BG1 in all respects, but it was just as likely for me to have Jaheira with a crew of Villains or Viconia on team goodness. There was also the helm of opposite alignment which was in from the getgo, but unlocked with ToSC, which was also fun. Anyhow, not to dive in too hard on this one, all the feedback seems pretty valid, and I definitely latched on cause of the BG1/2 mention there. I just balk a bit at the idea of Minthara never getting out, which I feel was the situation at least until the last patch. Sure similar things would happen in BG1 where the companions introduced only in later chapters, in the city or right before tend to get short shrift there. Moonrise isn't all that long to wait, but then for me the early portion of the game is the most entertaining, so it's a bit of a bust. If there were more companions along the way at each leg of the journey, but it's pretty front loaded here. I wish some of the Halsin/Minthara stuff was reversed. It feels like we should be able to join her on the march overland with the army, or perhaps she delegates that to the Goblin leaders and comes with us through the underdark. Sure it's maybe predictable that we'd want the Drow companion around for that, but I mean, isn't that also kinda the point sometimes? lol Then maybe the Arch Druid meets up with us again at Moonrise, after he does some arch druid stuff to clean up the mess at the grove, I don't know hehe. I think it's intended to increase replay ability, but I thought it was more fun to have MInthara around on a normal run, since it just felt like there was more to do with her there. Not to hang up on that one overmuch, just my impression.

ps. still the most notable absence for me compared to BG1/2 is the complete lack of a shorty companion. It would be different if we had one of these Duergar or a Deep Gnome or a Goblin as a companion, just to fill in some gaps. A wicked bard couldn't hurt hehe. Maybe a backup rogue or another standard brawler if that's too hard to make happen. The priests are well represented here, though it tilts pretty hard towards Moon worship for all concerned. I could have gone for something a bit more left field on balance. We don't have a villainous mage really, even Gale at his worst still feels like a pretty stand up dude. A sorcerer would be a nice counterpoint, cause Durge is an origin, but we don't have a Dragonborn companion. Still I think we need more shorties before that. I like Philomeen or Thulla among the Gnomes. I think someone with a bit of a crazy streak would fit the bill nicely. You know, like at least they managed to break out of the mines right, so they've clearly got some adventuring chops hehe. If Astarion's default is Arcane trickster, maybe Thulla is just more of a regular Thief. Or if Shadowheart is default Trickery domain, maybe Philomeen as the default Light-em up Domain, or an Ironhand War cleric? We're also missing a Monk. If they're ever going to give us a Monk, to do it right they need to have another Monk who can be the first Monk's nemesis, I mean right? Like it's not really going to feel wushu enough without that duo. I don't know, I just want them to be additive rather than subtractive with this stuff, or to focus on adding things rather than changing what's already there too much. With the acclaim it's already received and all the rest, just seems like it will get harder and harder to sort it all out without getting under somebodies skin. Sometimes I get attached to the last version, over whatever the latest iteration in the perpetual redux, whereas if they do an actual Expansion thing, then they can just expand and add on top. Plus I just want that to see that giant dungeon with the extended crew! haha

It mimics a real campaign with a very sadistic DM. You need to do a lot of metagaming to complete the game on a higher difficulty, and that goes against the spirit of roleplaying.


Yeah, that's kinda weird, but not surprising if you look at the list of companions you get: sexy elf girl, sexy elf dude, sexy white guy, sexy black guy, sexy thiefling girl, sexy alien girl, sexy big elf dude and sexy drow mistress. It's clear that an old unf***able dwarf would look out of place on this list. BG3 companions are there to be romance options for the player. That is their primary role. Apparently they all join the player just to have sex with him/her, as evidenced by the fact that all of them will hit on the player at some point. I am not a prude by a long shot, but the amount of horniness in this game is jarring.

Delivor - nice write-up.
1 - something should be done about it. As noted - players have been clamouring for something for years;
2 - good idea. Although I do respecify party members, I'd have no issues with not havng such a feature (be it on Very Hard only, or easier settings too), as I did not have it in BG1/2 (and many other games). Or at least to have respecing for Origins limited - e.g. stats and frst level are untouchable, as their Class DEFINES them as characters;
3 - no opinion. the workaround is simple and painless;
4 - maybe? once I have enough money I stop digging them up;
5 - my son weaponises the rotten food :);
6 - no opinion on Viconia's looks. Frankly, I'd leave BG1/2 characters only as quest givers, maaaaybe accompanying the party in a quest or two (like Halsin in the Shattered Sanctum, or Drizzt against the screaming little freaks in BG1). BTW - stupid pieces in her hair aside (I hate the hair beads fetish of BG2), I love Jaheira's grannylike apearance - she old half-elf!;
7 - yes. Should had stayed an either/or choice of Companion. She is evuler! than Shadowheart - which tells us something ... ;
8 - yup. I will not start on Act3 before Patch 6. And then only depending on feedback from other players;
9 - no opinion
10 - yes, that'd be nice. In one playthrough I misguidedly expressed interest in Gale showing me how cantrips work and he kept on sniffing around my tighty whities. The game thoiught we were an item - yuck;
11 - I didn't do romance in BG1/2 and have not gone down that rabbit hole yet, so I don't care either way.

I think it was dependent on the charisma of the character in the party leader slot, whether the party conflicts would happen.

