Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Reactions Need A Pop-Up Dialog - Change My Mind

I don't think timed prompts would mesh well with the game flow. You'd have to pause the game for 2 seconds to wait for user input whenever reaction is possible. It also adds a real-time element to turn based game. It would require very good automatic camera control and clear signaling what the enemy is doing, if user is expected to react in 2 seconds and decide what to do. Its bound to lead to "feel bad" moments where you miss the window.

I think automatic reactions on rules you've decided in advance keep the game flowing best. Perhaps there are some rare reactions which give you a prompt, because they expend valuable resources. For example you might not want to spend Counter Spell on rangers tiny buff when high level enemy wizard is next. So, a hybrid approach where most reactions are automatic such as AoO, Shield, Feather Fall to keep the gameplay smooth, but prompt for "more expensive" reactions?

So what you say is, that it wouldn’t mesh at all.

Surely, better then trying to implimented some whack-a-mole minigame for reactions it would be just to keep original system with pop ups, as in Solasta.

Luckily, no matter if current Larian’s implementation works or not, player will have EA to try it and provide feedback. As I am not familiar with DnD5, I cannot effectively speculate on the subject.

Nah. I think I'll decide what is or isn't for me.

Any kind of timer will not go over well with a lot of cRPG fans, especially the old-school, non-action cRPG fans.

Sounds like there are supporters of just about every possible approach

Letting the player choose how to manage reactions would probably be the best way forward.

Hopefully there will be modding support at some point

My apologies.
I thought you were a serious poster.

You're one of those intriguing folks who just likes to complain about an aspect of the game that isn't going to change.
I'll cease to engage with you so you can go on complaining although I believe there is a thread stickied for folks who are having issues accepting that this game is turn based.

This thread is is about reactions and how to best implement them.

But isn't this itself a concern? Should we have to count on modding to "fix" so many different things in a game?

I think one of the things that should be very high on Larian's list of things to discuss with fans is the extent to which their game will include optional toggles that players can use to customize their gameplay experience. Thus far what I see in Larian's approach is to say they will include only one way for something to work in the game and not have any options for the player. This seems to be directly contradictory to Larian's stated goal of providing player choice and player freedom to the max. Take for example, the whole situation with how initiative works in the game. They first come out with team initiative. Then a bunch of rules purists complain, so they change that to individual initiative. Why couldn't they just have included both as options the player could choose between? They even already had team initiative built into the game, and yet they chose to go down the path of providing only one option and closing out other options. And I don't want to hear some lame excuse about cost. This is a AAA budget game. And if there is one feature that is common to most AAA games, that feature is a boatload of option toggles and sliders in the game for the player to use to customize gameplay to their preference. Even P:Km, on its very tiny budget, was able to provide a ton of gameplay and difficulty option toggles and sliders. So I feel it is Larian's game design philosophy to not provide gameplay options, and that is bad game design philosophy as far as I'm concerned.

I don’t think there is a need to fix anything yet. Larian is adapting DND5 into their game and they are making some changes. Whenever those changes are for the good or bad remains to be seen and concerns expressed by players familiar with the system are valuable, I am sure of that (though, I would be shocked that this particular issue wasn’t discussed by Larian internally already). Larian’s job is to adapt the system so it plays well in their game and if it takes changes to do so, then so be it. Their job is not to accommodate every single idea every player will have - be it those wanting a pure translation, or people wanting a timed reaction time, people wanting RTwP system etc. If they feel feedback is valid they will most likely adjust. They did change initiative - how much impact the feedback had vs. Internal testing, I don’t know. But it is a significant change. Time and individual turns are quite different designs - supporting both might be irresponsible. During game’s development many things will be tried and discarded. Maybe this implementation of reactions will be discarded as well, maybe not. Time will tell.

You will have to provide a citation for “player choice”. I don’t remember Larian ever talking about implementing multiple rule sets. I suspect you take their quote regarding quest and system design and apply it to something else entirely.

Quoting Pathfinder won’t work well with me, as you should know by now. More doesn’t mean better (which curiously applies to so many aspects of Kingmaker!). When quality isn’t of concern, it’s easier to increase variety.

