Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My thoughts and feedback: Main Story, Origin Characters, Single player feel

First of all, I love BG and Larian works both, I dont neccessarily feel that BG being like D:OS in certain aspects is a bad thing at all, many people called it a reskin but I dont feel that it would be a bad thing if handled well.
I also dont really care about combat, I enjoy it if its good but can also ignore it if I dont enjoy it much, my understanding of DnD is basic so I rarely get fully use out of the systems in these games anyways, so I wont talk about gameplay at all, even tho I understand it is very important if not most important for some people.
I play games for the story, the characters and to be immersed in the rich world and lore of DnD (Or pathfinder or what have you)
Its been kinda hard to articulate what doesnt feel great about the early access BG3 but I eventually narrowed it down to these three things in the title, they are interconnected to a degree but all these aspects, aspects I consider the most importnat, are flawed in a way that makes me enjoy the game less, so here I will try to explain why and how to possibly improve it.

Before that tho I want to say that I believe that this is still going to be an incredible game, the developers clearly have a lot of love and have already done immense amount of work. I dont really want to criticise as much as express my opinion and hope it will possibly affect the game that will increase my enjoyment of it.
So, my first and most important issue, the main story. Honestly, it feels hard to follow, much of it is missable and it feels barely coherent and connected. The opening is strong but once you are given the "timer" the game just lets you off and it feels incredibly weird, you get several very thin leads but you cant even consciously pick the one you want to follow as the map is gigantic and even on the way in the direction you chose to go you can run into things that will put you off that path or take you down an entirely different one. The main story so far feels like a collection of separate adventures where every lead is a different quest that is connected only by the thinnest of threads.

The companions react appropriately to what they feel is imminent doom, but while we, the players know we are in no actual danger at the moment, the characters, including ours do not, this is the inherent issue of giving us a timer like this but not providing any clear way to actually rush forward and try to at least learn that we are somewhat save as soon as possible. Thats on your Larian, you chose to put a death counter on our heads and yet let us wonder this world as much as we want without reprecussions, but honestly, I wouldnt mind this, if I had the feeling I am at least progressing towards a specific goal. We do have that goal but progressing towards it feels, as I said, like bunch of separate adventures that jus happen accidentally.
This I believe is in large part due to the world design and imo could be largely fixed by separating the world map into smaller places, like it was in previous Baldurs Gate games, this si something I hope will be added because the map already has several map icons, and it would also solve the issue where you can easily miss out on important plot elements if you do not take your time to explore everywhere, which feels very countrintuitive given that you are on said timer. You can add these interactions and important events as "random" encounters between the maps, its been done in the likes of Dragon Age Origins or Pathfinder Kingmaker and it works great in my opinion.

In regards to the main story not being very cohesive, or at least the pacing being off, I dont know how to improve that per say, but I do think more detailed journal system and more specific choices in terms of where to go and which quest you chose to follow would help. Also some kinda scene where you discuss it over with your companions and make a decision together, which way to pursue once you have more than one lead, they already express their opinions about it if asked anway.
This whole problem however stems from my second issue and that is the single player feel, by that I mean that the single player doesnt actually feel like its designed to be single player very much. From the way the game simply doesnt pause when you use esc., to the world being so large and interconnected, with multiple solutions to everything to account for more than one player at the time, it can be felt in pretty much all apects of the game.
This is certainly an unpopular opinion, given that many people will want to play this game with friends, at least upon further replays, but personally i do not plan to and I absolutely hate that the multiplayer level and game design from D:OS games is here in BG3. If anything, this is the thing I do not want taken from D:OS.
The game is simply designed for freedom of play, decision and movement of several players instead of one and it feels clunky and unwieldy (Is that a word?) when playing in single player. As I said before, being able to so easily miss out on important aspects of even the main plot, is imo down to this decision and the way multiplayer is implemented. It clear you wanted to follow the D:OS design philosophy of providing multiple ways to achieve and reach things and while this isnt neccessarily an issue even for single player, it makes the game feel incredibly disconnected, as if exploration was an enirely different part of gameplay than progressing the story and you simply cant avoid it.

