Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback A Comedy of Misses (and other good/bad feedback)

It got especially bad with a group of gnolls for some reason - we all just kept missing, even when standing right beside each other. I thought a toggle to disable the 'miss' feature might fix this. Some may well like it and could leave it on. I personally hate it, and I've turned the game off and not wanted to go back, as it's about as boring as watching paint dry. 

For me it also removes all strategy and the whole thing becomes a lotto. You either are unfairly unpunished because you miss every turn. Or the enemy is unfairly punished as they miss every turn. I think the 23%, 30%, 46% etc from high/low ground should count for something though - I would prefer that you always hit but maybe whatever number you roll only hits for the given percentage of the number. That way at least it's possible to plan/strategise around it.

Some other thoughts on the game so far:
1) The writing

It's better written than DOS 1/2. Baldur's Gate 1/2 weren't exactly Shakespeare, and I like that the mind flayers don't talk like humans and instead are maliciously mysterious and manipulative. Good 'show don't tell'. Ironically I think the art lets them down though. Just the cartoonish glowing red eyes - they remind me of villains from a child's cartoon. Strangely the redcap creatures have a great eye design that's bloodily disturbing without being cartoony.

Even the humour is pretty good. The part where Volo's love interest shoves him off the ledge even made me laugh (don't think I've ever actually laughed at humour in video games). The various mini-stories are done well overall, I think.

Problems are some lazy character repetitions. Ie - the 'intelligent' troll chief who uses the 'you're such a tease' line. And then the devil that uses the exact same 'tease' line later on. They both have an identical campy smugness. The devil in particular seems flamboyantly overwritten, and reminds me of somewhat stupid people who think they're smarter than everyone else by using exotic language to convey otherwise banal details. 'Genius is making the complex simple, not making the simple complex' as Einstein once said.

I liked the evil magic hag story and thought she was well done, even if it's a familiar tale. It reminded me too much of The Witcher's hags, however, who also lived in a hut in the middle of a swamp. It doesn't have a villian as well done as Irenicus, but I don't know if it particularly needs one either, seeing as it's a very plot-driven narrative as opposed to character-driven. Currently I'd hang in to see the end game, even if I'm not particularly emotionally/psychologically invested in any of it at the moment.

Lastly, I think the origin characters are a bit of a mistake (again). I'm sure they get a lot of budget and other resources for various set pieces and so on that are unique to them. I'd say such things would be better spent elsewhere, but it's not a deal breaker. Overall, they seem no more or less interesting than BG 1/2 characters. Though there's no Minsc/Edwin/Viconia equivalents, and these characters were never given 10% of the same writerly attention as BG 3 companions. Sometimes you get better results from a slighter, looser approach.

2) Art

Apart from the curiously cartoony mindflayer eyes, it's top notch. The animations for the dragons and the squid ship are great. Design looks like a fresh take on this fantasy world, and I think it holds up just as well as the originals. It doesn't remind me of them, but it does seem to do the world justice, even if I think the tieflings look too in-your-face devilish. I preferred the Haer'Dalis 'look', who looked slightly intense/possessed and just different enough that you might think he has demon blood in him but couldn't be too certain. Anyway, no big deal.

Some things look better than others. The rocks look fantastic, like something from a real location. And the brickwork in some places. Other features look unfinished, so I won't comment further. I do think overall though it's being held back by the tech. The graphics look like good 'last gen' graphics for a game that's coming out well into 'next gen'. Definitely needs at least the ray tracing. The latest screenshots for Cyberpunk 2077 with the ray tracing have turned a similarly 'not so bad' looking game into an amazing looking game. And they're saying they have a proper 'next gen' version planned ahead, so it'll somehow look even better.

3) Combat

Far more balanced that DOS 1/2, I felt. The smaller stats are obviously helping (it must be difficult to balance HP in the 10s of thousands). I like that the enemy has a variable group number. In DOS 1/2 it always seemed to be 4 versus 4. As mentioned, I hate the miss feature. Again, I think just a toggle to make it optional. Surely it wouldn't be technically difficult to have an on/off switch for it. I don't know if I'd want to play a full game this large with a feature like that - I think I'd just give up on it. Better things to be doing than watching pixels swiping and missing over and over.

A lot of the spells seem buggy, so not going to mention too much on them. Though the mirror image artwork has the same problem BG1 had that was fixed in BG2 by making the 'mirrors' wrap closer to the wizard. Here they clog the battlefield by spreading too far out, especially when 2 or 3 characters have them active. All of the classes seem well balanced though. The fighter in particular has become a very strategy-dependent character, whereas in BG 1/2 fighters were point, click and forget in the organisation department. My most killed character was my warlock, who seemed to start off slightly OP, one-shotting everyone with the red blast magic (forget the name). Then later he just got hammered because he has no mirror image or any equivalent defence (at least I didn't notice one).

