So, I'm a pretty thorough player when it comes to RPGs. A bit of a completionist. Very much an explorer. And a compulsive looter. And after my 100+-hour playthrough of early access, I ended up with a lot of treasure. Like, a frankly comical amount, by the standards of any D&D campaign.

I've seen various posts from people about how easy pickpocketing is, and how much money and stuff you can get from doing it, and I have no doubt that is the case. I tried out just a wee bit of it, and it seemed pretty easy. But my wealth did not come from pickpocketing. I only lifted a few story items, a few cheap potions, and a very small amount of coin before I got bored with the idea of pinching purses. So almost everything in this post was gotten through adventuring, not by being a...



profligate pilferer predatorily picking pockets

personally pursuing purely purloined profits



sorry, sometimes that just happens



I didn't use much in the way of consumables during my playthrough. I tend to hoard these things, saving them up for when I "really need them", and in the case of this EA experience, I never really needed them. I just didn't find any of the encounters to be terribly hard. None of my characters ever died, even. But THAT also has a lot to do with my super-slow playstyle. So it's a trade-off.

Anyway, so this isn't quite EVERYTHING that I found in the playthrough. I used a few items, left a few things behind when I didn't want to steal, and also sold a fair number of magic equipment items as well.



So what did I get?

At the end of the playthrough, this is what I had:



Gold Pieces: 30,114



Keys: 28



Books and Notes: 187

- 6 to 8 not picked up (but I invisibly read them all!)

- (33 pounds of books and notes!)



Permanent Equippable Magic Items: 47

- also sold 12 to 14 others ()





Barrels: 82

20 Smokepowder Barrels - used 0

25 Firewine Barrels - used 0

21 Oil Barrels - used 0

16 Water Barrels - used 4 or 5 to put out fires



Healing/Buffing Potions: 172

86 Potions of Healing - used 10 to 12

16 Potions of Greater Healing - used 1 or 2

3 Potions of Superior Healing - used 0

3 Potions of Vitality - used 0

8 Antitoxins - used 0

3 Potions of Animal Speaking - used 3 or 4

9 Potions of Hill Giant Strength - used 1

9 Potions of Speed - used 1

7 Potions of Invisibility - used 1

4 Potions of Poison Resistance - used 0

1 Potion of Acid Resistance - used 0

5 Potions of Force Resistance - used 0

8 Potions of Fire Resistance - used 0

4 Potions of Cold Resistance - used 0

1 Potion of Psychic Resistance - used 0

4 Potions of Lightning Resistance - used 0

1 Potion of Flight - used 0



Food: 662 food items across 53 food item types

- (748 pounds of food!)

See my other post for the specific breakdown of food items, and how much each one heals for: Foods Post!



Miscellaneous Utility Items, Throwables, Weapon Coatings, Special Arrows, etc.: 302

12 Scrolls of Revivify - used 0

1 Lump's War Horn - not used

42 Thieves' Tools - broke 6 to 8

23 Trap Disarm Toolkits - broke 0

2 Basilisk Oils - used 0

26 bottles of Water - used 1 or 2

2 Wyvern Poisons - used 0

44 Basic Poisons - used 6 or 7

5 Oils of Sharpness - used 0

1 [Pacification Spore Sac] - used 0

1 Pacifying Spore Pouch - used 0

1 Bibberbang Spore Pouch - used 0

6 Void Bulbs - used 0

3 Caustic Bulbs - used 0

5 Spiked Bulbs - used 0

8 Bombs - used 0

17 Grease Bottles - used 1

4 Acid Vials - used 1

2 Poisonous Slime Bombs - used 0

2 Flammable Slime Bombs - used 0

1 Smokepowder Satchel - used 0

2 Fire Bottles - used 0

33 Alchemist's Fires - used 2 or 3

3 Potions of Sleep - used 0

2 Potions of Fire Breath - used 0

14 Arrows of Acid - used 0

12 Arrows of Fire - used 1

11 Arrows of Roaring Thunder - used 0

9 Arrows of Lightning - used 0

4 Arrows of Ice - used 0

2 Arrows of Ilmater - used 0

2 Arrows of Darkness - used 0



Spell Scrolls: 129

- also sold 15-20 scrolls I didn't want, and copied 5 or 6 into Gale's spellbook

9 Scrolls of Hold Person - used 0

9 Scrolls of Cure Wounds - used 0

6 Scrolls of Aid - used 0

6 Scrolls of Grease - used 0

6 Scrolls of Misty Step - used 1 or 2

5 Scrolls of Shocking Grasp - used 0

5 Scrolls of Acid Arrow - used 0

5 Scrolls of Mage Armour - used 0

5 Scrolls of Guiding Bolt - used 0

5 Scrolls of Detect Thoughts - used 0

4 Scrolls of Protection from Good and Evil - used 0

4 Scrolls of Fire Bolt - used 0

4 Scrolls of Colour Spray - used 0

4 Scrolls of False Life - used 0

4 Scrolls of Burning Hands - used 0

4 Scrolls of Disguise Self - used 0

3 Scrolls of Witch Bolt - used 0

3 Scrolls of Fog Cloud - used 0

3 Scrolls of Feather Fall - used 2

3 Scrolls of Animal Friendship - used 0

3 Scrolls of Lesser Restoration - used 0

2 Scrolls of Sleep - used 0

2 Scrolls of Ray of Sickness - used 0

2 Scrolls of Blindness - used 0

2 Scrolls of Bless - used 0

2 Scrolls of Healing Word - used 0

2 Scrolls of Shield of Faith - used 0

2 Scrolls of Charm Person - used 0

2 Scrolls of Invisibility - used 0

2 Scrolls of Summon Quasit - used 0

1 Scroll of Web - used 0

1 Scroll of Ray of Frost - used 0

1 Scroll of Blur - used 0

1 Scroll of Ray of Enfeeblement - used 0

1 Scroll of Entangle - used 0

1 Scroll of Armour of Agathys - used 0

1 Scroll of Magic Missile - used 0

1 Scroll of Thunderwave - used 0

1 Scroll of Mirror Image - used 0

1 Scroll of Inflict Wounds - used 0

1 Scroll of Bane - used 0



TOTAL HAUL:

3,523 pounds (1,598 kilograms) of stuff

84,694 gold piece value





(You doing all right there, Gale?)




(I put EVERYTHING into the chest so I could see the total value. (Do you know how long it takes to right-click and click Send to Camp on that many items?))



So, if you're wondering about how much stuff you can get in a full playthrough of BG3 early access, here you go. That's without much thievery, I mean. Obviously, you can get infinite gold by just resting and pickpocketing merchants over and over, but I didn't do any of that.



So what's the point?

In my opinion, this is an excessive amount of loot. Considering that this is just Act One of the game and we're only 4th-Level Characters! I mean, okay, probably I'd be 5th-Level if not for the cap. But even so, this is a ludicrous amount of items and wealth. This is like an ancient dragon's hoard. I can hardly even imagine how much stuff I'd have by the actual end of the game.

Now, I find this to be a problem in most RPGs, so it's not unique to Larian or to BG3. But in this case, it just feels very early in the game to have amassed so much. At least, thinking about it in D&D terms. This is like the most Monty Haul campaign ever!

What do you all think? Is our DM (Larian) being a bit too generous? Or am I just crazy?

Excellent work as usual.

Hope people will see the issue rather than just claiming this is amusing and then never give it a second thought.

As impressive as this unsettling feat of OCD is, most people aren't going to spend hours on end just dedicated to combing through every possible thing and for the sake of being able to make a post like this.
Most depths won't be plumbed and many containers will go unchecked, so the amount of sheer stuff that needs to exist does so to guarantee that even a player who is only a mild packrat will be able to maintain a respectable coin purse and decent resources.

So as impressive as this is and as for as good of a post as this makes for the sheer "huh, neat" factor, I really don't think that anything needs to be toned down.

