Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Help Players Learn the Game

So I'm not super familiar with D&D. I've played a couple games of it, I have a lot of experience with other tabletop games and I have friends who are way more into D&D than I am, so I have a broad understanding despite my relative lack of experience. But I think something this game needs is a robust tutorial on not just the rules of the game, but how to play well. I think early on, as early as possible, you should get tutorials explaining cleraly what the various classes are good at and what their default role in a party should be. Pillars of Eternity 2 did this by assigning roles to each class and explainign what those roles were; dealing high dps, controlling crowds, etc. And these explanations should be given in clear terms and not jargon. Because as it stands the game is quite tough for me as someone who doesn't have much hands on experience with D&D and for someone who doesn't know the game at all I can only imagine it's much easier to hit pitfalls. I think you should get some kind of description of what each class is good at in character creation, ideally one that's clear but not super detailed so you don't have to absorb too much information all at once, but then when you meet each companion there should be a tutorial window explaining in more detail what their character is good for.

And just on principle as well, there is no excuse for a game to have poor tutorials, so I fully expect Larian to improve on what they have as EA progresses and they hammer down all the systems.

I don't mean to be a dick here but most of the classes are relatively straightforward unless you literally have never played a party based RPG in your life.

The mechanics behind how everything works and what everything means it what is challenging for a new player.
For example
What is special about a heavy weapon?
What is advantage?
What is proficiency?

or at least these are some of the things confusing for me as a person who doesn't play D&D

I'm going to go ahead and guess that tutorials probably aren't the primary concern for Early Access, but you're right that by release time the game should have some solid tutorials for explaining the core gameplay mechanics

The game lacks some useful tooltips. For example, when you open the tab for a weapon, there is a list of characteristics associated to it but nothing is explained. You get only a list of names with an icon and that's about it.

I think the keyword here tooltips.
Its kind of annoying having to look in the journal everytime.

This is quite true. I have no problems with the game since it's pretty much tabletop 5E and some things remind me of DOS. But I'd not recommend this game to someone new at the moment unless I could be there teaching them how to play. There simply is no tutorial for spells, keywords, actions in a combat and that it doesn't matter the order - yeah you can bonus action before action and move or don't move whenever if you can move.

I do believe they'll definitely adress this before release tough.

I have no doubt that by the time they hit official release they'll have more of a robust tutorial system, the reason so much is left unsaid currently is probably because they're aware that some systems might change in throughout EA, but I bring this up all the same to make sure that the tutorial not only explains what's going on but equips a new player with the tools to keep them from hamstringing themselves as they level up and go through the game.

I'm very happy with the tutorials already present in the game, but just like everyone else in this post, I agree they could use some more "meat" so to speak. For example, the priest has concentration based spells. Not knowing any better, I picked concentration spells for two out of my three starting cantrips. Later, I got really confused when trying to cast one concentration cantrip after the other and seeing the message saying: "Concentration Broken." Since then, I've developed the impression that you can only have one concentration spell active at a time, but I had no idea since just like Gray Ghost I'm not particularly familiar with D&D rules. Also, in the beginning of the game, it took me a while to realize that the tutorial tips were in the upper right corner of the screen below the map. I'll admit that I felt a bit stupid after struggling for a while to figure out the controls, when I discovered that they were right there waiting for me. Maybe some animation could be added to draw your visual attention to the tutorial messages? Say for example the icon appearing large at the center of the screen and then minimizing itself to the upper right corner after? Or alternatively, you could just have a small red circle growing bright then dim, sort of "breathing," to help draw your attention. Just some thoughts. Thanks for an amazing game Larian Studios!

There's a little glitch with the combat tutorial. When you first get into a fight, it's meant to pop up a little window explaining things. It does but there's a catch - it's when you created character gets into combat, not when combat begins in general, so if your character is hiding and the others get into a fight, it doesn't show you the pop-up. It's only if your character breaks stealth that it does. It's just a small thing but something worth fixing before release.