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As a long time DM, this game makes me furious. Not because I don't like a good challenge, but because it feels like the game is actively being inconsistent with 5e rules, punishing players and all-in-all making an environment hostile to players, especially those who want to play a heroic character.

- every. damn. NPC. hates you. Why? Why does this have to be so damn oppressive? Where is the levity, the gratitude, the derring-do? Why is everyone such a dick? It doesn't make me want to solve quests because the people who give them to me are such c- well, you know.
- goblins have triple their MM health, loads of alchemists fire. It feels like the DM is cheating for no good reason.
- surfaces. surfaces everywhere. go away.
- the game wastes my time with big 'set piece' battles like the one at the gates of the druid grove. Lots of NPCs fighting lots of NPCs. I can't ambush or anything because a cutscene forces me into combat so far away from the action I spend most moves running. Just use a cutscene, please.
- most fights are so difficult that you need party optimisation, which means you'll need to be a cleric or have shadowheart and that's that.
- picking on low-armor backline targets or knocked out ones. Seriously, I get that in real life monsters will probably do this, but in gameplay the reality is people are going to just give up trying to have low armored casters in their party at all.
- and after all this, theres... nothing. no loot. no helpful items. everything seems empty.

This game has great potential but right now it feels like it is a great adventure in the hands of a shitty neckbeard DM who hates you.



Last edited by Grimo; 18/10/20 06:58 AM.
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+1 to everything you've said.

I'll just add that you're stuck with a bad DM, but your fellow players aren't great either : your companions just want you dead or away.

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+1 entire game feels like you got forced to play at a table where literally everyone hates you, and wants to fuck over you specifically. Reminds me of a D&D story I saw a while back where this dude made an Evil aligned character, and right at the start of the campaign the douchebag DM told everyone at the table he was playing an evil character. Didn't tell any of the other players alignments, just his. And then both the party and DM proceeded to attempt to kill him at every possible opportunity. Turn that into a video game and you have BG3

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I have the same feelings.

It's not very immersive atm and I have the feeling I'm only playing a tactical RPG, which is not my main concern in a BG / D&D game.

Last edited by Maximuuus; 18/10/20 07:38 AM.

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+1

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I don't understand the point about needing a Cleric, is it something specific?

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Originally Posted by Sunfly
I don't understand the point about needing a Cleric, is it something specific?


They're the healer class for the most part, they can excel in other area as well but they make the best healers above other classes, so with the way combat flows right now with explosive barrels, special arrows, ground effects, insane triple attacks and things like that you often need a lot of healing during combat and are therefore almost forced into having a cleric in the party.

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Originally Posted by Pupito
Originally Posted by Sunfly
I don't understand the point about needing a Cleric, is it something specific?


They're the healer class for the most part, they can excel in other area as well but they make the best healers above other classes, so with the way combat flows right now with explosive barrels, special arrows, ground effects, insane triple attacks and things like that you often need a lot of healing during combat and are therefore almost forced into having a cleric in the party.


But there's food and potions everywhere that don't consume spellslots. If anything Cleric feels like dead weight to me, I usually just have Shadowheart stay at camp while Lae'zel, Astarion, and Wyll do the next lifting.

Last edited by Sunfly; 18/10/20 08:13 AM.
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This I completly understand...where is Jaheira/ Minsc or Jan?Those essential balancing supportive NPCs.

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I agree about the companions. They're all so special it's getting annoying.

I just want an ordinary hero at this point. An Eder, Jaheira or Branwen. Ajantis, Keldorn, a boring predictable knight type. A light-hearted rogue like Coran.

Not everyone needs to be undead, alien, devil-spawn or have dark secrets (that are painfully obvious). It gets old. If everyone is extra special, no one is.

The mysterious hooded undead you encounter early in the game is another good example of how special falls flat. I thought he was a really cool and mysterious character. I was intrigued. Until he showed up at camp and turned into a vendor.

Last edited by 1varangian; 18/10/20 09:15 AM.
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An Eder-type companion would be great. He was so un-special and it was nice.

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Originally Posted by Raflamir
An Eder-type companion would be great. He was so un-special and it was nice.


Yeah he was special in being so aggressively normal, something this game really lacks. Apart from the PC, who seems remarkably shallow compared to each and every companion who could rightfully be the protagonist of his own game.