That's rather irrelevant.
I don't think the point is if people are going to replicate the OP's exploits, as much as the fact that probably the devs should put at least some thought, if not even some effort ideally, into making inventory management less busywork.
The bgas can quicly reach "endgame" levels of cluttering before we are even entering Act 2. if that isn't alarming in terms of what i suggests for the pace of the future hours, I don't know what is it.

The data points you keep bringing up are great. The best/worst thing is that this is all compiled in a database on Larian's end and they would be able to give these exact stats. So the question is how to make that data relevant. What do we want to do with those numbers. As you bring up there is too much "stuff" and the management of it is tedious (admittedly we don't' have to pick it all up, but those are all interaction points and decisions, and often ignored items because of the tedium).

The value is somewhat relevant, because you want the players to be able to earn money. There are no repeatable fetch quests to do, so the only way to make money is to sell to vendors and/or to steal (beyond the occasional looted currency).

Vendor finances refresh and are an infinite supply of gold, while items in the game are finite, realistically the best way to make money is to pickpocket it and ignore the tedium....this is actually a problem because the items left in the world for us to interact with are in essence pointless.

Better reason/interaction with the world items and inventory management is needed.

More variable vendor wants may be good. Say, potion vendors will pay more for herbs versus a weapon/armor vendor. This could cause bad quality of life though because it forces players to jump from vendor to vendor when they just want to unload items.

Or maybe it is fine, and having a world with that much stuff allows players to do new and different things every time.

No real right answers, just thoughts.


(edit)

One bonus thought is that you just helped create a "right" way to play by listing out all the items such as spells. If, for example, a mage wanted to get every spell in the game, but there are some scrolls missing from the world....that would let them know what spells to pick to learn versus which ones they can just transcribe later.

I noticed "jump" is not listed in there, so now I know to learn jump as I level and just loot the magic missile scroll and transcribe it when I get it to fill out my spellbook.

Feel free to also address the rest of my comment where I mentioned the fact that the average person won't touch 20% of this stuff in any given playthrough.

I guess I just don't understand the purpose of the post outside of being informative to let people know that they can make a ton of money and get a lot of resources if they scour everything.
I don't know why the less than 1% of players who would go to these lengths should be penalized for investing this much time into busywork, nor do I think that things need to be toned down because most people won't do this.
As Larian likely isn't going to start gutting all of the objects in the world because they're worried that people who are invested enough will be rewarded for it, the question attached to the post is confusing.

Nice, since you have way bigger collection then I, how bad is the weight in the game for items. I know I have like 80 potatoes and they only way 8lbs total, wondering how silly does it really get.

It's an analysis of the game content and if it is superfluous or adds benefit. Is there too much clutter and it could be streamlined, or does the variety add context and immersion. Are the spread of items balanced or create a "meta" as I mentioned with the scrolls causing a more efficient way to level up by selecting spells not found in the world.

Not directly obvious by just listing items, but analysis of how/why/where these things are is always interesting. I think it is good to understand the game to the finest details, especially in EA for feedback. I have a feeling a lot of items are just placed just to place them to fill out the world as anyone who has built maps/rooms for a game before. Little things add a polishing touch. Normally they are just for decoration, but now these are interactables and also have "value". These objects were probably picked from an entity list and just placed, but not always considering how they impact the game as whole.

Good chance to identify issues here.

I don't know. As for useable loot I think the only thing you could really do is compare to other games. I mean, in IWD2 you can end up with an insane amount of magic ammo by the end of the game. BG gives you stacks on stacks of gems and jewelry. Potions and scrolls galore in all those games. In BG3 what I had was an impressive amount of junk.. goblets, forks, dinner plates, candles, etc. The amount of actually good and useable items seems fine to me compared to other games of this nature whereas the amount of junk seems on par with TES games which I'm not sure we need..... but then again we don't have to pick everything up.

Thanks! I mean, it's fine if people just think it's amusing, or they think there's no problem with loot. I'm not trying to demand that something be changed, here. I just want to have the discussion about it, see what other people think.

Yeah. I felt free. And I decided not to, because I wasn't interested.

Of course most people won't collect all this. But my point is kinda that this is SO much, that even if you only collected a THIRD of this, it would still be a pretty massive amount of loot for this stage of the game and this character level. Now, for some people that's really not a problem at all. I have one friend who only plays games for the loot, he wants all the loot possible, he would never, ever, think a game has too much loot. But I'm an old school D&D player, and a long-time DM. So I think in terms of game balance and what's really appropriate at a given level of character development. They won't even let us have a suit of plate mail (or splint mail!) at this point, presumably because we're "too low level for armor that expensive" or something, but they'll pack the world with 80,000 gold worth of magic stuff and cash.

With this, the colossal amount of consumable items, and all the barrelmancy stuff, and all the other weird little exploits you can do to trivialize encounters without actually having to play your characters like you would in D&D, sometimes I feel like the folks at Larian consider just using your characters' actual abilities to be BORING. Like, "sure, D&D is okay, but what if we could just use a bunch of crazy shit instead of playing characters with defined capabilities?"

Y'know, all the Larianisms were perfectly fine in the Divinity games. That was THEIR system, THEIR world, THEIR story, THEIR tone, THEIR themes, THEIR gameplay that they designed in THEIR style. And those games are great, they're tons of fun. You can't really criticize their excesses, because that's what the Divinity games are ALL ABOUT. It's their own original RPG milieu, they get to define it however they want. And I fully support them in that.

But now, they're making a D&D game. An official, licensed, D&D game, using someone else's ruleset, and someone else's world, and someone else's tone and themes and gameplay philosophy. I do NOT mind them making some house rules and adapting things to be a more enjoyable video game. To an extent. Of course they should have some creative freedom, both narratively and mechanically. But they should also pay attention to the way the source RPG feels and is designed to play, and try not to step too far away from that.

I'm not saying that they necessarily HAVE gone too far, I'm just wondering about it. I'm just pondering it. It's not terrible by any means. But it does give me pause. It makes me wonder if they really "get" D&D. Because no other D&D video game has been this Monty Haul, this quickly. You might amass a lot of stuff in other D&D titles, but you amass it by the END of the game, by the time you're high level. You don't have the contents of Elminster's Vault by level 5, 25% of the way through the game. And the reason you don't, is because that's not how D&D was designed to be played, it's not the expected experience. So I just wonder if Larian really intends this, and if so, why? It's not a Divinity game, they shouldn't just port over all of their normal game design philosophies one-for-one into a D&D product.

I'm not one of those people who are running around saying, "This isn't D&D! This is just DOS 3!" and so forth. I've argued against those people, quite a bit. I've been defending Larian in this regard, and will continue to do so. But I also think that Early Access is exactly the time when we should be having these discussions. When we should be asking these questions. When we should say, "okay hold on a second now, this might not be the best" when we feel things are off about the experience they've crafted so far. As far as I know, they WANT us to be raising these issues to attention. So let's talk about it.

Well, the thing with that is, a lot of the loot is randomized in this game. I mean, all the big items are always in the same place, but the contents of every little crate and barrel are not the same every game. So things like the scrolls are not always going to be the same ones, in the same amounts, every time. Just because I found a scroll of Blur, doesn't guarantee that you will.

Also, I did sell some scrolls, and scribed a few into Gale's spellbook. So it's possible that I did find a scroll of Jump, and scribed it, and then never found another one, so it's not on the list. I can't remember for sure. I definitely wouldn't have sold any Jump scrolls though, as it's pretty much my favorite spell in the game. I sold all the Speak with Dead scrolls I found, and there were quite a few, because I already had an infinite Speak with Dead amulet. There were a few other spells that for whatever reason I felt I would never use, so I sold those too. I did keep the vast majority of the scrolls I found, "just in case".

