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Originally Posted by silentbrad
I've read bits and pieces of people saying that the reasoning is because people were missing too often, but that sounds to me like it's more of a problem with your random number generator. The average roll for a d20 is 10.5, so with a 16 or higher score in your attack stat, you should be hitting more often than not (+3 modifier, +2 proficiency bonus).


This.

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More sound/voice cues from companions

Based on this topic

Currently in EA sound cues are too few and far between, so I'd suggest to add a wide variety of cues to the mix, as they are not only adding atmosphere and dynamism to the process but also providing additional feedback on what's going on on the battlefield and... emotions!
Sound cues from companions in BG2 (especially in battle) are one of the most memorable things from the game for me. And since BG3 has turn based battles, importance of sound/voice cues from companions (and enemies!) is huge!

Voice cues & banter during battles
those DO NOT have to happen on every occasion, but rather from time to time, depending on the severity of situations, randomness, and maybe some other factors:

  • on critical hit/miss
  • on opponent's (attacker) critical hit/miss
  • on critical hit/miss of other companion nearby
  • on being poisoned/confused/chilled/etc or otherwise affected negatively
  • on low/critical health
  • on low/critical health of other companion nearby
  • new enemy appear in visual vicinity
  • performing sneak attack or other specialized attack
  • character selection
  • regular/default attack
  • on opponent's death (after successful attack)
  • on other companion's death
  • ...

To imagine how fun it might be, you can find a suitable Minsk quote for almost all of the above smile Or try PoE Deadfire in turn-based mode.

(more) non-combat voice cues & banter
also something to consider, as for now I don't feel that characters in party have enough interactions with each other, while not in camp.
Some ideas on when they can occur:

  • character selection
  • failed checks (investigation, perception, etc)
  • failed skill action (lockpick, steal, disarm, etc)
  • (almost) all spell/abilities slots have been used - nothing or too little left for the next potential battle
  • low/critical health
  • performing lockpick/disarm or other specialized action
  • going into sneak mode
  • on being poisoned/confused/chilled/etc or otherwise affected negatively
  • on other companion's death
  • ...

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Originally Posted by Sharet
Originally Posted by silentbrad
I've read bits and pieces of people saying that the reasoning is because people were missing too often, but that sounds to me like it's more of a problem with your random number generator. The average roll for a d20 is 10.5, so with a 16 or higher score in your attack stat, you should be hitting more often than not (+3 modifier, +2 proficiency bonus).


This.


I think the root of the issue is that Larian is thinking too much like DoS 2, and not enough like BG/5e. For example, the 'missing too often' feel can be real...because Larian introduced rolling at Disadvantage at a target higher than you, or in even dim lighting. They also made the "Threatened" range about 3x bigger than the Opp Attack range, meaning Ranged characters are also going to be attacking at Disadvantage even when they shouldn't be.

They basically doubled the amount of times you can roll at Disadvantage are were surprised that combat didn't feel fun.

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I've played around 40 hours across a couple of characters, and have gotten nearly to the end of the EA with my Warlock. My two cents are as follows:

Firstly, I enjoy the game, and I think that it's got a lot of promise. It's unclear what issues that we're seeing now are because we're in Early Access, rather than because of design philosophies of Larian. So the pile of complaints below comes from a place of wanting good things to be better.

Variant Human should be a higher priority to include in the game, not only because it's incredibly popular, but also because given the issues that have been found with feats (Dual Wielder apparently doesn't work?), testing to make sure that someone with two feats works (before level 8) seems important. Never mind that the default human is boring and terribly optimized.

I know it's coming, but I really want to play a Warlock multiclassed with Paladin. That is, assuming that we also get Hexblade Warlock (another incredibly popular choice that it would be nice to get confirmation on).

Surface Spam trivializes combat, and makes a mockery of the normal balance of the game. Similarly, Fire Bolt (and all other fire effects) automatically giving the burning condition trivializes both Shield of Faith and Mage Armor. Why can't we make a dex save to avoid getting lit on fire? The defensive spells that buff AC are supposed to protect you from getting hit, so that when something misses, you don't have to make a concentration save. Everything and everyone on fire stops being a game about positioning, resource management, and tactics, and becomes Donkey Kong throwing barrels everywhere. This leads to the next problem: HP Bloat.

Changing the AC and HP of enemies to make combat "feel better" is the rumour that I've heard. It seems more likely that the absurd amount of free status effects and extra explosive barrels around that damaged with no save allowed meant that low HP goblins would be gibbed by two Characters using Fire Bolt.

I have the same complaints about AI Pathing as everyone else. I got to the room of exploding mushrooms, but had seen one explode while climbing down the cliff in the Underdark. My character carefully avoided getting anywhere near any of them. The rest of the party cheerfully detonated the room. I was also playing a Drow. Why didn't I get some kind of "you grew up here" bonus to announce that the mushrooms were dangerous, instead of having the whole team fail nature?

