Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
#743841 09/12/20 10:06 PM
Joined: Jun 2020
apprentice
OP Offline
apprentice
Joined: Jun 2020
First I would like to say a big thank you to Larian for all the work you've been doing, and how much you've already pivoted based on feedback. It's very much appreciated, and is definitely encouraging me to keep playing and taking notes (seriously this game is quickly going to surpass my previous record of most played game on Steam, and it's only Act 1). You all are the best!

I've now completed another evil playthrough under Patch 3, and have another Good playthrough in the works. This will be a list of my feedback from what I've seen so far. Some of the items I will be going over have been touched on in my previous post but are being kept in the list as they appear to be relevant still and as such I believe they still bear repeating, and some will be updated for where some change has occurred but I'm still seeing potential issues. In those cases I will be identifying what I previously brought up, as well as what I've seen some change on, and placing them at the bottom of their respective sections to try and make this as clean as possible. I've also attempted to remove any notes I had that were already handled as of Patch 3, but apologies if I miss any.

One final note is that I have yet to play multiplayer in this newest patch, so it's possible that some adjustments have been made there that I am unaware of. I will update after I get to play with my friends if I spot anything new there, or anything else that I need to remove from this post.

I've sent to Larian via Feedback as well, and have also posted this on reddit. If you prefer the format of Reddit you can find the original post at: Reddit Post

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.

Again, like my previous post, this will likely be long, so apologies.

Story:
(Updated)
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. After the latest patch I still haven't seen too many additional incentives to
go against the Grove
, but I do appreciate some of the new dialogue that I have found so far.

Graphics:

I still won't focus a lot on Graphics, as the game is in Early Access and I would imagine this will be taken care of as development proceeds. However, a few things I have noticed that I figure are at least worth noting.

  • Cutscenes tend to load textures slowly, resulting in rather low quality scenes at times.
  • Mouths still randomly not moving in dialogue.
  • Still seeing a second Shadowheart appearing behind her when recruiting her.
  • Objects still interfere with views in dialogue depending on what you're standing near when one starts (example talking to Shadowheart in the Blighted Village my view was obscured by some nearby foliage)
  • Dream sequences in particular seem fond of graphical hiccoughs at the moment.


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

Dialogue, Cutscenes, and Interactions:
  • Some of the checks still seem very high in conversations.
    BOOAL
    for example needs a 14 with a +6 Arcana, so a DC 20 check seems a bit much. Subjective of course, and definitely better than needing multiple rolls for the same effect.

Previously Mentioned:
  • 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.

Companions:
  • I really appreciate the new dialogue from the companions. It's starting to make them feel even more alive, which is absolutely wonderful.
    Previously Mentioned:
    • (Updated) 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. My suggestion would be to allow him to be fed a wider variety of magical items to sate his hunger.

  • Camera:
    • Camera is still off, and in some cases seems to be worse than before this patch. Issues appear to be due to verticality largely. If I zoom out too far it doesn't think I'm clicking on the ground as the ceiling gets in the way, sometimes resulting in no movement and sometimes sending me to Ao only knows where. I also frequently miss combat animations if I'm zoomed out too far because it chooses then to show either a wall or the ceiling again (this is especially likely to occur during nat 20 closeup action shots). These issues are particularly noticeable when inside buildings or dungeons.

  • Combat:
    • Threatened condition is still set too far. Range should be reduced to in melee range (5'). I've had a few issues with this, where my Wizard is safely behind two melee characters in my party but was still considered threatened until I ran past about 10'.
    • Spears should still be made versatile.
    • When dual wielding and the first attack kills the enemy, the second attack should not trigger and be wasted. I'm aware that you can toggle to just swing once, but it is nice imo to be able to go ahead and let it auto-attack for you if the first attack either misses or fails to kill the target.
    • Magic Missile can still have the path interrupted.
    • Too High still needs to be removed or dramatically reworked.
    • Reactions should still be adjusted to being a choice in a pop-up as opposed to the current implementation.
    • Monsters are still given too many actions. A good example is the
      Bulette. They aren't explicitly listed as having multiattack, so having a bite (4d12), plus a leap (3d6) each round adds up quickly. This is compounded by only being level 4 for a CR 5 fight, so it may well feel different once the level cap is increased, but as things stand now it makes it very easy to get one shot in a round, particularly when playing on a Wizard.
      This isn't the only example of this either, there are several creatures that use more actions than they should during rounds. Combined with having increased the HP of most enemies this additional damage can potentially add up drastically over the additional rounds needed to drop them.
    • Surface Effects - (Updated) I appreciate the improvements that have been made to surface effects a lot. I do still see some issues with the implementation however, namely that saves should be made for half damage, and only when entering for the first time, or ending your turn there. Currently it still seems to tick damage too often (starting turn there and exiting, in addition to the initial effect, and burning after you exit). This is a lot of damage for any class to take, but is definitely noticeable when you are playing a caster by causing too many concentration checks.

  • Previously Mentioned:
    • 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.
    • 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.