So anyway, that should not be taken as a definitive list of exactly what scrolls you can always find in the game. But it can give you an idea of how rare certain things are relative to other things. Like, I found roughly 50 Thieves' Tools. So that means they're pretty plentiful, and you probably don't need to worry about losing some. I found about 35 Alchemist's Fires, but only 5 Acid Vials. So if you're wondering which one of those you should hold on to, and which you can "waste", go ahead and burn (no pun intended) the Alchemist's Fire, because they're a lot more plentiful. Use all the Basic Poison you want, but be sparing with the Arrows of Darkness. That sort of thing.

I mean, most of the stuff I found, I didn't use at all. But apparently I should have, because there was so much of it available that I didn't need to hoard anything.

I don't think the question confused you, because you just answered it. And I appreciate you doing so, so thanks for sharing your opinion.

Oh, the weight gets insane. You can't carry all this stuff around, you have to keep most of it in your camp chest most of the time. I had 748 pounds of JUST FOOD.

I don't feel like actually testing this right now, but I'm pretty sure if you go and make a character in Baldur's Gate, and level them up to 5, and see how much stuff you have, it will pale in comparison to this.

So is the point being made that the previous Baldur's Gate games which were made 20 years ago and hampered by technical limitations shouldn't have a quality of life improvement such as an obscene amount of gold laying around for the 1% of people in the game who would do something like this to capitalize on? If so, how does that affect anyone's play experience?

Those like you who would want to hunt down every last scrap of junk in the world that's available would be rewarded for their efforts by an experience filled with riches beyond their wildest dreams. In that case, if you don't want to break things so badly, you could just edit yourself and not pick up every last thing to have 80,000 gold so that you're not tempted to wipe out merchants for their best stuff.

Those unlike you, the average player, will barely run across a fraction of this stuff and will have to manage their resources more carefully. And as video game developers make things that appeal to the largest possible base in order to make sales, Larian is unlikely to tone down the junk in the world so that those casually running through the game aren't pigeonholed into poking around through every wayward barrel so that the pacing of the game doesn't get killed by monotony.

If you're asking Larian to tone down the amount of available stuff in the world because there's just too much available, how do they balance what's enough stuff so that the average player doesn't end up in a resource bottleneck because an outspoken minority of hoarders think that the gold economy is an issue?

If the point being made is that the game doesn't feel like it's faithful to D&D because too many resources are available, and you're using D:OS2's easily-exploitable economy to make the point because the games share some similarity, then I wonder about the argument that's actually being made. It comes off as "this isn't as close to a tabletop experience as I was hoping for," which is likely going to be disregarded because that was never the intent and it's not a popular point that's being made.

I mean, I applaud you for the grand exercise and extensive playtime devoted to meticulously picking things up for the sake of saying "Hey, people have access to a lot of stuff if they're patient enough to collect it all," but I don't see how that's a bad thing for anyone besides the people who are upset for some reason that players have a lot of playstyle options.

Where does this 1% number come from? Did you just make that up? Neither you or I know what the percentage is of completionist/explorer type players. I have a friend who plays RPGs who actually has OCD, and he chides me for not being completionist ENOUGH. Maybe it's 5%. Maybe it's 20%. I don't think that either of us know.

Game designers DO think about how much resources to put in their game, how much to make available at any given time, how quickly players can progress in power, how easy it is to heal, how often they can use powerful effects in battle, and so on. Every RPG developer considers these questions, makes their calculations, and decides how to answer them. And the answer that they come up with determines how the game FEELS to play. In can even determine what subgenre the game is placed in. There are games which are entirely about loot, total loot pinata games, that's what they're known for. That gives one feeling of gameplay. There are games where everything is scarce and you're struggling to survive, and that's a totally different feeling of gameplay. So every developer has to decide where they want to fall on that spectrum.

Larian put all this stuff in the game for a reason. They want people to search those containers, they want people to explore and find the hidden caches and secret items, they want people to GET the stuff. They wouldn't have spent all the time putting it in the game otherwise. If anything, maybe I'm the one playing the way the developers hoped people would. Do you think all those devs who built all those places that I found and "the average player" as you put it doesn't find, do you think they got done designing those areas and programming everything and stocking them with items and then said, "I sure hope no players find THIS place."

People don't always know what's ultimately going to be fun or satisfying for them. That's why game designers have to be smart enough to know that for them, and when they do this correctly, their game becomes beloved. Eating a piece of candy is a delight, but eating 100 pieces of candy makes you sick. Too much reward makes reward meaningless, it takes away the excitement of further rewards. When you're new in the game and you are getting your ass kicked and you have no healing potions left, and then you FIND a healing potion, you're thrilled. You're so grateful to have found a healing potion! But when you have 200 healing potions, and you find one, you don't give even the slightest shit about it, you might not even bother to pick it up. Treasure has become trash.

If more was always better, devs would just give you everything right away. Every rat would drop 1,000,000 gold, because hey, why not, people like getting loot, right? But they don't do that, because it would cheapen the game, eliminate a sense of progression, and remove the aspirational aspect of working toward something and then having the satisfaction of eventually getting it. But as you say, "how do they balance what's enough stuff"? Right? That's the tricky part. That's what they're getting paid to figure out. And Early Access is the time when those very questions are still up in the air. They asked for our feedback. These forums are here for us to discuss these things. Just as it's appropriate for people to say, "we think you made X fight too hard" or "we think you should change how Disengage works" or any other balancing issue, it's no less appropriate to bring up the topic of loot density. Because maybe this isn't the best they could do, and maybe it's more than 1% of people who think so.

I do something simular, in games I am a hoarder of stuff. I am surprised of no monetion on gemstones, especially all the glowing gems you can mine in the underdark. 5 stacks of 99 units and some you can get worth 10k gold (less if you actually put them up

Hey I did a whole post on those glowing gems. https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=723522#Post723522

I got about 500 of them.

Thank you for this post. It's looking like another game that I'll need to use cheats or mods for basic inventory management.

I don't think their is anything wrong with the way it is now. For me I don't check every single container or take everything from things laying around or take everything from dead bodies.

I do think there's too much loot in the game, not necessarily in terms of volume (noone's forced to pick up cutlery) but in sheer quality. Halfway through act 1 I'll have all magic items on every character unless I deliberately refrain from using them. It really doesn't feel very special. The early stages of a DnD campaign are supposed to be about making the best of what little you've got. Peppering the game with magic items from the very beginning just makes it so it isn't exciting to find one. The goblin camp alone has, what, fifteen pieces of green+ loot? Coupled with the incredible abundance of potions ands crolls, it feels cheesy.

Kudos to the original poster for taking the time to highlight an issue that the roleplayer in me finds detracts from the focus on the characters.

The problem is on many levels; quantity and quality are both bloated to an extreme degree. The party is incentivised to become pack-mules ala Fallout 4, looting everything not nailed down. The sheer power of some of these items are character defining and incentivises cookie-cutter builds/class selection based on metagaming knowledge.

There surely must be someone at Larian with an out of control crush on the Wizard class in particular. Universally recognized as the strongest D&D 5e class, yet favored by implementations such as unlimited "Magical Secrets" (one of the best features of the Bard class), needlessly buffed ray of frost/fire bolt cantrips (made even stronger by the elemental shenanigans), and items such as:

1. Warped Headband of Intellect sets intelligence to 18 - allowing metagaming Wizards to turn Int into a dump stat.
2. Staff of Arcane Blessing has a permanent superpowered Bless-spell providing +1-4 saves, +2-8 on spell attack rolls.
3. The Sapphire Spark nearly doubles the damage of the Magic Missile spell. Will benefit from the Evocation level 10 that adds Int mod dmg to each missile. Now made the best spell in D&D for upcasting and add 2 levels of fighter for Action Surge to add to the madness. This alone makes me think Larian really doesn't understand D&D/balance.

I thought the original games went pretty nuts with the high magic setting, but even in the era of Diablo they held back the crazed loot bonanza much more than Larian.