Why is "passive" perception a roll? It's supposed to be a flat number to notice things. Investigation is supposed to be the active effect to find specific details. The game could benefit a lot from the "Take 10/Take 20" rules from earlier editions of D&D. And again, the party should not traipse over spotted traps. Having an active investigation option would also be highly useful. I agree that searching through dozens of empty crates is highly tedious, but the game already has a skill that is supposed to help find things. Have perception and/or investigation highlight which boxes/things have loot in them. Hell, have it tied to the ALT button that is supposed to show all of the objects you can interact with. Thieves Tools and Trap Disarm Kits (why two things?) being a consumable item, rather than just part of your gear is very strange to me. Having rope, the single most important piece of gear in a low level party be relegated to vendor trash feels like blasphemy.

Why can't we climb? Jumping around like a jackrabbit in combat is fine, but having the Athletics Skill, and rope be worthless isn't? I won't go into the Jump/Disengage thing too much, suffice to say that they should be two separate things, and neither of them should be a bonus action (except for rogues, who are supposed to get disengage as a bonus action to differentiate them from other classes).

Speaking of class balance and differentiation, there doesn't seem to be any. Or at least, stealth is free and easy for everyone, regardless of skill or amount of armour. Melee tanks don't exist because you can't take sentinel (really want variant human again) and disengage is free for everyone. Kiting and abusing the AI with stealth lets you literally solo the entire game. I'm sure that there are AI fixes coming, but some comment on the issue would be nice. Wizards can learn divine spells from scrolls, and worse, food is as powerful as health potions. Not that there is any indication of that. I had no idea that eating food would heal me, and had sold entire grocery stores worth of produce that would have instead been gorged upon. Also, assassinating something from stealth that is sleeping (coup de grace) somehow breaks stealth, and alerts the entire world that something has happened.

So Rogues have no reason to exist, since they can't assassinate things properly, and stealth is free for everyone with no real need for dexterity, or skill checks at all. Clerics are pointless since we can eat the whole countryside instead of casting a healing spell, tanks can't do anything since everything disengages for free, and so we're left with Warlocks and Wizards being king, since they can Firebolt and Eldritch blast everything while jumping in and out of stealth, or just detonating the whole world at range. Bows are supposed to have varying ranges. Spells are supposed to have varying ranges. Allies are not supposed to block movement, it's supposed to be hard to move through enemy squares (that's what acrobatics is for).

Speaking of bows. Equipment options at character creation should be a thing. I wanted to make a dual wielding Drow Rogue who used a Rapier and a Hand-Crossbow, only to find out that you can't get hand crossbows until 75% of the way through the EA content. I'd like to be able to pick the weapons and armour for my character at the start of the game, just like every single D&D game in the entire world.

The evil options feel like playing a cartoonish "that guy" edgelord. There was no point where I felt compelled, tempted, or even coerced into working with the goblins. The reaction to being a Drow was cool, and getting to mess around because of that is neat. But it would also have meant that, if I had been so inclined, that I could stack every single explosive I could find around key enemies, and bypassed entire encounters. Hell, even Karga, who is supposed to be "not evil, just trying to protect her people" kills a child right in front of you as your very first interaction. I understand that Larian is supposedly supposed to be good at writing characters, but if that's how they portray evil and neutral, then I've got deeper concerns.

TL;DR:
I want more D&D in my D&D.

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49 hours for my first playthrough, here are some bugs (if I didn't post specific topics about them already) and then some feedback. Enjoyed the experience and looking forward to more!

Bugs:
Wyll at the Windmill: The goblin died from a OOP attack and there was no dialog / response from Wyll at the time. Dialog kicked in “I wanted em alive” several minutes later after killing something else, in a different fight.

Losing equipped weapons: I right clicked -> equiped a torch and it made the rapier I was wielding disappear.

Devil's Sight: Either doesn't work at all, or doesn't work on Wyll. This should also differ from darkvision by letting you see in magical darkness (aka Darkness spell).

Hunt a Devil: When I was trying to piece together what each group was about I used Speak with Dead on a refugee corpse, then Lae'zel wanted to butt in and mentioned a bunch of things like Andre's blade as if we'd heard about them before, but I hadn't. Additionally this quest didn't correctly complete when I killed the people at the toll house and reported back to Karlach.

Disguise Self Scroll: I tried to use one of these scrolls on multiple characters and couldn't get it to work. First click would start it, but all mousing over options were "Invalid Target."

Haste Spores: You can move in and out to keep regaining actions and movement, forever.

Frightened: This should end or cease doing anything when the one that applied the effect is dead. Additionally, it (and maybe this was because the frightener was dead) right now it's also preventing the target from doing anything other than fleeing, but this makes no sense because the description talks about having disadvantage against the frightener etc. Can't have disadvantage if you can't actually do anything at all.