This is a very hard thing to solve, id just mostly ask for better separation of single player and multiplayer, some of the issues can be aleviated with what I described above, cleaner ui, more information in journal, separate map, to give us better decision making, but it mostly comes down to the game feeling like its single player is the second most important, behind multiplayer and thats a feeling I very much dislike.
This has been an issue I had in D:OS 2 as well, I loved the lore and the story, but it was told in chunks and easily missable ones at that, it wasnt a coherent narrative the first time around at all and you know what, that was fine, because D:OS is a different series, but this is Baldurs Gate, again, this is the instance where just a new coat of paint on what you did in D:OS is not the best solution.

And my third issue, please correct me here if I am wrong, I very much wish to be wrong.
I hate the origin characters. I love them as companions, but the idea of origin characters is terrible and I am stunned its being continued with, especially in BG.
I disliked them in D:OS and in my four playthroughs I never played as one, I started a fifth playthrough recently but cant get into it very much, that is simply because I do not enjoy playing as someone else in these types of games. You even say that this game is about us as players, yet almost without a doubt the optimal way to play it, the best way to experience the most of the story and get the most out of the plot and lore, is to play as someone else, the origin characters.
You used the tag system in D:OS and that meant that no matter what you did, you could only ever as yourself with the few "ordinary" tags the game gave us, while the origin characters had access to the same "ordinary" tags + their own. Meaning unless you played as one of them, you were missing out on new events, conversations reactions, possibly even more lore or backround and different approach to quests and such.

This is so in your face oppossite of what these games are about, and I understand, you do not have to play as an origin character the enjoy the game, but as a person who wants to see and do all there is to do, it FEELS SUBOPTIMAL, or like a wrong choice, to play as your own created character. That is simply unforgivable.
And given the amount of questions about this I am not alone in this feeling. To this day nobody can really answer the question of what you are missing out if you do not play as Origin character, but most people agree that it is better to play as one to get more story.
Unless this gets properly explained or changed, many players, including me will feel like we made the wrong choices when playing as "us" and that is a horrible feeling to have. Yes, you can enjoy their stories as companions and get full understanding off it, but you will always know that there is more to it, as it is you simply heard it, but if you play as Origin character you can experience it, as well as everything else that the player character can and experiecing the story is exactly what we, or at least I want.
Id say scrap Origin characters as playable, but obviously that wouldnt happen, especially not on a word of a random fan, its too far into development and its clearly and idea you as developers want to have in your games, given that you brough it over despite the questions asked about it in D:OS 2. But I beg you, give us a proper explanation of what you will get and what you will miss out in relation to their stories when playing as OC instead of Origin character and make the gap of missable content as minimal as possible.

Another option for this would be giving us an option to experience crucial moments in their companion quests as them, letting us essentially switch with them and play as them for a while during the duration of the quest, which would make it far easier to experience the content locked behind playing as them and still play as us, also it would reduce the amount of unneccessary replays to see all the points of view of all the companions. Or let us hear their thoughts through the tadpole and answer as them, something like that, just dont make us play as them.

And thats it, not very eloquent and I am sure its hard to understand but I hope the main pointst get across. The short of it is, the main story barely feels like the main story, past certain point its just random adventures barely connected to the overall goal. The multiplayer design permieates the single player experience as well, something I feel like needs to be looked at and the Origin characters... well ideally they wouldnt be playable, instead expanded upon as companions, but if nothing else I would love to have a clear understanding of what I am missing by not wanting to play as one and having that missable content minimal.
I love BG and I love Larian works, even your older works were great games so I have full trust you will make this into a great game, I just hope its a great game that is just as enjoyable for me as it is for people who enjoy multiplayer, want to focus on exploration or enjoy playing as Origin characters as well, so far these issues simply take away from my enjoyment.
If I have gotten some thigns wrong do let me know and explain please (anyone who reads this) and if you agree/disagree and can help me in getting a better grasp on these issues id appreciate it.

I do agree that the concept of "origin characters" feels a bit wrong in BG3. It would be better if the "origin" part would be more like in Dragon Age, where you could play out something prior to the main event depending on what "background" you choose. You still make YOUR character, but you get to play something prior to be being taken by the mindflayers depending on the background you chose.