Incredible work OP.
I do find the randomized loot pretty interesting, because in my 2 (somewhat finished) playthroughs so far the amount of (useful) loot I've gathered is vastly different. Maybe it's something that was fixed in a patch or hotfix but in my first run of the game I found barely anything useful, while I've been much luckier in my current run, at least when it comes to gold.

It isn't just that there is too much loot, its that there is nowhere to spend your money either so it feels completely worthless. I was nowhere near as compulsive as the OP when I played through, I ended up with ~10,000 gold just randomly picking up and selling things and at no point did I feel pressured into spending that, or like I wanted to save up to buy something. This was something that older games pulled off much better, Dragon Age Origins for example, where there was always some really expensive item sold by a vendor you were saving up for. It made currency feel like it had value.

This highlights just another problem with Larian game design though. Pickpocketing the ultimate skill that throws a fireball to even the slightest hint of risk vs reward mechanic in their games. Every trader in the game is in reality a loot/money piñata as once you know how to steal, it is guaranteed, quicker and more rewarding than fighting ancient red dragons for their hoards.

Stacking thieving potions and stealing from
merchants was probably one of the most common exploits of the original games. I do hope that Larian takes note of this thread, though.

FWIW, people may feel more incentivised to read your comments if you didn't start them with e.g. the following which might be viewed as inflammatory and/or dismissive.

My next run I'm gonna try to do in half the time of this one, and NOT search the nooks and crannies, and NOT loot most of the containers, and then see how much stuff I have at the end. I gotta do it so I can make the comparison, for science.

Like, most of the actual gear I don't have much of a problem with. (A few items should probably be in Act 2 instead of Act 1 though, looking at you Sapphire Spark.) Mostly I'm alarmed by the sheer mind-boggling quantity of consumables. I'm pretty sure you could make a whole party of commoners with 10s in all stats and NO class abilities, and still clear the content just by using scrolls, potions, bombs, poisons, special arrows, food, etc. Because there's SO MUCH of it.

It's not just "someone". It's Swen. The big boss. In a recent interview he said that wizards are his favorite class, and that he "always plays a wizard". I mean, when you look at the choices they've made in this game, it all starts to make sense...

Yeah I was just thinking of Dragon Age Origins in this respect. I remember there being a lot of expensive items for sale and not really enough currency available to buy them all. So you had to make CHOICES. And I loved that.

What?! Where is the count of tongs, plates, ropes, and most importantly (because they actually have good value) paintings?

I thought I had it bad, checking every container and hating myself for doing it, ending up with 50 hours. I never even bothered to consider grabbing every barrel

Seriously though, great post, really echoes how I feel both about the sheer volume of clutter / time wasted looking in empty containers to the feeling that none of this matters because look a billion unused scrolls and potions.

I'm planning on waiting a month or so from my first playthrough before I do another, and this time I'm considering some kind of rule for myself that I only loot "chest" type containers or things required by a quest. I've had this compulsion to pick up everything keep me from finishing several games, but it's hard to fight.

Jesus that page filled with barrels.

Paintings I learnt about previously; and also learnt to take careful note of, because some were ridiculously heavy!

And tongs... I'm just reminded of M'aiq the Liar who used to race around Cyrodiil obsessively collecting them for reasons he wasn't inclined to share.

I think the game needs the following to make items feel valuable.

• Merchants only trade in goods they are interested in. The food vendor does not by weapons, the weapons vendor does not buy oil barrels, etc. That, or if they do buy it, they buy it at a significantly reduced rate.
• Reduce the value of many items within the game.
• Vendor gold is not replenished on rest. Either tie replenishing gold to quest progression, or some other metric.
• Vendors have 1 or 2 "high value" items, which are incredibly strong relative to the power of the campaign (so say a +2 item in the terms of this campaign), which sells for a large percentage of the gold you could possibly acquire (say 20-40% for a single item).
• Vendors do not store their entire stock on their person. It could be contained within a chest somewhere and the chest should be something you can lockpick, but it should be difficult to steal their high value items.

These measures would go a long way to making items in Faerun feel more valuable.

This is a far more sensible solution than gutting a chunk of the available items in the game to deter a handful of people who will collect every last fork and make thousands of gold.

Strong agree with #s 3 and 4. A natural replenishment point would be after you deal with the Grove. When you actually get to BG, this could be different as the shopkeepers could go to the bank and withdraw more money. But in the wilderness..??? And magic items sold by shopkeepers (why do refugees have numerous magic weapons??) should be rarer and more expensive.

The others are eh, I could take or leave. #1 kind of sounds like more of a hassle than it's worth, #2 is ~solved by #s 3 and 4, #5 doesn't seem any different than having it on their person.

Yeah, exactly. I'm planning to do MUCH less searching and looting on my next playthrough. Even though that will pain me. But I need to have a comparison, to see what you end up with if you only "casually explore" the game rather than "obsessively explore" it.

Some of those would be okay. I thought about the "reduce the value" idea, but I find it problematic. The listed value of many of the magic items you find is already INSULTINGLY low. Like, "Priceless Platinum Bowl" levels of absurd pricing. That's a reference to the MMO Neverwinter, in which you can find treasure items called PRICELESS. PLATINUM. Bowls. Guess how much they're worth? 35 silver. As soon as I saw that, I went into a tirade of mockery that has never really stopped. So that's the category of nonsense some of these item values have in BG3 at the moment. There are some very powerful magic items that are only worth 100 or 200 gold. Are you being SERIOUS? Those items should be worth THOUSANDS of gold. They lower the value so that people don't get super rich from selling those items, and I can understand that. But it already makes the game world's economy strain credulity. If they lowered values even more, it would just seem absurd.

"Nice Holy Avenger you got there. I appraise it as being worth the same amount as fifty potatoes."

I am well aware of the Priceless Platinum Bowls in Neverwinter. You missed the best part, the description for the item lists that it is a plate (its model is also a plate). When I say, "reduce the value of many items within the game," that does not mean reduce all of them and some of them, would make perfect sense to increase. That was what my 4th point was about, high value items should have a very high value and a player should bleed money if they want to buy them.

+1 on the vendor gold not replenishing and vendors storing their stock in a locked chest.

I love the idea of having some brutally expensive items to buy. Gives you something to aspire to, something to save up for, an incentive to go out there and explore, looking for treasure. Like, items as good as the Sapphire Spark should be dumb expensive. They should be charging 20,000 gold for that thing.

Yes please! Give me my DAO 100-gold (the equivalent of like 100,000+ gold in BG3) Epic Staffs and Belts and Armors

That's... basically what the old BG games always did. You could literally walk into a store minutes after ending the tutorial dungeon in BG2 and find on sale "end game" items that were WAY too expensive for your pockets.
Of course they would stay there for the rest of the game until you had the money to buy them. Nothing of this "refreshing inventory every hour" Diablo-esque bullshit Larian seems to love in most of their games.

Yeah I remember that shop in BG2 very well, because it had a Planescape: Torment reference item.

All of those would result in people hoarding loot because they've nowhere to sell it off.

High value items would be nice, and I'd prefer if you can't just pickpocket all the nice items. Hell, I tried pickpocketing Crushers ring and it wasn't on him so idk.

I had trouble with gold in this game, unable to buy +1 items due to lack of cash. I don't hoard stuff to sell because of weight. Making it more difficult for players like me because of metagaming hoarders and compulsive looters is a terrible idea.

I am neither a metagaming hoarder or a compulsive looter. In fact, you could say I am the exact opposite. When I stop to loot, I look at an item, divide its value by its weight and if the resulting number is below a certain threshold I do not pick up the item at all. This is a rule I have used for a long time, in any game that has an encumbrance mechanic, so that I would minimize the number of return trips I needed to make to a shop while maximizing the amount of currency I would get out of each return trip. I still finished the EA with ~10,000 gold and felt like everything within the EA had no value. If I wanted to buy something, I simply bought it, at no point did I look at a vendor's inventory, see an item and go "wow, if only I had enough gold to afford that," then feel the need to save up gold to come back and buy it later.

