Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Will BG3 incentivize a “kill everyone” playstyle too much?

I am asking this question because I have been playing DOS2. And while that game has mechanisms that incentivize a “just kill everyone” playstyle that BG3 will not have, I see enough similarities that it is a cause for concern. My observations:

Encounter design
It appears that every single encounter with a sizeable group of people of uncertain disposition is carefully designed to put you in a very disadvantageous position should you decide to talk to them and the encounter turns into a fight. As a result, you think twice before you talk to people of uncertain disposition, and may avoid it entirely if it seems likely it will end in a fight. Sometimes, this seems reasonable – after all, if you talked and sneaked your way into the Goblin Camp you’d be well advised not to speak to their leaders. However, in many situations this is unsatisfying from a roleplaying viewpoint. After all, as a rule any character with at least average intelligence would only fight if necessary, or if *they* held an overwhelming advantage. With a bit more verisimilitude, you’d have your initial encounter with such people in a more neutral environment. What we have instead is “Well…this doesn’t look good. Better to ambush them now….” Which of course, now and then, is a valid in-world tactical decision. But if every encounter is like that and you never have a reasonable chance for talking without putting your head into the jaw of the lion, so to speak, that’s very much unsatisfactory.

Effect of turn-based combat
And the plain fact is, turn-based combat makes this dramatically worse. Consider how an encounter with, say, the Githyanki patrol might’ve gone in a BG2-like game. You’d have cast some protective spells, put on your boots of speed for the talking character and positioned yourself so your talker could run away into a less disadvantageous position. Then you’d have started talking, and if fighting broke out you could’ve *Immediately* moved with *everyone*, while your protections prevented you from being held or damaged. Someone would likely get hit once anyway but there would’ve been very little chance for enemies to hit anyone multiple times while they were unable to move. Unfortunately, there’s no free movement in a turn-based game *and* your best talker is likely to be, say, a wild mage sorcerer with high CHA who can get advantage on their persuasion rolls. So not exactly durable. Which means again, better avoid talking altogether and ambush them before they decided to become enemies….the difference is so dramatic that a single ambushing sorcerer can win the fight on their own, while any party of two that decided to talk first (you’d likely take Lae’zel if you wanted to talk) had a very high chance of getting killed before being able to take a single action after the talking ended.

No or very little quest XP
Traditionally, D&D rewards killing stuff. Or so they say. But that’s GM’s discretion so there are no rules about that, and killing stuff isn’t the main point of roleplaying. Roleplaying means resolving a situation in a way that fits your character. Or at least making an attempt to do so. And the games shouldn’t punish people for convincing roleplaying, right? That’s why some games have quest xp that are given for resolving a situation, regardless how you went about it. This was a very significant change between BG1 and BG2, and one of the best changes since quest xp were significant enough that players of characters who didn’t think killing everyone was desirable didn’t feel all that disadvantaged by the fact that they didn’t kill everyone. In DOS2, meanwhile, this is more of a token attempt. Quest XP are insignificant to non-existent. And so they are in BG3’s chapter 1, as far as we know from the EA.

Conclusion
I think if these observations hold true for the release version, this will be a major point of criticism. What makes it especially relevant is that this is a flaw as old as the genre. Decades old in fact. And the solutions are also decades old. It’s something I’ve personally resented basically forever, to the point that I vividly recall my first significant counterexample: “You get 1000 xp for sneaking into the Mariposa Military Base without getting seen”. Fallout, 1997. At its time, Fallout was considered a revival and advancement of the genre…. And part of that was that it was the first game, to my knowledge, that rewarded players for anything but fighting or the occasional puzzle, thus featuring several new playstyles and character concepts. Roleplaying games of today shouldn’t fall back behind those times.

(Meanwhile, I’m very glad BG3 will likely lack the three additional features of DOS2 that incentivize a “kill everyone” playstyle: damage and armor scaling, which makes it extremely important to keep up with your enemies level-wise, scarcity of xp compared to what you need to achieve that, so you absolutely must kill almost everyone to keep up, and “every major faction is dark grey at best”, which means that most likely, you’ll want to kill everyone - but that makes for a rather depressing world).

"Eek barba durkle, somebody's gonna get laid in college..."

I really enjoyed your Dissertation and hopefully the Faculty Council will award you with a Pass With Distinction.

No but seriously, you have a point. Lazy players are gonna lazy, or seek murderhobo solutions. I would say part of it is a basic misunderstanding on the nature of the game with some.

So, with our multiplayer runs all players have to agree to a run TYPE before they start the run and once that's decided they are bound by integrity to keep to that playstyle.

