Baldur’s Gate 3 feedback

So, Baldur’s Gate 3. Probably one of the most important – if not THE most important – release of the decade when it comes to cRPGs.

Game is praised far and wide and while I agree with most of them, there are some irks and kinks that could be ironed out. Also, some illogical things in its story and possibly a lot of whining from an old man who played the original saga hundreds of times and could possibly quote any random dialogue or quest even when woke in the middle of the night. So, while reading the list below, bear in mind: I DO like BG3. I enjoyed most of my 170 hours it took for the first playthrough. And while I can praise a LOT of things in this game, nothing is perfect. There goes nothing, the list continues below. Spoilers are marked. And mind you, I started shaping those around ending of 2nd chapter, before that I was still in the phase of figuring out what I think or feel about certain mechanics and ideas.

General issues

Immersion breaking, lore-quarreling and low level annoyances.

• Level numbers and attributes inaccuracies. Like, I see a level 7 NPC having somehow 6 HP. Excuse me sir, is your Constitution negative or something? Are you cursed?

• World seems to be “leveling up” in accordance to the player. It feels it’s impossible to meet someone really powerful unless the player is as powerful. Orpheus barely level 12? What’s next, Elminster level 1? Oh wait, that actually happened. And I killed him. Hm…. I hope Mystra isn’t too mad about that. I mean, he always comes back, right? Anyway, this ruins world building and immersion. Look how Drizzt was introducted in the first Baldur’s Gate – way out of the player’s league and killable only by being creative with the systems (aka, cheesing), because in any fair fight, he would wreck any party.

• Let me meet a level 10 character early on, maybe even let me try taking him on and getting wrecked and thus learning my lesson to not mess with such powerful characters. Instead, I feel babysitted all the time to make sure I don’t do stupid thing. In a game, that…. actually quite often hints on doing stupid stuff for fun.

• instead I feel like in a Bethesda’s game where bandits will always be around my level no matter what

• All characters having names and no way to distinguish who is or may be important. With all those names, you forget 90% of them within a minute. Not every damn peasant needs a name imho. In the end when I got to the actual city, I literally ignored 99% of people because I couldn’t be arsed to talk to them in dire hopes of figuring out if they are important or not.

• Closing access to previous levels/maps is not very Baldur’s Gate-like. Why I can’t go back to the druid grove after I’ve access to the city proper? Why the draw bridge is lowered at some point, making fast travel and its “teleportation” a necessity instead of convenience?

• Journal is really very basic. No option to search or highlight anything, no “metalinks”. Interacting with it was one of the weakest points of the whole game. Look how Pathfinder games did it.

• Speaking of Pathfinder games, take note on how their inventory systems works. The way they improved the UI for inventory management from 1st to 2nd game and then made it even better with patches is AMAZING.

• Underdark was a disappointing theme park. It should be deadly place for any low level party, even if it was just Upperdark. It came too early in the game and because of that it could never be an actually dangerous place that people should be terrified of.

• On the topic of Underdark, I’ve checked known to me maps and can’t see anything known in the direct vicinity of Baldur’s Gate, but hey, I probably looked at wrong maps.

• The Mind Flayers colony. If not for one optional fight, the amount of Mind Flayers player can meet equals….1? In their colony? Are you sure? Remember how many Illithid were even in ONE of their “colonies” in BG2? Together with thralls and all? This is laughable.

• Drows, duergars, deep gnomes – hell, only illithids are missing from walking around the surface freely, be it in the city or rural area. What happened? In the past, just a sight of a drow would be a reason to panic and call guards while running away for one’s life. Remember how Viconia was constantly on the run? Now it’s “ok for drow to walk around in full sunlight in the middle of a big city”. Smells of certain thing I shall not name here, but I was wrinkling my nose a lot at this.

• With all the dungeons, underground temples, basements etc. under the whole city I am surprised it didn’t just…collapse. Or that all those tunnels don’t intertwine with one another creating a Ultimate Maze of Chaotic Undercity Where People Go Die In Mysterious And Possibly Painful Ways.

• You know what is not very much BG-like? No ability to travel almost anywhere. I can’t go back to previous locations or explore random wilderness. The amount of locations is also low. We’ve starting “forest” area, passage, underdark theme park, shadow cursed land aaaand it’s city already. That’s it. Oh and more underground areas.

• Books that inside have only “book detailing of a certain event” text inside. Why? What’s the damn point of them being there? Only as little nods to nerds who may know of a certain event, person or place? These books are effectively empty of actual content, all they do is add to the immense clutter of THINGS EVERYWHERE.

