Is this a good game for casual gamers or beginners?

[Kazimo]

I've been seeing a lot of clips and discussions on this game and frankly, it looks pretty awesome. I also understand it has really good character customization, which makes me even more interested.

I love rpg games, it's just, I'm not all that good at them, even though I enjoy playing them. Honestly, I don't want to waste my money and time if this game is going to be too ridiculously hard to get through. I have played quite a variety of rpg games, on system and mmo ones on the computer. My most recent one I played, was FFXIV, which I played together with my friend for 7 years. Now, I'm on a big break from it, since I've lost a bit of interest in the storyline at the moment.

In the end, I would just like to hear from the players that have bought and played through the game. Their opinions on how difficult the game is and engaging the story is as well. Especially the boss fights, are they Dark Souls difficult or White Knight Chronicles easy?(Note: WKC bosses were difficult for me, but still beatable after a few tries :p )

[jrbbq]

This game is awesome. I highly recommend it. It has a long launch time, and it will occasionally crash. (Three times in my approximate 17 hour play time, thus far.) The game is easy enough. I am playing on normal. I have not wiped yet. There is even an easy setting. The dice would be very much in your favor if you selected it. It is turn based. They do the turn base very well though.

[thegodsend]

as long as you dont expect to go 4 vs 15, ull be fine. and even then, if u funnel enemies through a door way or place bombs, sometimes u can survive a 4 vs 15. hover your mouse over an enemy and press T to figure out what they are weak/strong against so you dont waste spells. its like scan in final fantasy games.

[Kazimo]

Oh okay, there are settings, so that's good to know, thank you. Not sure about that 4 vs 15 thing, I'll honestly be playing on single player mode, since I doubt my friend will be dragged away from FFXIV right now. Thank you guys for answering my questions. Still thinking on it, but I really do like the way this game looks and it seems like a lot of the character dialogues are hilarious. So, might save up.

[Kaisha]

NO!! It is exceptionally unfriendly to beginners, both the game and the community.

Nothing is properly explained, nothing will make sense, the tooltips are utterly useless. 90% of the class/skill/item combinations are complete trash, with no rhyme or reason, the last 10% are stupidly OP. So while you're getting insta-deleted in a single turn by some boss, you'll have the forums filled with people saying 'it's too easy because I could 1 shot it with a 5 barb/6 cleric with some stupid item from act 2 you didn't even know existed'...

Add on top of that the TONS of bugs (near every questline and encounter has bugs of some form or another) and it's real hard to tell why you're failing (was that a bug? did I do something wrong? who knows??).

On top of that many times bugs or choices you made won't become apparent till many hours after you made them, making playthroughs often quite frustrating (I didn't want that person to die, or not die, or leave, or not leave, or whatever....). Of course all you'll get on the forums is a bunch of 'well you made that choice... live with it', a choice you had no knowledge of, and didn't even knew it mattered at the time.

So basically in the end you'll have to save-scum your way through it, to get a mediocre storyline that breaks down if you think to hard about it, with one of the worst designed combat systems ever, and a whole lot of looking in crates and managing your inventory wondering if any of this stuff is useful and why you're carrying it all around, only to find out it was necessary AFTER you sold it.

But the graphics are pretty, 1 or 2 of the audio tracks are nice (though most are just meh), and some solid voice acting despite the sometimes questionable dialog. And you get some awkward CW-esque gay romance scenes, if that's your thing.

[Kaiyas Slayter]

So, Kaisha seemed to have had a bad experience. I can guess why, but don't want to speak for someone else. I have also found this community to be as friendly as the FFXIV community, not the toxicity of a WoW community. You cannot sell any quest related items(has an orange outline), but everything else is vendor fodder. There is no "perfect" playthrough, no "perfect" endgame, no way to make all of the "right" choices". This game is what the player wants/what the player makes it. It's not like any RPG that came before, where you can follow a book and make every "right" choice the first time through.

As a WoW and FFXIV player, I can tell you about my experience. (I am also taking a break from FFXIV until the next expac, Endwalker DRAINED me.) I have played DND (2nd edition, Gods I'm old). I've played the first 2 Baldur's Gate games. I have been a gamer since the 80's and I have nearly a 1000 hours into this game. The only games that came close to this amount of playtime for me was Sims and Project Zomboid.

This game is amazing. I have not played 5th Edition DND, which this game is based on, and I was intimidated to start. (Oh gods, I have to play more than 1 character!!! And learn to play them WELL!!!!????!!!!) Pick the easiest difficulty to start (explorer). Now, you can't multiclass in explorer, but that's ok, cause you can't multiclass in FFXIV either. But it will walk you through the game easier. As you get more comfortable with how the classes work in this game, then you can look up multiclassing, but my first playthrough was all same classes to level 12 with no multiclassing. My first playthrough was on balanced and I had no problems.

