Just a short impression:

Everything that bugged me about the combat in DOS2 seems to be polished up to a point that I don't even think about it. Kudos.

Character creation is nice and in depth - but the whole "create your dream man/woman" thing was jarring and makes me worried at just how prevalent the romance is going to be. I don't like this. It's a bit cringe.

Lots of optimization issues to be tweaked as EA goes on, especially in flashing shadows/lights.

I am thoroughly enjoying myself so far.

The disgusting surface system: is it gone?

That was too weird for me too , I don't dream about romance in a RPG but that puts me in the minority. Apparently just playing the game isn't good enough for some peoples. I plan on poking around and seeing what I can find outside of the story focus. Edit - Apparently you can't skip past the dream thing , went back and am trying. Shouldn't be forcing me to make choices in a game Larian.

Still downloading. Some youtubers pointed out somehow combat is the weak point of the game. Those who can already play, how is it for you so far?

Thanks for posting! More reports please, till we can get this bug fixed about not launching!

Has anybody kissed that Goblin's foot yet? Hopefully not!

It's very cringe. If romances happen, alright. I quite liked them in Mass Effect because it's not forced. But the way BG3 handles this during character creation gives me some f95zone vibes and I don't like it.

In what way? Can you elaborate?

Feels like one of those dating simulators.

I have no issue with the whole "who is in your dreams" thing. We all might have our own "dreams", so being asked who you dream of, is not a hassle for me.

MY hassle, is in trying to get off the damn Mindflayer ship in the first place. Have not been able to master the jump mechanic. I keep getting told, "no space" or "too high". (after riding the elevator up and coming toward the front of the scree is a 'shelf'. Game says to use jump, then I can't. Ran along the outside of the ship, goes nowhere. Came back inside and ran up along the wall in starting chamber.

Spent 2 1/2 hours DL'ing and installing, an hour trying to get off the dam ship....

No, surfaces and surface interaction is in, although probably subdued from DOS. Surfaces interacting is something which is not in the tabletop rules, except at the discretion of the DM, but it is a thing which makes sense.

When you leave the first chamber and are forced to do your first jump, ignore the circle and point OUTSIDE the circle. (If thats one of the difficulties you're encountering.) In my case, the circle was just not reaching the other side of the cliff and there was no way to reach the other side. But when I just clicked outside the circle, my character suddenly jumped over the cliff. She was able to do a longer jump than visually indicated. Wonky as hell.

I kind of like the whole "who do you dream about" thing. When the dream sequence or whatever uses it comes around, its a neat idea for Larian to have done it, I think it adds immersion. It kind of ruins the surprise though, but the tradeoff is worth it.

In the dream question, does it include a succubus? Cause if it doesn't I will simply skip the thing :P

I’m willing to bet a succubus approaches the protagonist in the form most appealing to them, and that is the point of that feature.

Larian has also said that custom characters will have more connection to the story, so this dream character might be an actual character who is part of the custom protagonist’s personal story, perhaps a resident of Baldur’s Gate.

Or it could be both these ideas.

I agree, a tutorial would be useful here. The problem is the amount of run up to a jump, I think. The jump does not work in confined spaces. A little later on there are places where a jump will work. Click on the jump option and then move the mouse to see where you can get to. You will see a ghost action (pale white). Click if that is where you want to go.

Instruction on how to call up the map would also be helpful. This makes it a bit easier to navigate. I suspect Larian will work on a tutorial to make this stage easier. I feel happier now that I have got my little brain puppy and a hacked off gythyanki companion. Happy adventuring!

There's like close to 70,000 players on Steam alone simultaneously, for an Early Access RPG release, which is insane (and the numbers have been rising for hours).

They all seem pretty busy playing though, as most boards are dominated with different talk than what the EA actually, well, plays like.

Which probably is a good sign.

Me personally? Still downloading.

Many people seem to have problems with Vulkan. I will start with DX11 right away until Larian comes up with a patch.

This STEAM player, just submitted for refund. 85 minutes of play.

Short opinion after a few hours :

The game looks cool but it doesn't look like the amazing game I was waiting.

First of all... as I said in another topic, I'm very dissapointed with jump... this is just a part of every combats because this is a bonus action for everyone.
You disengage with jump, you flee with jump, you go further with jump... Nearly everyone has to jump at every turn just to move a little bit more...

Then the surfaces. As I feared, there are surfaces everywhere again.
Probably not as much as in DoS but it's again something that happen in every combat and every situation.
Still the usual barrel of poison, grease and so on everywhere so you can flame 35m².

