I just finished my first play through with around 30 playtime as shown by the last saved game I made and I had lots of fun! I cannot wait for the full game to release! I also dipped into multiplayer for a few hours so far with 3 players including myself.
About me: I’m 26 years old, played D&D 5e for about 4 years now (DM’d most of the time), and would say I tend to be the one referred to regarding rules on my gaming table, and I couldn’t quite shut off my inner voice telling me when things in BG3 were „not like in DnD“.
I only watched a let’s play of BG1 and never played 1 or 2 myself, but I played alot of other RPGs (DOS1/2, Oblivion/Skyrim, the Gothic Series (there is no 4th part), Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 to name a few).
I made a document while on my playthrough to keep track the important things I liked / did not like, and even though I saw most of the things already mentioned in other threads I wanted to share my opinion as a whole.
First of, the positives:
- I loved the general feeling of the game, it felt like a DnD-campaign, with all the interesting characters, the drama, as well as those funny moments and quirky failures that arise from rolling the dice. (I sometimes caught myself reloading just to check what would have happened if I did not botch that die roll, but mostly stopped before pulling through, to have more new stuff to be found while replaying.)
- I love pretty much all the characters. Even characters that are just not likeable at the start (or ever) like Astarion, Lae’zel or Khaga are done so well, that I am not pissed at them for just being pricks, but have so many moments when I can appreciate the character.
- The animations for spells, projectiles and attacks are beautiful. Also the underdark… holy moly it is looking so, so well allready!
- Multiplayer party splitting works quite well, you feel independent from your party (which can also lead to some problems, described later on).
Next, the things I think need some improvement:
- The AI seemed really fucking focused on Gale in my playthrough. He’s got the lowest HP and AC in my party and is the caster, so I totally get the smarter foes trying to get him as soon as they can, but it felt weird to have the more „stupid“ creatures (Int < 10), like Minotaurs, Intellect Devourers (without a Mindflayer to guide and command them) and Phase Spiders, ignore everything and rush past other enemies to chase after the low AC target.
- The sometimes wacky AI in combination with high ground giving all ranged attacks advantage made me abandon all „frontline“ kind of playstyle and go for an all ranged party bombarding the enemies from above whenever possible.
I think just taking the advantage/disadvantage from high ground / low ground, or giving more reason to go into melee, like flanking/facing rules, would do the trick. Right now, melee is just a place where the brutes can hit me more easily and I am more likely to miss. - Keep the actions / bonus actions what they are (except the potions probably). This big load of possible bonus actions takes so much power from the rogue with all characters being able to do the stuff, which is normally an action as a bonus action (Rogue only has the bonus action sprinting left, at least…)
-> Make pushing an Attack, later on multi-attack should offer the ability to use Shove and then a weapon hit or the other way round. (ruling it as an offhand-attack when handling a non-two-handed weapon can be okay I think, but maybe breaks balance a little)
-> Maybe throwing should also be an attack.
-> Going into hiding should be an Action.
-> Dipping seems a little out of place in DnD, but I am fine with it being a bonus action.
-> Disengaging and jumping NEED to be separated and jumping should be part of the normal movement, neither an action nor a bonus action. Disengaging should be an Action. - In multiplayer, you should be pulled into the “important†conversations when they start (or the player starting these conversations should have the option to alert the rest of the party and they can join by clicking a button or something like that) and be able to chime in with your skills (e.g. roll for Nature/Religion etc) if you are listening in. I would also like to have the ability to have multiple player characters talk in the same conversation. It would not make a difference in single player, but increase the DnD-like feeling in multiplayer. Even though I can understand that this creates a big mess for the design-team having to get this implemented in a rewarding way for all party members.
- The deathsaves-icon is a mess (but looks pretty^^). The skull and sun look like a first success/failure when nothing has happened yet and I had some annoying encounters with that particular icon.
- Introduce fog of war. In my first playthrough I used the hanging stone at the lost ruins, and then saw the enemies inside preparing an ambush through the closed doors. Felt just weird.
- The wizard should not be able to learn spells that are not on his list. A wizard who is able to learn all cleric spells is straight up broken. He has so much utility and damage already. There is no need to boost it further with healing and spells like guiding bolt, prayer of healing and cause wounds. (maybe that’s why the AI hates Gale so much…)
Finally, some stuff I personally did not like, but are completely up to the preferences of each player:
- I did not like that the skills of my characters did not increase what they rolled, but reduced the rolls DC. If I’m really awesome at animal handling (let‘s say +6) and the DC originally is a 10, I don’t want to see a 4 as target DC and maybe roll a 2 or 3 even though my bonus is +6. It just does not feel right. Just tweak the exisiting way to roll the d20 a little bit: show the D20 and the target just as it is now; only also show the bonus you get on the side. Then roll the die, add the bonus and check if it is a success or a failure. (DnD Rules nerd coming through: also skill checks do not automatically succeed/fail on a Nat20/Nat1, so that should not be a reason either to keep it the way it is, DnD Rules nerd out)
- Why are magic missiles locked on a fix flightpath and therefore sometimes blocked by terrain? The spell exists to always hit while dealing relatively low damage. Having two of three missiles miss because of the path is just annoying.
- Should cantrips create a surface effect?
-> Especially firebolt causing the spellcasters to have to succeed on 3 to 4 concentration checks from a single cantrip seems just broken. If you want to keep the on fire-effect , give a saving throw to not be set on fire or something.
-> Ray of frost can freeze the ground, if there is some liquid to freeze or if aimed at the ground I think.
-> I liked acid splash, as it was a new take, but if it has additional benefits, it should probably deal lower damage. - I personally don’t like the to hit % chances that are shown. I get that these tell you “if you stand up there, your chance to hit them increases†and “This guy is really fuckin tough!†but it breaks immersion. I would like an option to turn the % off if I wish to.
