Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback [FEEDBACK] Current thoughts after a few playthroug

[FEEDBACK] Current thoughts after a few playthroughs

I have now completed two playthroughs, one good and one evil, over the course of ~70 hours where I tried to explore as much as I could. I've also started two multiplayer games, but my friends and I haven't had a lot of overlapping time so I'm not far into those, so the feedback I have for multiplayer is limited at the moment, but I will include what I've seen so far.

I've sent to Larian via Feedback as well but wanted to share my thoughts here as well. This is now being crossposted from Reddit due to a few people requesting that I do so. If you prefer the formatting on Reddit the original post can be found (here).

Spoilers will be tagged if they are brought up, but where possible I will be talking largely about my feedback for systems in place. If anyone chooses to respond to anything spoiler related please make sure to tag your comments as well.

This will likely be long, so apologies.

A little about where I'm coming from in terms of providing feedback. I have been playing the tabletop game for about twenty years now. I played and absolutely loved the original Baldur's Gate games, and I also really enjoyed DoS2 (though I never got around to playing the first). 5e is probably my favorite edition of D&D so far, as I feel like it streamlined a lot of systems, though 3.5 will always have a place in my heart as a place where you could make some crazy builds. Forgotten Realms is one of my biggest fandoms; I've read a ton of the novels, and most supplement books, because I love the lore.

So I'm trying to provide feedback with that in mind, and also bearing in mind that this is a video game that can't one hundred percent capture that. I've seen some of this brought up before, but I want to bring them up again to add my voice to the list.

Before I begin I would also like to say that so far I am absolutely loving this game, and the potential it has. I can't wait to explore the rest at launch, but I'm happy to be a part of the journey. This is the first time I've actually thrown myself into an Early Access title. Thank you Larian for the love you've put into this title.

Story:

I won't touch on this too much other than to say that so far I'm engaged and am curious to know what follows. I definitely feel like at least for Act 1 it does seem like your choices make a difference for sure, which is great. One thing I would bring up though in regards to the evil route is

Graphics:

Minus the current EA graphical glitches this game looks fantastic, which is why I want a photo mode.

Dialogue, Cutscenes, and Interactions:

• Cutscenes - When cutscenes show just one character and you're playing in multiplayer consider making it so you see your own character. Example from the end of the Tutorial:
  When playing with my friend and escaping the Nautiloid they triggered the final cutscene, so I watched it happen to them instead of me.
  Would be nice to see things happening to my character instead where possible when there's only going to be one character in a scene anyways.
• Dialogue - This has been brought up a lot, but people need to be able to interject in conversations. It's no fun playing a face and having to lead the way into each room in case a conversation triggers, not to mention that normal conversation would dictate that someone else could join the conversation. In addition to that when I don't feel like having the best person for the job do the talking I usually just want my PC to speak, so I'm not a fan of an NPC accidentally triggering a conversation while pathing. I usually end up reloading to avoid it, which also means I quicksave constantly.
  • I would like to see a system similar to SWTOR with a vote system implemented for multiplayer as well. Currently you can select an option in multiplayer that shows the person in dialogue what you want them to pick, but from a roleplaying perspective that doesn't work. An (extreme) example would be having a Lawful Paladin with a Chaotic Rogue. The Rogue may click "Tell them to hand over all of their valuables", but it doesn't make sense for the Paladin to actually listen. If this were resolved through a vote to see if the Rogue got to go first that would flow a bit better, at least in my opinion.
• Companions not reacting to dialogue to help PC - Probably harder to implement but does seem weird when they just stare off into space while we're in peril.
• Seeing Dice rolls in Multiplayer - I've seen some people talking about letting us see other peoples rolls in multiplayer. From what I can see something should be considered, as currently it just shows whoever is in the conversation vacantly staring. I asked my friends a few times if the game had frozen because of this. I can see wanting to keep rolls private though, so I'd suggest potentially having two options for this that you could allow the host to control.
  • Private Rolls (default) - You see the roll icon on the screen to let you know that the other person is rolling, but the roll itself is obfuscated, similar to how Fantasy Grounds Unity handles other players rolls behind the screen.
  • Public Rolls - You can see all rolls.
• Conversation Checks - Multiple rolls feels bad, particularly when it's a success roll that's turned into a failure. This happens multiple times throughout the game. I'd recommend just raising the DC of the roll instead of this, as few things felt more frustrating to me than having to go through three rolls to get a successful outcome.

Companions:

• I think the companions are for the most part great so far, I'm curious to know more about them. The only one I will call out specifically is Gale. Gale is one of my favorites so far, with the exception of
  his questline. I don't want to have to keep a character around that needs rare artifacts to not explode, or that I have to have a subquest to revive when he dies. That's a lot of work out of a companion. It would be bad enough if we just had to feed him any magic items or scrolls, but alas even that isn't enough.

