Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Give me back my Magic Missile!

Hey there,

I'd like to request a rework for the Magic Missile spell.
While I get that you don't want or need to reinvent the wheel when there's a perfectly fine set of spells from DOS2 that can be reused (although this makes me a bit sad).

However, I would argue that the "Magic Missile" is one of the most iconic and visually satisfying attack spells from BG1+2 with a very high recognition value. It is among the first spells every player saw in BG1, after leaving Candle Keep. And since the spell got stronger with your level-ups, it was a constant companion for spellcasters in BG1+2.

Yet at the moment, it is just a random DOS2 spell that would be unrecognizable if not for the name. I'd gladly give up the 'multiple targets'-option the spell has right now if I could have it back the way it was.
I mean, for instance Melf's Acid Arrow or Flame Arrows had no animation to speak of in BG1+2, and in such cases I see no problems in reworking them (even if that means copy-pasting DOS2-spell-mechanics). But again, that's not the case for the old Magic Missiles.

Please consider a rework!

Cheers!

The magic missile implementation is the standard 5E D&D one if I remember correctly? That doesn't scale like the magic missile of older D&D versions -

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Magic%20Missile#content

I think it is working as expected (although the targeting is a bit wonky - you don't need line of effect to targets, only line of sight, but they treat it like an actual projetile, or did, last time I played).

NOTE: you can upcast it though to add more missiles.

I think they change it from previous Baldur's Gate games to fit the 5e of dnd. So, they're not really inventing anything. Just being consistant with their choice to use the 5e of the dnd playbook. I personally like the current version
It's a fairly solid spell. It always hits and it forces a DC 10 CON check for each dart sent (possible concentration drop).

Well, then I guess it's time to create a game-specific new spell called "Baldurs Magic Missile" that looks like and has the effects of the "old" Magic Missile ^^

I really loved that spell and I used it in 99% of the fights in BG1+2. I mean, you wouldn't presume to change a 99 Flake into lemon ice cream with a Hershey's Bar either ;-)
If the D&D rules state something different I get it, but the old BG-Magic Missile is still a well established, beautiful spell...

You mean this?



It looks pretty simmilar, if you ask me. O_o
Or at least it looked in previous patches, now they all can follow the same course, since there was some object colision problems.

Well, it's admittedly not the biggest problem right now and there are visual similarities if you attack multiple targets standing near each other. But if all missiles are set for the same target, it's just a clump of reddish light... (and that's not due to my graphics card, which is brandnew ;-)

No its not due to your graphic card ... its due to:

the only thing really missing is the fact that Magic Missile should have a counter spell called shield... without that option to block it just gets more value than it should have.
still other spells are a total mess, showing different damage amounts [3d6 vs 4d6 Dissonant Whispers] on two tooltips or just telling you bullshit about what it can be targeted against [self vs allies Enhance Ability] so Larian has other things on their 'to do' list

Did they change it in the last patch?

It was more or less same as in BG 2? Looked fine to me...

It's one of the better spells for a simple reason, it has no concentration.
That alone makes it better than most, before magice missile characteristics even apply.

When we talk about reworking spells, i would point out to the sea of edge case spells that all have concentration and are bad because of it.

Perfect example is the druid class. Larian has EA Data i'm sure they could see what community is not using and could improve those.
I bet we all use the same cookie cutter spells like Magic Missile!

Not sure whether it was the very last patch, but yes it changed as RagnarokCzD says because the three (or more) missiles used to take different arcs to their target, which meant that sometimes you could hit with one or two missiles but the path was blocked for others. Whereas now they take the same path so this problem doesn’t arise. I didn’t actually mind the fact that sometimes it wasn’t possible to hit the same target with all the missiles, but I suppose it didn’t make a lot of sense. But it did used to look better and more like BG1 & 2.

Magic Missile is hard to pass up in BG3 just as it was in BG1&2, but as Ussnorway says enemies currently lack the ability to block it with Shield. Once they get that, as presumably they will, then we’ll be forced to be more creative with our spell choices which I do see as a good thing.

I mean, if you want to use spells that rely on concentration - build your character around them. Spells are not the problem, your builds are not suitable for them. I've played a sorc recently that was built purely for concentration spells, he had +5 CON ST with advantage and I was hit, burned and blasted while my Blur and Enlarge remained intact. Any class with a CON ST proficiency or any race that allows you to reach 18 CON helps. Another way of building a concentration focused character is to make him a sneak - pop a spell and hide, your concentration is protected. I bet you are talking from your experience, try my solutions to concentration problem if you want, I think you'll be surprised how well it works.

