Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why not implement customizable difficulty options?

I haven't played any previous Larian games, so Im not sure how the difficulty settings would work.

Currently there is a lot of talk on adding more short rests and maybe different amounts based on difficulty, but that made me think of games that have fully customisable difficulty, mainly indie RPGs tend to offer this, but also strategy games like the Anno series.

Quite simply, all the different things that could affect difficulty are given separate parameters with a fixed selection of the usual presets (easy, normal, hard), but the option to tweak the sliders however the player wants.

So number of short rests would simply be one of the sliders. Other examples could be (based on 100% being the default amount):

Enemy / Player damage 25% - 200%
Enemy / Player HP 50% - 200%
All stats -2 - +2
EXP gain 50% - 150%
Bonus / Penalty on rolls
Movement per turn -2 - +5m
Spell slots per spell level -1 to +2
Merchant prices 25% - 200%

Etc etc etc. The default options would keep the parameters fixed to a standard with the option to customize

They want to gauge difficulty during testing. Allowing everyone to adjust the difficulty would dilute the baseline results of their tests. They will tweak basic difficulty according to the results of the aggregate experience of the player base and introduce difficulty levels later.

I meant for the final game not during the EA.

In that case, I would like to just see more enemies. Or higher level enemies maybe. The default system of higher HP, DMG, etc needs a rest, IMO.

That's likely how was implemented in Divinity Original Sin, but I don't like that kind of difficulty scale, because it's either feels too difficult (even on "easy") or too easy even on hard.
There has to be specific options to tweak each separately. Otherwise can't be custom fit to how everyone likes: some want just more or less of the things that bothers them, rest can stay as it is.

To make it easier, I would give myself (and party) far more health, maybe money if there's any use of it, extreme bonus on persuasion and not much else, but wouldn't lower enemy stats ever or make the AI act dumb, because that won't feel easy but boring and dumb game. I want them to fight back properly, even if they won't be able to win because I made it "easy".

To make it difficult I would lower some of my stats, again not touching the NPC and AI at all. You can lower your stats so much that will be impossible nightmare to play it, if that's the target, without increasing NPC stats at all.

This way is the easiest as well, since only your stats needs edited, and the NPC AI can be made and kept as smart and efficient as possible.

Hello,

I think there's one thing about RPGs that is always a bit problematic.
Namely the difficulty and the course of the fighting.

It is not so pleasant in terms of the gaming experience when the damage is much too great in relation to the HP and the fights miss a certain course.
Suddenly falling from 100% HP to 10% or 20% is not so fun and looks stupid.
More linear combat in which you can react appropriately with a little time are much better.
Your own people should not necessarily just bomb away the enemy. Setting options would also be helpful here.

The ideas for this:
I hope there are good customizable options for game difficulty.
E.g. I like it more when enemies don't fall over immediately, but my own group also has more life. I like it when fights last a little longer and there is no HP ping pong with a heart attack feeling.
As a healer, I would also like to have a certain amount of time to heal against damage and more likely to experience a claim bit by bit over the length of the fight than if the HP bars are already at 10% after 2 hits and I have to constantly tip healing potions or manapots drink.

Actually I like the gameplay and the speed of earlier MMORPGs in the battles, as well as their control with bars and talents.
If you could translate this into a solo RPG, we would have done something.

So from the options I expect the scalable setting of the HP of enemy and friend, even to extremes, as well as an option on how to reduce or increase the damage of enemies and your own.

So you can define the appropriate level of difficulty yourself with a scaling option.
Further options would be, e.g. 3 levels of magic for enemies and own people.
3 levels of skill application / fighting style of the enemies and group members.
Level of defense, so they have more soot and magic defense or less.

Furthermore, of course, a reasonable specification and choice of AI options for his group members.

Just as important, don't forget an AI for the summoned creatures! In DOS2 it wasn't nice for me. I wanted to act on my group people and the conjured beings themselves, because I had the feeling that they are alive.
What still worked with a mod for the group people did not work at all for the summoned creatures, because they always disappeared after a few rounds.

Rather than having to commit totally to one vision of the 5e rules, maybe we can have both?

Loose 5E mode: 5E is used as a base template and then tweaked to make for a more fluid and actiony game with crazy surfaces and bonus actions for everything and so on.

Strict 5E mode: The game follows 5E and may feel slower or less engaging to some players as many characters will have very simple turns often.