• Losing friendly NPCs because enemy has pushed them into a chasm is AWFUL. The amount of times I wanted to reload just because somebody was pushed off a cliff is too damn high.

• In general I am not a fan of the whole “shove into a chasm” mechanic. At best, it’s a cheese fest. At worst, I am loosing people because enemy made a lucky throw of used an ability to instakill some party member. And before you say “just place your people better”, some areas are designed especially with chasms in mind.

• Turn based battles vs hordes of weak enemies last FOREVER. Yes, the battles are taking too long.

• Did I mention I miss active pause? Or at least the option to pause the game when I notice a trap, an enemy or see some companion is about to walk into a visible trap just because they apparently love doing so.

• 12 level cap is too low, as I achieved it even before exploring the whole city and after that I got enough experience at least for 3-4 more levels. Update: Out of 170h, 30-40h was level cap. It kills the urge to do remaining sidequests somehow, knowing at the best I will get 1-2 useful items, at worst, nothing at all.

• Also, the amount of EXP given in fighting even super weak enemies in chapter 3 is…. kinda hilarious when compared to previous chapters. It seems to me like it was made this way to ensure every party will max out on level, even without doing side quests.

• What’s the damn point that after I talk to someone and fail a check, I can go talk to the same NPC with other of my squad member and attempt the same check? They even open with the same line, like that party member wasn’t there this whole time.

• Some guards were angry I was curious about a locked chest and attacked me. Killed them. Inside chest was nothing but fish. Ok, killed bunch of guys for fish, happens. Then I go to the Counting house, guards attack me on sight. I loot them during fight. After it, one of the civilians is like “i saw you stealing!”. I kill that one too. Yes I will damn loot enemies I’ve killed and no damn random civilian will meddle in that. Also, no one cared about that as well. In the end I left the whole area devoid of life.

• Also, killing all the civilians and no penalty, no problems with reputation. Nothing. And reputation WAS rather important in BG games. Have low enough reputation and literal strike teams will be after you in BG1/2.

• I still believe strongly that 50% or more of the dice rolling could be relegated to the background checks. Leave the in-dialogues ones, hide all the others. You already do that for some checks.

• Waiting for the damn animations of dice rolling to finish…. especially on “failure/success” phase, that can’t be skipped over. I was rolling my eyes sooo much because of this.

• I find barter function meaningless.

• Same with each NPC’s standings with any of my party members. It just doesn’t come into play unless you really really try, I guess.

• Autosaves are so rare…. if I forget to quick save, there’s a good chance I will loose another 30+ minutes of my progress due to how slow the fights are and then realize I need to reload just because either a bug occurred, I sequence broke another quest or that I needed to do non-lethal damage to someone to save his ass.

• “the poor creature reached for the key to lock her homestead, secure himself… and sealed her fate” – either my comprehension here is hitting rock bottom (possible) or somebody is changing sex way too often 😛

• Myrmidons selection box is way too huge. HUUUUGE.

• The underwear feature is useless and you can’t change my mind

• There’s a funny glitch in LOD for helmets, that makes them hover in the air at certain distance and “snap” back to the head of a character when camera is close

• Total number of companions is much smaller than previous games, obviously. While it’s easy to understand why, it still felt like I met 90% of possible companions early and after than nobody new appeared. Hirelings are a must it seems when player wants a warrior who is not a Gith for example.

• Having to go through all the pains of unlocking full potential of Necromancy of Thay only to get… a mediocre spell felt weak. It’s supposed to be a very dangerous and powerful tome – my mind instantly went to the direction of the likes of Szass Tam. And instead of power, maybe lichdom or similar secrets all I got was…. being able to cast useful spell of talking to dead aaaand a weak summon that at best can serve as a distraction as they get one shotted by a lot of enemies in chapter 3 anyway.

• Did I mention I miss the ending slides? Here the ending felt weak and very limited in numbers.

• Overall, the spell selection felt….weak in comparison to both Infinity Engine games and Pathfinder games. Some levels were so restricting, I almost ended up not using a single spell from such level because all available options were meh at best.

Spoiler Territory

Immersion breaking, lore-quarreling and low level annoyances. But also tearing some things apart and lack of logic in certain things.