That would be great. And these Origin characters could feature in those origins, giving you preexisting knowledge of them in the game.
I loved Origins in Dragon Age and wouldnt mind if the Origin Characters here were like a template, who you could have been before the start of the game, but as it is it simply doesnt work for me at all. It just feels like im always missing out on something if im not playing as Origin character and I simply do not want to play as predetermined character in cprg, especially not in BG.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up; you're not alone in your sentiments here...

If you can spare the time and effort, I'd strongly recommend that you submit this feedback through Larian's feedback submission form (Here) as well, since that's one way to be sure that your voice will be heard.

I could see the separation being helpful, generally I think it's related to map layout and everything being to close to each other. You can't run without tripping over something else. For example there is a goblin base just down the road from druid grove, go right gnolls, and go left swamp. There is a small road just to detour away from all this.

Greefall lets play, picked a random vid for world building example.

Pretty much, in DOS2, I don't remember the exact reason but I always got that the feeling that my custom character was inferior to the premades. There was some kind of in-game feature or something that caused this, think it has to do with the tag system and custom characters getting generic lines where premades get unique. It's like playing a pnp d&d game where the dm makes his own character, there will be favoritism in some form.

Thanks I will repost this there as well. I have already written something similar only a few days into the early access after I finished act 1 for the first time, I dont think it was nearly as coherent as this post tho as I was only just getting my mind wrapped around what I thought was "wrong" in the game.
Glad to hear im not alone, honestly the main story feel is probably the worst thing for me, but I genuinely do believe that it is connected to the overall design that seeps in from the multiplayer neccessities and that simply sucks. It was ok in D:OS 2, thats a different thing entirely but this is Baldurs Gate, and as much as I love Larian, I did hope for more than just copy pase of their style in this regard.

If I remember correctly, while yes, you do talk about the fact that none of you are dying yet, it is like the third conversation in the camp, it comes after a night where everyone is very sick and it seems like you are about to turn into mindflayers, everyone acknowledges that it is odd we have not turned yet, but its not as tho we know the reason or that it will not happen for sure. It doesnt do much to easy the tension at all imo. But of course, as you say you can go for hours without going to the camp again, if we are expected to explore without limits at least give us some sort of insurance from one of the possible healers that we are in no immdiate danger or something.

Agreed about the map layout, like I outlined, I do believe that is to accomodate the multiple possible people playing at the same time and the separation would really help, it would at least give you the illusion that this is a bigger place. You are correct that its not as much as the map being big, as it is the map being incredibly packed and agian that feels like something done for multiplayer, because while one player is talking the others can explore around. I cant really name another game that makes me feel like I absolutely have to explore or I miss out on important even main story related content, its like exploration is a whole another gameplay feature that you simply cant skip.

Played greedfall, its very good imo


Absolutely agreed with you on the Origin characters, I find it odd especially given how much emphasis they put on the tag lines of the sort "your character, your story" or such. And it is the tag system yes, you have a choice of backround tag and are given the race tag depending on what race you play, you can also get hero or villain tags during the game I believe, problem is, the origin characters have their own tags that enable them to experience not only their quests differently but also have wholy unique interactions and reactions ON TOP of the generic ones that all the custom characters can have, as they also have access to the backround and race tags of course. This makes absolutely no sense to me, and just like you, as I wrote, it makes me feel like I should be playing as the origin characters, which is something I absolutely do not want to do, you can roleplay within that character for sure, but thats not why I play games like Baldurs Gate, I doubt anyone wants to be constricted like that, especially on the first few runs.
Worst thing is, they wrote that they are chaing the system somehow in one of their updates I believe and the custom characters are provided more tags seemingly, which should serve to alleviate the issue, but if they know it is an issue why even make the companions into origin characters, feels like a waste of resources and its still not explained exactly what the different in playthrough as them vs the custom character would be.

As I like my RPGs singleplayer and storydriven I agree with everything you have written. I do think Larian did a much better job in making BG3 feel less like playing a Coop game by yourself, but many of its designs make sense only, when you consider it a playground for a couple of friends to have "lols" in.

Having "open world" design, and yet have everything so disconnected has been bothering me since D:OS2. Again, I don't think BG3 is as outrageous, but even if this time around some thin connection exist each of them still feels like they exist in their own bubble. Perhaps, an abstract x hours long travel time on world map, would make it feel more natural. Larian design gives me 1917 feels - where one shot approach felt more distracting and artificial then immersive. It makes sense from coop design - keep all players in the same location and not have to "gather your party before venturing forth". but IMO it doesn't feel good.