Let people play how they want *shrug*

I'm sure they'll include similar rules, when they add difficulty levels.

TL;DR: We need more choice not less. This posts outlines implementing a way to make an even more customizable experience to try and satisfy as may play styles as possible without imposing a "meta game" or "Right way to play".
~~~~~~~~~~
There are a handful of games out there have custom difficulties (RimWorld; the last of us 2; Transistor, etc...) and after browsing all these suggestion in the feedback section I think Baldur's Gate 3 would really benefit from it too.

There are so many people with so many different play styles in here from casual to hardcore and it's impossible to make a one size fits all to satisfy everyone. That is super clear when reading this section and you can see a lot of people here basically telling other people that they are enjoying the game incorrectly or indirectly stating that others aren't playing the game properly because they like to use certain mechanics a certain way or they try shoot down QoL suggest because they think a hide helmet option breaks immersion or say things like "why do you need a bag of holding? you should only be carrying xyz" or whatever.

Variant Rules and Homebrew have been cornerstones of the D&D experience for a very long time; basically from the beginning. We all know modders will take care of the Homebrew stuff; but Larian has an opportunity to take a lot of these pieces of feedback and incorporate a way to customize the experience for us players.

For example; don't like how HP bloat? Don't want to see the DC or tool tip on your dialog choices? Think that "magic pocket" breaks immersion? turn them off. Now i know what you're thinking "I don't want to look at a spreadsheet of features to toggle before I play the game, I just want to make my character and get started..." Good, me too.

my solution to that is.... well... more choice; but keeping it to simple to presets. basically the standard choices that Larian is already planing but then just add a "Pen and paper mode" where the options that most closely resemble the pure 5e are selected blind DCs and all. The other one being Custom where you can do what outlined above.

I'd be in support of this. Previous BG games, at least the Enhanced Edition versions, had customisable difficulty. Lots of little things that you can toggle on or off to adjust the game how you see fit. I'd love to see it implemented here.

This would be nice, but I didn't play the DOS games enough to determine what they were able vary among difficulty levels. It's certainly going to be challenging to balance a class system depending on how large the variations among presets there are.

...Says someone who does not have the job of testing and balancing out dozens of different combinations of options.

You're right that not everything can please everybody. But it's not practical to have everything as an option, because people are rightly going to expect that the game be somewhat balanced, and the more options there are, the greater the likelihood of things being broken and unbalanced. It would have to be very broad strokes.

As a long time play tester of table top games from WotC, White Wolf and Catalyst I do have experience in "testing and balancing out dozens of different combinations of options."

I do understand where you are coming from. The great thing about the 5e system for D&D is incredibly simple and what I'm proposing isn't unreasonable. I'm not asking that they go through the entire Unearthed Arcana and add every variant rule. You chose to quote my TL;DR that had no reference to the examples I suggested and those were all things that are already in the game that can be change or isolated to a toggle as well as things that are already present in Larian's previous game.

As for Balance. I understand that the things I mentioned weren't all inclusive, however; what I mentioned wouldn't impact balance of the main game because the main game and the standard difficulties would be the vision of the game Larian already has in mind. The custom things that can be change can/will/should break or impact balance; that is the whole point. If you are customizing things you are doing it with intent and it's way more about player experience rather than balance at that point.

Take for example: D:OS2 they even have modes that does just that; broke balance intentionally.



An example form Baldur's Gate: Enhanced edition



An example form Icewind Dale: Enhanced edition

+1 - but only where it fits or doesnt impose too much work

I saw the difficulty levels from Divinity in another post and I saw one on of them was things like increasing player health and damage.

Instead of that, I'd like rather like differences to character creation, especially towards common char gen house rules.

Increased points for Ability Scores. (30 or 32)
Free bonus Feat at 1st Level.

Stuff like that.

But I also much prefer XCOM's way of doing difficulty where it has the four levels, yeah, but it also has a large list of options to click or unclick so that the difficulty settings of a particular campaign are personalized.

So things like:

Minion hordes (1 HP monsters) on/off
Jump Bonus/Action
Shove Bonus/Action
Shove base distance 5ft/Str based
Interactive Environment features (exploding barrels etc) frequency slider