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It's pretty sad when the custom PC is the most bland and normal of all the characters, while the "side characters" are all super special. And I totally feel that about the undead guy becoming a vendor. I had that conversation with him and was so excited to bump into him later on in the game and see what he wanted from me and what he was all about, like maybe he had a questline or something for me? And then he just randomly shows up in my camp as the cheapest vendor in existence. Like really? Even the vendors in this game are more special than my PC!

Apparently, despite my character supposedly being the main character of this game, she's just some Drow named Tav who just so happened to get abducted by some mind flayers. Meanwhile one of my companions literally has something to do with a goddess and could apparently cause the destruction of the entire world. It's like the opposite of Skyrim, where instead of being some super badass dude who can eat the souls of dragons, you play as Lydia and your job is to just carry his shit around.

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Some strong opinions in this topic.

Remind yourselves, this is Early Access. We are all playing a custom made character. The companions in your party are the - as for now, unplayable - Origin characters with a full-fledged built-in storyline. Hence, your custom made character will indeed feel more bland than that of your party mates. Your custom made character will be calling all the shots , though.


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Originally Posted by Xantyr
Some strong opinions in this topic.

Remind yourselves, this is Early Access. We are all playing a custom made character. The companions in your party are the - as for now, unplayable - Origin characters with a full-fledged built-in storyline. Hence, your custom made character will indeed feel more bland than that of your party mates. Your custom made character will be calling all the shots , though.



Yet many people have no interest in playing origin characters instead of their custom ones. That worked for DOS2 where you could build every character to do whatever you wanted and the race selection was limited. But it does not for BG3 with fixed classes and more races than origin characters.

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Originally Posted by Xantyr
Some strong opinions in this topic.

Remind yourselves, this is Early Access. We are all playing a custom made character. The companions in your party are the - as for now, unplayable - Origin characters with a full-fledged built-in storyline. Hence, your custom made character will indeed feel more bland than that of your party mates. Your custom made character will be calling all the shots , though.



Origin characters aren't a good thing for a game franchised as Baldurs Gate. You either end up with a story shoehorned by Larian (Origin stories are totally written in advance, you can't customize much), or with a bland PC with nothing special (Custom made).

Either way, the main story is watered down because it has to fit with both Origin and Custom characters.

Whereas, in the old Baldurs Gate/Bioware games, you had one strong main character, almost entirely customable, along with enjoyable companions who were to remain companions all the way, not characters who would compete for the spotlight because of theses Origin story mechanics.

Usually, games make a choice in early stages of creation : either letting you play whatever character you want and add a strong story on top of it to make it feel special (let's say, Dragon Age Inquisition) or give you a premade character which allows the story to dig deep into what you're supposed to roleplay (let's say, Witcher 3).

Baldur's Gate 3 tries too much to be its own thing, and by not choosing an identity (be it for story or even gameplay with the very questionable choice of merging D&D5 and DOS mechanics), it just makes it bland and forgettable.


Last edited by Temperance; 18/10/20 11:17 AM.
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Originally Posted by Sunfly
Originally Posted by Pupito
Originally Posted by Sunfly
I don't understand the point about needing a Cleric, is it something specific?


They're the healer class for the most part, they can excel in other area as well but they make the best healers above other classes, so with the way combat flows right now with explosive barrels, special arrows, ground effects, insane triple attacks and things like that you often need a lot of healing during combat and are therefore almost forced into having a cleric in the party.


But there's food and potions everywhere that don't consume spellslots. If anything Cleric feels like dead weight to me, I usually just have Shadowheart stay at camp while Lae'zel, Astarion, and Wyll do the next lifting.


Yea that's great too... With all those healing potions and food everywhere the healer is useless^^


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Quote
- every. damn. NPC. hates you. Why? Why does this have to be so damn oppressive? Where is the levity, the gratitude, the derring-do? Why is everyone such a dick? It doesn't make me want to solve quests because the people who give them to me are such c- well, you know.


They don't. Sorry, but this point is just plain wrong. Zevlor is a cool dude, as is Halsin, Rath the Tiefling couple and many more are nice.

Quote
- goblins have triple their MM health, loads of alchemists fire. It feels like the DM is cheating for no good reason.


This is indeed a problem.

Quote
- surfaces. surfaces everywhere. go away.


Make them >really< rare. Like just the powder room + the trap in the cave would be more than enough for act 1.