You're confusing Viconia and Jaheira, Viconia is a drow.


No. Those were scripted interactions between the certain companions that were triggering at random (but unavoidably, unless save scumming). They were no more dependent on the leader's charisma than early conflict of SH and Lae'zel in BG3.

You are correct. I had an "old age moment" - at some point I edited that sentence and forgot to put in that "her" now meant Jaheira.

I can mostly agree with No. 3 to 11. Concerning romances I was a bit disappointed by Shadowheart, at the beginning she expressed her view that short time "relations" are fun, but later the rejected further actions just because I layed down for Gale first. Such a priggish lady.

No. 2 is an absolute "no" for me. If you don't like respeccing, don't respecc.

No. 1 I cannot concur with entirely. I like many parts of the game but I really dislike Larian's way of quest design, and that's quite a central part. One aspect is that the story loses coherence in Act 3. What annoy me more however is the frequent absence of hints in quests, replaced by the method to look anywhere and click on anything clickable, typical for Larian sadly (the murder quest for example). Then there is the way they chose numbers for dice rolls in some core situations, to force stuff on you. Which made me sometimes so furious that I was near to stop playing.

One additional criticism from me is the design of most of the clothes and armor available for the player (many interesting clothes worn by NPCs the player cannot get, sadly). Without some mods I would probably not play the game, I like visual diversity.

The campaign part of the game I liked the most was the Temple of Shar in Act 2. It is related to your party and/or some important NPCs, without being the task to immediately save the world (of which I'm bored). It does make sense. The design and the visuals are great, as is the atmosphere. If there will be DLCs (for which I really hope) my biggest wish would be that there were at least some simple longer dungeon-crawlings similar to the temple.

You can say the same about saving game, kind of "if you don't want save scumming, don't do save scumming", the idea here is that Larian mean to make the Honour mode, with emphasis on honour, so players would play as it supposed to be by the D&D rules without exploits. If you don't like it, play in custom mode.

First of all, from your logic above, if you don't like how Larian design quests don't play Larian's games. Secondary, "no hints" is how quests were designed in the classical cRPGs (there are hints, but they are not so obvious), so players would try to think and put some effort into solving this. But here there are obvious hints, like the huge markers on the map, including quest with murders, it can't be even more casual than this, they would not make it so easy in BG 1-2. In BG2 solving murders of a serial killer was way more interesting. Do you want them to give you exact instructions at the beginning of the quest? Like who's the murderer and where to find him exactly?

In my opinion having only one save in this game is a bad thing. I did not reload saves in my first normal playthrough wether I liked the outcome or not. If you cannot control yourself, ok, that's bad. But there are some very bad design ideas at some points of the game, in my opinion, totally unimmersive and artificial, where being able to reload is a good thing. I still wonder how many of the Isobel incident enthusiasts actually played further after failure. In my current Honour mode playthrough I have to accept the one-save feature. I'm not very interested in such ironman stuff, I'm interested in the additional abilities.

Respeccing does not have such a big influence on the gameplay. Before we removed it from Honour mode, several other things had to be done, like removing 90% of scrolls, changing stealth, making shove an action, removing the ability from Haste to give a second cast or removing the vulnerability from wet.

I really thought about not playing the game any further after some events in the second and third act. But not all is black and white, so your conclusion is flawed. You can criticise and nevertheless play a game. But maybe it's the last Larian game I bought. I did it some years ago when the crab was less obvious. Anyway, Shadowheart or my current main Alicia look so good, I probably cannot leave them alone ...

Not all quests are bad, the bad stuff is mainly in the third act. And there are quests with no hints or very misleading hints. Quest markers are bad, but if you don't have them the hints cannot be "it's near the water" and then it's far away from the water. How did you find Ferg Drogher, for example? Or, another example, if you need to find a hidden room, the clue cannot depend on a perception check you can totally fail, so quest over.

I cannot control myself (Save Scummer Anonymous, here I come!) so Honour Mode is Good For Me.
Gale in malfunctining magic hole and I roll "1"? Well, suxx to be you, magic item druggie ...

For many people one save is great to enjoy random (and D&D how it supposed to be), it adds more to replay value, instead of boring "clear everything" thing.

Seriously? Having party of 4 same OP builds and then changing them to 4 other OP builds is not a big influence? Also, for example, a lot of people switching the strength to 8 in the strength-based builds, because they can use elixirs every day and gloves later.

It's nothing comparing to mentioned above, at least it's not that much against role-playing, and I'm pretty sure that you only have second cast from Haste in Tactician and below, but not the Honour mode, there are no additional actions from haste in the Honour mode.

If to talk with Shadowheart in the beginning of act 3 she says something like that there are probably the Shar's spies nearby and we have to check the crowded places for them, as that's how she would do it on their place. When you come close to Ferg Drogher he says something and it's obvious that you have to talk with him. So there is a good hint and you can find him simply by scouting area, not even clearing everything, that's how I find him. Why he even significant? As far as I can see it changes nothing if to not speak with him, it's just some bonus dialogues to SH story. And, imo, it's great if you can miss some side quest because of a failed perception check, that's exactly what I would want from honour mode in D&D game. Also, you do know that every new character will roll a perception check, so if 4 characters from your party failed it you still have a ton of mercenaries in camp, right? So actually you can't fail quest because of it if you really want to complete it.