Sunwalker's Gift (ring): Description sounds like this should have a light cantrip, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Colossus Slayer: I'm not sure if these happen 100% but I noticed three bugs. It doesn't stack with Hunter's Mark, the target takes Hunter's Mark damage and there is no mention of Colossus slayer. I've seen Colossus Slayer apply on the first hit to something, the way it's worded implies to me that it only happens if they aren't. If the first hit counts as the target not being at 100% any more... new wording is required. This ability is being applied when you try to use knock out, and thus kills the target.

Fog Cloud: I didn't use this much, so this bug occurred when I used it on the duergar in the opposite ship right before the end. I used it on a group with crossbows and every round they just stood there, saying stuff, but not bothering to move out of it or do anything. The alchemist was the exception, who did move out of it and continue as normal.

Arcane Tower Button: When you try to press it you go down one floor and press it from below.

Lockpicking: In the combat log, this logs twice, once correctly and a second time that always says the failed.


Not sure if bug:
Various items do stuff when a character heals a character. This stuff triggers when they eat food, which seems a bit overpowered. However, this stuff does NOT trigger when you use the gnoll weapon that heals the character when they hit something with it.

The hag: She's invisible, and if you uncover her, she doesn't fight back, at least she didn't for me.

Feedback: (emphasis on my top concerns)
There are too many containers, and in general, to much random stuff that just acts as trash. Please consider making a LOT of the containers into non-containers. I feel pushed to check every little thing and it gets really boring opening 20 containers per room. Related to this, please consider just toning down how much random white equipment there is after the first few levels.

Inconsistent Item expectations: Some items you can examine to determine a price before picking them up. Other's you cannot. You usually assume if you can't examine it that it's worth nothing but this isn't always true.

Initiative Order: The grouping of teammates is a nice feature, but I think this wasn't explained in the tutorial (I could be wrong).

Druid Town: I felt very overwhelmed when first arriving here. There are a LOT of NPCs to talk to, and it might just be me, but I feel like I have to talk to everyone in order to make sure I've found all the quests, etc.

Ground effects: These aren't visible. While the movement indicator helps you recognize them in combat, outside of combat they can be quite annoying. Seems like they should expire as well. Acid never seems to go away.

Magical 2handed weapons: There seems to be far more of these than other magical weapons. I think the first 3-4 magical weapons I found were 2handers. Sucks when you don't have anyone using one in the party.

CHA and Selling items: It is incredibly annoying to move items to a single character in order to sell them at the highest price (due to CHA). Charisma is already such a strong stat for Persuasion, Intimidation or Deception, please consider either not tying it to trade value or even better, making the trade take the highest CHA in the party so there is no need to move items around.

Magical arrows: This seems like a huge departure from D&D. Most of them aren't super powerful, but my Ranger main already seemed very strong compared to the Warlock and Mage. Higher hit chance, much higher damage (hunter's mark + colossus slayer). Some of them are just way to strong, really taking away the role of caster types (arrow of Darkness) etc.

Almost every companion wants to sleep with you... really fast. I think it would be more interesting if that either came later or required a bit more effort.

Pets: Not following you up and down ledges and such is quite annoying. Maybe an option for them to perch on you or something until combat would be nice.

Splitting the party to jump is so tedious. Would be happy with a "group" jump option that tells you if a certain member can't make the distance.

Laezel's encounter with the other Githranki: It seemed very odd to me that after they attacked us and we killed them that there wasn't any sort of dialog from her about that.

XP: Right now it's hard for me to judge how XP gained in the EA will tie into the rest of the game. In general, I want there to be near equivalence between solving things in combat vs solving them in other ways. There are many different ways to approach this, but ultimately I don't want to feel compelled to kill everything in order to get the "best" reward. Some people worry about being under leveled, but I find that being over leveled is far more common problem in video games. You could potentially cap each act/chapter like you are doing to EA now. That removes the pressure and means that at each stage players aren't over/under.


Party Composition: I'm actually very happy with a 4 person party, I don't want 5 or 6. I hope you are already considering an option to allow the player to either completely respec the companions into different classes or allow us to fill our party with non-companions so that we can make completely customizable parties (similar to what 4 people in multiplayer could do).

The evil player: I read a very nice writeup from someone who played through as evil and took notes along the way. I was impressed at many of the story paths that existed for them to go down. However they still felt like the support for such a thing fell short (loss of merchants for one thing). So I just want to put my voice out there to encourage more of that sort of thing.

Camera controls: I found several times I really wanted to be able to turn the camera to look up at the ceiling (usually because there was something up there). I'm not sure if this is a technical limitation, but it would be a nice QoL addition.

More transparency / info: Does STR contribute to shove? Is it contested by their STR or DEX? Stuff like this.

Sneak Attack: Would this make more sense as a toggle? In 5E one of the benefits of dual wielding as a Rogue is that if you miss with your main weapon you can still get your sneak attack damage on your offhand. You can also get it when someone leaves your space and you get a OOP on them.