This game is NOT about loot. You will get loot that is absolute trash and that's ok. Gale has a solution for that. There is also legendary loot, but DND is not a WoW clone, kill the boss, get the loot game. You will get legendary loot you can do nothing with because you are not "spec'd" for it. It doesn't matter, you will still get loot that fits your playstyle. (I'm wearing loot from Act 1 and still stomping like I"m a God.) You don't have to respecc for loot to "win" the game. But the game gives you the option to respecc if you want to change. Which is awesome.

This game is NOT about picking a class and shining. Being a Paladin/Fighter doesn't make you the "main tank", being a healer doesn't mean you sit back and dps until you need to heal.

This game is DND, it's about living the story. It's about making choices and living with it. Can you save scum? Sure! But at the end of the day it's about solving a mystery. Something terrible happened to you and happened to others. As you progress the story, you are given multiple options/paths to follow. Who do you follow? Who do you trust? What do you tell your companion/friends to do? Are you sure enough in your decisions to persuade them to follow your path? What if you're wrong? What if you're right?

This is more of a Choose Your Own Adventure than a loot goblin/MMORPG. Is there fighting? Yes! Is it tactically based, of course! But as you learn the classes/limits of the game, you will find yourself entering every room in a tactical way. Where are the chokepoints? Can I lure enemies to me? (Yes!)

But the point of this game is story. The companions each have a richly detailed backstory that you can explore in multiple playthroughs. You can romance them and get more story, you can shut them down and not care. You can murder them before you find out anything about them and never see their story. You can empower them and make them better, you can degrade them and make them monsters.

Some will follow your path into light or darkness. Some will leave if your path diverges too much from their goals. Some will make you a better person, some will make you a monster.

Choices matter. You can't encourage someone along a dark path and suddenly try to make them diverge to light. They will call you on your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

What will your story be?

As the game says in the very beginning......who are you?

[talemore]

Follow shadowheart instructions and speak with everyone

[jcw163]

It's good

[Dedut]

50+ hours in, i will say this is not beginner friendly even on the easiest difficulty, i got destroyed in goblin camp after so many attempt and have to look for youtube to solve it. but now i'm feeling confident that i'm almost at the end of act 1.

[Kiyaya]

Haven't played a previous Baldur's gate.
Had only a passing interest in DnD.
Hell, haven't even played *any* CRPG before this.

I have 300+ hours in this video game now.

[Smask]

not good for casuals, as they just turn into hardcore gamers with this game, crying kids, longing wife, unpaid bills, too much coffee, pizza for dinner next 14 days. ;)

[Freya]

I love to play games easy so I can focus on the story, I don't have problems with using Google to solve a problem if I really can't find the solution myself.
That said, I searched some stuff online, tried what that person said, it didn't work out.
Tried my own thing and after 3 times it worked out anyway.

In my opinion, yes, it is suitable for beginners if you can live with the fact you are going to mess up in a way, have to reload savegames and not run into stuff headless. You have to think about what you're doing, and about what you're going to do after what you're doing at that moment. I'm probably making the wrong choices at this moment for my "goal" in the game, but I just love to be surprised, to learn and to think about a new playthrough. I hope I can make the things I did right, now I changed my opinion about some choices.
And if not, it's for a next play through.

I'm not a dnd player by the way, so I probably do, or don't do, a lot of stuff I should do. But I will learn.

[darkholyPL]

As far as DnD games go, this is as begginer friendly as they come.
That said, it's still a DnD game, and it assumes that you at least know the basics. If you don't, then you'll be very confused.

[Umbral Knight]

Yes. Now buy and leave.

[victorvnv]

Once you get good, this game will make you feel like you are playing a God . Few games makes me feel as all powerful as BG3

But your first game until you get ahold of the mechanics and logistics it will be challenging

[Annie Other]

Combat isn't too hard on Balanced. Way easier than in some other games. You also have more possibilities to increase your chances to win (like placing empty containers, jumping/climbing on stuff, throwing things...).
What may be hard is some choices. What character to play? Whom to have in your team? Which dialog option to pick? Especially when you are not familiar with the ruleset and/ or setting. Can be overwhelming.
You'll have to read everything carefully, from a) what the different stats, skills, profiencies and spells do to b) in-game books and in-game dialog to get an idea a) how things work and b) what is going on.