This game really does have a ton of potential. I really do want it to rise to the heights it can based on what is already built.
What would make it SO much better?
1. D&D 5e Rules Authentic Difficulty Setting. Give players the ability to select a Difficulty Setting that sets all the rules to hard core D&D 5e rules so shoving is an Action, drinking a potion is an Action, Disengaging is an action, food doesn't heal HP, characters, good and bad, don't jump 30-60 feet through the air, enemies aren't jacked up with more HP than they should, Bullettes don't heal just by digging underground, barrels can't be thrown (maybe rolled but not thrown) etc. etc. etc. Have other Difficulty Settings for people who just want to play the game as it is now or whatever. All I and many others care about is that you give us the ability to turn on D&D 5e Core Rules so we can really play the game as it should be played.
2. Don't allow dialogues to be overwritten. If I don't End Day pretty much right after I meet Shadowheart and fight the devourers, I never see Gale's Mirror Image dialogue. It get's cast into the refuse pile. Allow me to trigger Gale's Mirror Image dialogue, and all dialogues in some sort of sequential order. First time I End Day, I get Gale's Mirror Image dialogue. Second time I End Day, I get his Go to Hell dialogue, etc. etc. etc.
3. Timed Events. I still think this game would be so much better with timed events. After x number of End Days, goblins attack the grove. After x number of End Days, the Druids complete their ritual and the tieflings are booted out. After x number of End Days, if you haven't gone to do the Githyanki Patrol scene, Lae'zel gets fed up and leaves. Those kinds of things. This could also maybe be a Difficulty setting for D&D Authentic Hard Core gamers or even just a separate setting all by itself, like Weighted Dice.
4. Random Encounters option in Settings as well, or maybe as apart of the D&D Authentic Difficulty setting. This creates a world that is less static and has more life to it. You could potentially encounter a random goblin patrol while wandering the woods, etc. These random encounters don't even have to be seen walking around the map. The game could just do a periodic roll in secret, and if it rolls a certain number or higher depending on the danger level of the area a random encounter suddenly springs up on the characters. The game pauses and the enemies just magically appear on the screen. You could even do a quick fade out and fade in with a message saying "Random Encounter".
5. Create some really small, couple second cutscenes for immersion purposes. If I short rest, for example, show my characters leaving the area they were in and resting at camp, then showing them return. This lets players know that they didn't just rest and regain hit points in two seconds. They actually left the dangerous location, made camp, rested an hour or two and then returned. Again, short cutscene. Nothing so long that players would get too annoyed. Also, make it so this cutscene could be skipped by hitting space bar and even turned off for those players who really don't want this. I'd like to see this same concept for other things that don't make sense, not just Short Rests. Give us cutscenes to explain certain game mechanics that you really want to leave in the game. For example, Magic Pockets. Have the main character trigger a cutscene right away, sometime before meeting Lae'zel, where they find a set of Magic Pockets. Then explain in the cutscene what they do so that players get a brief tutorial on inventory and the game explains to them at the same time how they came upon these strange Bags of Holding-like pockets that they can use to store endless inventory and pass items instantly between characters even from miles away. Have your character speculate, even, that maybe these were some sort of experimental magic items the Mind Flayers were creating. Things like this would go a long way in really explaining many of the story elements that right now are a bit confusing.
6. More build up to romance. There needs to be more flirting and character building before party members want to sleep with you. Right now, the sex moments seem too forced and sudden. It is also unbelievable that everyone in your party wants to sleep with you at the same time if you play your cards right. I mean, it shouldn't matter if I have a high influence on the characters. There should be at least some sort of dialogue triggers that lead up to the romantic encounter. BG1 and 2 and even Siege of Dragonspear did a much better job of this. You had to work at romance, and that was fun for me and a lot of other people I've been reading comments from.
7. If I pick a female character as my dream person, and I'm a male, maybe the game can default to heterosexual dialogue options so I'm not having homosexual moments in the game where male characters are asking me to sleep with them. Same with the opposite. If I pick a male character as my dream person, and I'm a male, maybe the game could default to homosexual dialogue options so that if a person is not heterosexual they aren't getting asked by opposite gender characters to have sex with them. Or make this some sort of choice you make when character creating. Allow the player to choose sex and then gender, thus setting their preference. Either this or have select characters be heterosexual and select characters homosexual because that is their character and go with it. This is more realistic anyway. I just didn't appreciate it when Wyll, out of nowhere, propositioned me to have sex with him even though in every dialogue scene I felt that we were just bros and good guy friends; not sex partners. I was thinking it'd be more appropriate if me and Gale and Wyll had been throwing back a few drinks at the party and just laughing and joking as pals; like a Guys' Night Out. If you do make the characters all have their own specific sexual preferences, you really should create some more options for both preferences. Right now, I can see why there are some posts out there with unhappy people in the romance department of the game.
8. Allow Character Switching during Dialogues. This is one of my little hangups on the game right now. Take the book in the Dank Crypt. I have a cleric, but I triggered the sequence with Astarion. He opens the book, but I'd like my cleric to use his Religion skill to know what the book's list of names contains. I can't do that, though, because Astarion is the only one who can use his skill to determine anything about the book. Thus, if Astarion fails, oh well. I'd like it so that I can switch characters so that if my Cleric is better at Religion than Astarion, I can switch my Cleric in to make the roll. Likewise, if one of my party members accidentally triggers a dialogue, which happens a lot, I can switch to my main because it is more appropriate for my main to have the conversation than that character.
9. Make it so we can have up to 6 characters in the party. Adding Random Encounters would balance the game more if you have more characters since you'd encounter more enemies periodically to fight.
10. Allow us the ability to create 4 custom characters in single player mode that interact the way you have them interact in multiplayer mode. This has been a truly fun experience for me to create 4 custom characters and have them interact with one another in different scenes. I loaded the game up 4 times, created a multiplayer session, had the 3 other instances join the first, and I created 4 custom characters. Then I saved the game on the main and closed the other instances. Viola! 4 Custom Characters. I want this for single player so I don't have to go through that whole mess to get 4 custom characters. I've never had a CRPG where I could create my own custom characters and have them actually interact in game before picking dialogue for each based on their races and other character creation choices. This really creates a lot of immersion for me when creating my own party of 4. I'd also like in single player mode the ability to leave 1 of the 4 custom characters at camp if I want to bring some of the other characters with me, like Lae'zel. That way we can trigger certain cutscenes like her interrogating the tiefling, etc. (It'd also be fun to allow custom characters to build romances, lol, though I doubt that would be possible. As it is, having custom characters interact in game blows my mind. I can't even imagine the work that'd have to be put into allowing these custom characters to build romances in game. Still, it'd be fun.)