Lastly, the 'character dead' UI seems cluttered. Was never really too sure how much 'death health' they had before a monster's attack would outright kill them. Also, I wondered sometimes if the combat would be more interesting if the enemy could also 'help' a downed enemy revive. Or if the sheer quantity of enemies versus the player party somewhat mitigated their disadvantage.

4 Non-combat

Briefly, I don't get the 'rest' mechanism. You need to recharge spells and health. But you can seemingly do this any time, anywhere, without penalty, even in the middle of a burning, crumbling house. So why would you ever use the 'short rest' feature or character abilities to just recover a fraction of your health/spells?

I don't understand your argument about missing? It's a turn based strategy game where missing is a valid option.... You never "always hit" in D&D unless the spell/ability specifies. Like Magic Missile....

I'm just saying I personally don't like it. I'm not saying to remove it, just make it optional. I'm not familiar with D&D rules. It's all made up anyway, isn't it?

In general I think the more options a game has to configure how it works, the better. Ie - you already have difficulty levels. So if there could just be a checkbox to on/off other game features that would great. Provided it's not rocket science to implement.

Misses is core feature of balance in d&d. You can't just make it optional, as in d&d several spells, for example magic missile or fireball always do damage, and it is one of only possible ways to do damage to high AC classes. So, if Larian just removes misses, all fighters and rouges will start to do a LOT more damage, than casters. also, feats like Great Weapon fighter and all mechanics of Advantage become imbalancly strong. Larian wanted to do game with d&d rules, and there is no d&d at all without misses. In d&d misses a lot more common, because Larian increased hp and decreased AC in BG3, and it is already a big balance issue. So I even expect more misses in final game, than in EA (but most mobs will be oneshoted, while now most of them needs 2-3 hits to be killed)

After the 4th time missing in a row with a 80+% Hitchance combat feels quite annoying however.
Or get your level 4 party get fucked by 2+2 level 2 phase spiders and ettercaps due to randomness...

On one of my d&d sessions i made like 10 attacks, and none of them hit. It is part of a system, and sometimes you miss 10 times with80%, sometimes you hit 10 times with 30%, it is just how d&d works from the beginning

This post demonstrates perfectly why combat needs more visual feedback on what AC means.

Those are not misses most of the time.

It's mostly armor reducing the damage to zero.

It's shields deflecting attacks.

Sometimes it's clean misses. But only this is shown in BG3.

Hitting for 0 and 10 against 30HP (D&D) is the same as hitting for 100 and 100 against 600HP (DOS).

The higher variance when hit or miss streaks happen is something that is a part of the system and you either like it or you don't. But they really don't have to show the misses only as PCs being incompetent.

I've played RPGs for 36 years now (and even played the old D&D), you don't have to tell me about chances. I'm okay with that.
But it makes a difference when being with friends amusing themselves over your bad luck, or just watching the tiring combat in BG3 where possibly round after round your whole party misses.
In RPG in real life the GM would probably just let you kill the remaining 2 HP goblin, while in BG3 it took me 2 rounds to kill it off as everyone missed its hit and there was nothing left which I could let explode otherwise. => Annoying.

I understand it’s annoying, as it currently plays out, but I’m against automatically killing the remaining 2HP Goblin. I imagine if playing out in reverse:

Party is down, making death saves, except for your cleric (who is at 2HP). The cleric valiantly buffs their AC and miraculously deflects a round of goblin arrows, to heal the party. The party rallies from the brink of TPK and slaughters the remaining three goblins. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Imagine how glorious that would feel.

Now imagine instead in the above scenario, the game just goes “nope” you’re cleric is outnumbered and hurting. Auto-dead.

The animations on “misses” need to be updated to reflect deflections and armor/shields/spells absorbing attacks instead of just empty air swings.

I hate to frame it that way but, git gud.

You can optimize Fights. Missing became a much less Event in my plays. You have to under stand how it works. Its about Micro, not macro.

If you stand in Front to your foe will not necessarily increase Hit Chance, if any it will decrease it, depends on class etc. Also try to work with surfaces, positioning and Environment.

Missing means not: physical missing. It means rather missed flesh wound..

No offense to OP but maybe the game isent for you then?