The point being, I want items to have value. If everything within the game is relatively affordable, then the value of items is more or less nothing. There were lots of old games that got this right. BG 1 and 2 got this right (although ToB did not). Dragon Age Origins got this right. Even action RPGs like Nox got this right. More modern games though? For some reason, they just don't get it right and items became worthless.

The game incentivises hoarding loot already. Larian should simply use realism as a balancing mechanic and NOT allow characters to carry more than real-life elephants. A person wouldn't be able to carry around multiple barrels, weapons, armor and countless smaller items no matter his or her strength. A backpack should be REQUIRED to carry more than an armful of moderately sized items (and I would like to see backpacks visibly represented).

This would force the player to choose instead of incentivising the player vacuuming up everything not nailed down - which feels like a compulsive anti-roleplaying mechanic and a chore. I'm getting bad Fallout 4 vibes in BG3 already lol. Items not picked up should possibly despawn after a set time, perhaps abstracted or be looted by bands of roaming scavengers/raiders/adventurers (yay, random encounters).

Larian set the stage for excessive loot focus and this limits the debate regarding possible solutions as well (though I really like Sharp's ideas). In BG2 you "had" to collect money to ransom your sister Imoen and I would like to see some more non-materialistic use of wealth be made possible in BG3 as well.

Did anyone stop to think that some of these items were placed here to test? This isn't the final game, some people need to stop acting like this is the final cut.

now time to gather all container, crate, chest, vase and all insignificant decorative object and decorate the camp with it :P

I want multiple DIFFERENT difficulty sliders. One for normal "combat difficulty", yeah, but also one for "economic difficulty". The higher you set it, the more everything costs from vendors, the less everything sells for, and the less the drop chance is for useful consumable items from random containers. Most people could just keep it on normal and play the way Larian intended. But people like me could crank it up and regain the feeling of loot being worthwhile.

They set a version of the game before us, and said "tell us what you think of this". We're just doing that.

Holy ***** ***** dude, nice work/thread.

There is a crapton of shit and no real way to organize it.

I think the fact that there is no "junk" category for junk items to auto sell, or mass transfer from one character to the other is quite bad, EA or not.

It would be nice even if you could name your backpacks/pouches, with the option of auto storing Items that you loot in those bags. EG you click on a bag and select the category of item that you would like to automatically go in it. Key/arrow/potion/whatever.

Also, OP, unless I missed something, this is all without the underdark? Because I didn't notice any crystals in your inventory or mentioned in your lists.

No, this was after Underdark and everything else. I already sold the crystals. My lists are only the things I had that could be used in some way. Junk items or just-for-selling items were all already converted into coin or sitting in my camp stash being useless.

LOL. Considering what I went through yesterday, I question how much they "love" Wizards. Every single monster in the Underdark map kept bypassing my fighters and going straight for Gale, often before he'd even done an action during the combat. He died about six times in two hours (with reloads after one egregiously bloody curb-stomping). The minotaurs did it, the Hook Horrors did it, and the damn Bulette did it TWICE.

After all that, I have absolutely NO desire to try making my own avatar wizard. The enemy AI seems to be primed to immediately kill the wizard when combat starts.

I used Gale in my party for the entire game, and he never died once.

Some or all of these things might help with protecting Gale:

1. Use Mage Armor on Gale at all times
2. If Mage Armor is not enough, use Mirror Image
3. Use Jump to get Gale into key positions where he can rain down magic but is hard to attack back
4. Keep Gale as far back away from enemies as possible, and after he casts his spell, move him even farther away
5. Get Gale out of vision cones after he casts his spell, and then Hide with bonus action

I think these are early access issues, and the economic system in the game is fine. In the release version, no one will farm 100 hours in the first chapter. Plus, higher levels await us, and most of these weapons will become obsolete, and new ones will cost more, so don't worry

Gale WAS in the back of the party, and everything jumped OVER the REST of the party to get to him. There's not much benefit to elevation when the monsters can leap all over at will and still land two attacks.

It's weird, I don't know what was different in my game, then. I've seen a lot of people talk about this AI's single-minded pursuit of Gale, and it just wasn't the case in my game. I have no idea why.

His armor in all those promos threw me off the scent. But then again, the way he wore it backside front on one occasion should have been a clue as to him faking it lol.


Well. There are plenty of people who can solo the entire game using Wizards (or any class but possibly Clerics I would assume). Check out Sin Tee on YouTube who make it look easy.

https://www.youtube.com/c/sintee106/videos

All I know is that if this imbalance is allowed to stand come launch, I will scrap my current class builds and instead play something like a Fighter 2/Evoker X (or straight Evoker as Dwarf/Gith with medium armor) spamming Magic Missiles (or spells with attack rolls which are now SUPER powerful with easy advantage and a staff averaging +5 attack on top of that) while in Full Plate armor and possibly shield (now I could use ALL attributes as dump stats except CON), with Shield Spell, Magic Mirror, etc, etc. Will be far more tanky than a Fighter while having superior crowd control, superior single target damage, superior burst damage, and superior area of effect damage to anyone. Maybe throw in a Rogue level to be a bit of a skill monkey as well. Add to this, full spellcasters power relative to other classes grow as they level up (somewhat depending upon how permissive the rest mechanics are).


I might be wrong and come across as unintentionally arrogant, but I believe the AI pretty heavily prioritizes low AC targets and you can be sure a lot of people who complain instead should use that time to "git gud" and for instance start using Mage Armor. That said, some encounters are hard (at least w/o metagaming knowledge or scouting ahead/planning) and will squish anyone.

You could only steal from certain merchants, though. In BG3 you can steal absolutely everything. If you go invisible first, the NPC doesn't even react when you fail. The game's economy is a complete joke, but they have time to fix that in EA. If they're keeping it so that you can steal from everyone, you should probably be limited to one item per NPC. There won't be a sensible economy as long as you can steal the entire inventory of every merchant.

Some people need to stop acting like feedback is an attack on the game. Stop being hysterically defensive, BG3 isn't your child. Your job is not to defend the game from criticism.

I think they just need to make stealing from merchants, in particular, much harder. Of course, I still ended up with vast treasure even without stealing from merchants...

Making it "harder" doesn't fix anything. In games like these, players will figure out a way to do anything that's technically possible. Adding some artificial layer of difficulty to things like stealing just creates a situation like the one in BG2, where new players are tricked into thinking they can steal from shops because the button is there, then they wonder why it fails 100% of the time, while experienced players know that it simply requires 250 in pickpocket to effortlessly plunder everything that can be stolen. It's not suitable game design for 2020. In a single-player game with savescumming, making something "harder" fixes nothing whatsoever. Might as well have a thing that goes "if you can solve this math equation, you do double damage from now on."

Why does economy matter in a single player game? Because RPGs survive in the long term via people discussing the game, strategizing, discussing the merits of this and that approach, reading and writing guides. That requires a relative uniformity across gameplay experiences. Otherwise you get discussions like this:

"Why is class X so bad?"
"It's not bad, you're bad, all you need is item 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5."
"But those cost a combined 6 million gold and I made 1.5 mil in my entire playthrough."
"What, you didn't steal everything from every merchant?"
"No, was I supposed to do that?"
"Well, that class only works if you do that. If you don't like doing that, restart with a different class."

"Why is this game so easy?!"
"It's not easy, I'm having a super hard time!"
"No, the game is definitely too easy, this is a joke. I soloed it without armor on."
"Did you use hacks or something?"
"No, all I did was steal everything and make 500% more gold than the developers intended."
"Well, then how can you say the game is too easy?"
"Because the game let me do it without telling me it was wrong."