I think one needs to accept that Larian makes coop RPGs. It's just sucks that Larian uses Baldur's Gate IP to do their own thing.

Thank you very much for your text, OP! I also value story, immersion and character design more than the combat system itself. As long as the combat is playable, and the class fantasy feels "real" - then I'll be able to deal with most sorts of combat.


I am torn about this as well. And just like many said before me, I also felt slightly... Inferior to the origin characters in DOS2. I am very intrigued by the suggestion made above to allow us to choose a background instead of forcing the entire character upon us - but if they were to do it as detailed as the origin characters are, then chances are that it will possibly conflict with the details that the played has imagined for their character.

I'll make up an example to emphasize my point (this are absolutely not in any way 100% consistent with the facts we know about Astarion, but as I want to avoid spoilers, I literally just made up a random scenario):

Imagine that you're taking the Vampire Spawn-background (Astarion) and you meet this one NPC that Origin Astarion would know as... Uhhh, let's say he was feeding on that person, but was caught in the act. All fine and well for character Astarion... But when it comes to YOUR character with the Vampire Spawn background, in your head your character had a distinctive preference regarding whom you feed on - and this individual does not match the criteria at all. That would cause an awkward conflict for the player. Sure, it could be solved by something like:
"[Lie] You're mistaken. We never met."
Or
"You're mistaken. We never met." (truthful, turning the plot into a mistake from the NPC's side)

However, these kinds of solution would require a rather complicated tag-system and a huuuuuge chunk of content for the different possible scenarios.

Short version: it would require a damn lot of work.

The way I see it - most developers have to make a choice: either your background matters a lot, but it the choices and details are much more narrow. Or, you let the players be whoever they want to be and avoid involving their background too much in the present. (or you do it like Cyberpunk and just give the impression of going with option 1, but in reality you're going for option 2... No, I am not salty - why do you ask?)

Personally, while I certainly am interest of the Origins being available as backgrounds as a concept rather than pre-made characters - I think BG3 is too far gone to implement it now. And there would also be complications regarding classes since these stories are *mooostly* tied to specific classes - like Wyll's story being a warlock story, Shadowheart's story being a cleric story and Gale's story being a wizard story etc... And a part of that we have the obvious issue of Lae's story being even more narrow as it is a githyanki story perspective...

Basically, Larian would have to introduce a *whole ton* of proper origins backgrounds if it were to make a fair amount of options for everyone, if we use the current Origins as standards...

Honestly, in the end I would be happy if they just made our backgrounds matter more than just being a stat stick. :[

Same here.

I am really hoping that Larian will make nice Fully Custom Characters, free of writing assumptions. And yet that they don't feel like a sub-optimal choice because all the "roleplay" is about a character's backstory (whether it's full-on, as is the case for the Origin Characters, or you-can-fill-in-the-blanks, as is the case for a Semi-Custom Character like Gorion's Ward in BG1). So I'm all in favour of having backgrounds matter, and ideally give dialogue options, among other things.

To echo the Opening Post, yes, the very concept of Origin Characters feels so antithetic to a Dungeons and Dragons experience. Expectedly, there were many threads about it back in October-December. I guess it would work if a JRPG like FF7 proposed you to play as Cloud, or Tifa, or Barret. But DnD is pretty strongly about creating and roleplaying your character, so it feels weird to have the GM (Larian) hand out character sheets.

I mean, I guess it would have been all fine if they had just made 1-3 of these OC, spent the rest of the resources on improving the roleplay across the board, and communicated more details about their plans for Custom Characters. Currently, it feels as if the main reason there are Origins Characters in BG3 is that, well, Larian is used to doing these in their games, this is a game they're making, and that's it. But anyway, we'll see eventually (at least when v1.0 is released) if they created a good Custom Character experience.

Excellent points.

I personally feel the Origins system has no place in a BG game. I enjoyed playing an 'Origins' character in The Witcher and Mass Effect but have never felt this was a mechanic befitting of a BG game. I always associated BG type games with roleplaying your own character, not playing someone else's creation?