Food / Resting: I'm not sure how I feel about this. In the first 3/4 of the game, food felt over powered. I was 35 hours in and had only long rested twice I think. OTOH, you can basically just long rest as often as you want, which seems wrong. I'd prefer some means to limit long rest, reducing the food out there, and increasing the short rest use from 1 to 2 times per long rest.

The Bonus Actions: I figure you have a good reason for diverging from D&D so much on these. It felt incredibly easy to avoid getting OOPs using jump, and the fact that you can then attack as normal is pretty strong. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

Backstab: Given that there seems no risk, and at worse you can't accomplish this because there are obstacles in the way, this seems like an unnecessary departure from D&D rules.

Concentration: I could have missed this, but I didn't see something that would let me drop concentration on demand. This should be added in some capacity.

Cantrips: On Gale, I used Firebolt, the Acid, and the Frost cantrips 99% of the time. Probably one of the reasons I didn't feel compelled to long rest much is because I usually horded his spell slots for "in case" circumstances, but part of it was that these were just so strong. Acid to lower AC, Frost to knock them down, and Fire for decent damage.

Finally, I just want to reiterate that I really enjoyed the game and look forward to the rest of it. I know most of this feedback is on the negative side, but unfortunately that's how things stand out sometimes. Keep up the good work!








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Started multiple times but only played all the way through once, this is what I found:

- Multiple quests did not complete correctly for me. Karlach didn't act like I helped her out, quest is still sitting open in my quest log. Auntie Ethel never turned up in the last room with the girl in a cage. She might have been invisible but there's nothing indicating she is, so I just killed the girl to finish the quest. Unsatisfying. After clearing the way for the tieflings the head honcho wanted to party with me, which I agreed to, but nothing happened after that. Seems like there's a trigger missing here. VERY unsatisfying.

- I won't reiterate all the posts about the dominance of surfaces, you already know about this.

- Seems like ranged is absolutely king in the current iteration of the game, enabled by very easy advantage through height and melee characters not getting anything similar, unless you have one guy distracting. In general there are very few melee only enemies, and if there are they all are chucking fire/acid pots.

- As stated multiple times before, enemies should be differentiated by their intelligence. How does a Worg know to attack the Wizard that is already on the ground?


And finally:

Originally Posted by Sharet
Originally Posted by silentbrad
I've read bits and pieces of people saying that the reasoning is because people were missing too often, but that sounds to me like it's more of a problem with your random number generator. The average roll for a d20 is 10.5, so with a 16 or higher score in your attack stat, you should be hitting more often than not (+3 modifier, +2 proficiency bonus).


This.

This x2.


oh, on the topic of Inventory

Being able to swap items around without restriction is very convenient. I just have to ask myself, why not go the Extra step and remove personal inventory entirely? Just one shared bag. And while you're at it, remove carry capacity too. Everyone and their mothers will mod it out anyway.


Last edited by Syrek; 20/10/20 07:29 AM. Reason: More thoughts
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After several hours and characters, here are my impressions:


Launcher

The launcher is missing a "report bug" button, instead of/additionally to the "Feedback" button.
Having one in game would be great too.

Save Games

Save games need to be clustered by character! If you have multiple characters finding the right save game is really hard with all those auto saves and quick saves, even if you use proper naming for the saves.
If "profiles" are supposed to be used for clustering by character, then "New game" should create a new profile.

Naming your save should be easier, with the cursor automatically starting in the save game name box.

Character creation

The order of character creation seems weird. Picking a name and background first, then race and class seems backwards. That should be the last step, because the name depends on race and background probably depends on class.

Race -> Appearance -> Class -> Abilities -> Skills -> Origin

Race options are alright for now, but looking forward to Half-Orcs and Genasi

I like most of the appearance options and you can build really neat looking characters, but there are a few caveats:

  • hair colors: I like the availability of the full color spectrum, but a lot of them don't look at good when actually used. Some like dark green or purple look alright, but with a lot of them it doesn't really look like hair to me, very artifical. I wish the odd hair colors blended a little better to look more natural.
  • hair cuts: lots of great haircuts, but why are they gender exclusive? why can't the male characters have the large braid hair cuts when the female characters can have beards?
  • faces: I like a lot of them, but there should be more than 6 available per race. harder faces for female characters, softer faces for male (non-elf) characters, younger faces for dwarves, etc. Sliders would be nice, but not an absolute must


A lot of the basic classes are there, but I'm looking forward to druid, monk and paladin, also more subclasses, but that's a given since we're in EA.

Designing the additional character is nice, but the pastel pink outfit looks horrible on a lot of characters.