Camera:

• The camera needs some work for sure. It particularly seems to struggle when dealing with elevation, which is a large part of this game. I expect this to be tweaked over the course of the early access period so I'm not too worried, but seems good to mention.
• As a personal wish, though this isn't really super important I would like to have a button option to lock the camera over my characters shoulder, perhaps with WASD movement when not in combat. I think that would bring a new feel to exploration, especially considering you took the time to allow us to pan the camera into that position anyways. Apologies if this is already in there and I missed it, but I couldn't find a way to do this.

Combat:

• Elevation Advantage - While conceptually I see what you are going for with this I think giving Advantage/Disadvantage from elevation is too powerful. I would suggest giving a modifier (say +2) for elevation if you want to give some benefit, but advantage feels like a bit much, particularly when combined with the next point.
• Disengage - There are several problems I see with the Disengage mechanic as it currently exists. I would recommend that you keep Jump as a separate bonus action, and make this a FULL action for non-Rogue characters because:
  • As it currently stands it almost entirely kills Opportunity Attacks.
  • It invalidates a rather key class feature for Rogue giving it to everyone
  • Combined with my last point about Elevation it makes enemies just constantly disengage to rush for high ground
  • It breaks the action economy in general with allowing people Opportunity Attack free movement and allowing them to attack in the same turn.
• Percentile Chance feels more frustrating than seeing DC and Roll, as missing on a like 90% consistently feels absurd, but as someone who plays tabletop all the time I'm used to bad RNG (I've rolled three back to back 1s and my characters are generally not allowed within 50' of a Bow because of it). I think the percentile makes it feel worse though. I think seeing the actual roll instead would help, as it shows how close you came to achieving your goal instead of just missing what seems like a sure thing. I know this is in the log, but that percentile in my face taunts me. Example:
  • If I am trying to hit a 15, and I roll a 5 after modifiers, I think to myself "Oof that was bad luck"
  • If I am trying to hit a 15 and I roll a 14 after modifiers I get a feeling of "Oh dang that was close!"
• Enemies attacking lowest AC - I could see intelligent creatures doing this, but it's frustrating when every enemy currently seems dead set on attacking whomever has the lowest AC. The only time Gale has been safe is when I play an even squishier character. This feels extra frustrating combined with the free disengages as it means that enemies will sprint past my melee characters worry free to attack my backline. Add on top of that the advantage from escalation and it makes for some frustrating times to be a caster.
• Attacking Downed Characters - There are arguments to be had for this both ways, but I wish that it happened less. Obviously this generally depends on who you have as a DM, but generally most DMs I've encountered are way more merciful than the AI in this game and go after the active threats first, unless there aren't any close by. It has made for some amusing instances of me having a Wizard tank the floor when I keep reviving them repeatedly each round though. If my actual DM did this routinely without reason though (like my character having deeply offended the enemy) I'd probably throw glitter at him.
  • Maybe tie this to difficulty, enemy intelligence, other target availability, or some sort of aggro system? Don't know that there's a good "fix" for this though. Just depends on what type of DM Larian feels like being.
• Surface Effects - This is sort of the big one huh? Well this has been talked about a lot already, but here's my take. Personally, as much fun as I had in DoS2 that system was designed around these mechanics, 5e largely is not. That said, and knowing it's sort of Larian's thing and won't just be removed, it is exciting having more tools to play with the environment. I just think if it's going to stay in some adjustments are needed.
  • Less enemies should have access to Flasks/Bombs (or seemingly bottomless spell slots, can't quite tell on this one). These are fairly expensive items and shouldn't be something every rank and file enemy has access to. Limit them to bosses or the occasional special enemy to keep this mechanic exciting when it happens, and not just the state of most fights.
  • This also means that most enemies in the game just ignore the AC of the person they're targeting, which doesn't feel good.
  • Cantrips should not have these effects. It makes them very strong, not just against enemies but allies as well if you aren't careful. It also causes situations where Cantrips are duplicating effects of higher level spells for free.
  • Saves should be made for half damage, and only when entering for the first time, or ending your turn there. Currently it seems to tick damage too often (starting turn there and exiting, in addition to the initial effect).
  • The effects themselves should cover much less surface area.

Experience:

• Pacifist XP - Another point that's been talked about a lot so I won't say much except please add XP for non-violent resolution so I feel encouraged to try and seek peaceful resolutions. Just don't allow double dipping and make enemies not give XP if they're attacked after.

Races:

I love how reactive people seem to be to your race right now, and a lot of the exclusive dialogue. I only have a few notes on it.

