Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback More ennemies please ! Tribute to Swarm AI

Hey,

I absolutely LOVE the new swarm AI system. I have to say it again.

2 years and a half ago I was complaining so much about the game not being RTWP despite being in love with many turn based games.
Then I tried the games and it became my favorite one for 2 years now.
But let's be honnest, the more turn based games are real time, the better.

The Swarm AI system makes the player feel the game a lot more real time without loosing anything that makes the appeal of the turn base system.

It definitely is a huge improvement.

I want to see it more often.
I could even say that I'd mostly like to see it during every combats.

So please add more ennemies !
Not a lot, just a few more that would enable the swarm AI
for more combats.

This would be a perfect move for the game.
- Bloodier combats
- Real time action when you dont have anything else to do than looking at your screen.
- Allow to reduce the cheesyness of a few moves and keep the game's difficulty balanced.
- The difficulty would less revolve arround a few OP tactics
- The tactical value of the game would be increase
- We would be able to see 2 casters using the same spell at the same time.

- Would be even better if our characters were able to react real live depending our presset reactions

Of course the system is not currently perfect and what happen os not so clear in the widest area. But everyone has already noticed it.

I hope modders will do something like that if Larian isn't !

Good night

Yup, I would definitely like the Swarm AI to kick in a bit more often. For now, I've noticed it mostly at the goblin camp and a few wolfs here and there. Overall though when we talked about it 2 years ago in a thread and this idea came up didn't think Larian would actually pick up on it. But they did. And it works insanely well.

+1
More enemies AND more actions! From what I've seen they use dash mostly and sometimes attack. Imaging them throwing grease bottle + alchemist fire!

Maybe we can get more goblins now without buffed HP.

And spells like Sleep and Burning Hands could be great again. The BA Shove needs to go for Sleep to be any good though.

+10000000000000
Now that we have swarm AI, we should have some swarm encounters, like RTWP games have.

I agree. I hope more enemies as difficulty is going up!

This would be awesome. More lower HP goblins to butcher!

Oh, and more creatures period. What about stirges in the bog? Swarms of stirges just coming at you. And on the nautiloid, swarms of lemures. Add some demons to it, because the Blood War has come to the nautiloid as sort of implied by Karlach. Swarms of manes in the helm. And finally, the much needed swarms of spiders in the Whispering Depths. Man would it feel like the spider cave was more ominous and terrifying to have swarms of spiders dropping from above all around your party

So not sure what kind of lemures you talk about but that's what I pictured in my mind. Joke is, I still want to see a swarm of them on the nautiloid.

Yeah, it wasn’t until goblin village until I actually got to see the system. It’s great. My only nitpick is the camera that misses half of the action but it’s unrelated to swarm AI itself and I hope it will get polished before release.

I felt many goblins have less HP the I remember - there are definitely some beefier ones but there is a decent amount of more traditional fragile gobbos.

That picture is of a lemur. Lemures are spirits stranded on earth.

There’s a classic Magic the Gathering card where the artist made that mistake. They painted a cute fluffy creature instead of a scary ghost. The card’s called Hyalopterous Lemure, it’s worth looking up.

Lol

https://images.app.goo.gl/hsUpkqshmnUiRTuKA

This. Really low level devils of Avernus

Hmm, within reason I agree but I have two reservations. First, while the swarm AI means we can have more enemies without enemy turns taking forever, more turns will still be required to finish them off (unless, I suppose, you make effective use of AoE damage which on second thoughts is probably fair enough). Second, one of my favourite things about the game so far is the good job it does of making every life - even goblins - feel meaningful and everyone have their own characters. I'd hate for this to be diluted or it to turn into a murderfest for every player.

Perhaps if this suggestion were combined with one in another thread, and there were more enemies in some fights but that it would be possible to focus on killing the leaders and the rest would run away, unless a player particularly wanted to kill off the weaker enemies first?

I'm not sure a few more random goblins that have nothing interresting to say would hurt the feeling that every life feel meaningfull.
There are also a lot of ennemies you'll never have a talk with. Are you really talking with every NPCs in the world ?

True, and that's why I agree with the suggestion within reason. I just don't want the number of random goblins to grow to such an extent that it dispels the feeling/illusion that all enemies have unique characters.


True, but even some of these have notes or something that you can find on their bodies that make them unique, e.g. the letter on the body of the mage in Gimblebock's party if you don't manage to intimidate/persuade/deceive them away. Again, it's a matter of balance, and not overwhelming the enemies you can find out more about with generic cannon-fodder.


But of course

EDIT: PS I recognise your original suggestion was for a few more enemies rather than hordes, so I don't think we disagree. I just wanted to highlight a potential danger if too many new enemies are added.

Stirges. 14 AC. 2 HP. Would make great swarm enemies on the bog. You think their butterflies like the redcaps are sheep. Then bam! Swarms of them.

Swarm of spiders. 12 AC. 22 HP. Typically you would assume 1 or 2 spiders per HP.

Pack of wolves. 13 AC. 11 HP. Oh how awesome it would be to face a pack of wolves at night.

Love this idea!


Not so keen on this one, but possibly only because I'm currently playing a Lolth-sworn ranger with spider pets and feeling uncharacteristically protective of spiders!


Ah, a classic!

Speaking of which... they should have a different encounter for Lolthsworn Drow and the phase spider matriarch where you have the ability to befriend her rather than fight her... or something. She loves Lolth. You love Lolth. Aren’t you on the same side?

And she gives you a swarm of spiders or a phase spider baby as your animal companion.

If Larian would learn to design encounters in other ways besides high ground, pits + shove, they could use a swarm of weak creatures to flank / block / surround the party, while there's a bigger threat to deal with. Crowd control...which is why arcane casters have aoe spells.

The game desperately needs more dynamics to combat than just jumping around a wide open area and shoving stuff.

Yes, I know she was stark, raving bonkers even before she transformed into a giant spider so I wasn’t expecting to have a rational conversation or anything, but was hoping for *something* different as a (currently) loyal Lolthite.


Yes, the matriarch spider fight has some element of this but only if you don’t destroy her eggs first, and then I suppose there’s the wood woad and mud mephit fight where the ancient mephits spawn young ones (which I actually only noticed was what was happening in my last playthrough). But I agree we need more and better variations on this, and on combat design more generally.

I think the bigger problem with combat is that every battlefield is a wide open space with a high focus on verticality. Everywhere. And no proper cover. The creatures and their number is a close second though, as is giving teleport abilities and ranged weapons to almost all enemies.

The Spider Matriarch fight is a semi-puzzle where she makes herself vulnerable to a very convenient damage-amplified fall, twice. The baby spiders are a nice touch though. Grym is a 100% puzzle and I don't really consider it a fight. And these puzzles are too simple and obvious. Grym: immune to everything except super vulnerable to one thing. Which anyone can just read from it's character sheet that is readily available without any skill checks attached. And it's only weakness can be exploited in the very area it is supposed to guard. Elsewhere Grym would be totally unstoppable. Makes sense.. not.