They also add difficult terrain, which is a good idea but another "surface" to deal with...
Everywhere, your companions are stuck, then take damage you don't really understand why... That was because the bush you walked on, that was roots with spines... I can't really see the added value atm.

About the combat system it's very, very slow.
It's not bad but we talked a lot about the flow of combats in TB system and.... it's very dissapointing especially the combat in front of the druid grove (with ""many"" monsters and allies).
Maybe the team initiative system could be better... Wasteland 3 did something like that and it's really better to me.

The UI don't help... There are many spells and abilities. That's cool but I really think the game need to sort them instead of adding every single usable objects and new ability in the action bar.
I'm totally fine with management but I don't want to manage action bar every 2 hours... 1 tab for minor spells, 1 tab for spells, 1 tab for items, 1 tab for weapons, 1 tab for special abilities and you don't have to do anything instead of playing.

Not talking about inventory and equipement screen because I guess it's gonna be improve. Actually it's really not confortable.

The cinematics everywhere when to talk to NPC is also something that annoys me a little... It's beautifull but it breaks the flow of the game... sometimes for totally uninterresting dialogs (I'm fine with uninterresting dialogs).
Maybe the should keep that for specific situations connected to the main story and not every single dialogs with random NPCs...

Don't know... I guess my hype was to high.
This is absoluetely an overhaul of Larian's game and it looks great on many points but atm, it's absolutely not enough to me.
Anyway I'll play it again tomorrow.

I don't know if anyone has thought/brought this up: dream people are plot tools for illithids when manipulating victims via dreams.

I just wish I could get past the transporting the ship part. Crashes every time on the loading screen (35% loaded)

yep, and why I refunded from STEAM. 2 hours of play, and you're stuck with it via STEAM. I was at 85 minutes, called it.
I am NOT paying $60 for a game I cannot play.

These are some of my first impressions after reaching the chapel. It took me an hour, to get here, but I spent most of that on the ship.

Between the time I initiated my purchase and from when the game was downloaded - total time was less than an hour, in fact I downloaded it pretty fast. And that's from Malaysia.
I had to do a cold reboot when I met my first companion but I think that was down to the fact that I was hitting escape so often, as in most of my games ESC takes me to the menu screen, once i changed to fake full screen everything was ok.

Twitch integration for the BG3 Companion app was dodgy at first. I had to disable the authenticator app because it wouldnt process past that screen. Once that was done, viewers on my stream were able to take part in the adventure, though there were times when people said the options would disappear.


1. There are some graphical artifacts in the cutscenes, but i reckon these are down to it being a beta and all.
2. I like the first scene on the ship as it introduces basic movement controls, it took me a while to get used to things like navigating the screen as I have not played any Larian games prior to this.
3. Combat is incidental in the first real combat fight to get to the transponder which is good. I loved the idea of using decoys to get past, took me like a few tries on Twitch to get used to the combat system. It may help people who are new to the game to have a more tanky first companion, but that isn't really a big deal, as avoidance is better than full on combat. I got to the transponder by only killing 3 adds. leaving the other 3 adds alive ( the ones near the transponder)
4. I am loving the strategic combat, the graphics look sick in game, but the cutscenes could look a bit better with the movement of the hair and shadows. On close ups the hair movement looks odd as they seem fixed with occasional lighting gaps appearing where hair should be.
5. I only discovered the combat chatlog much later which is a nice addition

The spell slots make no sense to me, I understand that some need a long recharge time but the green circle and red triangle confuse me. I am sure once i play the game more I will figure these out.

OK, some of my first impressions,
1. I really like the character customization in the game. Knowing that more...everything (classes, races, how the characters look)..are still on the way, makes me happy and pretty sure that a lot of people will find it one of the games strengths.
2. Did they tone down the over the top animations for the ranged attacks and jumping? It didnt seem as bad as it was in the reveals and demos. I do think that the spell effects are AMAZING, but really they need to tone down the physical stuff. Dash and preparing to use a melee special attack doesn't need a crazy Laser light show to announce it.
3. I thought I would HATE Astarion. I was sure i'd never have him in my party. I was so wrong! I like all of them so far. I was worried since BG 1 and 2 had great, memorable characters, but I think Larian has made them interesting and fun.
4.Shove is too POWERFUL. I used it after every attack. Lae'zel attack and shove. Astarion attack, if i didn't backstab, then shove and run away haha. It made some of the fights seem way too easy.
5.Theres TOO much interacting with the environment in the fights. Please, not so many barrels of oil, those kind of things. After a bit it feels kind of gimmicky. We've so many spells and items we can use to do those AOE type of things, they don't feel so important or useful, when I can just explode a barrel.