• Racial specific - Seldarine Drow dialogue still seems pretty bloodthirsty, though I haven't played a Lolth-Sworn Drow yet so maybe they just rip out peoples hearts on the spot instead of giving scathing remarks? Not sure what differentiates them as of yet.
  • Tieflings at the ridge. Two Options - Intimidate: If you value your life walk away, or Attack on sight, upon finding Laezel. Seems a bit extreme for a "good" character. Why is there no rational "Please, I know this person don't kill them in a cage because they're different from you" option or persuasion check that can be attempted?
  • Later in the game there seemed to be more "Good" Drow options, so maybe the earlier bits are still a WIP, but noting all the same as it felt a bit uneven.
• Saw a [Human] dialogue option show up on my Tiefling. Sorry, got distracted and didn't think to note when it occurred exactly.

Classes:

• Ranger - Love the rework. That's really all I have, just wanted to say thanks!
• Rogue - Rogue's feel like they're in a bit of a rough spot now. Between the loss of class exclusive abilities and expertise they feel like they're missing their niche. I'd suggest revisiting this.
  • As another note the only thing I'm really a fan of right now is that they can sneak attack with a longsword, which finally makes them starting with proficiency with it make sense, but I'm assuming this is a bug.
• Warlock - Hellish Rebuke doesn't seem to always trigger. Maybe doesn't trigger off of bonus offhand attacks? Other than that can confirm Eldritch Blast still works, and that's all you really need, right?
• Fighter - Seems like STR based characters are suffering currently with the Advantage from Escalation and free disengagement. Feel like most of my turns as a Fighter are chasing enemies down who are ignoring them to attack my squishies, or giving up and using a bow.
  • The Sentinel feat may help alleviate some of this if it's added at any point.

Abilities:

• It would be nice to show the modifiers you get from stat increases, as this may be unclear to players unfamiliar with tabletop.
• I hope we can roll our stats in the future as well. I much prefer that to Point Buy though I understand wanting to use point buy to test in Early Access as it gives a more common baseline.

Backgrounds:

• Backgrounds appear to not give any tool proficiencies anymore. I assume this is to balance the fact that most tools aren't in the game, but it would be nice to have Thieves Tools included in backgrounds, particularly with how iffy Rogues feel to me (subjective, I know).

Starting Gear:

• Please allow us to pick starting gear for characters within reason so we can tweak what weapons and armor we would like to use and not start off with a disadvantage until we stumble across what we need.
  • You could also consider tying this to options available to starting class/race proficiency if you still want to have it make sense.

Economy:

• The Economy of the Realms has apparently gone wrong. The markup in shops is extreme. Items that say they're worth 600 are sold for 1500. This has pretty much made me never use a shop at all in the game.
  • This is slightly less, but only slightly less, alleviated by the fact that Charisma apparently affects prices now, but even with an 18 in Charisma the markup is insanely high.
• Pricing should definitely be revisited.

Resting:

• Consider allowing more short rests, and allow us to choose if we want to spend a hit die while doing so.
• I've seen some people saying to limit long rests, but I don't think this should be done, or if so should be tied to difficulty.
  • It's hard to say exactly how often long resting will be needed with the game still being rebalanced.
  • There's no day/night cycle to time it, so if we end up needing to long rest because we're out of spells/health then we'd be in a tight spot, so adding a timer to it would just make me sit in a place for a while waiting to be able to rest again instead of healing and moving on.
  • If you do decide to limit long resting (hopefully on higher difficulties), consider limiting it to certain locations. A good place, at least in my opinion, would be locations that have a bedroll. I've found several of them in various areas of the game that you can lay down in but don't appear to actually do anything, so maybe make those "rest" areas?
    • If you use this approach you'll want to make sure that these bedroll areas are frequent enough to still be useable.
• It would be cool to see the camp reflect the type of environment you're in, but I understand that would be a lot more work so put that on the wishful thinking list.

Voice Acting:

I really like the voice acting in the game so far, it sounds fantastic. It would be nice to hear some NPCs with different accents outside of the standard British fantasy accent, but even still the quality is great.

I'm also glad you're going with voiced protagonists. I personally prefer that, however I know that I've seen quite a few posts with people saying they prefer a silent protagonist, so:

• consider adding a "Silent" option to the voice selection at creation

Cosmetics and Customization:

I have already found armor that I love, and that poses a potential problem. I see a few ways around this, as well as some notes on other options I would like to see.