Enemy shove on/off
Enemy jump on/off
Enemy seek backstab on/off
Height Advantage on/off
Treasure value slider

etc.

(Huh, to influence the devs, I should be reading/posting here, rather than on the Steam forums. Okay then, moving my post over...)

PERSONALLY, I like the current difficulty. The AI seems good, the monsters are seeking high ground, throwing acid and fire to setup surface effects, they're challenging but not unbeatable. On the other hand, I'm playing in "savor it" mode, saving frequently and able to devote long hours to play (I'm retired, so you may envy me now). I don't mind replaying until I figure it out. (Yeah, I'm a save scummer -- wanna fight about it?)

HOWEVER, my daughter wants an "easy mode". That's the way she likes to play. She's also a long-time D&D player and DM. And we bought two copies of the game so we can play together on the home LAN. We've recently started that.

But there's no difficulty setting yet (only "classic" which I assume is "match for D&D tabletop" and seems to me to hit that mark). How to eventually manage difficulties is still up in the air so far as I know. Thinking it over, there are several requirements I'd like to stick to:

D&D CONFORMANCE: I love how well BG3 follows the 5e ruleset. Yeah, things were adapted here and there, but the spirit is maintained and even most of the details were maintained. I think the skill rolls throughout the adventure really add to things. I love reading through the combat log and using the hover text to see exactly how the calculations are being performed. High-ground=advantage; low-ground=disadvantage is new, but I like it. SO, whatever difficulty fix is implemented. it would be nice if it conformed to the 5e feel and rules.

BOUNDED ACCURACY: A 5e design principle that set things up so that a 1st-level character is capable (in principle) of landing a hit on a god, and conversely, a god could miss hitting a 1st-level character. Anyone can hit or miss any target. But the odds get better as your level and equipment improve. BG3 follows 5e and thus follows bounded accuracy. When different difficulty levels are added, let's try to keep bounded accuracy.

HANDICAPPING: I'd like to play multiplayer games with my daughter. She wants "easy" mode, I want "classic" mode. It would be nice if we could do that and still play in the same game. This might also be useful for eventual tournaments allowing players of different skill levels to compete on the same field.

LARIAN'S STYLE: They've added a lot to 5e, a lot that I like. The high-ground thing, surfaces, long-duration spells like mage armor that persist until you take a long rest, the idea of "invokes condition" along with its cool little icons and tool-tips, . (Yeah, the idea was sort of around in 5e, but Larian really firmed it up.)

SO...

My idea for difficulty rating is that you have (in the game options screen) a setting of game difficulty. This applies different conditions:

CLASSIC: no change from the current behavior. It's a great match for 5e tabletop play (even if my d20 doesn't roll as well as I want it to).

DIVINE BLESS: is a condition automatically applied to your party every morning as they wake up (or are summoned, or NPCs join the team), that grants a +1 that lasts until the next long rest (and then automatically renews the next morning). This is a super blessing, granting +1 to AC, to-hit, weapon damage, spell damage, saving throws, and ability checks. A LOT. And yet... it's kinda in line with several current buffs, such as bless, shield of faith, and the like. It would be parallel to those, and add on to the effect (so a +1 sword, divine bless, and bless spell would give you +2 +1d4 to hit). This would be a "condition" in Larian's implementation, indicated with a little green "+1" square where conditions are shown.

In multiplayer, it would be possible for one player to be running on easy while another player was normal, and simple examination would reveal the condition icon on the other player.

DIVINE CURSE is the exact opposite, applying a -1 to AC, to-hit, weapon damage, spell damage, saving throws, and ability checks. (Except that damage never falls below 1.) That's sure going to make things more challenging. (Would "divine bane" be closer to 5e terminology?) This grants a red "-1" square as a condition.

For extra accommodation, you might add +2 or even +3, along with -2 and -3. That gives you 7 levels of difficulty, probably without a lot of change in the game design or programming. At the extreme ends, you'd really be pushing bounded accuracy, but for those who want an easy game, +3 to everything should help a ton, without turning each battle into a sure thing. Likewise, a -3 would be insanely challenging, which some people might want.

FINALLY, since this condition is applied anew each morning, you can change the difficulty whenever you want, with the new setting taking effect after the next long rest.

Many people have asked for a difficulty setting. Some games have Difficulty: Easy/Normal/Hard

I would argue that if such a setting is added, it should be perhaps a set of defaults for a much more complex system. There are many binary opinions in these forums as to what the game should or shouldn't be. For each, there are opinions in favor and against. Why not take the most popular options and make them a toggle so each person can customize their game to what they believe is the correct way? The biggest problem is "balance". But I would argue that the devs only have to balance the game around what they decide are the "Normal" options as opposed to worrying about how each individual option affects balance.