• Z’real (or whatever her name was, the half-orc in Moonrise Towers) was able to effortlessly scan my character’s mind for memories, picking the one that pleased her while ignoring all others including the freshest one where I killed Balthazar. And every single other Absolute soldier I’ve met. She then scans me AGAIN and still has no clue I am an enemy while I barely even try to fake it my “faith”. Very “gameplay reasons”.

• Ketheric just sees me and is like “fresh face I’ve never seen, let’s ask you what to do” and then promptly ignores me instead of even asking when I was initiated or what was my mission and its result since apparently I came back to the base. No suspicion from him at all, which felt off.

• On the topic of first meeting Ketheric, I know what was the aim of that whole “goblin throws stuff at the immortal general” but it came out as funny. That was one really strong goblin, eh?

• Ketheric during first fight basically surrenders to me, then out of nowhere he changes his whole behavior and acts all mighty and asks me to kneel. You wot mate, you must be drunk!

• Damn Myrkul has fallen on tough times, didn’t he? His avatar being such low level? Poor guy.

• Viconia, that character in Shar’s temple? I refuse to acknowledge it was her. There was nothing, not a trace of old Viconia in anything, way of speech, her whole personality felt totally different.

• The press printed a “bad paper” about me and my party. No one cared. Nothing happened. Disappointed. Update: got ONE one-liner about this from some random citizen. That’s all.

• Volo says the chosen of Bhaal can turn into a Slayer. Yeah, correct. He then mentions “just like Sarevok”. Ummm? Sarevok could never shapeshift into Slayer. I am not sure if it’s either Volo talking gibberish or writer’s mistake.

• Elmister forever waiting in my camp was apparently waiting for Gale. Why in this ONE instance in the whole game, he couldn’t just…. appear when I talked to him? Wyll does that all the damn time. Kalrach too. Minsc just teleports to conversations just because he wants to be in the frame. Hell the first time, Gale also wasn’t in my party and he talked to Elminster without issue. So, what’s up with this?

• Did Shadowheart really randomly decided to visit that temple of Selune that we saw in chapter 1? While we were resting in an inn in Baldur’s Gate? This is like character in real world decided to go to sleep but also visit one specific village. While being in a city that is like few days of travel away from said village. And then still came back and slept the same night and even rested. Suspension of disbelief won’t work here, friends.

• The whole army thing seems undercooked. Remember the armies of Yaga-shura besieging city of Saradush? Enemies outside the walls, defenders shooting back, fire balls crashing down into the city itself. Remember how you had to fight through them to get to their leader? Here, there’s nothing like that. You see a camp, you seem them move out once aaaand it’s gone. Even first Neverwinter Nights did better job of showing a city under siege.

• So in a few minutes my character learned how to control a submersible. Damn, I knew I was talented after all! What was the dwarf for anyway?

• Iron Throne area was such a waste. Was never a fan of turn limit, here it felt awful from the get-go. I won’t be save-loading just to explore the thing and see if there’s anything worthwhile.

• The Ironhands’s end quest was a mess. The Gondian guy disappeared in my game after I freed some hostages from Iron Throne. then I just walked around he foundry, no one talked to me or attacked so I placed the bomb. Bomb goes boom. Suddenly the Gondian appears, apparently not worried about anything and Ironhands also show up like they own the streets. You woot mate? You are constantly hiding and without me you would be dead long time ago, but now you act like big bad boss? Come on…. this whole questline is weak and next time I will simply kill every deep gnome I see.

• Talked to the Nine Fingers. Exhausted her dialogue, told me to bring Jaheira. I came back with the Harper and Nine Fingers is like “who is this guy you’ve brought up with you, Jah?”. Excuse me? We just talked. I knew I should just kill everybody in there~~
• Jaheira, Minsc. Heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Level 12, nice, right? Well, their equipment is…. basic. Like barely from the very start of BG1.
• Killed Minsc, Jaheira was mad at me. Yeah, I guess maybe she could, you know, say ANYTHING about the current issue? She was with me since the 2nd meeting with Nine Fingers. She had all the time in the world to tell me that I need to incapacitate Minsc, or charm him or whatever. Instead, she does nothing, tells nothing and then is mad. Yeah, I guess player is expected to figure it out, somehow.

• Also, took me way too damn long to figure out how to enable the non-lethal attacks. It was not worth it. Also, this is the only opportunity in the game to use it. So why even have it in game?

• Helsik – “you were never here”. Umm, I visited your shop many times before. People saw me. A lot of people. Want me to kill’em all? Why not just say “I just bought some curious from her, that’s all, I never knew she is a diabolist, I swear!”.