These are some examples of Different kinds of runs and playstyles:
-CHAOS RUN
– Nothing matters, and everyone just does whatever. There may be little cooperation or stability. Go in with no expectations.
-MURDERHOBO RUN
– Just try to kill everyone, regardless of consequences. Teamwork required.
-SOCIOPATHIC RUN
– Kill who you can get away with without destabilizing society.
-ROLEPLAYING RUN
– Stick to a strict interpretation of RP’ing. This means no meta or advance knowledge of anything. Behave in game as your character would behave based on who they are. No meta, or powergaming or commenting on another person’s stats. Listen to conversations.
-SERIOUS RUN (Good/Nuetral/Evil)
– Play seriously with a specific alignment outlook. This is not a roleplaying run as it allows for metagaming but you are sticking to a narrative outlook.
-IRON-MAN RUN (Honor Mode)–
If the party dies then game over. Additional conditions can be arranged. If any player dies, then they are gone/no res. Exceptions for software bugs that occur.
-TOUR GUIDE/NEW PLAYER RUN –
Veterans escort newer players and let them experience the game/ help them learn the ropes of the systems.

If you are talking single player then you really only have yourself to blame and what people do in those runs is on them.

I haven’t finished D:OS2 so I can’t comment on the comparison, but I personally have zero concerns that BG3 will overly incentivise any specific behaviours based on my EA experience. For me, the reward of behaving in a certain way is the satisfaction of roleplay, not just in dialogue but in how we approach tasks, where we go and who we kill or befriend in different playthroughs.

I suspect folk looking to hit the max level cap as early as possible, get all the best stuff for their characters and metagame to maximise the amount of content they see in a specific playthrough, or even just to make encounters easier, might struggle with differential incentives more. My sense is that the game will reward that style of play less than the one I’ve come to enjoy most as I’ve got to know the game, and that’s probably something for folk to bear in mind as they go in.

In a previous patch Larian aknowledged that a murderhobo run granted more XP than a pacifist run, so they balanced it by giving more XP to quests if you avoid fights.

I should mention that I consider xp and loot as the least relevant consideration as long as there are enough optional xp in total. And there is too much stuff in these games anyway. Much more important is the fact that encounters are so much more difficult if you start a conversation and then it turns into a fight, compared to ambushing the group just in case they turn out to be enemies. And that's a matter of encounter design.

With the exception of the githyanki patrol encounter, I generally do not mind the neutral NPC encounter designs. Giving up a guaranteed surprise attack round for an opportunity to talk with NPCs seems fair. However, I think it would be better if there were more opportunities to make a slight of hand check to try and get the jump on NPCs that you expect to turn hostile.

The gith patrol encounter is messed up because the dragon and dragon rider leaves the scene, even if you launch a surprise attack against them or Kithrak decides to kill you. I really hope that encounter is redone so the dragon stays and kills your party, if combat is initiated. The dragon should only leave if the gith patrol decides not to to attack you.

The biggest issue is accidentally turning NPCs hostile in places like the Druid grove, resulting in having to slaughter everyone in self-defense.

Also the level cap seems pretty low so you’ll probably hit it quickly if going completionist plus alternative solutions and then double dipping XP by killing anyway.

Have a feeling there may be severe reactivity consequences to murderhobery, and definitely some level of opportunity cost. I don’t think Larian LIKES to encourage murderhobery narratively.

The githyanki encounter is messed up for more reasons than that, in particular that it's a major, inexplicable difficulty spike from out of nowhere. It's so far the only encounter in the game I haven't managed to beat.

I am against your suggestion simply because one way to trigger combat is to fail some pretty tricky persuasion checks, which are even trickier if you let Lae'zel speak to them. I think a tpk on a random side mission for a failed persuasion roll is more annoying than interesting.

I have considered the possibility it was intended for players who play as Lae'zel. I may accidentally have hit the intended behaviour for anyone else by my reasoning: Lae'zel has made it pretty clear her people consider themselves the master race, so they'll likely just kill you to get rid of the mindworm infestation. So in my first playthrough, I decided I could trust them only slightly more than Raphael, and never went there during the main quest. I visited the place later...to find people as dismissive as I expected, but also not starting a fight. Odd, that.

The Nere encounter is more pertinent IMO. At least if you don't reason that it's better to kill the duergar in order to free the deep gnomes before another potential enemy shows up, but instead think you need Nere so better not piss him off...and then all hell breaks loose with your talking squishy in the middle of a cluster of enemies. Because you didn't pass a persuasion check.

I enjoy the odd survival scenarios, so getting ganked after a bad dialogue outcome doesn't worry me too much. So long as someone can survive it back to Withers, we can try again.

For some dialogues you can just see the dreadful tactical set-up and likely risk. First time I played the Nere scene I had separated the party, redistributed scrolls and potions, and positioned supporting characters up high. Party face tanked up AC with some escape options. That wasn't meta-knowledge, it was plainly a dangerous situation.