Quote
- the game wastes my time with big 'set piece' battles like the one at the gates of the druid grove. Lots of NPCs fighting lots of NPCs. I can't ambush or anything because a cutscene forces me into combat so far away from the action I spend most moves running. Just use a cutscene, please.


This is the one thing you cannot go around, and this is fine to me. All the other battles are not forced in a certain way.

Quote
- most fights are so difficult that you need party optimisation, which means you'll need to be a cleric or have shadowheart and that's that.


Doing my 2nd play right now, no cleric in the party. Just Wizard, Ranger, Rogue, Fighter custom party. You dont *need* any class.

Quote
- picking on low-armor backline targets or knocked out ones. Seriously, I get that in real life monsters will probably do this, but in gameplay the reality is people are going to just give up trying to have low armored casters in their party at all.


I agree and think this is probably an AI bug, as they atm use too much meta information to make "optimal" plays.

Quote
- and after all this, theres... nothing. no loot. no helpful items. everything seems empty.


You talk about a bad DM, but tbh: a bad DM is one that has to gift their players something for every encounter. "You killes 3 goblins? Here have a Staff of the Magi!"


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Originally Posted by Grimo
As a long time DM, this game makes me furious. Not because I don't like a good challenge, but because it feels like the game is actively being inconsistent with 5e rules, punishing players and all-in-all making an environment hostile to players, especially those who want to play a heroic character.

- every. damn. NPC. hates you. Why? Why does this have to be so damn oppressive? Where is the levity, the gratitude, the derring-do? Why is everyone such a dick? It doesn't make me want to solve quests because the people who give them to me are such c- well, you know.
- goblins have triple their MM health, loads of alchemists fire. It feels like the DM is cheating for no good reason.
- surfaces. surfaces everywhere. go away.
- the game wastes my time with big 'set piece' battles like the one at the gates of the druid grove. Lots of NPCs fighting lots of NPCs. I can't ambush or anything because a cutscene forces me into combat so far away from the action I spend most moves running. Just use a cutscene, please.
- most fights are so difficult that you need party optimisation, which means you'll need to be a cleric or have shadowheart and that's that.
- picking on low-armor backline targets or knocked out ones. Seriously, I get that in real life monsters will probably do this, but in gameplay the reality is people are going to just give up trying to have low armored casters in their party at all.
- and after all this, theres... nothing. no loot. no helpful items. everything seems empty.

This game has great potential but right now it feels like it is a great adventure in the hands of a shitty neckbeard DM who hates you.




Me and my gf are playing in a D&D group and after playing some bg3 we decided that it's like our own DM is running this game, and those are exactly the flaws we talked about lol. Giving monsters stupid abilities out of the blue, all the NPCs are assholes.

So far every NPC that talked shit to me I killed. Same goes for that stupid tiefling with the crossbow, she want you to do something for her but in the process of giving you the quest she curses you so many time and act like she can take the whole party that I just Eldrich Blasted her stupid face to oblivion.

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Originally Posted by VincentNZ
Originally Posted by Raflamir
An Eder-type companion would be great. He was so un-special and it was nice.


Yeah he was special in being so aggressively normal, something this game really lacks. Apart from the PC, who seems remarkably shallow compared to each and every companion who could rightfully be the protagonist of his own game.


As has been pointed out, it's like that because the origin characters are intended to be the protagonists of their own games.

In some ways, the custom PC is the Eder of the game. I am not really sure why Larian decided to follow along in the same ruts as DOS2, but I suspect it's because they want to differentiate themselves from the original makers of the BG series (Bioware/Black Isle).

In any event, I second a lot of the things mentioned in this thread. I have seen people mention that there'll be more companions in the game by launch, but I haven't found any actual evidence of this... And I wonder, if they haven't already started with them, do they realistically have enough time to include more companions?

I found myself at the end of the Goblin Camp story in the home base, with no one really interested in my character except Astarion. Which is a bit awkward because I prefer to play wlw characters, and neither lady liked a good hearted PC, regardless of their gender. It might not be a big issue to some players, but romance is important to me in my RPGs and to be left out just because someone early in development decided to make both female companions either out and out evil, or at least evil adjacent does not feel real good. BG1+2 had the advantage of having a fairly big selection of companions, and so gave the player a better choice of who would accompany them on their adventures.

Anyway... I'm going to put BG3 away for a few months and come back later when the EA has advanced a bit and see what changes. (And keep an eye on the forums in the meantime.)

Z.

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