Forcing misses (or at least migrating damage) is what heavy armor is all about. Characters can still tank at a pinch with dex but thats more the dodging and evading part of AC. You dont SEE that in bg3 which might be a valid complaint but missing or hitting is all part of the game. Negating that would just turn the game into 'who goes first, wins' simulator...

Why would I raise one of my characters AC by 2 with a spell if he gets auto hit automaticly?
Why would I wear a shield?
Why would a knight want to have armor if it offers no protection and even gives him penalties to beeing stealthy?
Why put points in DEX for non-ranged/or DEX hased fights at all? That AC isent going to be doing anything anymore.

I could go on but no, this game does not need an autohit feature.

Seems like a completely incoherent request. That would mean armor would have no effect, shields would have no effect, being agile would have no effect, and being skilled and experienced in battle would have no effect.

You could say the same thing about the law. Its just rules that people made up, why should we hold ourselves to them? Do I need to explain why this is a non-argument?

Comparing it to a difficulty level is also backwards. If noone misses the player is royally fucked in over half of the fights in the game where they are horribly outnumbered. A good set of armour and some buffs are all thats keeping your people allive in those cases....

Nicely said.
I saw this implemented beautifuly in Pathfinder Kingmaker. There is several animation for a 0 damage attack (which is really the correct way to call it). Sometimes you dodge, sometimes it just get blocked by armor. And it doesn't feel as frustruating.

I think the real world law and computer game law are two slightly different things, chief. This is 'entertainment'. We all have our own idea of what's entertaining and what's not. I don't get why there's an upset about the suggestion of offering people choice in how to play the game. Why does it have to be played exactly the way you see it? And why does D&D have to be followed to the letter? Is it a religion or something?

As for 'getting good'... I never lost a battle in the game despite all the misses. And only had characters fall unconscious 3 or 4 times. I didn't find the game difficult or easy. It's an average challenge.

What I'm saying is that the missing is boring. That's my personal take on it. I think it's insane that some people have to have you agree with their idea of interesting when you could potentially allow for multiple configurations of game play.

But it's not D&D! haha - ok, ok. Maybe...it doesn't need to be?

I just hope none of y'all who are insisting on the world by your rules don't end up in politics.

Again, what is so wrong with having a checkbox that lets some people play 'strict D&D' and others play whatever way they want? You play the D&D game, I play the one without the misses. And the world keeps turning.

Something you may not be noticing is that the enemies are missing you just as often, assuming no advantage/disadvantage modifiers. Would you want that checkbox option to turn off missed attacks if it applies to enemies also? If not, it's a player exploit and would unbalance the game.

It sounds like you're just not familiar with the D&D systems yet, which does take a while to get used to if you've never seen it before. In particular, you need to pay attention to the Advantage-Disadvantage mechanic for "facing" and height difference, which can have a big impact on hit chance.

Yes, I mentioned in the initial post that the enemies missing is as bad as the player missing. If there's a checkbox to toggle this feature, it would apply to both - enemy and player would always hit each other with some damage dealt, even if it's just 1 based on disadvantage or dice rolls etc. I felt I had too many easy wins from some giant, hard-hitting boss type enemy 'critical miss' a near-death character. It lessened the impact of the victory.

I also think the enemies should possibly be able to revive their own as the player can. But maybe that's not D&D either?

I just think some people could care less if it's D&D, and some people obviously care very deeply if it's D&D. And both should have the options to make the game more or less D&D with a few simple configuration options at the start of the game.

I mean, some people are clearly not happy with anything in the game being D&D. So maybe give them the option to force the game to be more like how they would see it - again, as long it's all about choice.

The misses work both ways. It feels good when your high AC character evades or blocks attacks and feels untouchable.

To me, DOS style combat where you're just hacking away at huge inflated HP pools feels dumb, gamey and lacks dynamics. I like RPG combat to look more realistic than gamey.

Anyway, BG3 is D&D so 5e rules are the expectation here. Much like there was no "change ruleset into D&D" switch in DOS2, which I would have strongly preferred. They obviously can't include different rulesets for all tastes in the same game.

If you make it so no-one misses, what’s even the point of playing anything other than a high-offense hitter with inflated HP?

Magic missle? Pffftt pointless compared to other offensive spells. Any armor or buffing? Pointless. May as well just play something stealthy that no one can see until they crit hit and kill everything.

Facing 8 goblin archers at range...goodnight. You’re dead.

You may have your opinion, but that sounds like a horrible and boring game to me.

I can't tell if anyone is actually upset. It's just that your request is nonsense in any system even resembling DnD rules. That said, I assume there will be some sort of super easy mode in which the player gets a big bonus on hit chance.