It's really important for games like these that players can discuss them from the same general premise. People are more than free to play the way they want, but the fundamental balance is necessary even in a single player game, otherwise it becomes impossible to share ideas and guides and experiences. If the game is only balanced when you deliberately choose not to do something that your party would benefit from doing, that's flawed design. For the same reason that there isn't a button at character creation that says "click to start with 20 in all stats," there shouldn't be some trick that lets you undermine the game's intended economy. That should be something you need to deliberately cheat to do, not something you have to opt out of in order to avoid.

When an unmodded, unhacked game offers options that, when taken, ruin the game's intended balance, the design is wrong. Making it more difficult to carry out does not fix anything, it simply makes the game more annoying to play. Players will break the balance with cheats if they want to. Don't make it something they have to choose not to do. Make it something they have to choose to do. To many players, one of the most interesting aspects of RPGs is figuring out how to optimize and make your party as strong as possible within the rules of the game. That means those rules have to be reasonable. Don't make it trickier to break the game's economy, make it something that simply isn't part of the normal gameplay experience at all.

What about just making merchant NPCs un-pickpocketable? They're just too careful and wary with their stuff to let anyone steal it. You could still pickpocket all the normal NPCs, just not the merchants.

I hope the AI is considerably improved by the time the final game launches. It seems pretty half-baked so far. Ideally, different types of creatures should behave differently. I don't know if that's too big of an ask.

Bumping 'cause we still got cats saying there's not ENOUGH loot in the game right now.

Oh there is way too much loot. Though, I think it could be sorted by doing something with the inventory system. I don't think there needs to be two separate views for the expanded inventory and character inventories, rather keep the character doll and inventory pane and use tabs to keep item categories separate.

Maybe less inventory slots but more balanced loot? I feel sometimes like my character is carrying far more than is reasonable even before hitting encumbrance. (Four or five oil barrels? x))

I don't know what other players are like, but I pick up almost everything, and then when I look at my inventory it's a chore to mouse over everything and then a completely separate menu just to see what something does.

Junk/Non-Quests Misc Items should be kept separate and we need a 'sell all junk button'. So if players do choose to pick up everything for some extra cash it's not such a pain.

There is a small yet noticeable delay between picking up an item and moving it to another slot or vendor slot.

Does anyone know if the UI scale can be increased without reducing the resolution? My eyesight is okay, but at the highest resolution the icons for items/spells etc. are -just- a bit too small that it becomes uncomfortable to look at, I'm sure other people will have the same issue. It's especially a problem when you need to go searching for something in your bags.

Also, alt-clicking can be a curse, it's good to highlight stuff you can't see but, often times I want to highlight a box or a chest that for whatever reason is obscured and end up picking up the object instead of opening it.
To be honest, I wouldn't mind at all if -less- objects were pick-upable. Maybe it's just me, but a big treasure chest somehow feels -less- valuable if you are able to grab the whole thing and run off. I do also realize this comes from years of playing CRPGs and not being able to do that that it seems weird that I can.

I say no there isnt... i dislike having to collect/pick up every spoon, glass and plate to be able to afford gear... im still pretty diligent though and have found i could generally get the +1 gear, potions etc with only a few thousand left over in prep for the next level gear we will be seeing... not everyone likes to grind every copper out of every environment... currently seems reasonable to this gamer who falls somewhere right between casual and power play styles...

Exactly! It gets so cluttered up, so quickly.

That's reasonable, of course players shouldn't have to scrape the bottom of every barrel. Most people don't want to search everywhere like a maniac. But even so, there is still a LOT of stuff out there. So much. I can't really imagine the degree of rushing through someone must be doing if they have actual money problems in this game.

You're probably somewhat crazy. But I agree : the game, at the moment, is way too generous. Magic items need to feel special ... magic. (BG1 had a nice curve on this. By the end, everyone had a +1 or +2 weapon, but it took some time to get there. Though I don't want mention BG1 too much, for fearing of sounding like a fanboy, it's just ... some things were actually done well. Not all, but some were.)


I believe this will be valuable and interesting.


Exactly my approach to feedback. Although ... I'm a bit disappointed by Larian's lack of communication. On the one hand, if this was a board game designer gathering feedback from 4 players, I'd certainly and strongly say that the players must not be told what the designer wants to observe. Otherwise this will bias their play. But here they have hundreds or thousands of playtesters. I wish they could announce the things that are planned for later/the very end, the things that upcoming on their roadmap, and the problems they're already aware of (from internal testing or feedback received since the beginning of EA). This way, the feedback would focus more on what has value, and less on what Larian is planning to remove/change/revise anyway. Anyway, without guidelines, we cannot assume that this or that is certain to change.

More than somewhat, friend. More than somewhat.


As for communication and roadmaps and suchlike, I think it's likely that Larian is just working on a ton of different stuff, trying to figure out how to implement things, testing things to make sure they work, fixing the things that the other things broke, and they don't really KNOW what's going to be done, when, and what's going to ultimately work for the game. If they say "we're doing THIS" then everyone will hold them to it until the end of time and the internet will weep rivers of blood amidst cries of "LARIAN R LIARZ" if they change one iota from whatever they said they were intending (at one ephemeral point in an ever-shifting process of enormous complexity).

I understand the view of some folks that there is too much loot in the game.

However, depending on your play style, that does not necessarily hold true. In my game, I'm currently working my way through Goblinland (patent pending). I've dealt with the crash site, initial tomb, "druidica" (patent registered in Goblinland, for what it is worth) and assorted town areas. Yet, while I'm running level 4 characters, I have maybe 3 or 4 magic items ( most of which are unusable due to the downsides), and have yet to buy a single magic item from vendors. As my "character" is not a thief, he has had no reason to steal anything from vendors and such. Really can't compare the loot level to folks running around robbing every item and every coin they can get their hands on. I would be far happier picking up fewer "priceless" items, and having the ones I pick up actually worth comparable "priceless" amounts than pick up a zillion priceless items each worth one gold. Toss in that rare but valuable painting or statue that sells for little to nothing at your average shop, but sells for a boatload of coin if saved for sale in that antique dealer in Baldurs Gate. Toss out rumors of a valuable piece of artwork, that wealthy noble in BG is seeking, that can be sold to him for a huge chunk of coin (and maybe toss in some nice thieves that will try and waylay me on the way to delivering it once I recover it.

There are plenty of ways to create innovative ways to obtain and sell unique, non-magic, items involving side quests, rumors, gossip and private collections. Package them in with other rationales for chasing after them, so thieves and non-thives might all have a reason to chase them down.

Split up that merchants inventory - some items should be on his person for pickpocketing, higher value items should be locked up, in a manner that those with the inclination can try and sneak past guards, disarm traps and pick the locks to get them - if they are able. Being caught will tick off the merchant and his guards, and have repercussions, but beggars, other lowlife, the average joe schmoe in a large town or city, shouldn't care one way or another, and the City down river should have no clue what you did. If you manage to get clear without being arrested/killed, the furor should die down within days. The idea that a week later, everyone in town (including guards that never saw you) will instantly recognize makes little sense in any large population area.

And yeah - merchants should carry those drool-worthy, end game type items at a price you can only dream of until you are at fairly high levels, or as a rare reward for some epic mission on their behalf (rescue your wife and kids from the evil blackmailer? Sure, that might be worth a low/mid level item from my shop, or a steep discount on that item).

Give me a thief to play, and I might be robbing merchants blind often. Give me a paladin, ranger or cleric and I'm not picking pockets and rifling shops (of course, "evil variants of the above might resort to coercion, blackmail, forgery, and other forms of skullduggery, but a cleric is more likely to threaten to drop a nasty curse on a merchant to get what they want than simply pick a pocket).

But spare me the changing inventories !! Nothing so bad as saving that gold for weeks to buy "magic item x" only to find it's gone from the shop!