I hope this isn't too negative. I like the game very much and can't wait to see more.

EDIT.. Oh, and I agree with the person above me. I thought the controls weird and that I'd hate them but after a few minutes they were fine. I do hope we can more tilt up and down though, and edit for missing word

No, not those disgusting surfaces again...

Yes, jump implementation is broken. Instead of being something that is helpful is those rare special situations, it's like you're almost forced to use it all the time.

Fucking surfaces again.... and if you get hit, you lose twice as much blood as your body can even hold.

Cinematic conversations for banter is also stupid. It kills the flow. It makes you expect that the situation is more important and you're clicking the guy a thousand times, just so you don't miss potential useful information or leave someone to die that could be recused. Waste of time.

And the animations of the custom character are either ridiculously over the top or completely misplaced. For a moment I thought I was playing Mass Effect Andromeda, that's how bad they are.

Can you spoil the story for me?

Fire....so much fire...everywhere...and archers creating massive pools of acid...and fire... :'( And SO MANY explosive barrels. I generally really like combat though. I would suggest that they make it so you cannot jump over your allies, but instead move past them at half speed. Cramped battles sort of look like a game of Frogger.

The surfaces thing is obnoxious, and does absolutely nothing to enhance the game or make me feel clever about exploiting it because surfaces are everywhere, all the time, forever, and dominate gameplay. It looks and feels nothing like DnD or Baldur's Gate.

Jump needs some drastic reconsideration too. If you're going to make it so extremely optimal to spam it, at least give me a hotkey for it.

Same here. I've been an RPG player for decades, and have never "dreamed" of a character. I felt the whole process uncomfortable, thinking that making this choice was going to have decisions made for me later in the game.

Noticed that during character creation there is an option to choose voice of the character, however during actual conversations with NPCs companions, the character doesnt speak. Just wondering if this is a bug, if it's intentional then why select a voice in the first place?

I think the chosen voice is just for the grunts and shouts during encounters etc. Not sure if there's meant to be voice acting in dialogue for the PC?

Did you realise it was Early Access and just still disappointed or awaiting a final release game that “is too buggy”?

Because Early Access is buying into the “test phase” warts and all.
Perhaps better to await the 1.0 release though?! Hope you find your way back.

Not sure why not though, seems a little weird that the character just stare blankly during the conversations. Not very immersive. Hope they can fix this at full release.

I agree with that.
I thought it wouldn't be a problem but every single NPC have voiced sentences exept you... That's a little bit strange in cinematics dialogs.

I find this to be one of the worst RPG's I've ever played no idea how people actually think the game mechanics are even functional...

Very impressed how well it runs on Stadia, bravo!

A bit sad that half-elf got nerfed.
Also why can't I set stats higher than 16? And no lower than 8?

It took me a long time to find the jump action, so I was a bit stuck in the begining. Also the level up function was hard to find 😂

That's a real mystery... I absolutely don't like how you can create your character's stats...

I think it actually comes from PHB page 13 ; it's tied to the creating character variant which makes you buying points for ability scores :

"Variant: Customizing Ability Scores
At your Dungeon Master’s option, you can use this variant for determining your ability scores. The method described here allows you to build a character with a set of ability scores you choose individually.

You have 27 points to spend on your ability scores. The cost of each score is shown on the Ability Score Point Cost table. For example, a score of 14 costs 7 points. Using this method, 15 is the highest ability score you can end up with, before applying racial increases. You can’t have a score lower than 8. This method of determining ability scores enables you to create a set of three high numbers and three low ones (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8), a set of numbers that are above average and nearly equal (13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12), or any set of numbers between those extremes."

So you shouldn't be over 16 overall given that 15 is the max prior to adding your racial bonuses (arguably you could get up to 17 with a +2 racial to one score).

Anyway, the game should be balanced around what ability scores you can get at level 1. As a DM I often boost characters when they roll for their stats so I can have an "epic" campaign thrown at my players.

Ah the good old AD&D days where you'd have scores as low as 3

If I want to play hardcore, I'd rather switch to Warhammer

Not playing till fully released but have heard it's extremely glitched out?

I noticed a surface explosion did 20 damage to my guys. Kinda silly since no spell could match that at that character level. Won the fight, but then two in my party stepped on a surface by auto-path and died. Surfaces in post-battle are the real enemy. I do not like them as they belong in DOS and IMO not in BG3.