I’m also enjoying BG3, though I could do with less cutscenes with everyone holding their hands to their temple while squinting. I went with Gale, and am currently having Astarion, Shadowheart and Karlach alongside. I’ve been finding that I absolutely need a rogue, despite the fact that he’s hard to keep happy. I’m thinking of switching out the cleric for either Wyll or Lae’zel, though. The thing is when I need the cleric, I really need her; otherwise her place in the combat queue is largely a waste of time. I did find out, however, that her illusion divine ability that gives folks advantage within 3 meters is a huge difference maker in combat.
I made it a point never to play past the druid grove in early access, so, thankfully, all of this is new to me. They also changed a lot of the early stages, which was a nice surprise. I’m still a bit confused as to whether I should be fighting the goblins, trying to command them, or just avoid them, which bugs me. Like at the deep gnome watermill thing, avoiding the fight is pretty easy, but the old DnD player in me is very uncomfortable with leaving a goblin force at my back. But, on the other hand, if I go 100% goblin-death, am I going to walk into a situation later one where there are 250 of them at the keep, all hostile? It’s realistic—how would you know if you were really there?—but at the same time a bit frustrating.
I think a better CRPG design decision would be to make the early stage of the game revolve around 3-5 related quests and not, as here, 20. Like with Cyberpunk, I’m finding it a bit overwhelming. Maybe this is just me, though. I try not to meta-game and play as if I was in the shoes of my PC, but with BG3 this is especially difficult.
I also think that Gale’s arcane hunger mechanic is broken. He never seems to actually suffer the condition, even though the journal has been updated to reflect it’s time to eat another magic item. Are you familiar with the similar hunger mechanic is Mask of the Betrayer? There, I felt under pressure, the clock was ticking, it was anxiety-making. Here, it’s just, I don’t know, a gimmick that is negligible, especially considering the large number of very minorly enchanted items set along your path.
