I've played 15 hours so far.
My impressions so far and suggestions:
- It's a good game. don't get me wrong but something is missing/off.
- I like the turn based combat so far but it needs more polishment.
- I think the writing can be improved (espacially for companions). Maybe the companions can appear later or in another circumstances, because right now there
clapped together(you meet them all quite early on but that's my impression)
- Maybe tone down the color(because it gets to shiny sometines)
- Miss chance should be tweaked because right now it is a bit annoying
- The UI needs a rework too(something more in line with BG1 or 2)
I will continue playing and finishing the First Act. There lies a great potential here but I think it needs heavy reworks in some aspects to become really a Baldurs Gate game.
I never played the old BG games, but played all of Bioware's early games and have about 50 or so hours into Divinity Orginal Sin 2 by Larian.
Only experienced a crash once and switching to DirectX11 fixed that. Minor bugs here and there, but still overall a fun experience.
Beautiful environments, fun DnD style combat, and interesting interactions with NPCs and Companions. Only 12 hours in and already thinking of what class I will expirement with next!
If you want a more polished experience I would wait until January or so, or until Full release. It is understandable if you don't want to buy it yet.
1. Game lacks NPC variety to join our party like previous Baldur's Gates had. Also they are more evil than good, so role-playing a good guy who don't like bad guys leaves your party with two casters (and you).
2. There are still many technical problems that in rare occasions can break a game and you need to reload from last save. Those auto saves are made very rarely and you have to quick save literally after each fight and each dialogue so you won't lose any progress. That also sticks when you have bad luck and your entire party get's wiped because you didn't noticed a trap or bunch of enemies ambushed you.
3. Storyline is fine for me, very nice touch is that you can bite it on different approaches and most of the quests can be done differently. Story feels rich not only for a single playthrough but can be played multiple times.
4. Music is nice, you can hear old Baldur's Gate influence alongside Divinity Original Sin influence in it.
5. Very good adaptation of D&D 5th edition rules which is great, I really hope we will receive DM Tool and Creator Kit for own modules
Pros:
Great graphics and visuals
Great music and sounds
Story bits are well written and acted out
Character creation is pretty solid, lots of options
Cons:
Mechanics are 5.1 ish, its more like a homebrew than a true DnD so there is a learning curve even if you are familiar with the srd.
Dice rolls are artificially lowered, you will get a lot of nat 1s when rolling attacks and damage, making combat sometimes needlessly hard if down right impossible. Meaning in most cases you have to use some pre-determined strategy in order to win fights.
Level cap at 4 is reached about halfway through the current content. So for half the game you're staring at a full xp bar while encounters keep getting more and more advanced.
Finally a RPG where you can role play!
Finally a developer not scared that 3% of players will miss some% of content!
Plenty of options in combat, and outside of it, if the final release match the quality of this early access BG3 will be the best RPG ever created.
Dear Larian, what about a collaboration with CDPR on a proper turn based Cyberpunk?
PLEASE? PLEASE?! PLEASE!! do it.