The spells are the problem at least most that have concentration ... It's concentration and how it limits your spells choices. Not how it works mechanically even if it's boring and prone to exploit but i can live with that part, the part you are talking about.

THe problem starts with how you can only have one concentration at any give time. Better spells will use that concentration and edge case spells will see no use. Just means less spellcasting and less fun for the player. Reason? Damage is always king in video games especially when primary armor system is avoidance like in DNd with AC.

EA data would show that nicely.

LIke i said, it forces the player in this cookie cutter setups of optimal play and casting the same old spells over and over.
Example like ranger or any other class... YOu need Hunters mark to get max damage so there is no point in ever using other spells that will give you less damage or advantage you can get those effects 100 other ways. That don't use up resources.

IF we talk about keeping up concentration ? Well it's too easy, you don't need Con at all. AI isn't smart enough to focus fire on it anyway. Players can just hide or simply brake line of sight and you are safe.

The very reason concentration was introduced as a deliberately HARSH restriction to the number of active spells you can have on an given time is because they were actively trying to prevent the buff-stacking syndrome that was so prevalent in previous editions of D&D.
Not to mention that with bounded accuracy the effectiveness of stockpiling multiple buffs one over the other would be even more significant.

We can discuss if these restrictions aren't a bit too limiting in some circumstances (some bland and situational buffs could probably do without concentration as a pre-requirement), but the mechanic did a lot of good in general.

P.S. Kinda lost track of how we went into arguing Concentration again, given that magic missile is NOT a concentration-based spell, anyway...

Ow the harsh choice. I guess that's how with warlock you always pick hex and scorching ray. Uff, such a harsh choice that is... Lets just use pick withcbolt on level up instead of those two?! Right hard choice.. concentration so cool, not. The game is full of this kinds of examples, we even have few extra now that were added just for BG 3 due to larian homebrew.


You can stop buffing without concentration, in all sorts of ways . That deosn't limit players choices with so called harsh choices that are anything but.


DoS 2 did just fine without it, just as thousand other rpgs.
You don't even have to remove it fully, they just need to tweak a few spells here or there so they are more competitive with magice missle and other popular spells .
IF concentration is so good lets just add it to magice missle spell and see how people like it after.

I said it was a deliberately harsh restriction, not a "harsh choice" (as "You'll have to pick one, rather than stockpile them").
When you give people multiple options, one will always come as the loser in contrast.

Once again, not sure what the shortcomings of the Warlock as a class or the appeal of magic missile (which is NOT mutually exclusive with concentration spells) have to do with it.

it's not as shortcoming of the warlock class it's the shortcoming of concentration spell. If you don't believe me you can always try the same two spells on other class you just need a feat. I guess that's hard for you to see? Like i said Magice missle needs concetration to add to deliberately harsh restriction that lead to harsh choices...Those Improve the game according to some.

Noone is failing to understand that there are frustrations with being limited to a single concentration spell, only pointing out that it was introduced as part of the D&D 5e ruleset that underpins the game for a reason. Getting rid of concentration entirely for some or all spells is something that could have a cascading impact that takes us further and further from those rules and 5e spells, that might need durations added or changed and alternative ways of breaking them introduced, plus ways of handling buff-stacking that as Tuco says was the prompt for introducing the concentration restriction in the first place.

Personally, I’m in favour of sticking to 5e as closely as possible even where it’s not perfect, particularly in a game that still has a stated ambition to represent the 5e ruleset, no matter what compromises have already been made. That said, I would be prepared to consider arguments for specific spells that could be changed to duration- rather than concentration- based. But as Tuco said, the use of concentration in the game is way off topic for this thread about magic missile, so that debate should probably be elsewhere.

The OP didn't ask a question nor he made a soil for any further discussion, therefore it is just natural that thread started evolving into something off-topic. The initial post will always be the first visible to the developers if they'd like to check out this thread. So I guess if OP didn't ask us to stay on topic himself, there is no point of correcting people who want to discuss other BG3 related things here. Imo, ofc.

The topic of the thread is focused on the visual aesthetic of Magic Missile, and how the recent updates to its pathing mechanic have changed that visual aesthetic. As with any forum thread, and Especially with threads located in the suggestions and feedback section of a forum, discussion and conversation should remain focused on, or at least orbiting, the primary topic of the thread. If another discussion springs up that is tangential but discussion worth enough to derail that topic into something else, then a new thread should be made to discuss it, or an existing thread that discusses that other topic revived.

Discussions about the concentration mechanic are far enough removed from the origin of this thread that they should be discussed elsewhere; there are several other threads that have mulled over the issue and various people's opinions on it, and folks who want to add their thoughts to that topic are most welcome to find the existing relevant threads to do; it's far easier for data collection if topics can reliably stay on topic a much as possible, and important opinions about various elements of the game can be sourced in threads focused on those elements.