  • Experience:
    • Pacifist XP - (Updated) I appreciate that you are working on allowing Pacifist XP now, as well as rewarding people for attempting to creatively solve situations, however, Pacifist EXP doesn't seem to always trigger. The confrontation at the Overgrown Ruins for example gives no XP upon successfully talking your way out of a fight. Attempted to reload and try a few different pacifist dialogue options to see if that was the culprit but it appears that no xp is rewarded regardless of what you say (Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidation).


  • Races:
    Previously Mentioned:
    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.
    • (Updated) Saw a [Human] dialogue option show up on non-human characters (Tiefling and Drow) when speaking to Ethel.

  • Classes:
    Previously Mentioned:
    • 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.
    • 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:
    Previously Mentioned:
    • 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:
    Previously Mentioned:
    • 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:
    Previously Mentioned:
    • 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/Merchants:
    • I feel like prices are still too high, particularly noticeable when you play with a group and gold has to be split. Prices should likely be lowered, or more gold should be available for multiplayer runs at the least. Right now it seems designed to encourage theft, which well I guess is cheaper?
    • Reading books shouldn't equal theft, if they're going to be treated as possessions maybe make them purchasable for cheap? If not maybe remove ownership flags?
    • Where does traders inventory go when they die? If you barter to see their inventory and then kill them most things being sold vanish. As a last ditch effort do they send items to another dimension before they die?

  • Resting:
    Previously Mentioned:
    • 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:
    Previously Mentioned:
    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:
    • Can we have more makeup color options? Purple (Justiciar) makeup doesn't really show up on drow skintones even at 100.
    • I would like to see some more faces, or at least faces that you already have in the game be less restricted by Race. I understand your reasoning behind why you locked some as you're trying to show your idea of the image of that race, but it does limit customization fairly significantly. Elves for instance have two faces I like, so I already have several characters with the same face, plus a few NPC twins.

  • Previously Mentioned:
    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 (though I wouldn't complain), 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.

  • QoL/General Improvements:
    • There are a ton of empty containers all over this game. I have two suggestions regarding this:
      • To save time searching empty containers consider marking empty containers as empty. It gets more tedious the more times I play through having to search a great many empty barrels just in case there is something there.
      • Related mark containers you've already searched and decided not to loot differently. I keep forgetting what I've examined already and end up checking enemies/crates multiple times.
  • Add an area loot option.
  • Accept button is still underneath the + for level-up, leading to a potential to accidentally confirm a level-up before making any changes.
  • Leave name blank when creating a character to cut down on the amount of accidental Tav's being created. That or make a few names for a randomizer at least, would also be cool.
  • Revise the chained party member approach. Would prefer a more classic drag and select method for speed, but at the very least would like to have characters not run around if I switch who I'm controlling.
  • Group jumping is a fantastic change, however some tuning is still needed. I've randomly had them not jump after me, and had to switch to whatever character didn't jump to manually do it for them. Combined with the above this makes the other characters now jump back to where the other character was if you aren't fast enough.
  • One thing I've noticed with jump is how picky it is about where you can jump, and randomly locking you into place while you're trying to jump instead of walking to a place they could jump from, making you cancel and take a step forward so you can actually clear the gap. Could use some tuning still, didn't really notice it until I played a character with 8 str and struggle with a lot of the jumps.
  • Related, similar to group jump it would be nice to one click stealth everyone who is grouped.
  • Darkvision doesn't seem to be listed on character sheets anymore. That or I'm completely blind. This isn't too big of a deal for people familiar with the tabletop version, but would be important to have for people who aren't.
  • Passive checks still need to do a better job highlighting what is spotted. Additionally related to traps there are currently two large problems with trap detection. The roll takes so long that most of the time you've stumbled over the trap auto-running before you can stop, and two you don't stop moving even if you do discover a trap. Suggestion, make trap detection faster and movement stop when one is discovered. No need to slow down to show that a roll was failed as the inevitable explosion will give it away.
  • Autopathing still leads to characters jumping from rooftops even if there's a ladder right next to where they chose to yeet. It definitely seems much better than before, but still occassionally having people walk into environmental hazards as well.
  • Quest log still cuts off due to number of quests. Can we get mousewheel function on the quest list as well?
  • Circumstantial, but does anyone else feel like loading has gotten worse with this patch? My characters always t-posed but there's now a solid 15-30 seconds depending on where I load now where the environment and sometimes even my characters don't load for the duration. Could be something on my end, but wasn't experiencing this many issues prior to this patch.

Previously Mentioned:
  • 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 in separate posts:
  • 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. I've also reported a bug related to this, where on occasion I am seeing character saves in multiple profiles. If this were organized by character from the outset this should theoretically be resolved.
  • 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:
  • Further testing will eventually be needed for higher levels to test balance. A suggestion would be to set up random combats with higher level creatures to test those features that we won't have access to until launch, otherwise we can't really provide feedback.

  • Multiclassing
  • Additional Classes

A metric I'm curious about:

Random Curiosity for your consideration for your next round of metrics? What have been the most and least picked deities so far?

Joined: Oct 2020
stranger
Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Great write-up and I agree with all of these points, thank you! smile

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Good stuff!


Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5