Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
#738780 25/11/20 07:10 AM
Joined: Oct 2020
N
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
N
Joined: Oct 2020
So I wanted to give my feedback after roughly 16 hours. (Before the new patch will change things up)
Sadly it is a bit earlier than I wanted but I think there will be more future iterations where I can add more things.

I have not finished the early access part yet.

First I wanted to say that I think this forum is really a bad way of getting feedback. You probably have an internal tool that makes it clearer to see, but for us it is just one huge mess. This should be ordered by location and features so that all the information regarding one mechanic will stay together. I would have to check hundreds of posts to see if others reported the same thing as I did.

So I try to order my own post into bugs, suggestions for existing mechanics and my personal opinion on bigger things like story and level design.

Let's start with the easy one, Bugs:

Location: Bog
- I had multiple crashes in the Bog, mainly when Asterion walked into one of the "mines"
- I somehow managed to jump into the deep water between the main bog and the area with the mephits. (Character acted normal under water)
- The hag does not spawn if you sneak into her main room (where you fight her), there is a trigger missing (even after revealing yourself)
- The texture of the well in front of the hags house seems to be loaded differently than the rest. If you move away a bit it is completely gone.

Location: Waukeen's Rest
- After saving the person in the fire, the cutscene is outside. But the characters all stay inside the burning building.
- In the fire the tactical mode button did not work consistently
- Wayfinding in the fire did also not work consistently

Location: Toll collector
- My main character could not speak with Anders the paladin, it would just not trigger the dialogue (worked with other chars)
- The secret door in the basement of the building would not stay open. It would open/close all the time when switching on the mechanism, but you could still walk through it.
- The one person standing outside of the building somehow was able to attack me through closed doors.

Location: Camp
- I had multiple crashes during dialog scenes in the camp
- After one of the night cutscenes I could not form a group anymore and had to move each character individually out of the camp

General:
- My characters really like to take shortcuts over buildings and then fall off taking damage.
- My characters also really like to walk into surfaces after fights.
- Sneak attack seems to be working on each target for me independently of the requirements.

So now to go on with suggestions to existing mechanics to improve them:

Jumping: I saw already a lot of posts here, so I keep it short. You have to do something about it to make it less annoying. (Maybe add automatical jumping for the group if one character succeeds in not-tactical mode)
Perception: Whenever there is a succesful perception check there is a 50% that I have no idea what my characters have just discovered. Please highlight the discovery more.
Dialogs: The space bar is used to skip cutscenes and to select answers in a dialog. This will always lead to accidental answers. (I would just remove space to select answers and only use the number keys)
Start Menu: The start menu seems to behave weirdly. Sometimes it starts on my primary screen, sometimes on my secondary, sometimes in the background. It also stays on after the game is launched which (in my opinion) should not be. Lastly, I propose again a "Continue" button in the menu to immediately jump into the last game you played, for convenience.
Tactical Mode: Pressing Space should immediately stop the game. Characters might still have to finish their last movement but it still should allow me to freely assess the scene.
Traps: Triggering a trap should immediately start the tactical mode.
Finishing fights: When a character is dying or there is still some time-critical task to be done (like saving the girl in the burning cage), the game should not leave tactical mode even if all enemies are dead.
Camp: It is currently impossible to access the inventory and skills of all group members in your camp. (Or at least I didn't find out how) I could only access the 4 characters that you use during the day.

Personal opinion. This is my personal opinion on some bigger mechanics/story:

Time pressure: I really don't like it when the game puts pressure on the player to resolve a certain problem but then encourages the player to explore the world at the same time. Now I have to listen every time to go to a certain place to fix the problem and that it is sooo important that we do it right now, but if I would run there immediately I would be totally underleveled. And if explore the world and take my time I don't seem to have any negative consequences. My opinion is: If there is a time-critical problem, it should be possible to solve it immediately. If you want to encourage players to explore, the problem should not be time-critical. (well at least no short-term) In the lore of D&D it says that the time of no return is 1 hour for tadpoles. If you want to satisfy the lore and give the player time to explore you could give Lae'zel (or some other person/goddess) a skill that delays the ceremorphosis for a bit.

Challenge rating: This is a criticism I already had for Original Sin 2: While I appreciate challenging battles, it gets a bit annoying if every single fight (even in late game, where the characters should be stronger than most other characters) is challenging. From what I have seen it is not as bad in Baldurs Gate 3 but I would appreciate if the game also lets the players breath a bit. Otherwise you force a lot players into min/max character builds and less on roleplaying.

Story: One thing I haven't understood is why the gith dragon riders could immediately follow the mindflayer into the winter location, but not into Avernus and back into the starting level. (Maybe add a cutscene how they have to fight the devils in Avernus and therefore get delayed?)