Personally, I always felt that the 'default' for magic missile, before personal flare and customisation, falls into the blue-purple spectrum of visuals, so for me, having it be red light bolts is the most off-putting aspect. That said, I've never personally been fond of the spell ,and rarely take or use it with nay of my spell casters in tabletop games - as much as it's reliable to a certain extent, its value for slot output is too low to use regularly. It's more of a utility/flexibility spell, in my eyes.

I'd very much welcome the ability to customise our spell visuals to a small extent though - especially since they're going out of their way to remind players that they can and should feel free to do that, in the pen and paper publications now.

In terms of the pathing changes - It's a major issue in Larian's game engine, and one that we sadly cannot expect them to fix or change at this stage, that spells, AoEs and ranged attacks all have to run through the gauntlet of the actual world physics engine BEFORE they get calculated at all. This is an egregiously stupid design, but it's been in the core of their system since... since Divine Divinity, I think. It should run the actual mechanical calculations first, then run the physics afterwards (this is all done in less than a fraction of a second from our perspective regardless), because the game needs to report accurately to the player, which it currently often doesn't do.

The way it should work is:
- You have a clean shot and can select the target as an appropriate target fro your current position.
- The spell/attack/item/ability has 'these' mechanical effects and works 'this' way.
- Therefore, 'this' is what happens, since it was correctly input and used.
- Visuals simulate this in the visual world engine with physics etc.
- Sometimes something goes wacky with the physics and it doesn't 'look' like everything hit right; but mechanically, the ability had this effect, which you knew and which was accurately reports, so you know that it did
- The combat log reflects the reality of what happened, not the occasionally wacky visual.

The way it works in Larian games, including BG3:
- You have a clean shot and can select the target as an appropriate target from your current position.
- Visuals simulate this in the visual world engine with physics etc.
- Sometimes something goes wacky with the physics and it doesn't 'look' like everything hit right; shots hit obstructions that weren't listed, AoEs don't hit the figures that were highlighted, magic missiles hit the ground near their target and don't connect.
- The spell/attack/item/ability has 'these' mechanical effects and works 'this' way - but it is only calculated for the targets that were actually hit by the visual simulation, meaning that the player often does not receive the effects that the game itself reported to them that they would.
- The combat log reflects only the calculations that happened after the physics simulation, showing nothing at all for the 'packets lost' as a result of that simulation.

This was 'okay' for games like D:OS2 which relied heavily upon the in-world physics engine to simulate gameplay - in those games, abilities referenced the fact, and didn't have set ranges and target counts in any hard way - in those games, if you could find a pixel on an enemy's toe that made their portrait light up, then you could shoot them, and in many cases where distance of shot mattered, finding the 'furthest pixel' on their model from you to make your shot was the really dumb meta for many skills. But the games were silly, and Larian were working freely in their own world space, with their own rule system, so it was fine there.

That way of processing turns is not suitable for D&D video games... but Larian did not decide to make a new game engine suitable for the purpose, when they took on to make a dungeons and dragons game, using someone else's rule set, in someone else's world space. They decide to take their existing game engine and try to hack it into shape to squeeze D&d rules into it, and it's very visible a hack job, at this point.

So, the result is that rather than having a magic missile spell that can streak all over the place as it homes in unerringly on the selected targets, zipping around obstacles and so on as necessary (and occasionally maybe it looks like one of them goes through a wooden beam or something, because the simulation messed up, but you know how the spell mechanically functions, and you can rely on it doing so)... it traces through the world using Larian's bow-shot physics, and if it hits obstacles on the way (which the engine will not path it to avoid), then you just lose those missiles, despite the spells 'unerring' description. Larian's solution was a kludge-fix - as EVERYTHING they do is - they changed the missiles to all follow the same line, to minimise the chances of any obstructions causing missile loss... so it's understandable that some folks will find this unsatisfying.

I've read the forum rules and there is nothing on off topic discussions there. You can put as much emphasis on it as you want though, same as ones before you. I disagree anyway and don't want for the people who delved into another topic to feel guilty of it or anyhow lectured, myself included.

As of the OP, the only three problems I see with BG3 magic missile's visualization as of now are:

- A slight, but noticeable delay before the launch of the projectile
- Visual environment collision, when the dart goes through the textures
- A clustered projectile feeling when you launch all three darts into one spot

Other than that, I don't have any nostalgia about how it was in the series. But I am not against a change in this direction, if it still looks and feels good. From my perspective, OP's post was just a tribute to the old games, no exploration of any pathing or mechanics or changes in the recent updates.