I would like to see a game settings page that includes the following options as Enabled/Disabled:
1) Dialog Dice Rolls (skill checks).
2) Barrels of oil, fire wine, nautiloid tanks, etc.
3) Mobs can create ground/surface effects.
4) Party members can create ground/surface effects.
5) Mobs can have Advantage/Disadvantage Based on height.
6) Party members can have Advantage/Disadvantage Based on height.
7) Disengage, Jump, Hide, Throw, Shove are actions unless performed by a Rogue.
8) Backstab/Position gives no bonus.
9) Companion Romances.
10) Limit Long Rests.
11) Increase the number of short rests from 1 to 3.
12) Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters can learn spells.
13) Only Wizard spells can be learned.
14) Add Exhaustion.
15) Cantrips have no surface effects.
16) Mobs have correct stats, AC, and HP per DnD 5e.
17) Limit to maximum 1 spell + 1 cantrip per turn.
18) Interact with empty containers.
19) Allow a maximum of 1 offhand attack per round.
20) Pickpocketing has consequences.
21) All mobs will actively search for hidden characters.
22) Allow only potions to heal in combat.
23) Require food as a resource with hunger effects.
24) Mobs can use Magic Arrows.
25) Mobs can use potions and scrolls.
26) Mobs can use throwables (potions, vials, etc.)
27) Mobs cast sleep, hold person, and magic missile more.
28) Double the amount of leader/elite mobs in encounters.
29) Enemy archers and spell casters return to cover between attacks.

The next set IMO are not needed because the player can simply not use them even if available. Others have disagreed with my opinion so I present them as additional options here:
a) No food during battle
b) Only allow one swap of equipment per round
c) No throwing food/potions
d) No Dipping

Nice list! I'd consider sending via the official feedback button as well

Thanks. I plan to do that but I was hoping for feedback from the community first. I tried to scour existing threads, but I am sure I missed some things.

YES!!! This!!! Bumping it up!

In principle, I agree with toggles. However, I strongly disagree with your take on the relationship between toggles and balance:
In your scenario, the game is "balanced" around whatever options Larian decides on to be the "default" options. This means that the game I (and many others, as seen by posts in this forum) would *want* to play never gets created, because turning on the options we feel would make it a better game would actually make our experience even worse by destroying balance.

In an exaggerated example, Larian decides on a set of mechanics that result in THE winning strategy to be a) gain high ground and b) explode barrels against c) mobs that you can only hit with Advantage or AoE.
Encounters are adjusted to be balanced based on that ^
Some sizable fraction of players find the fights in this game lacking tactics/not fun, so we change the toggles.
The result is: incredibly unbalanced encounters that could be literally impossibly hard.
No improvement.

Simply adding toggles doesn't necessarily fix things. It is critically important to determine which toggles are on/off by default.

The only toggles you listed that should always be available regardless of balance should be:
-dialogue dice rolls
-companion romances
-interact with empty containers

I hear what you are saying, but I am trying to be reasonable too. Larian is going to make their game and balance it according to their vision. To expect them to balance the game around a huge list of variables is unrealistic. So IMO is better to essentially have their version and options that other people want too. I hate to speak for others, but I would think a lot of people would rather see many of their "wants" in the game even in a potentially unbalanced state than not have them at all. You can't please everyone. I think something like this is the closest they could come to that.

@RumRunner151

Yeah I get what you're saying too. I agree that Larian shouldn't be expected to balance the game for every possible combination of options. And the game would strictly be better if Larian added all these toggles (at the very least it would make it easier for modders to make X-set of toggles a balanced game).

I just want some of these toggles (e.g., 3 short rests with less emphasis on frequent long rests) to be the default options Larian balances the game around. Then add toggles to allow more rests.

Absolutely YES!!!
They are priding themselves (and rightfully so) that you can approach any quest or combat in the game with many different option.
They should continue they own formula with game settings as have been suggested here these would go a long long way in making the game better for everyone.
regarding to balance, even now when balancing they shouldn't do it based one specific way they intend for me to do combat, if you dont want to use oil barrels and surfaces you shouldn't have to.
Sure some option might make it easier or harder - but in the end the player will choose what more important to him.