Some good ideas in your post, I like it. The part I quoted, I especially agree with. I really dislike it when that happens!

I did not read everything above but:
- It is normal for every RPG I know that you swim in money sooner than later.
BG1+2 had the advantage that shops have some good unique and expansive items so you spend some time gathering money to get all of them.
In BG3 you can get almost everything at once and I agree that the huge amount of "junk items" is part of the problem.

- They should quit those DOS1+2 mechanics:
+ you give stuff for free to merchants to get better prizes.
+ killing the merchant will give you EVERYTHING you have ever sold him

instead they might add
+ maybe bring back DOS2 rule that you can steal only once from each NPC (wait a sec, I really suggest adding DOS stuff in a DnD game )
+ Prizes should not depend on who talks to the merchant. Switching items between characters before selling is just annoying. so maybe
- All chars pay the same prize. The prize should be fixed. Maybe they change prizes if you do quests for them or how much their faction likes you
- If the merchant hates one of your party members you have to keep them in camp to trade with them

Edit: crap, the text ignores spaces before the text.
So you cannot make a table where one point has several sub points

Can Gale actually tote that many barrels around?

Nah, of course not. He can't move an inch.

To me the money feels about right.

Just enough to feel some greed and not so skimpy that I don't feel compelled to pick up those suits of armor (or whatever) to go sell them. And when I finally get that chest full of coins I feel happy. Ha ha slavers! I've got your money now I'm going use this firebolt to end all of your plans.

Probably been mentioned before but compulsive hoarding is a real and genuine medical condition... perhaps worth looking into if this stuff genuinely bothers you. The only real issue I have had with the inventory management is how laggy and barebones it is. In dos2 when you dragged an item over a container in your inventory it went right in, in bg3 they simply swap places. Sorting keeps breaking, you cant sell all wares yet, transitioning between inventory and equipment screens has lag and other quality of life stuff like that.

The actual quantity of items was never even remotely an issue as I purposefully only pick up things I need or might need like food, potions, gold, valuables, keys, quest items and notes (though the game seems to keep track of their contents for you behind the scenes if youve read them), I cant imagine most RP characters being interested in hauling everything that's not nailed along with them even if their DM let them for whatever reason. Personally though I find the lack of backpacks on the character models to be the weirdest thing especially when they're carrying a lot of things on them. I know that its extremely common in video games, same with the lack of quivers for archers, but still odd especially in an RP setting where the back is an equipment slot.

This is excacly what made put the DOS2 down after 10 hours of gameplay. COMMON LARIAN THIS LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A DOS2 INVENTORY!

So many items and item types everything becomes pointless and non essential. Magic stuff feel bland and non unique. Scrolls everywhere, magic swords everywhere... Over 600 food items, and dozens and dozens of cariable of barrels?? WTF Larian. Tidy up your items.
Its not question that <well, If you dont want it, dont pick it up!> Its just that there is so much useless crap stuff out there, AND WE KNOW THIS BY DEFAULT, it makes playing the game totally pointless. Ive got unlimited scrolls, and food, and can get ANY magic items I want...this destroys the atmosphere and OVERDOES what is and inst believable. You SHOULD NOT be able to carry hundreds of items.

I actually LIKE the restriction you had in BG2. 16 slots + 15 including your wearable and quick items. Its ELEGANT, its BELIEVABLE, it makes THINK on what you might need. At worst case you still had bottomless bags and scroll cases anyways. It just felt so much easier and special to have items.

Oh and the BG2 inventory screen just destroys BG3 in style and ease of use. Fix the UI!

You nailed it there. When rare and exotic items are readily available in abundance, they then by definition become commonplace and their value is diminished. Having an overabundance of gold in the first Act is a similar issue.

It strikes me that so far Larian have seemingly made the decision to dispense with anything that could be a link to the previous BG games, despite several of the mechanics etc from BG1 & 2 being superior to BG3. Whether this is for reasons of pride in wanting to stamp their own vision on the game or the limitations of their game engine or even something else, I do not know. Currently the only familiar things to me are the game title and the token 'venture forth' prompt.

Yeah i agree with this. Limited inventory and multi-tile items would be best in my opinion.

My thoughts on the subject: I like that going Greyhawk is an option in this game. It is one thing that has always impressed me about Larian’s games, and reducing player freedom in a game meant to simulate D&D seems like a bad idea.

If nicking the silverware is a *serious* problem, make the silverware have weight. Still nickable, but encumbrance will prevent people from taking everything. Just like in D&D.

Like if they want to shower the players with gold for easier difficulties no problem, but definetly 84,694 gold pieces with lvl 4 adventures in a party of 4 seems a dire issue. Imagine when we reach lvl 10. Gear and equipment gonna be trivial and there will be no choice or planning from the player part in other to gear up and overcome the difficulties the party is being challenged with.

I fully agree with inventory management being atrocious in BG3, something that was a big issue in Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 as well. There is just so much junk and so many free items, it devalues the worth of the magical items and resources you find. Just picking up stuff to vendor is a nobrainer as well, you just need the strength but with a party (or even a solo character with good STR) that is a no brainer. The other infinity engine games (And even games like Diablo, NWN etc) had inventory management. It made sense, it required some thought (And it gave containers/gembegs/scrollcases/bags of holding a lot of value too). That layer is kind of gone and everything inventory and loot related in BG3 feels like a chore and a drag, not rewarding while selling loot should be a rewarding moment.

What makes this situation in my opinion even worse is all the random junk you see when you use the Highlight key (default alt) and see all the plates and candles and other random stuff too. The fact that you even find this junk in chests is a bit of an insult to the injury, along it being tedious to doubleclick every item you want to handpick from the chests over the "Loot all" option. Selling/bartering is also a chore and tedious which does not really help, when you need the money and thus need to pick up all the junk to make some.

The game put limits. Weight. With some characters three barrels make the toon unable to move because there's too much stuff in the inventory.

There's also the fact that hoarding at such level is time wasting (by the way I wouldn't use a person with OCD as a paragon for how to approach a game), there's also the fact that things like resurrection scrolls have high cost, same goes for high level spell scrolls and serious magic armor.

Another balancing factor is the fact that some bosses are quite difficult for the average player (and the average player is not what we see in this forum, we are seasoned players, some with a more casual approach others with a more thoughtful one).

From my experience this game, like the OSD, is just like all other games that aim to broader audience, in games that are designed for more limited platform of consumers like Vampyr, Sinking City, the Call of Cthull'u, the items are way lower, in wich you can pick up everything (to my mind come the Bethesda Elder Scrolls series, the Fallout series, from Obsidian I can easily name The Outer Worlds), and the drop rate is lower than that of mmorpgs.

And, again, immersion is just a word. The moment you willingly search for things that broke your immersion it's your decision not a real issue.

I played my first run and didn't even noted many of the things listed in so many, too many, posts. Posts that to me are nothing to do with immersion, beta testing or whatever the aim of an early release is, but with the intention of find something that annoys and gave reason to complain.

I can understand the weird feeling of having a message that stats that time is passing, to have quests that have a time trigger, but not to have an actual passing of time (it's always a sunny temperate day with the sun high in the sky, corpses don't rot), the fact that, even if with this kind of graphic motor to implement rides is impossible, there are no signs of horses or other animals used for transport, I get the tech and graphic issues.

I can not understand the aimed search for things that annoy ourselves.

What's the point, other that satisfy our own ego and habits, of hoarding for the sake of it?

It doesn't add anything to the improvement of the game, not for the average player, not for the casual player (I lost count of how many times I haven't enough gold to resurrect the companions or my toon).

