The alternate party member NPCs are generic stereotypes, and far less interesting for that. They don't hold a candle to the NPCs in something like Wrath of the Righteous, who subvert expectations in a wonderfullly interesting way.
The original vision for the game would have been better. EA was more interesting.
Pacing and toes of gear is done poorly. There's swords for days but only 2 interesting tridents, war picks, or hand axe for example. There's barely any usable druid gear (anything that actually matters if you wild shape). And the most useful stuff for monks is found only in act 3.
A lot of people are nitpicky only because it won so many awards and it's not their own perfect game (if such a thing exists).
I still give this game a 10/10 for what it is. Despite knowing if it baked another year it might have been so much more.
What was different in the Early Access?
tl;dr, the story and motivation for everything was far more fleshed out
Here's just some of the things. Not even going into mechanics that are removed (like Wyll's eye). Or my personal opinion some of their starting looks were a bit more interesting/better (you get a bit of an idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MeutkQFliM or from the CohhCarnage videos I link later)
There used to be way more dialog options for one. Your class/subclass/god/etc actually got reflected in more options. There was a great video of a cleric giving some unhinged prayer to the tiefling that opens the gate. It's not major, but it adds to a lot to the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KameRUsFv8Y (with all the BG3 videos now, it's harder to find some of the classics). Also, Shadowheart had a much more interesting conversation if you were also a cleric if you were a Cleric of Shar too.
The camp was way more interesting. There's a ton of story ripped out of the game from the camps. This, was the thing that hooked me in EA. Daisy (the in-game code name for what would be replaced by your dream visitor) would entice you with power, encourage you to use the illithid powers. And when you finally do, and the narrator says "you've lost something you can never get back" probably makes more sense now. Once you did that, you got a class specific illithid power. There was no weird illithid skill tree, it was based around how often you used the powers. But going back to the camp, the companions would comment more about each other. Shadowheart and Lae'Zel's hatred for each other was shown way better, even commenting if you talked to one or the other first. Here's a couple of examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYRe2jHhBRc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw5q6u_iMN0 but overall, the camp at the end of the day was 1000x more interesting and really fleshed out the characters more and I'd say in important ways.
I'd even say the starting area (Nautiloid) was better. The current one is sufficient I guess. But the original showed you more about the fight the Illithids have with the Gith, you got to see more of the ship, what the Illithid did to people, what it meant to become a thrall (to really sell it that this is a terrifying process). But it showed you a few more mechanics too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC-GWA_Yj2c starts at EP2, but you'll want to go to EP 3 as well. But you can see the differences.
Tav used to talk.
For me, the story around "Daisy" was way more compelling. The song "Down by the river" is in reference to these encounters. Here's a video on that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTw_9vM5LgA
... So these are just some of the things, lol. There's more like when you got down to the Underdark and some serious changes that happened there. And I haven't even touched on the stuff that never made it in (like the extra companion that was to be a werewolf... or the original Nightsong) (you can see some of it cataloged here https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Cut_and_unimplemented_content ) and I'm fairly certain all the companions were originally supposed to show up in Act 1 instead of 1, 2, and 3. There's a lot of dialog from characters for places they're not "supposed to be" like the eagles (can't find video, but its out there). But none of that is EA stuff, just cut stuff... but if the game had baked longer.... I'm just saying... it might not have been cut sutff.
Why'd they change it so much? EA dialogue does seem better. Especially what they did with the dream visitor.
Is there any way to play the EA version still? And it's it possible to complete the EA version (all acts)?
I have not found a way yet to play EA again. I've legit e-mailed Larian asking for it too.
I can only guess as to why there was such a drastic change. Because one day (in EA) I'm playing the last EA patched version and the following day on release... a bunch of stuff blinked out of existence. My guess, is they ran out of time. Various zones (like Upper Baldur’s Gate) are just removed (said zone is just a stage now). Various story lines are incomplete. There's story threads that stop cold (there's supposed to be more Hags if the various letters/notes/and NPC conversations are to be believed). The whole end sequence were the capture dragon shows up... how they got that dragon is never shown... etc. So, that's my guess, they had more ambition than time.
Oh another idea that wasn't completed. Karlach (the last character added/worked on) is the only origin character you play that you can hear the inner thoughts/monolog. Everyone else is silent.
Yeah couldn't find anything. Guess I'll keep searching it someone has a copy of EA somewhere
I dislike most if not all party members. Like not always actively dislike, but don’t care much what happens to them. Even if the writing and voice acting is more than decent. Too grimdark and fucked up is how I would describe it. It’s like Larian took all the criticism about previous games being too lighthearted and overcorrected. And not in particularly relatable ways, feels more like they sat down and brainstormed intensely in nerdy excitement and with little depth or restraint about what would be cool and extreme and fucked up, and oh wouldn’t that be awesome… creating freakish caricatures with oh so dramatic and cursed backgrounds rather than you know, relatable flawed characters. Of course I only feel like this because much is done very well and so any missteps are more striking.
I kind of hate how you can not only nope out of nearly every puzzle with lockpicking but rogues get like half a dozen bonuses during the skill check so why are you even rolling the damn dice?
I'm annoyed you can't
Tap for spoiler
free Orpheus and have him protect you from the brain worm. Instead you have to forcefully ally with the dubious deceitful dumb hentai face dream guardian.
This game is great, but if it came out only a year or two after BG2, it wouldn't have been as highly praised being much smaller and also because contemporaries would have been on par mechanically.
You can't be a cleric of any of the interesting gods: Umberlee, Gond, Bane, Bhaal, Loviatar, Myrkul
There is no point in fights. They are easy and eventually the game has you pass them either way.
There is no point in loot and items. You can win fights either way.
Its just a linear story telling game.. There are so many side quests and shit all over… your quests list has hundreds of quests you aggregated over the time and most of them are useless, easy, useless rewards and so on. The plot of the main story is so convoluted and complicated to follow especially when playing over a long period. Adding to that all the distractions of side quests…
Its not an rpg game where you progress with spells and items and and experience… you can have whatever bullshit items you find and still win every fight.
Haste isn't a great spell, even twinned by a sorcerer.
The moment the caster loses concentration, the recipients lose an entire turn. Even if the fight lasts a few turns and you manage to keep concentration, you're sacrificing a lot of action economy for that extra action. And if you do lose concentration, you're likely in a net negative for action economy.
At higher difficulties, it's even worse. The extra action only grants at most one attack (the extra action ignores the Extra Attack feature). And enemies are smart enough to do everything they can to pile damage on your caster until it drops.
It's not a bad spell, but it's not the gamechanger lots of people seem to think it is. Especially with items like haste potions and haste spore grenades, which can't be interrupted (though still need to be timed well).
I don't like the main characters (except my character he is perfect in every way) but I love all the interesting side characters.
140 GB is wayy to much
Can’t they just make an optional smaller version with only hd textures and not so high quality audio ?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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