• Spent like 2 weeks in Baldur’s Gate by now. Is the army going to siege us anytime soon?

• I don’t buy the whole Raphael’s arc of “if I get the crown, I am above all archdevils”. No, you would still be level 12 devil with a nice artefact. Still nowhere near to challenge Asmodeus. But the fight was a good one, not gonna lie. One of the best in the whole game.
• Speaking of Raphael. He only penned THREE diaries? In all his life, am I to believe this? Come on, don’t make everything so player-centric.
end “slides” – no mention of half of the characters. Karlach and Wyll bravely charging…. a hill. Kinda awkward. The whole tone of this was a bit too pompous and even shallow.

• So…. apparently (by total accident) I’ve destroyed a book that tells me where the mystic carrion’s heart is…. so I am blocked from positively completing the quest. Yay. Sorry Thrumble, no happy ending for ya.

• How long ago was the Emperor “free” of the elder brain thanks the dragon? This can’t be so long ago that the dragon in the meantime became bones and skin and turned undead. This kind of things take a lot of time, don’t they? Unless the elder brain was in the Moonrise Towers for quite a long time. Then it being there couldn’t really be a work of the Chosen Three, for them it was a happy little accident that they found a vulnerable colony of mind flayers so close to the surface with an elden brain sufficient for their needs? Seems like a painting made with some broad strokes and I have hard time buying it.

• Minsc feels like a fan service and nothing more. Jaheira makes more sense being there, just older. All Minsc did in my game was getting on my nerves, standing in the camp and appearing in random cutscenes/dialogues with other characters, not saying a word. Except the ending. And then I wished he would be silent.

• Why in Sarevok’s diary it seems he was angry, resented being brought back to life when in Throne of Bhaal it was HIM basically begging Player Character to give him a little bit of essence to be resurrected. This makes NO sense. I could see that he could wander the land and decided to go back to his “roots” so to say, but this is awful change of the actual lore. Even if we are to believe his sibling resurrected him to mock Sarevok, then… why the hell he let Sarevok go? Such character would take pleasure in tormenting his fallen brother. And would probably became a new God of Murder himself, so then Sarevok trying to serve old Bhaal would not make much sense.

• Why was Myrkul the only god who directly intervened when his chosen was threatened? I can totally understand why Bhaal would have a bit of an issue sending his avatar, but when Myrkul could, why not even Bane didn’t move a finger to help Gortash? This means that the first fight sets expectations regarding future battles against the Chosen, but those turn out to be false. Not one of the gods lift a finger to help their chosen. Myrkul was the most desperate, I guess?

• Sarevok says he was surprised Helena was ready to go for such lengths to become a Bhaal’s chosen. But Helena says it was Sarevok who told her to kill Orin. Either somebody is lying or we’ve a bit of blunder here.

• Geesh I guess we’re really lucky Shadowheart learned how to swim in a record time, eh?

• Finishing companions quest felt weak as well. Somehow, it never felt “good” to get them through the last hassle. Astarion got power and what he wanted next? More power. And then he didn’t even appeared in his own ending. Helped Shadowheart and all that came from it was either her parents dead or not – mind you, even after releasing her from Shar influence, she was still muttering prayers to Shar and still had the damn Shar’s altar at the camp. Lazael didn’t even comment on my last decision regarding Orpheus. I honestly have no idea what happened after the ending to some characters other than Wyll and Karlach.

Larian vs Obsidian vs Owlcat

A bit separate topic, but hey, why not take it on as well. Were they any other developer who could’ve modernise the classic? Larian has it’s own thing going and it’s very easy to see that the BG3 is carrying their DNA in its core. Which is understandable. But also a reason why, even I, sometimes called the game “Divinity: D&D Edition”. So, who else, if not Larian? Were there any other candidates?

Obsidian – at one hand, they made Pillars of Eternity, which for a long time, was the actual heir of Infinity Engine games. Sadly, the Deadfire didn’t sell well enough and since then, they are yet to showcase the same quality in making full blown cRPG. And no, The Outer Worlds was an empty shell and wasted potential that was never realized. Let’s hope they will bounce back with TOW2 and Avowed.

Owlcat – I have to say…. that I believe they actually have mastered the formula of Infinity Engine games and translated it into modern era. Playing Pathfinder games I felt almost the same as when playing Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale, but in really great graphic (both technically speaking and visual style). How they evolved the UI, the systems, while saving the core of the experience, is truly magic. If anybody else than Larian could make BG3 and make it good, it’s these guys and girls.