Level Design: You are going a similar way that Original Sin 2 and Dragon Age 3 went, where you present the whole world as a couple of big open world levels. I personally do prefer smaller levels that are connected over a map. Your design gives a feeling that everything interesting is super close together and that you can't really travel further away. It also makes it difficult to create different environments if you want to stay consistend (and logical). I would prefer something like Dragon Age 1 or Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir with a map, travel, locations, random encounters, hidden locations that can only be revealed with a perception check etc etc. That would feel more like pen and paper and like a big world where not everything is crammed together in one spot. A mix of both ways with some big areas and a lot of small ones might work best.

Skill checks: I would prefer it if skill checks are not visible. If I don't see something in real-life then I don't see that I don't see it. In game that just leads to reloading or frustration.

Ok so that is my first round, hopefully there will be some more. This all sounds a bit negative but I am better at pointing out things that seem out of place. But be assured that I payed the money for the game because I have seen your incredible work on Original Sin 2 and therefore trust you to deliver an exceptional game.

Best regards,
Night

Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by nightcrawler
Level Design: You are going a similar way that Original Sin 2 and Dragon Age 3 went, where you present the whole world as a couple of big open world levels. I personally do prefer smaller levels that are connected over a map. Your design gives a feeling that everything interesting is super close together and that you can't really travel further away. It also makes it difficult to create different environments if you want to stay consistend (and logical). I would prefer something like Dragon Age 1 or Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir with a map, travel, locations, random encounters, hidden locations that can only be revealed with a perception check etc etc. That would feel more like pen and paper and like a big world where not everything is crammed together in one spot. A mix of both ways with some big areas and a lot of small ones might work best.


Fully agreed. I've said it a couple of times already, but it's ridiculous when enemy camps are a rock's throw from each other. Or... anything's a rock's throw away, for that matter. That's a huge hit to believability.

Joined: Dec 2010
B
member
Offline
member
B
Joined: Dec 2010
That's a good point about the space bar being used both for skipping dialogue and selecting answers, hadn't mentioned that in my own feedback thread (found here: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=736516). I accidentally selected the first dialogue option a few times because of that.

e: although I very much disagree about the skill checks, if they're going to be in the game the way they are, I would rather have as much information as possible about the way they were calculated. Same for the dice rolls during combat. Otherwise I'll basically never understand the mechanics, I'm not a D&D player.

Again, this is something the Pillars of Eternity series does well, I hope they take inspiration from them in this regard.

Last edited by Bittereinder; 25/11/20 03:58 PM.
Joined: Oct 2020
N
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
N
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Bittereinder

e: although I very much disagree about the skill checks, if they're going to be in the game the way they are, I would rather have as much information as possible about the way they were calculated. Same for the dice rolls during combat. Otherwise I'll basically never understand the mechanics, I'm not a D&D player.

Again, this is something the Pillars of Eternity series does well, I hope they take inspiration from them in this regard.


Then they should maybe add an option to hide/show it. So everyone is happy.

Last edited by nlghtcrawIer; 25/11/20 09:25 PM.
Joined: Dec 2010
B
member
Offline
member
B
Joined: Dec 2010
Originally Posted by nlghtcrawIer
Originally Posted by Bittereinder

e: although I very much disagree about the skill checks, if they're going to be in the game the way they are, I would rather have as much information as possible about the way they were calculated. Same for the dice rolls during combat. Otherwise I'll basically never understand the mechanics, I'm not a D&D player.

Again, this is something the Pillars of Eternity series does well, I hope they take inspiration from them in this regard.


Then they should maybe add an option to hide/show it. So everyone is happy.


Yes, agreed.

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Quebec
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Quebec
Some rather good points : agree with most.


For failed Perception checks, the level design as such can indeed just leave visible hints / clues, which is sometimes the case already.

Currently, when I visibly fail a Perception check, I sort of know there is a hidden mine/trap on the road :P

Joined: Oct 2020
N
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
N
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Baraz

For failed Perception checks, the level design as such can indeed just leave visible hints / clues, which is sometimes the case already.

Currently, when I visibly fail a Perception check, I sort of know there is a hidden mine/trap on the road :P


But see if my character is not smart/attentive enough to find the trap, then he assumes there is no trap. If I show that there is something hidden in the area then I as the player know more than my character.

You could solve this cleverly. For example by saying you need a skill check of 15 to spot the trap but only a skill check of 10 to show signs of the trap (some pattern on the floor or drops of blood etc). Combine this with an intelligence check and your character knows something is off but not where. It would be annoying in a pen and paper but in a game you can role as much as you want in the background.

I just generally don't like when the player knows more than the character. The whole style of playing changes because you always want to know what you just missed.


Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5