Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback First playthrough feedback

Hi all

Wanted to share my initial feedback having completed my first playthrough.

I played tabletop pre BG1 and 2 so am fully sold on the DND universe. Time permitting, replayability should be good given the setting. Not overly familiar with 5e rules yet though.

Overall impression - this has the capacity to be really great, I enjoyed it. The storyline, visuals, music etc were all good and I was keen to keep playing. On a good day I’d give it an 8/10 so far. On a day where I spent 2 hours stuck on the same encounter before working out the winning strategy it’s more of a 6 or 7.

The following are my observations to help lift the game towards a 10/10.

Camera needs work - lost count of the number of times something was only just beyond the screen which would have been readily accessible if you could change the camera angle rather than just rotate (eg combat with enemies further away).

The hot bar is too cluttered - having spells, potions, scrolls, other items etc all in one place doesn’t work. The BG2 template for controls was nice and intuitive - eg want a spell, click on spell icon then select what you want to cast.

Inventory - unlimited slots is conceptually ok but you shouldn’t be able to carry twice your weight capacity before there’s an impact. Stuff regularly got lost in my inventory by late game too so if you go with unlimited slots better sorting is needed.

Party selection/movement - kinda clunky. The BG2 movement system should be the template, the current system is a retrograde step. Character selection needs streamlining too - like if I move something to an npcs inventory and click equip it should equip for that npc not the character who is leading the party movement which at that moment is unrelated.

Character creation - needs more flexibility, particularly with body shapes and sizes (eg sliders). I had a half elf wizard whose arms/shoulders/chest were just disproportionately large for his head size and his character. It bothered me in every cut scene.

Skills/proficiencies - many of these seem to be redundant. I got my wizard insight and investigation as they fit my character concept and I don’t recall using either once. Also felt there was insufficient reward for having certain skills and insufficient penalty for not having them. Eg I could still get by with occasional deception even though I didn’t have that proficiency.

Spells - not that familiar with 5e but it kinda felt wrong to be able to cast 8 magic missiles at level 4 if I felt like it, rather than use the diverse range of spells I’d actually memorised. I also found concentration slightly annoying - I could cast one buff per combat and couldn’t stack things, that could be 5e but I felt it neutered the variety of spells actually used, particularly cleric ones. Oh and of course a wizard has no business learning cleric spells from scrolls.

Jump - cartoon sounds and animations ought to be dialled down.

Attacking from range at height - I love the concept of verticality and the possibilities of that but attacking from height was way too powerful. Classic example being the harpy fight - stand in the right high ground spot and get everyone to shoot down and it’s over in 3 rounds with every shot >90% chance to hit. Play it as you actually would the first time and you get annihilated with every chance to hit <45%. Tactics should absolutely matter but one tactic should not be that powerful or it negates all others.

Combat balance - I found combat was usually either too hard or too easy. I often used magic missile and avoided spells that had a chance to hit. Because once I understood the mechanics it was easier to just get high ground advantage and use a crossbow than bother with any spells that were more nuanced. The balance isn’t quite right there. Also found the attack of opportunity a bit confusing, I rarely seemed to get it even when enemies would wander past all the time.

Origin characters - npc back stories seem ok so far. Never played the dos games but the origin character concept is silly in my view - I play dnd to create my own vision for a character not somebody else’s, that’s a huge part of the attraction of the game for me.

Have a lovely day!

Welcome Rusty, good feedback!

Much obliged!

I should add romance to my feedback list. I don’t usually bother with it as I just don’t find it interesting. I made zero attempt to romance anyone, picked mostly “good” alignment choices and then at the after party thing had every npc want to jump me (except Lae’zal who gave me a hard no [probably while also disapproving])!

My 2 issues with this are:

1. it really shouldn’t be that easy to romance npcs when you’re not even trying; and
2. I found the sexual orientation of the npcs way too fluid in that after party scene only. I could see Astarion’s reaction being true to character. But the rest I was like eg Wyll hasn’t even been in my party and wants some action with my male character despite there being no indication from either side of being inclined to that.

Anyway there you go!

Hi mate,

just a few points.

You can actually disable what goes automatically in the hotbar in the options menu. I think it should default to just spells and torches. I agree, it's a mess without changing it. t should probably be extended by default too, as the short version fills too quickly.

That equip thing bugs me too. It works like that for potions and food too. Seems strange that I can use someone else's potion in their inventory. I think it might be related to how they've set up multiplayer. I've accidently equipped the wrong thing on a character a few times this way.

You can actually sort the inventory by size latest weight and type, plus you have the option to right click on an object to send it directly to camp. People tend to hate harsh limitations on inventory in games as a rule and, as it's bound by strength, likely you will only have one party member with a decent strength at a time. I tend to do this with books, herbs and anything I'm not going to use or sell. Really cuts thing down.

The skills and spells work pretty much as 5e intends, so likely they won't change. Insight is used a few times in conversations and cut scenes and investigation finds some traps/hidden items. It's still based on a roll though and your character might have failed these. At lower levels the proficiency bonus is only 2, so a cleric with 18 wisdom will actually be better than a fighter with 10 wisdom and proficiency in animal handling or perception or one of the other wisdom based skills.

Magic missile does get a lot of use, especially when you get a certain amulet later on, but spells like grease, sleep, shatterwave and thunderwave can be very useful situationally too. I definitely agree that wizards should only be able to learn wizard spells, but healing word is the only non wizard spell I would actually lose a wizard spellslot for.

I completely agree about the camera. It bugs me that I can actually target something at range but I can't see it even with the camera zoomed out. Zooming the camera all the way in actually gives you an over the shoulder view which can be helpful, but you can't tilt this so any verticality and the enemy remains unseen. At least you can now target with spells and weapons by clicking on a portrait, which is a lot better than it was.

Definitely agree about movement, although I'd really like a toggle where you can switch the system from the way it is to basically the way you're describing on the fly. Sometimes it's cool just controlling your character while the other party members follow you as if they're independent entities, sometimes you want total control of their movements. They do seem a lot better at avoiding traps and difficult terrain than they used to be. Cases like that it might be easier to let the ai guide their pathing.

Mate that’s life changing info re the hotbar - not sure how I’ve missed that in the options? But stuff just got lost in that mess.

Re inventory - yes you can sort but it’s not always intuitive, some items aren’t always in the category you expect...

Re spells, if those are the 5e rules then so be it, my concern is more that the balance issues in combat led me to always use the 100% guaranteed hit at the expense of more variety.

In terms of the skills, I recall a couple of insight conversation options but my impression was they were very much few and far between when compared to persuasion or deception. Investigation I only remember one check, possibly in the basement when you see the scratches in front of the bookcase. My impression was hey next time I’d just make sure you have someone good at perception and persuasion in the party and you can completely ignore certain other skills.

It all points to something like a lack of tactical/roleplaying variety. To be fair, we only have a small slice of the world so far but once I found my feet with the mechanics I tended to fall back on tried and tested approaches both in and out of combat.