I have felt that the Origins companions stories seem to overshadow my own protagonist's and if to compel that fact, I recall one instance where my character responded in dialogue that he was 'also a Baldurian' but I do not ever remember choosing a background or other such mechanic to suggest my character was from Baldurs Gate? Perhaps someone can explain. Whilst I understand some will feel excitement at the prospect of playing as an Origins companion, I feel so far that it detracts from the single player role-play experience.

Regarding the map, it certainly feels like a theme park. There aren't any truly open expanses of map to explore that I can remember, it always feels like a series of corridors/pathways. In previous BG games the overland map conveyed a strong sense of travelling long distances by foot, rather than conveniently zipping around the map with magical way portals that apparently no NPCs in the game world have noticed or saw fit to use. The immersion is distinct lacking in Larian's rendition of BG.

My overriding concern with BG3 is that at present it does not seem to have a clear direction, it is something of a Frankenstein creation; part DOS, part DnD and it suffers for being this hybrid. Is it primarily a single player game or a coop game? Because when design decisions for a coop game are affecting the single player experience, then I have an issue with it (for example, apparently no day/night cycle in the game is because it is too hard to implement in a coop game). This has also been suggested as being the case behind the large map, rather than the series of smaller maps we had in BG2.

Read your post - I very much support your points!

There is a benefit to Origins that Larian won't be willing to give up - for a Coop it's a brilliant solution. You can play it singleplayer, you can play it coop - friends can drop in & out as campaign progresses. You companions can be inhabited by coop friends, and they can be companions once they leave.

Pretty much agree with all above, good points. My only hopes are that this kind of map composition is for starting location only and this fast travel system will perish. It’s a modern days fashion to make an “open world” but developers tend to forget what it really means — not an absence of a loading screens, but a freedom to explore (and exploring shouldn’t necessary bear fruits). I also think these origin characters are overshadowing everything that goes on with a custom character. Is there even anything that goes on with a custom character? The game is being heavily promoted using them, not us, which is anti RPG (see “Why The Witcher isn’t a RPG”).

I would love some more info from Larian on this like I wrote above. If at least they gave us clear understanding of what differences there will be in the gameplay and roleplay department when playing as PC or their origin character. I dont want to feel like im missing out on options because I want to play as my created character, that is such an awful thing to feel in a BG game. As it is we dont really have a clue and going from how it worked in D:OS 2 the custom characters were decidedly inferior. Imo its stupid to bring Origin characters to BG in the first place, but the least they can do is to not make it seem like its such a huge difference.

I agree, I didnt care as much about the Origin Characters in D:OS 2, tho it rubbed me the wrong way there as well, but this is Baldurs Gate a DnD game, its not Divinity anymore and as I wrote, I do not care if they use similar combat or if they have different style or whatever, but one place I do not want BG 3 to be just a reskin of original sin is in this department. And just like you, I do not mind playing as "other characters" in different games, I enjoyed witcher and Mass effect to death, but these are different type of games, differnet genre.

The map isnt particularly huge, but as you say its a theme park, its stuffed with things to discover and like someone above asserted its there for the coop players to have some lols while the other is in a dialogue.

I do think that the map should simply be made smaller and into separate parts, I dont mind the teleporting as much but it would not be neccessary at all if it was done like in BG 1 a 2 and it would make the game a lot better. This feels clearly like a decision made for the coop and the single player experience is suffering as a result, it simply doesnt flow well at all and like I wrote, I feel like the main plot is barely connected and coherent as it is because of this, its like a sequence of separate adventures despite me trying desperately for it to not be that way.

I doubt our words will be heard tho, it feels like BG 3 has even more emphasis on the coop multiplayer than original sin 2 had because a lot more people will want to play with friends. But I wish it was at least separated better.

I get that, but that decidedly feels like exceedingly a cumbrsome way for someone to actually experience the main story and companions. To offer a counterpoint, I doubt that even the most avid of coop players will play it multiplayer the first time around and if they will do that, they are most likely a coordinated group that already plays DnD together as is and therefore will want to create their own characters regardless.
Even if I was playing with DM, someone elses campaign I would still want to create my own character the only person it inconveniences less is the main player, but again, it will hardly be immersive if people are just dropping in and out.