Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My Humble Opinions

Hey there everybody!
So, I've been playing the BG3 beta for about 50 hours now and decided I'd start throwing my opinions out there, coming at it as someone who DMs and plays a lot of 5e and as someone with roughly 300 hours in DOS2. I am extremely familiar with 5e and Larian's previous release title so I'm gonna try and use that to my advantage here.
A few things here before I get into this.
1. This post is going to be really long and I'm going to do my best to kind of segment it.
2. I'm not infallible so of course feel free to let me know if I say something that you don't agree wtih.
3. If I ever seem "angry" about something I am probably just being hyperbolic to show how much that particular thing bugs me.
4. Speaking of bugs, I won't be touching on them too much here. But if this post goes over well I may make a separate one exclusively about my experience with bugs.
5. Some of these will be opinions that are not unique to me, but they are all things from my personal experience with EA. Which is a good segway to...

- Environmental Effects
God I had really hoped Larian would keep to their word and lay off of environmental stuff but it's just so not fun in this game and it's everywhere. DOS2 is pretty bad about it at times (Oil Voidling fight once damn near crashed my buddy's computer) but for the most part there it worked. Here it doesn't, and let me explain why.
I know not everything needs to be 100% exactly like it is in 5e Tabletop. This is a video game, that's ridiculous. However while keeping the game as faithful to 5e as possible there are some things that don't work. Things like setting Entanglement on fire and killing my entire party because they are now stuck on difficult terrain that not only slows them down but deals 1d4 damage at the start and end of their turn, or having Firebolt set the ground on fire and then Gale wanders through a patch of flame that he created with 1 HP and I have to go help him off of his ass. It needs a major rebalance for sure, and people seem pretty much in consensus here. Spell damage should be representative of how it is in tabletop 5e and the ground effects should be removed. Speaking of balance and effects...

-Enemy Abilities
There's a fine line in 5e between enemies that are just too annoying to deal to be fun, and most enemies don't cross that line. I feel like so far BG3 kind of breaks that. Don't get me wrong, I think the combat encounters are pretty cool for the most part. However some become overly tedious by giving creatures like, say, goblins, abilities and equipment that they shouldn't normally have. I get where Larian's head is at here. You want fights to feel dynamic and epic, however it takes something away from the PCs when you aren't the one shooting cool fire arrows to set a barrel ablaze and blast some goblins away, its the goblins doing it. I think some of the added abilities and the extra equipment given to monsters and enemies need to be severely toned down. Going back to the environmental stuff, 5e is not made in a way where it is very fun when some dude throws a bottle of grease all over my entire party and his friend lights us all on fire. I think Larian needs to go back and take a look at the Monster Manual and reconsider some of the things basic enemies are tossing around. On the other side of the balance...

- Companion Stats
I have to say, the more time I've spent with the companions and getting different dialog in different playthroughs the more I've enjoyed them. even some of the more abrasive companions like Lae'zel have quickly become really enjoyable. However I really wish I could have some effect on their stats. I get why Larian might have some pushback to that. "Well what is someone gives Gale 9 int and 14 str?" etc etc, but we're smart people. Have a default layout we can change, please. I'd love the chance to make Lae'zel an Eldritch Knight without needing the use of certain items, or making Shadowheart's stats not so ass. Which, for a second lets talk about Shadowheart.
Shadowheart and Wyll are the two companions who get their subclass at level 1, but you can't change it because of their story. Shadowheart has a certain god and Wyll has a certain patron. Fair enough. Why, oh why, does Shadowheart have 9 dexterity? She is bound to using medium armor so why in the name of any of the gods is she cursed with a -1 to her AC? I don't want to waste an ASI just making her break even. It doesn't feel good. I'd much rather give her +2 Wisdom or something but instead I have to fix her so she doesn't manage to have a measly 15 AC while using armor and a shield. Which again. brings me to my next point.

