Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Run/Walk speed modifier

I hope they add a run/walk speed modifier to the game. A lot of us like to look through all the nooks and crannies and it can take forever at the default walking speed. Personally, from the gameplay trailers, I feel like the game is looking beautiful and is definitely a step up from DOS2 so I'm cool with the default speed at first, but when I'm combing through everything to make sure I've gotten every piece of loot, and spoken to every NPC, I want to be zooming through the map because no matter how pretty the environment is, it loses its sheen when you're backtracking for the 10th time to make sure you didn't miss anything.

I know mods will come later to add this functionality but I definitely hope it's there from the beginning.

Hilariously your reason for wanting a faster walk speed is exactly why Swen slowed down the walk speed in DOS1 & 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZF_cP_oLH4

For those interested in the quote in context, here's a transcription from the segment of the video (it's about 46 minutes in) where it's mentioned:



While I can understand his reasoning I'm not sure if I can agree with it. To me it seems like a case of the players and developers misunderstanding each other's intentions and interests.
In my opinion it makes sense for players to explore new uncharted locations in real time in order to fully take in the area and its contents. However, the problem arises when you look at the situations that make people request a way to speed up the pace of travelling. Most players who dislike the default walking speed are talking from the perspective of someone who's in the process of backtracking through an area they've already visited numerous times, meaning they've (most likely) already experienced the unique aspects and content of that location. They already know where the different merchants, houses and NPCs in a major city are located, but since their current quest or task requires them to travel to the opposite site of the map they just want to get there as fast as possible, preferably without having to trod through the area they've already traverse many times before.

Even to this day the option to increase the speed up walking and combat animations (which I suppose is a similar issue) remain some of the most requested features and/or common complaints about the DOS1 and DOS2 games and I think it's a shame that Larian seemingly doesn't seem to take account for this. I'm well aware that speed modifiers tend to be some of the first mods that get developed by players once the games come out, but while I personally never used either, I'm not fond of the notion of people having to use fixes or modifications made by third parties in order to enjoy the game.

I must say, I don't remember it being an issue in D:OS1 - I don't remember game having much backtracing - mostly it was linear progression, and once you would finish dungeon you would get back to town (there was some quick travel no? It's been so long). D:OS2 did definintely drag a bit, even with easy to use quick travel shrines.

I felt speed up feature was one of PoEs greatest inventions.

I agree in DOS1 it wasn't that much of an issue either which probably is why I never had that much of a personal issue with it.
From what I remember I found some of the combat animations to be a bit more annoying. I remember zombies moved at half speed and demon type enemies often would do some animation where they'd suddenly stretch their back (or something like that) which would make me missclick on the ground behind them In those cases it would be nice to have the option to either speed up the animations or pause them to avoid accidentally clicking somewhere, but I think DOS2 more or less remedied this by having less idle animations and have all enemies move at a fixed speed (or at least that's what I remember; I could be terribly wrong here)

Based on what I've seen of the BG3 gameplay so far it seems like they've heavily sped up the combat animations which makes me think they were aware of this particular issue, but it remains to be seen how movement outside of combat will be affected. I suppose it ultimately depends on how much you'll have to backtrack through areas you already have visited before.

I think DoS games and PoE games are the only Turn-based games i know of in recent years that still do not have fast-forward, "Instant enemy turns" or a ""speedbar" in combat.

That's for posting the video. I knew more or less their history, but it's nice to a have a more thorough look. Also picked up first 3 Divinity games on GOG. Looking forward to seeing where the studio started.

As to Larian. Sorry for being the one negatively scrutinizing everything you do with BG. That's only because I care . Please, try not to crunch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_wKAmBEa8Q Heres the documentary for DOS2 as well as the Swen's presentation of DOS2's development history incase you were curious about that as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwi_5nePZg .

It was observed in gameplay testing.

Don´t worry about it, that´s pretty mainstream. I´m sure they´re used to it by now.

The fact that gaming industry has crunch problem, but doesn't mean that's not something worth working toward eliminating. As they learn to make better game with each release, so it would be nice to improve way of making it as well. By definition "crunch" is going beyond what would be considered a reasonable overtime.

Nope, the post wasn´t about crunching, but about "Sorry for being the one negatively scrutinizing everything you do with BG" That´s the usual. They´re used to it.

DOS2 later added a run button in one of the gift bag extras.

Merci, monsieur

Whatever you decide, LARIAN, having played through DOS and DOS2, the walk speed is A-BYS-MAL, and it needs to go x4, 6x, 8x faster in BG3. Mix that with a proper interaction highlighting tool, and we're in business.

At the VERY LEAST, give US the choice.

Merci d'avance.

Of course there has to be a default speed set and it's up to devs to decide on that, not arguing it at all.

If I found that walk speed perfect for me, and me alone? Nope. I increased with about 60% or so, with a mod that also increased combat animation speeds, as well had to mod many things years later, to be able to finish playing the game at least once. Without the save game editor and multiple mods, I could never play it longer than a few minutes, and then leaving it alone for months, so annoying and frustrating were all these "set in stone" adjustments.

While all these have to be decided, they will never please everyone. I don't like the long frustrating struggle at every step, when I just want to enjoy the story. Without ways to adjust everything to your liking, games easily turn from being a fun time, into being a frustrating annoyance. Thanks to mods, I could explore every corner, and finally after 6 years of try again and always quit, I could enjoy the game I bought since release.

All it takes is detailed adjustment sliders on an "Advanced Difficulty Settings", to make the game really easier (or harder), fine tuned to how each of us wants. Less reasons to quit then, and more reasons to make positive reviews, since these "problems" are no longer there, being adjustable.

It's not as simple as just adding a slider somewhere and calling it a day. If developer doesn't known the walk speed or it can be anything between 1m/s - 10m/s, then they need to take that account in designing combat, cut scenes, quests etc. If you speed everything up, what happens to sounds, physics etc.? If you set in stone that walk speed is 3m/s then you can safely design everything around that and not worry about anything which means more time to develop other features.

Options have a cost. You can't just make everything customisable by adding an UI element for it. All effort spent on adding options is cut from other features and content.

I agree, not everything can be made easily adjustable.

Still a more detailed difficulty setting shouldn't be too complicated, something like allowing to set more health for self,or a permanent buff that gives from start the maximum movement speed and similar.

I like how Diablo 3 has the difficulty slider: starting from really no challenge at all, like no way to die or lose, and gradually increasing it, by having 20 difficulty levels.

Mods or cheatengine speedhack took care of this issue if they won't.

In D&D 5E different races have different movement speeds.

From the players Handbook:
Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings can only move 25 ft in a round.
Wood Elves can move 35 ft. in a round.
Everything else has a speed of 30 ft.

Monks get bonus movement as they level up, moving an extra 10 ft. per round at level 2 and an extra 20 ft. per round at level 10.
Barbarians get Fast Movement at level 5 which is an extra 10 ft. extra movement per round.

The Mobile Feat can also increase your move speed by 10 ft. per round.

There are spells that can increase your movement speed and actions like dash that allow you to go farther as well.



Giving everyone run would make these pointless abilities so it is unlikely that they would give run to everyone the way they did in Divinity 2.