Very nice, OP!! I fully support a GREAT many option toggles in the game. It is one of the most awesome features of Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

I would like two more options:
Max HPs returned when using any form of healing outside of combat
Remove dice roll animations (but show rolls in the dialogue/combat info box)

These options are great but I definitely agree with mrfuji3... This list consider that the game is balanced but it is absolutely not...

Disengage/throw/jump/shove as action should not be an option... They have to find a way to balance these options, then we could talk about increasing the difficulty (harder to shove, ...)
Same about cantrips, surfaces and backstab.

It looks like a list to "custom the balance", not to custom the difficulty of a balanced experience.

IE why would you like in an easy experience of a strategy game that ennemies can't use potions, scrolls or surfaces ? They could i.e have maluses or deal less damages... But why shouldn't they use this at all ?

IE backstab should have more or less impact to custom the difficulty... not be a part of the game or not.

I don't really remember all the options of P:K but I love what they did... But it make more sense to me because it increase/decrease the difficulty of the game. The balance is something different.

I think in Larian devs mind, freedom is more important than balance, exploits becoming a way to overcome challenge.

Exploits can be fun sometimes of course. But in a game like D&D, the combat system relies heavily on well defined rules to ensure everyone around the table get their fair share of fun by allowing synergies between characters powers.

In a game which allows anyone to basically destroy enemies by throwing barrels of oil and powder, and then ignite the lot with a torch, why even bother implementing classes? Freedom of action decreases their uniqueness.

And personally, I don't know if it's great to have a mage who can literally fight with a two handed sword as efficiently as a fighter or can heal the party with as much potency as a cleric.

I'll be fine with just a D&D hardcore setting like in other D&D CRPGs. It's a bit of a tradition since BG1.

I don't think a switch for every little feature is worth the effort for the devs. Like with height advantage I don't think either on or off is the right way, but rather nerf the impact of high ground instead.

They are professional game devs. It's up to them to provide a good experience to both D&D veterans and casual players without putting every feature behind a toggle.

+1. I am with a lot of others here, the game's default settings should be more true to D&D 5e, and the encounters, gameplay and combat should be balanced around that. Let others turn on barrels, environment effects, king of the hill, etc. if they want a different experience.

Hey Rumrunner, some interesting things here are my thoughts, mostly about the difference between toggles and difficulty levels - I mostly veer towards the latter.


Yep though for me I feel this should be tied to a story mode - I don't think its right to be able to divorce regular difficulties from a key part of d&d which is all the non-combat stuff including failing your checks.

I think they should weigh a lot lot more, and encumbered status should work at your max weight, not 2x your max weight or however it is done. The throw-ability also - I think the strength requirements for throwing should be raised. I have no problems with the barrels "being there", just being able to lug 5 of them around just feels off - most of the barrel-cheese could be fixed by making it incredably tedious to move them from a to b and stack them up such as no rest/return to camp when encumbered.


Surface effects are one of my favorite things about the game - but burning from surfaces can proc with burning on character at the same time, and then with movement. It can result in a lot of damage. I would dial them down so any one elemental type can only proc once on your turn for 1dx, unless you move. I can understand that people want them removed but they just arn't a big deal for me with potions of fire/acid resistance available everywhere.

I would like them to remain in "core-rules" mode and to see an easy difficulty where mobs don't each all have a fire/acid arrow in their pack, which would reduce the number.


I think this has to be a both or neither thing. You could have an option to tone down the benefits/disadvantages universally, but since certain mobs are coded to seek height advantage then it would be a bit absurd to be able to turn it off for them without recoding ranged AI.


I can understand this but I think it would have unintended consequences for the game. It would be interesting to play a version like this so yeah, maybe an optional toggle.


A higher difficulty level where you only had x number of rests before something bad happened would be great. I would also like to see gale explode if you don't resurrect him and attack you in desperation/leave if you don't feed him artifacts.


Short rests are bugged as is because they don't advance time so you can buff before short rest, including things like 3 round potions and they are all still up after. But yeah, I would like 3 short rests implemented for "core" difficulty then maybe fewer for higher difficulties.


I suspect this goes against the spirit of these two classes but I don't really mind.