-Starting Equipment
This is another one that I think goes along with not really understanding some things about 5e on Larian's part, for lack of a nicer way to say it. I think we need starting equipment. It's really frustrating to start your strength fighter with 13 AC because you had to start with Scale Mail and no shield. There's a reason you have those choices presented to you in the Player's Handbook. I don't like wasting my time starting up my grand adventure fumbling around until I get lucky enough to find myself a shield or a greatsword or whatever weapon I wanted my fighter to specialize in and some heavy armor, which for some reason is just ring mail everywhere so at best I'm winding up with 16 AC, my tank now barely any better off than the rogue. Probably worse off than anyone with Mage Armor. I can't go over enough how frustrating this is. I want to start my adventure ready for the challenges I may face, not dicking around with all of the traders in the first area until I'm ready to put on my big boy pants.

-Spell UI
I have no transition for this. The spell UI could really use some work. Having all of my spells jammed in this bar with my equipment and my abilities is really clumsy. ESPECIALLY the up cast stuff. Just let me click a spell and select it's spell slot if a higher one is available instead of making me add it beforehand as another thing jammed into that hotbar. The whole setup needs a heavy amount of tweaking. I'm fine with class abilities staying down there but some sort of separate, more elegant casting system would be greatly appreciated. On the topic of things being a little more elegant...

-Roll Displays
So, I love the amount of checks you get to make in and out of dialog. There's a lot of cool stuff around. But I wish it was better displayed. This is another one that has been talked about a lot, but lowering the DC makes check way less fun than showing the added number from proficiencies. There's a big post going around the BG3 subreddit about this so I'm sure it will get seen at some point by Larian, but people really want to see the roles in a more satisfying way. On top of that I would honestly really like if the roll icon for checks in the world showed me what I rolled instead of just telling me pass or fail. It would make those checks a lot more engaging than they already are.

-Passive Perception Notification
Just bouncing off of roll displays here, just because my character saw something doesn't mean that I did. Please give some better indicator for successful rolls. That is all.

-Short/Long Rest
The current balance of resting is a bit botched. Only having one short rest per long rest really screws over classes like the warlock and fighter, as does how easy it is to long rest anywhere at any time. Play with making long rest in some way limited, and making short rest lest restrictive. Let me pick my hit die when I short rest, for one, and give me a few uses. I honestly really want to go through some testing with this in early access, honestly.

-Dynamic Multiplayer Dialog
Honestly this goes for singleplayer too. Part of what makes D&D fun is everyone having the chance to be an active element in every choice. If my dummy fighter is presented with an Arcana check and my friend the wizard is listening in give them the chance to step in and make that check instead of me and maybe even lead a bit of the conversation from there.

-Action Economy
Whooooooa boy this is where I'll try not to get a bit testy. The action economy is so broken in this game. It needs a fix probably more than anything else on this list. Too much stuff gets to be a bonus action, and on top of being a massive nerf to my poor rogue it bust the game entirely. Let's be clear on two major things. First off only rogues should be able to hide and disengage as bonus actions. This is a major part of what makes the rogue unique and limiting that to exclusively dashing has hit the rogue so hard. also jump should be separated from disengage. Secondly, shoving should not be a bonus action. The amount of times where I have killed an enemy by hitting it once then shoving it off a cliff is remarkable. Now being able to do that is fun, but being able to do it in addition to an action is entirely too strong and kind of bust the game once you realize that. On top of that...

-Mage Hand
Mage Hand needs a massive rework as well. It should be able to interact more freely with objects and it should be useless in combat. I don't even have to be anywhere near enemies to just have Gale of Lae'zel use a nice little mage hand and chunk them off of a cliff like a sack of very bloody potatoes.

-Friendly EXP
This is the last big point I'll make, but I'll keep it short. I would very much enjoy getting EXP for ending encounters through dialog. It feels more like a punishment than a reward to talk my way out of a situation and my reward for doing so is basically just not getting to do the fight. I fully expect this to be changed because of how DOS2 worked but it's worth mentioning.