Likewise the Githyanki, you get foreshadowed 3 times how dangerous it is. Buff up, click turn-based and go down. Heck, I've even talked my way out of that a couple of times. Missing out on the loot is kind of worth it, because I've had 1 TPK game-over and 2 retreats with heavy casualties there. Comparable gear can be found with less challenge elsewhere.

There is some incentivization to surprise attack, particularly on 2nd+ play throughs, but there are dialogue options you miss out on too. And often the dialogues are entertaining in their own right.

Not only won't this be a major point of criticism, I'm confident that it won't even be a minor one. I'm basing it on how little I've seen it brought up on the various forums and sites about the game. It really isn't that big a deal for the vast majority of people who play the game. I mean the issue only affects people who want to roleplay non-violence where relevant, but who also feel aggrieved or cheated that that roleplay choice doesn't give them the same xp as simply killing the baddie. I played a paladin and made those choices and to be quite frank not only didn't I care, the actual xp lost was pretty miniscule.

Obviously you'd be in the exception, but I'm sure most players are happy with the fact that if you actually win the githyanki fight you should get more xp than if you passed a charisma check and avoided it.

The game is less than 3 weeks from launch. Probably best to get used to the nagging feeling that you're being cheated out of xp for your rp choice, because tbh at this late stage I can't see it changing

This sort of thing, the reward-for-doing-it-this-way, doesn't even enter my mind. I want to make those choices as I find them appealing, or how my character would make them. I don't particularly enjoy metagaming, or MMO-style gaming. "Oh adventurer, please find my late husband's ring - YOU WILL RECEIVE THE FOLLOWING REWARD: 50 XP 100 GP". Do things, accept what happens and go on. It's not like you're not going to reach the max level. I suspect you will before the final act, regardless of which path you take.

At the same time. "Hand over all your gold!" - Roll for Intimidate - Succes, you get gold and a bit of xp. On you go.
Fail, you get attacked, you kill the dude, you get his gold, his weapons and armor and the xp for killing him. On you go. Does that bother you? It makes perfect sense to me.

I still remember knights of the old republic, if you found a vent to avoid a combat encounter? XP. Hacked that computer to kill the guards in the next room? XP. Talked your way past without incident? XP. None of this DOS2 nonsense needed where you're essentially encouraged to do everything, and THEN go back and massacre everyone.

I hope BG3 is similar, and lets people get XP for achieving a goal, regardless of how it was achieved.

+1
Get rid of double-dipping.

As I said above, that aspect is minor and I only mentioned it because in DOS2, there wasn't enough xp around to keep up with enemies unless you more or less kill everyone. The main concern is that encounters are set up in a way that talking puts you at a serious disadvantage, and that this is exacerbated by the game having turn-based combat so you don't have free movement once the fighting starts.

Maybe I'm too much into meta-gaming myself, but there are some encounters that really frustrate me in this department. The chief of which is the dudes in front of the chapel. I can persuade or intimidate them off for companion approval, or I can fight them for xp and loot. I want to milk every drop of xp I can before the Grove gate fight, and not having xp awarded for skill use or role playing my alignment is annoying

But it's a really minor frustration, and doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game any more than the toilet chain does, it's just something I've learned to line with...

Which as I write that, I realize it's exactly OP's point. Yes, Larian are encouraging killing over problem solving on other ways, but only for those who are valuing in-game rewards over their personal satisfaction in role playing

you should get XP equal to the encounter imo, but lose out on the items because you avoided the danger of fighting them. If you want the XP AND the items, then you take the added risk of dying when you fight them. That said, getting no XP for making them go away is awful I agree, that shouldn't work like that.

That is my hope, too. In the EA, however, we can't judge the main quest because we did not achieve our main goal, and sidequests give no or insignificant quest xp as far as I recall. Granted, I didn't pay close attention to the xp rewards at that time.

Well. Act 1 is more or less supposed to be roughly a quarter of the game, and will have around 33% more content.

Now, I like to stress that the addition of the mountain pass that is unavailable in EA might count towards that. If the Mountain Pass is roughly the size of the Underdark, just the inclusion of that would indeed be around 33%.

Still, in EA, you *easily* reach level 5 before even reaching the Underdark. In the full game, you'll probably reach level 6 if you're even a little thorough, before reaching Act 2.


They just might, here and there. If I see a bunch of gobbos standing on rooftops, I'll sneak my companions up those rooftops first before running someone with a shield to play arrow bait. A preemtive strike is roleplayiing, too. The Duergar though, are a lot harder to sneak up on, and if you're unprepared, they will address you before you shoot them.

Indeed, that's how I think it should work.