Party members

  • Astarion: Great character so far, looking forward to having him around. Him starting at Level 1 is weird, considerung how old and experienced he should be.
  • Gale: Like him, his costly problem doesn't bother me much. His backstory is a little much for a level 1 Wizard, same as Astarion, it feels like he should be stronger than he starts as.
  • Lae-zel: Looking forward to learn more about the Githyanki. She can be a little demanding, but not as bad as Shadowheart.
  • Shadowheart: A little too contrarian, like she doesn't want to be in my party even after several hours of gameplay. Kinda squishy, even though she has the best melee stats after Lae-zel.
  • Wyll: I like the over-the-top hero character, but his stats don't really reflect his personality. "The Blade of Frontiers" not really being suited for melee combat makes no sense. He also seems to buggiest character to me, constantly being unaware of what just happend and what he himself said. Wyll after talking to the goblin: "Kill him!" Also Wyll: "Why did you kill him? Now I can't ask questions!"


Gameplay

  • Fighting: Some of the fights can be really hard, especially if you trigger the conversation that leads to the fight, instead of ambushing them. Wanting to experience the story shouldn't put you in a bad tactical position.
  • Turn-Based: Turn-based combat is so much better then real time. It's the basis of basically all pen&paper systems and if I have to control more than one character, it's the only way to go if you want to use every character's full potential.
  • Experience: Fighting and quests shouldn't be the only way to get exp. Finding a peaceful solution by talking shoould give an EXP reward too.
  • Surfaces: I like the landscape, but there are too many surfaces and explosive barrels. Mud in the wilderness I can understand, but why does the secret trader hideout have an oil slick all over the place, so that a single spark blows up the entire lower floor? Why am I bleeding so much from a single attack that it can be frozen into a slippery surface? Why is every goblin equipped with acid and fire bombs? Why are there explosive barrels where they make no sense?
  • Containers: So many empty containers... They make the environment look more lively, more used, but looking through everyone of them for useful stuff is a chore. Please mark the not empty ones.
  • Conversations: You should be able to change the character having a converation or let the character with the highest stat make a roll. Messing up a conversation because it triggered with the wrong character is a problem, especially if the better suited character is standing right behind them.
  • Pathfinding: Unless the character is undocked, everyone than can savely follow by jumping or climbing should do so, instead of taking the long way around, right through the enemies.
  • Party-size: 4 is alright, makes you look for solutions to problems with non-optimal characters
  • Loot: Loot should be more diverse. I regularly find leather armor and chain mail, but helmets, gloves and boots are hardly anywhere to be found except shops and one or two chests. Different designs/colors for things like leather armor or robes would be nice too. Or maybe even an option to customize them.
  • Shops: Shops should show the actual price you're going to pay, instead of some base value that suddenly gets more than doubled after choosing the item. The value of the stuff I'm selling compared to price they cost if I were to buy them from the vendors is too steep. The buying price is about 4x the amount I get when selling the same item.


User Interface

  • Inventory: I want to be able to select multiple items at the same time, especially for sending them to the camp.
  • Camp-Inventory: The inventory box for the camp needs to be more than a simple chest. Looking through a chest with 100 items to find one specific item is horrible.
  • Item-Icons: Things like potions, poisons etc. should have clearly distinct icons, so that I don't drink the poison in my quick list, because it looked like a health potion!
  • Camera: In certain places, the camera won't let you zoom out enough to actually be able to target every enemy, for example in the chamber of the hobgoblin. If you're on the bottom you can't really target people walking on the rafters. In other cases, some floors are shown as see through, showing the floor behind it. But when you click to walk at the shown floor, it sets the walking target on the see-though floor.



Keep working on it, and I'm sure this will turn out to be a great game!

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Originally Posted by Isaac Springsong
Originally Posted by Sharet
Originally Posted by silentbrad
I've read bits and pieces of people saying that the reasoning is because people were missing too often, but that sounds to me like it's more of a problem with your random number generator. The average roll for a d20 is 10.5, so with a 16 or higher score in your attack stat, you should be hitting more often than not (+3 modifier, +2 proficiency bonus).


This.


I think the root of the issue is that Larian is thinking too much like DoS 2, and not enough like BG/5e. For example, the 'missing too often' feel can be real...because Larian introduced rolling at Disadvantage at a target higher than you, or in even dim lighting. They also made the "Threatened" range about 3x bigger than the Opp Attack range, meaning Ranged characters are also going to be attacking at Disadvantage even when they shouldn't be.

They basically doubled the amount of times you can roll at Disadvantage are were surprised that combat didn't feel fun.


Wait, there's attacks of opportunity in this game!?

(Just kidding, I know there is, after all I've played 50 or so hours of it and I'm pretty sure I had one at one point...)

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I'd like to ask once again to add my topic on lackluster party controls to the list in the OP.

I think it's a core issue that needs to be addressed, not to mention the thread seems to be popular enough (third biggest one in the entire Feedback section currently).


Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
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First thoughts after playing with a friend for about 5 hours over 2 sessions:

1. I'd like an option to hide my helmet

2. In 'story' cutscenes (not initiated dialogs), it would be nice to see 'your' character as the protagonist, even if your friend kicked off the cutscene. Example: The end of the tutorial and beginning of the next sections.