-Lightning Round!
Okay, here's the smaller stuff that isn't worth making entire writeups for...
More options for Tiefling hair that goes over the horns, and softer male Tiefling faces.
Variant Human, or something to make human more appealing than +1 to everything.
More autosaves or just more efficient autosaving (autosave at better times.)
Have animal companions always be with rangers instead of a summon.
Work on the economy a bit it's kinda broken.
I'm hoping Wizards learning any spell scroll is a bug because that's also broken.
There should maybe be less spell scrolls around also. Like man Gale is loaded up.
Making picking locks a visible dice roll.
Less clutter in the inventory. A key ring or something would be nice.
Make enemies prioritize AC less (Poor Gale.)
Normal food should not heal you.
Rolling for stats in the character creation.

And I think that's it! That's pretty much all I have to say and that took me way longer to write than I would like to admit. But I hope it some way it ends up being helpful in the grand scheme of things. The game is freshly in Early Access so I know a lot will change, but I sincerely believe this when I say that with the love and care I expect Larian to give to this and my hope they will take player feedback seriously through development this could wind up as the best RPG of the coming decade. There is so much good here with all of that EA jank, and I hope to be here finding out what's broken up until the very end where I can go on a finely polished, epic adventure with my other nerd friends.

(Edit: A word)

While I like that my wizard can get out of melee range for free, I do agree about the action economy. I would honestly prefer if the monster AI wasn't "let's go hug Gale" every combat, but more "lets attack the closest enemy"
Having to actually make the choice "Do I disengage, or risk an opportunity attack?" is actually a good choice to have.

For the most part I agree with OP, but I dont get this "poor rogue" thing. Maybe I do something wrong, but in my games rogue is always powerhouse of the team damage-wise. Dual wielding rogue with 2 +1 short swords hits like a truck with basically 4 attacks every round (3 if i need to move a lot). So why exactly is rogue nerfed in your opinion? Is he some kind of god in paper 5 ed?

I'd like to point out that, if I'm correct in assuming the random rolls as you explore are supposed to be passive checks, they handled passive checks entirely wrong. From my understanding of it (bear in mind I'm not a master of the D&D 5e rules, so I may have this wrong) passive checks aren't supposed to be dice rolls in the first place, right? They're supposed to be a total number as specified on our character sheet that lists our passive perception and such, and if our passive perception beats the DC of the check then we discover whatever it is that we're looking for, no rolling involved. So being able to save scum passive checks shouldn't be a thing. If your characters passive perception is too low to find that thing, then they just don't see it. Hopefully someone in your party can, but if no then that just adds to the replay value in my opinion, maybe next go round I'll make a character with a maxed out perception score just so I can discover everything.

This is your only god in this game:

Fear him.

Please my lord, spare me! I didn't mean to set your cousin on fire, honest!

No I just feel like the core mechanic of rogue just got sort of handed out. Kind of like if just everyone got fighting styles. Also I do think the way that thief works should actually be nerfed. The fact you make an offhand attack by default, and again as a bonus action, and AGAIN as a thief is kind of nuts. Action economy is everything in 5e and the way the handled duel wielding so far isn't idea. But yeah that's a balance issue for sure, but as far as the Cunning Action stuff goes I think it also makes the action economy a bit strange to give one of the rogue's man gimmicks to everyone when it should have (in my opinion) stayed how it was.

This is actually something I didn't think of. It seems like they did away with true Passive Perception checks, since I've failed one then reloaded a save after getting got then came back. Which is honestly a change that I'm okay with? I'd just like to see it happen. I guess they don't want to totally lock you out of some options if you don't have a super high wisdom character? I'd be fine with them adding true PP, but honestly the rolls are fine as long as I can see what's happening.

This made me laugh. Thank you.

Yeah agreed!!

Heads up!

I agree with most of what you say. However it would be awesome if you split up your opinions next time and make each an own thread. This way discussions can be followed way more easily by the developers.
It also makes it easier for us players to make our opinion seen, because the way it is now, I don't know where to comment and where not to comment because each topic seems to have at least 3 threads and still be packed in 5 further "my overall opinion posts".
Also it wouldn't hurt to check if your ideas were already posted. Except for a few points in your lightening round, every topic already has a thread that you could have simply added to

I don't mean to be naggy, it's just that I can tell you would like to give very constructive feedback - and it's kind of a shame it's hidden behind a title that doesn't help the community and developers quickly grasp the topic. So it's meant as a tip for the next time.