Fine, but again I think this is subjective. "Quality" in a game's context is especially subjective. I don't at all accept that P:Km traded quality for more options for the player. If anything, I believe the quality of the player's experience increased significantly because of those options. And the general argument that providing both - for example, both team initiative and individual initiative - somehow reduces quality or is "irresponsible" I reject as fallacy because there is no meaningful reason why that should be the case.

Double the development time of that feature, double the QA, increased complexity of balancing encounters, arguments or feedback about changing something don't disappear if you keep the original system and add a different option, etc.

Is it though?

I like having 1 thing but of highest quality possible. You prefer to have a multiple versions to choose from. That is a subjective preference and benefits of both could be argued for.

However:
If you work on 2 or 3 things at the same time, it makes it impossible to give them all same attention, as if you worked on only 1 thing. That's just how things work. Then of course, add not only different reactions, but many different requests fans will have throughout the development and things can go out of hand.

I love P:K and played through it twice. However I definitely think quality or depth of things suffered because of quantity. For example having massive amount of classes, races etc. meant there was zero reactivity to those. I can count the number of times any of those were referred by the game with a single hand. It was also a complete mess for a new comer to try create a character when you have hundred options and very little information what does what.

Or the options, sure there are tons of difficulty options to "tailor" the experience, but I don't want to adjust difficulty sliders in every encounter because balance was all over the place. I want to play the game. Not design and develop it on the fly. It's impossible to try provide a polished experience if there are million permutations of options everybody changes.

But this based on looking at game development "time" or "attention" as a zero-sum thing, and that's what I'm not at all convinced of. I see the possibility of positive-sum where you only see zero-sum.

But going further, yes, if quality somehow ends up suffering, I am very much in favor of options for players EVEN IF it has to come at the cost of quality. I am quite happy to accept a "lower" quality if it means a greater number of people can be satisfied. I reject the principle of just satisfying the minimum number of people you need to satisfy, and embrace the principle of satisfying the maximum number of people as is reasonably possible. But my inclusion of the word 'reasonable' is important here, because I do agree you cannot satisfy every single person, and you cannot include every single possible option. But you should strive to satisfy as many people as possible while embracing common sense and good judgment to balance your cost versus benefit trade-off.

That´s great and goodfor the first time you play the game, but when you become an experienced player you will appreciate the opportunity to customize the options to fit how you want to play or to have new content you´ve never seen if if you want to replay the campaign.

Even if you have lots of options they usually included a "fast character" "predeterminate character" "default options" if you´re not into micromanaging.

Perfectly valid points sometimes, but not always. Some altenatives are subtle variations more than outright differences. There should also be consideration of whether the player base expands or contracts based on inclusion or exclusion of options.

Not infrequently, there is a default set of options around which a game is based, balanced and tested heavily, with "at your own risk" variations allowed. I think D:OS did something similar with camera rotation for those that didn't like the fixed orientation.

Those are not small variations though. The only thing in common of pre-set reaction and pop up windows is that they will be initiated on enemy moving out of range (or whatever else triggers them as they seem to go beyond attacks of opportunity) - other then that those a different systems, with different form of interaction and requiring seperate UI and features.

In 5e AoO only activates (unless you have a particular ability that says otherwise) when an enemy flees or passes by (i.e leaves your reach).
Some feats allow you to use your AoO if an enemy casts a spell or come to you (some like warcaster allows you to use a spell to AoO)

The other usual reactions will be used if you receive damage, if you receive elemental damage, if an enemy casts a spell, if someone makes an attack against you or if you are in free falling.
The reactions are more simple in 5e: basically a way to reduce damage, evade the attack, nullify the spell or fall or retaliate against the attacker.

That always occurs in the enemy turn. You only have one reaction per turn (unless you have an ability that says otherwise) With this premises, you can guess that the tactical options that allows are complex and some reactions require more fine-tuning than the one provided by an on-off button; if possible.

You also have some feats that can nullify AoO reactions, for example the 'Mobile' feat.

There are definitely choices/options that *do* require a significant amount of work to offer, but this is not one of them.

From a programming viewpoint, *everything* is exactly the same, with the only difference being you ask the player yes/no rather than read a state flag yes/no. It really is that simple. The only resource you need is a modal dialog box with dynamic question text. They probably already have one.