3. I'd like to see other players' die rolls.

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To keep all feedback in one place, I would like to add my suggestions as well:

Gameplay Suggestions


Conversations:
Let the game automatically select the character with the best chance of success for any ability check in conversations for us like the Pathfinder game does.

For example, a conversation leads to a Persuasion check, a Medicine check and a Arcana check and when you hover over these options, the game tells you that each check would be attempted by a different character from your group because each of them is the most proficient in each respective field.


Speeding up combat

The issue
One of the major downsides of turn based combat in RPGs is that the time a player has to wait in order to make his next turn linearly increases with the number of combatants taking part in the encounter. While games that feature real time with pause handle all combatant's turn simultaneously, turn based is at the disadvantage of having to wait several seconds for every single combatant to make his turn one after the other. In the worst case, this can lead to downtimes where the player has nothing to do other than lean back for minutes, waiting when your next turn is.

Suggestion
To alleviate this issue and make turn based combat more fluid and engaging I would suggest a system where enemy turns are grouped up based on their turn order and play out simultaneously. So instead of letting multiple individual turns play out, there is one single enemy group turn.

For example:
Character A and Character B of your party have both made their turn, now 5 goblins get to make their turn before your characters C and D get to make their turn and finish the round. So instead of having to wait for one goblin after another to make their turn, all 5 simultaneously start moving into position and perform their actions. Instead of having to wait for 5 individual turns to play out, you only have to wait for 1 turn where 5 combatants make their move.

Potential problem of this system
The advantage of reducing idle time for the player might come at the cost of losing some overview of what happens during one round of combat. This kind of issue of course is typical for real time with pause combat systems but is normally alleviated by having a detailed combat log where every action can be reviewed in case the player couldn't keep track of everything what happened during a turn.

Potential fix to keep better overview
Instead of just letting all enemies between you characters turns run wild and perform all their actions whenever they are ready to do so, the enemy group turn could be segmented into multiple phases.

Phase 1 would be an initial movement phase where enemies, if they need to change their position, do so simultaneously or keep their current position if they don't need to move. After every combatant has reached their position, phase 2 starts.
Phase 2 contains all enemies taking their planned action but this time the actions are not performed simultaneously. To keep a better overview all enemy actions play out one after another in the order of their individual position in the initiative queue. The camera focuses on each action and jumps from combatant to combatant. After all enemies have done so, phase 3 starts.
Phase 3 is another movement phase, where enemies can spend their movement points in case they haven't done so before or still have movement left which they want to spend. This happens once again simultaneously.
This can be followed up by an optional phase 4 where enemies perform a bonus action.

Additional thoughts
As there are many different players out there with many different preferences I would suggest to make this system optional, tucked away in the options menu for players to toggle on or off, whether they would like to use this more speedy version of turn based combat or keep the slower but easier to overview system which is currently in the game.


Bugs

Tooltips not changing on trade windows based on selected character

When you talk to a trader to look at his wares, the tooltip of equipment he is selling only refers to the profciencies of the character who initiated the conversation with the trader and clicking through your party member's inventory doesn't adjust the tooltip.

So, for example, you start a trade with a wizard and switch on the trade window to Shadowheart and hover over a shield, the tooltip still says "no proficiency" because the tooltip still refers to the wizard and not to Shadowheart.
You have to end the trade and talk to the trader with Shadowheart again for the tooltip to actually show her proficiencies. Same goes with every other member of the party.

(Re-)Binding keys with multiple uses not possible
The game currently has some keys bound to do multiple things, like Left Alt expanding tooltips, show world tooltips, or Tab for both toggle combat mode and toggle party/ character overview.

When you try to rebind those keys, the game warns you that multiple things would be affected but it won't let you bind the new key you are choosing to those multiple options as well. So if you for example just would like to swap those two keys around, so Tab shows and expands tooltips and Left Alt toggling combat mode and party / character overview, the game simply won't let you do that since the new key is already bound to one of those two things and can't have multiple bindings like it had before.

Joined: Oct 2020
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Originally Posted by KainLexington

[*]Pathfinding: Unless the character is undocked, everyone than can savely follow by jumping or climbing should do so, instead of taking the long way around, right through the enemies.


This is mostly speculation but I assume they already have it working that way internally, but disabled it for EA because it's still buggy with a full party.
What makes me think that is that in the beginning on the Nautiloid, if you manage to recruit "Us" as a temporary ally, it has no problem jumping after you over a gap. Unfortunately it's the only jumpable gap in the intro that I've found so I'm not sure if Lae'zel does it too. But still, if it's their plan to teach to new players that it works like that it's surely intended to.

Joined: Jun 2020
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Feedback!

Here's my thoughts so far, after having played the game for a while.

We need more animations for each weapon's normal attack, and special moves needs to have more varied animations. So far I only see 2-3 different attack animations in total with each weapon, and the normal attack animation is always the same. That is such a big part of the feel of the game, that it really needs to have more variation.

