Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The "Unstoppable" buff on enemies may very well be the worst "larianism" I experienced so far

Well, the title should be self explanatory.

I really, REALLY didn't enjoy having to deal with this mechanic.

As a premise, just to be clear, this is not a complaint about "excessive difficulty".
I already beaten all the encounters I've crossed up to this point where this ability was used and it wasn't even that much of a struggle once I stopped the first time to read what it did and what I was supposed to do.

It's just that the mechanic itself (that as far as I'm aware is NOT a D&D thing by any stretch) is spectacularly unenjoyable. The annoyance in having to waste a certain amount of hits on these characters before any other action with any meaning can be performed on them reminded me of the infamous DOS 2 armor system.
Hell, in some way it's actually worse, since you could at least OUT-DPR that one, while with this is just rolling your eyes and wasting a bunch of attacks to "get to the point".

I didnt mind them i just used spells that hit lots of times to tick em down fast like i dumpped the concentration blade cloud on them then took out the minions, like one boss had sanctuaryed minions i assumed to eat n get more powerful so i just used concusion grenades and kocked em out of the map before they could be eaten, or used the force push on the warding glyph

I only lost 1 fight in the game and that was the boss i didnt know what 1 mechanic did n it wiped my whole party , i was sorta waiting to see what it did so had to do that fight again lol

But on second run i killed the last boss in 2/3 turns 1 tun to get party in the spoty to get to second form i then dumped a globe of invulnerable on my party untill second form was ready ) and 1 round to kill the boss (the ones with the unstoppable mechanic where more intresting imo)

In my experience, it was a coin flip if the unstoppable mechanic worked correctly. I had so many fights where it wouldn't decrease under any circumstances and I had to reload a save.

I wouldn't mind a sensible use of such an ability - say there's an ancient primal spring or artifact providing protection to elementals or something. But they gave this nonsense to basic enemies as a regular character ability.

The armor system is the biggest reason why I can't even play Divinity. Videogamey shit like that does NOT belong in an RPG (especially if it's just a badly designed mechanic from any standpoint). Giving enemies 20's in stats and inflating their HP is really annoying, but it's nothing compared to Unstoppable.

And "can't be moved or restrained" or whatever the secondary effect was. The hate for control effects is so tangible. Or is this to counter their own beefed up Shoving because it's too strong?

If only Larian could just save all this "Unstoppable" nonsense for DOS 3, and then I can choose to not buy it. For D&D they should look into making Long Rest a meaningful mechanic so you don't need to come up with stupid nonsense to provide a challenge for fully powered parties every time. Taxing the party one upcast Magic Missile per enemy is not a very clever challenge either.

I'd like to play D&D please.

BG3 got the worst combat system of all crpgs (only DOS is even worse). Had more fun with BG1&2, NWN2, PF and even Dragon Age 1. They were unable to really change the combat system form DOS so they have to use things like "unstoppable" to compensate this. They were also unable to change inventory and other mechanics. Why do we got the larvae in our heads? Because Larian wanted to recycel the DOS2 mechanics. So we can only have four compaions on the battlefield but 12 classes and subclasses. They also noticed that the D&D spells could break the DOS combat system (especially the concentration spells) so they nerfed the concentration spells. They focused too much on cinematics and genitals. Instead they could have increased the max level to 14. I reached lvl. 12 at the beginning of act III !

I and others warned that this was dos 3 with a coating of dnd. Still an enjoyable game but could be so much better. Solasta and Pathfinder were made by devs who actually like dnd.

I don't agree, not even remotely.
In fact, I'd be incline to say that at its core it offers one of the very best, both in terms of presentation/visuals that in terms of overall variety.

That incidentally doesn't change that, almost inevitably, every single time they attempted to "spice things up" borrowing from their "Divinity DNA", they made changes and additions that are turning out to be... Questionable at best.

It's not fun to deal with "Unstoppable" enemies (even if it's not particularly hard, either). It's just annoying to sit there during the fight and going "Oh yeah, I have to WASTE a certain amount of resources on you".
It's not fun to have to exercise self-restrain to not exploit stealth (you know, the old trick of being able to intervene in fights in real time etc).
And subjectively I don't even find particularly rewarding or fun to realize "Oh yeah, almost nothing of what I'm doing in some of these fights would probably work at a D&D table because these systems interact very differently".

Or the role play aspect of it. Why the hell is some random assassin minion "5 levels Unstoppable", i.e. invulnerable to all damage and you can't push or restrain them? How does a random assassin have 20 in all stats and access to unlimited Bonus Action Invisibility, when the heroes don't after finding many legendary treasures and being peak level in their class.

It's a big problem of BG3 that storytelling and gameplay are doing two separate things instead of supporting each other. The Bhaal stuff and visual is outright horrifying. Then combat starts and you're merrily in cartoon land again slap-shoving enemies hilariously off cliffs, making Spider-Man jumps with just 16 Strength and firing arrows in playful arcs. And peeling layers of Unstoppable from them without it being explained in any logical way.

And it's just sad that even with these combat "features" that have been borrowed from platform or arcade games, combat isn't any better or more challenging. It's just annoying and doesn't fit D&D or Forgotten Realms style, or the game's own realistic presentation.

Agreed ...
I dont know who finds it fun, but we clearly have different taste.

Yeah, I read that apparently before the last update it was bugged, too.
I luckily didn't have to deal with any of that, which doesn't change my dislike for the mechanic in principle.

It's a mechanic that effects one enemy variant in the game, I am fine with it. It's just something different to fight against. I wouldn't want it to be on every enemy but I am fine with the small section it was implemented in.

I just lobbed bombs and projectiles at them to whittle it down lol.

D&D has hundreds of spells and abilities to choose from. We don't need to borrow from arcade games or Divinity.

In the enemy groups that have Unstoppable there are Clerics and Mages that could support the martial enemies with actual spells that exist.

But I guess if a developer is stuck in the mindset of their own IP and don't bother reading the D&D books, this is what we get. Downplaying and nerfing D&D tactics and coming up with your own rules that don't really match the game system.

BG3 would be a lot better game if Larian devs actually liked or understood D&D and would embrace it rather than fighting it all the way.