• For armor that we find allow us to either:
  • Enchant the armor to keep it relevant throughout the game if we like the look.
    • This could be done through a crafting system, which 5e has rules for
    • Alternatively you could just "feed" an item another enchanted piece to get it's +1 or whatever it happens to be.
  • Add Cosmetic Armor slots so we can keep the look without worrying about updating stats.
  • Make sure that each armor set has higher enchanted versions throughout the game (Either way I'm never taking off my armor I love, but would be nice to not die for my love of
    Drowish Studded Leather Armour
    ).
• Consider adding a "simple" dye system to the game similar to the old Baldur's Gate games had, so we can choose color schemes we like for characters, and to make it so that a party in the same armor doesn't have to look exactly the same. My Ranger and Astarion both running around in the same leather armor wasn't very exciting looking.
• Please don't Gender or Race lock hairstyles.
• Please consider adding a few body types. Not necessarily full sliders, but to have Skinny/Average/Buff for example would be great. I understand this would create more work to make armors fit, but it would be nice to have the option.

UI:

• Hex stats seem to randomly change icon order. Assuming it's a minor bug.
• Spell level increase should be a pop-up like Hex rather than having to have multiple slots on your hotbar taken up for each level of a spell.

QoL:

• Pathing - Have characters either avoid hazards when auto-running out of combat, or at least have a perception check to NOT run through fire.
  • Related, if people make a perception check to detect a trap have movement stop instantly.
• Jumping - Allow group jumping out of combat when characters are chained so it's less of a chore.
• Make character info look more like a character sheet. Too much is buried and hard to find right now. May make it harder for people who aren't familiar with 5e mechanics to know what's going on, and easier for those of us who are to forget.

Things I've brought up previously:

• Separate Save Files by Character - I'm aware that we can do this per profile, but that still runs the risk of creating multiple characters on one save slot as it currently does not warn us if a profile is already in use. It also means we have to name a profile (which I usually do by character name) before we've decided what we're making.
• Allow us to choose Deity even when not playing a Cleric
• Allow an option to hide completed quests in the Journal
• Consider adding a Photo Mode

Things I look forward to testing/hope we can test in the future:

• Multiclassing
• Additional Classes

Questions I have moving forward:


1. Are you going to increase the level cap during EA so we can provide feedback on higher level effects as well? I feel like these will need to be tested for balance as well.

2. Can you consider allowing us to travel back to previous areas in case we miss any items or just want to wander around a previous area we were fond of?

i agree especially with the query with Attacking Downed enemies. my main wizard lot of times gets in a loop where he gets downed by an enemy archer end of every round right after he gets helped up (one of the companions were standing next to him only to help him up which worked but its not really lifelike and resulted in long fights). downed chars i think can be a good gameplay element but AI should be tweaked to make it less frustrating indeed. if a monster wants to feed on a downed character it makes sense but enemies running away from my still standing party members to finish off downed chars is kind of strange
Anyway im sure they will find a good balance to this

Regarding resting query, i agree this can be tied to difficulty options, but i have to say the following would be my ideal pacing:
Before party goes to a dungeon we Long rest in camp (preparing for new adventure, filling up resources, discuss our approach with party)
Go to dungeon, camp resting is disabled during this time, which keeps resource management and exploring lethal locations interesting and tense it avoids the immersion break when the party "teleports" back to the woods in the middle of the dungeon
Once getting out of dungeon, ending the day and doing a long rest again to discuss with party what we have found and regenerate for next adventure

Regarding Surface Effects i agree enemies should have less bombs and cantrips should not do surface effects (we will have higher level spells for that)

+1 please add XP for non-violent resolution

regarding classes and actions, i agree fighters suffer because of the disengage story, also i would prefer to have more actions for them like the currently weapon-specific skills like cleave/slash/pindowns (disarming, grappling, breaking armor/weapon etc) to spice up non-magical classes and maybe most of these can be limited to proficiency/class

This is amazing. I agree with everything... like I asked one of my players if this was them. I am going to comment more later on this But I will post this to our groups.

Please mail this to Larian!

Also posted on reddit for ya brother.


https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/je03dz/70_hour_pro_feedback_fromdarkseldarine/

Oh thank you. I'm glad you liked it enough to share. I already had it on reddit, but appreciate that you wanted to spread it around, so thanks!




I think a balance like this would be great, though we'd have to see what counts as a dungeon for this. An example from Early Access is the

I think it's a bit too large with too many encounters to count as a "dungeon" instead of an area. So maybe have certain areas that are considered "safe" in it that you can camp.



A variety of actions would be pretty fun to have. We'll have to see where they go with this though.

I agreed with this 100%

Note on the info about the Absolute:



There are some other things, but you really need to be digging and I have some pretty wild theories based on what you can find and talk to people about.

+1 to all of it

Ooh that's excellent. I hadn't tried that, will have to give that a go on my next run through the game. Thanks for the tip.

I am trying to make my own lists like these.