The camera feels flimsy. Like when you are centered and on camera-follow on one of your characters, and you then switch to another character, it wont automatically center and camera-follow on that character. There has to be a lock/unlock button when it comes to the camera so that it doesn't just jump from one perspective to another without the player intentionally wanting that.

Another thing regarding the camera is that, while in the camera-follow mode centered around your character, you cannot turn the camera upward enough in order to see enemies that are above your character. You'll have to use the overhead-camera for that, which is awful. I don't like the overhead-camera. I need to be able to look upward while in the close-up 3rd-person perspective.

A third thing about the camera. I would like if there were two extra on/off features in the Options:
1: One feature where the camera automatically centers on the front-vision of the enemy during the enemy's turn, rather than you automatically view the frontal body of the enemy and only see the enemy casting a spell at the air (because you will need to manually turn the camera in order to see where the enemy is casting at as the camera doesn't follow the enemy's direction of view).
2: And another feature where your camera will stay on your own character in the middle of an enemy's turn, so that your camera wont jump to an enemy but will constantly be staying on whatever character you camera is centered on.
I don't like that the camera decides for me what I am supposed to be looking at. I need to have my camera be entirely within my own control.

We need to have full information in the Character Sheet screen. I can't see the current amount of Experience Points my characters have, or how much is required for Level Up.

I need to have an onscreen indicator that I have Advantage for a current roll or not. Like in conversations. Please make it so that Advantage in rolls is visibly noted down. Otherwise I will not have any feeling for the importance of Advantage in Conversations. The same should really go for all checks, but in things like Stealth checks, the "Advantage" note could just be mentioned in the Combat Log.

The Combat Log/Textbox in the lower righthand corner of the screen, needs to be able to mention everything that goes on, not just what happens in Combat and EXP gains only. It should in the Options also be possible to have enabled conversations in this Textbox, so that you can see what your companions randomly said while moving about, or from what was said during conversations.

The conversations with your companions that can be had at Camp, can be missed out on if you don't go to Camp emidiately after new objectives have been reached. Like for example, the Conversation with Shadowheart about how it's "our last evening together" before looking for the Druid Halsin. That conversation happens when I've been poisoned by the Healer Nettie. However, if I cure myself from the poison before going to Camp, I will have missed that conversation with Shadowheart. And the conversation is completely unrelated to me being poisoned, so it makes no sense to miss it if I cure the poison.
And I have had other conversations that were missed if I did or didn't go to camp at some seemingly random time. It just isn't fun to have to go to Camp right after each objective has been met for anything, in fear of missing out on conversations.

Also, companions can miss out on conversations that they would have otherwise commented in, because they for some reason were a meter too far away when the conversation started. Make it so that companions will continue to run towards your character even after a Conversation has begun, in order for this to not happen.

Longsword is supposed to be usable both in 1-hand and in 2-hands, but currently you can only use a Longsword as a 1-handed if you hold a shield. You cannot choose to use it as a 1-handed with an empty off-hand. And you can't equip a Dagger in the off-hand. Please make it so that Longsword can be toggled to 1-handed and 2-handed on the go, through the duelwield switch below your Attacks menu.

I second the suggestion that the youtuber
ProJared came with regards to how crafting should being able to alter each part of a currently-owned weapon or an armor, just like what we saw in Neverwinter Nights 1. That was so so good in that game!
And also coloring of your clothes/robes/armor/hoods needs to be an option in the inventory, in order for there to be more possibility of characters looking different from oneanother. Just like in the original Baldur's Gate games.

Regarding the Hunter's Mark spell of Rangers. Please make the animation be a Ranger-looking animation, rather than it being a generic spellcasting animation. The spells like Hail of Thorns and Ensnaring Strike used Ranger-looking animations, or atleast it wasn't spellcasting animations. I love that with Ensnaring Strike, your character holds the weapons out and does a chant before striking. I would love for Hunter's Mark to be similar, rather than Hunter's Mark looking like a normal wizard-like spellcasting animation.

The Spellbook needs to be an actual book rather than a boring inventory-like menu. Larian made so cool books in this game. Atleast make the Spellbook like that too!

Casting a spell from a scroll should have it's own scroll-using animation, similar to casting a spell from a scroll in Neverwinter Nights 1. And casting a spell from a wand should also have a wand-using animation.

I LOOVE the Speak with Animals spell and how you can practically have a conversation with every nonhostile animal you meet! That is so well done! This should also be the case for Speak with Dead.

Also the coloring of Eldritch Blast is boring. And it should have some appearance altering when using different types of Eldritch Blasts depending on your Eldritch Blast-oriented feats. We saw that in Neverwinter Nights 2 and it's easy to implement. It should be more interesting to look at.