In BG1/2 playing as a villain was a lot more expensive than playing as a lawful do gooder type, mainly because you had to manage your reputation in order to keep from getting harassed by guards constantly. It had a solid RP angle for charlatans and thieves in the mix, with a fair amount of middling corruption and bribes to go around. Plot points to encourage throwing more money at the problem for payoffs to cover your tracks and staying greedy to keep the crew in line. Basically the game needs a separate black market type economy to serve as a gold sink and to accommodate the thieves and murder hobos but also making it harder to go full dragon horde on the haul. Right now temples don't serve much of a purpose, and there are no followers on retainer, or stronghold type cash sinks. It'd have been nice to see more of the city in the EA, to see how that stuff is meant to work

I think the point of this whole discussion on items isn't about hoarding stuff, it is used as an example that there are way too many junk items, magic items, food, scrolls etc etc.. throughout the world. Nearly every merchant has magic weapons. Nothing feels special due to this.
Very boring, aggravating itemization breaking immersion. Magic items feel...completely non-magical, devoid of soul, just for higher stat numbers like in DOS2. And of course got to have your green magic item, blue, purple , red etc...

I agree with that. I don't know how people can collect so much gold just by playing the game. They are not playing, they are hoarding things, perhaps because they are bored or lack of game content while waiting for a patch.
I did not collect more than 3k golds in the game, I collected the most necessary or useful things, and only sometimes garbage to sell it. I even collected stones in the underdark, although collecting them is really boring and not necessary at all. It's just easier to take them than to pick up everything else. (for sell)

I never picked up a barrel! Not once! I did it in DOS 2 for Fane, because acid cures him, and it's rly hard to find poison in small bottles. But in BG3 I just dont need this.

People spoil themselves atmosphere, make the game easier, the barrel is too heavy, even one, I would think 300 times before taking it.

Not to say, that there aren't too many items. But apart from Vampire Bloodlines I have that problem in every rpg out there. Maybe devs think, that role players are hoarders, don't know.
I would wish for less clutter though.

It's not just that there is too much stuff, or too much money, or that some players are hording rather than selling or consuming their inventory...

Its that there just isn't anything to spend the money on other than more stuff.

Nobody asks you for any money in this game, and everything you do is free in BG3.
In BG1 and especially in BG2, everything had a cost in gold.

Resting costs us nothing here, whereas in the earlier games you had to spend money just to sleep unless you were outdoors.

Information is also basically free in BG3. Nobody really demands a bribe or a pay-off before telling you what they know. They just volunteer the info. There are no bars or barkeeps to offer us rumor mills after emptying our wallets and downing a horn of ale or 2 dozen.

Healing is free and there's no need to raise dead or seek out temple resurrection. There are no curses to remove and stuff of that sort, and no priests to take your gold from the collection plate. Reputation doesn't need to be managed and doesn't seem to matter all that much for the kinds of encounters you face or the ability to move freely in-town. Merchant reactions/prices just seem based on Charisma and "friends" is a cantrip now.

Merchants also don't have hidden stock, reserved only for trusted customers with deep pockets.

Stealing is relatively simple and regular merchants are perfectly happy to buy stolen goods, so there is no cost associated with fencing loot.

Potions and scrolls and other consumables can be found all over the place, so instead of spending money on essential potions and spells we can just collect the freebies.

Quests and dungeon crawling award plenty loot in BG3, but rarely require any money to initiate or complete.

Its not like Zevlor says "its going to cost us a small fortune to get to Baldur's gate! How will we ever raise the money?" or if the Goblins demanded "regular tribute not to kill you on sight!" Or if Minthara needed "10,000 gold, for the Absolute! No excuses" or whatever.

The only cash sink seems to be Gale's need to eat enchanted equipment, which is a poor substitute for all that other stuff that typically put a strain on Charname's purse in the old games.

So, in answer to the OP's original question. No, there is not a problem with too much stuff being available; the problem is that you can pick it all up and keep it.

Back in the mists of ancient time, when I was playing with friends using OD&D rules (i.e. whatever rules you think are best), we had reasonable limits to the volume and mass that were considered portable. If you wanted to take more, you needed pack animals or some magical assistance.

Early video games used various "reasonable" mechanisms to limit player acquisition syndrome, but as the paying audience has expanded to less detail-oriented players, most of the limitations have disappeared.

Most games also have utterly rubbish economies, particularly if they try to implement crafting systems, and rarely consider animals for their real-world roles in transport and commerce.

After you got the Magical items question is rather what do with all the money???

They could in ACT 2 my suggestions to be able to buy in city Baldurs Gate 2.

1. Buy one house for yourself.. example Mansion if really rich in this game. If you have children, but I doubt we can make children in this game you could spend a lot of money on their future set up a trust fund for them.
2. In addition to your romance... have a paid Escort one favorite one expensive to pay. Yes I want full adult content.
3. A Bordell see option 2.
4. Hire an Mercenary band to do something... example Guard this or Escort.
5. If Evil hire an Assassin to ...
6. Do good to others. Donate money to the city poor. Donate money to City so they have money to pay guards. Donate money to your deity Church. Donate money to Music or Art whatever is your passion.
7. Donate money for a building project whatever you want example Zoo in Baldurs Gate 3... or whatever is your passion.
8. Go with money in your romance. Buy your loved something really expensive jewelry very expensive Diamonds.
9. Be member of VIP Swingers Club like they might have in Germany. Membership is not free.
10. Be a member of a landlord club of your country and membership costs money and also their events example sea voyage together travel and to eat expensive restaurant food on the ship. I am that in real life member of such organisation that all members are landlords.
11. Be member of luxury Club that have sports and SPA and Swimming areas etc.
12. Donate money to a special secret organisation example Harpers.
13. Waste money partying drink booze and pay for expensive food etc.

I am very far from poor in fact I am landlord in real life and many would consider me wealthy the so called Upper Middle Class in net wealth google it if you do not know what that is? That being said I am not millionaire as in one million euro net value (that is more then 1 million dollar, but I am used to Euro currency and live in Europe.) Prostitution is legal in my country in Europe and I do not see anything illegal in it as long as it is adults and voluntary and not forced.

It could be nice to be rich millionaire in Baldurs Gate 3. Remember this is Act 1. How rich will you be at end of Act 2?

The Sims: BG3 Edition?
/headslap No. Just...No.

Fine skip most parts. However include full nudity like in Witcher 3. Stop having only soft romanticism thank you.

To be honest did I expect them to include all those things? No not really example doubt we can buy mansion in this game or join a landlord or swinger club or health spa club or sports club gym.

Has it been done in other games?
Witcher 3 has nudity.
Pillars of Eternity 1 you actually inherit an old Castle mansion in really bad shape and top of that imagine that you inherit debts and problems old foes to castle with that. Maintaining the Castle and building it to glory is a big part of Pillars of Eterrnity 1.

I'll start this off with around 11,000

I've got around 8k

I think the most I ever got in a playthrough was 22-23k. Gold doesn’t really matter if you make a habit of stealing it back from vendors after you make purchases.

This is ultimately why I started the post. I was curious about the games economics and the potential breaking of it due to this. I suspect when we get to larger cities it may be harder to steal it back, due to more population there and the increased reliance on invisibility, but the issue is that we can just load/save. I'd very much like to have the gold mean more in the current game play, so iv been testing concepts with it to figure out what items are needed and not and how to optimize income. I was curious how high others got so i can measure how evil i was being with the load/save features. This seems to be a big motivator to playing online.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=752930&page=1

Thank you. I knew there was a similar topic somewhere in the archive. Threads merged.

I dislike loot-focus and inventory-Tetris with a vengeance. The over-emphasis on loot was my biggest gripe with DOS2, and the reason I never finished the game. When you have so many items of questionable usefulness, you tend to hoard them while also forgetting what you do have.

That said, if Larian is *again* going to down the route of divorcing pickpocketing from any semblance of risk vs reward mechanism by making having pickpocketing become the easiest and fastest way to accrue wealth and loot without any downsides in practice...I would rather BG3 shower the player with gold. This way, at least those who want to play a heroic character isn't punished/made to feel a fool for not partaking.