About the spell Witch Bolt: Reactivating Witch Bolt the next turn right after having cast it, shouldn't have to go through the casting animation all over again. That makes it look and feel like you are simply recasting Witch Bolt, which isn't what that spell is supposed to look and feel like. It's supposed to look and feel like you are maintaining the spell, not recasting it. Also, it looks really weird that the bolt isn't coming from your hand while you are maintaining it or during the turns of others. Couldn't you make it so that it's the character's hand/hands that the bolt is channeled from, and that the hand/hands stays up and pointing towards the enemy, for as long as the spell is maintained? That would also look much cooler even when moving while maintaining the spell (unless ofc you make it in a way where the hand will go right through your character's body if you turn around while maintaining the spell. Just make it so that the hand will stop going further than the torso when turning around while maintaining the spell.


Joined: Oct 2020
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About the spell Speak with Dead,

it would be a nice QoL feature if the game could keep count of your remaining questions since you can only ask 5 questions before the spell wears off.

Joined: Oct 2020
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Why only 2 slots for Melee weapons? The way its setup in the UI its a toggle for weapons sets so we could easily have 3 or 4.

Make weapons changes more dynamic and part of the ongoing gameplay instead of like 'this is my perma weapon set up until I find something magic with better stats.'

Martial Classes in particular could be more about mixing it up with their weapons. Sometimes spears are better than sword and shield loadout, or short sword to get in close, slash vs pierce whatever. But doing this from the inventory screen takes the player out of the action. Changing armor loadouts should take an action, but weapons can be more flexible.

On the paper doll when you Toggle Char Sheet or Equipment:

More weapons loadouts there's definitely room for 4

Some things with dual weapons/ranged loadouts on the right side.

It'd be nice to see some variety there too for the companions. Shadowheart might get a spear or Lae'zel a scimitar or Astarion a rapier, to match all the splash art. Just have it as their second default weapons loadout, and we'd still have two weapons slots free to experiment with other weapons we find if we had 4 slots.

There's also room on the paper doll equip UI to put another couple Ring slots or a second amulate slot. Those I think would make sense.

This is one UI aspect that looks pretty identical to BG1 that I wish actual would get an update.

Right now there 13 slots on the paper doll. Why not go big with like 18 slots or maybe more? Or instead of a single column on either side of the avatar you could have a secondary tier for other things like gloves armor and whatnot, but have switching those require an action. Whereas stuff like rings or necklaces its easy to imagine the character wearing a couple on each hand. Or having a second necklace. Even circlets and hoods could be a different type of helm the way cloaks and capes are treated separately from robes or sashes. There's just a lot of room there I think to sensibly have more equipment loadouts from the paper doll.

But anyway weapons I think get the most mileage since it would be fun to have more options when you "toggle weapons sets"

All this gives more purpose to the equipment we find along the way, and to hold on to and utilize more of the drops, since there'd be more slots. More purpose for keeping different crossbows/bows or throwing weapons like mauls or knives. Especially for dual wielding types. Spear and Shield is one of the most iconic wish we had that. Spears and staves should have a 1 handed loadout.

I wish we had things like scabbards and belt straps and such. Games always leave that stuff alone but it could be a whole part of the inventory/equipment and aesthetic
characterization.

I think torches/lanterns should be a slot on the paper doll. I don't think we should have to dip or cast fire to light a torch. It should just be assumed to include a flint or match. It could be an item with limited uses like say 5 times to ignite before it burns out. That'd be sensible since they use oil and wax anyway or wood that eventually burns out. But it should be a quickly from the toggle.




Last edited by Black_Elk; 21/10/20 06:19 AM.
Joined: Jul 2018
stranger
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The Story Telling and Quests need to be redesigned with a few things in mind. This video is a great example of what I mean.

Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfGT-oapL4

You can see how story telling in the classic Baldur's Gates games varies, and how dialog choices are YOURS to make, NOT the Dice.

Joined: Oct 2020
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Originally Posted by Dirin Tenshinibo
The Story Telling and Quests need to be redesigned with a few things in mind. This video is a great example of what I mean.

Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfGT-oapL4

You can see how story telling in the classic Baldur's Gates games varies, and how dialog choices are YOURS to make, NOT the Dice.


While I understand where you are coming from. 5e is a completely different beast where there are skill challenges just as much as actual combat. Its a major part of 5e. The major difference with tabletop of course is you cant reload your game to get the outcome you want. You actually have to live with the consequences with your group based on failed checks.

I dont know how many times our group planned for hours to execute a very meticulous situation. Right out of the Gate failed the save and all that planning poof =)

Last edited by Jazhara202; 21/10/20 08:45 PM.
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Just fix ping and put it in the game.

Joined: Oct 2020
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Magic Missiles is rolling one die for each dart, but since the damage is dealt simultaneously unlike scorching ray for example, it should really just roll one die and have that assigned to all darts ("Damage Rolls," PH, 196)

Joined: Oct 2020
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Introduction of professions for (Non-combat) XP please. Even finding alternative ways to handle scenarios through dialogue should grant experience.

Wizards should not learn other class spells.

Select best party member to handle conversations built for them (Proficiency and what not).

More spells.

Dodge Bonus Action.

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