I think this is a bug/oversight, but if it is in the final version it should be disableable/only for easy difficulty. I would add that it would be nice for higher difficulties for only arcane casters to be able to cast arcane scrolls and likewise for divine casters.


This is the only one which is a hard no from me. I super dislike exhaustion mechanics.


As I said above, I like surface effects but understand that it gets a lot of others upset.


I don't care about this and feel that higher HP and fewer misses will in the long run save a lot of gamers keyboards from excessive nerdrage.


Interesting, but maybe if you wanted to really increase the difficulty you could shift all currently bonus-action spells to actions. Basically I am neither hear nor there on this.


I like this one as a toggle because I think the "checking every container" roleplay player should be catered to. So I don't think this should be tied to difficulty, nor changed across the board. What I would like to see is that if you open a container then click on another container the first one closes, rather than now having 2 container windows open.


disagree, but mostly because without seeing the whole game its difficut to say what this would mean. Maybe no more offhand attacks than actions? i.e. 2 actions and 2 offhand actions would enable 4 attacks but 1 action and 2 offhand would only allow 2, not 3? Just a thought.


I would like to see merchants either pack up and leave (i.e. just disappear) if they lose too much to a thief, or else not restock their inventory because they are now too broke.


100%, regardless of difficulty level. Better AI dealing with stealth please.


Would tie it to difficulty. Using your bonus action eating food for minimal healing is a crutch to get players through early levels and is almost always a waste of a bonus action imo. I would like to see it remain in "core" difficulty but be limited to out of combat in hard and higher difficulty.



A "Survival mode" would be fun, but I wouldn't tie it to difficulty since its more of a tedium-roleplay element. Toggle would be cool. maybe if you reaaaaaly want exaustion it would be a survival mode feature


As above I would tie them having them in inventory to difficulty level.


100%, but as a higher difficulty level.


As per above I would tie no food in battle to difficulty.
Equipment swap is very cheeseable: Attack with big two handed sword, swap to sword and shield end turn is pretty funny. Its a crutch but BG1-2 had on the fly weapon swapping - I would leave it as it is for core difficulty and make it an action for higher difficulties: e.g. there's no real reason, give the games turn based nature, why you wouldn't be able to swap your necklace or rings for another in the middle of a battle or pull out another weapon. I would have to have a think about how it would effect balance.
Dipping should stay imo

Ill add some others:

The "camp full of concentrating followers solo cheese bug"
Classes can only use class-related scrolls
Merchant inventory refreshing tied to purchases, rather than resting
Hardcore/Permadeath Mode
No-reroll mode with no permadeath (I don't know how this would be implemented but basically no tpw full game restarts but if you fail a persuasion check you are stuck with it.)
Heart of Fury/Legacy of Bhaal Mode

Harder difficulties where:
You do not start with revivify scrolls.
Potions are much more expensive.
Enemies are buffed as per your 27-29
Enemy spellcasters who are already buffed with day-long or concentration buffs
Far fewer scrolls on enemies and with merchants
Merchant full inventory and gold is not pick-pocketable
Maybe reduced XP for kills.

@RumRunner151 :
I agree. I too would hope for a difficulty slider that is less coarse than easy-medium-hard. (And for that matter, an impact on enemies that is more subtle than tweaking their stats, but rather varies the performance and tactics of their AI.) So I hope we can activate/deactivate a couple of features. However I think the list you provide is way too long. At some point, Larian will have to cut through and say : this is our vision, that would be a pain to allow you to tweak, and finally that one you can freely play with or without.

@mrfuji3, Maximuuus (RumRunner151) :
Larian must choose one default setting and optimise/balance around this. It's not solely because I'd rather want the artist to come forward with their very personal gaming proposition, and then evaluate whether I liked it or not. It's also because it's impossible to do otherwise. Many players have a very precise idea of where they want the game to truly be, of what should constitute the default game. They can argue forever that their vision is righter than that of others, but there will not be a consensus. And Larian cannot optimise for multiple settings at once (it's often mathematically impossible). So they have to choose one.
That is why Early Access cannot be about making the single best version of (everyone's idea of) the game : not all players agree of what this best version should be. Thus it can only be about helping the studio make the best version of their vision of the game.

That's why it's probably too early to think about "how to increase the difficulty" or "how to customize the experience".

At the moment the game has serious issues in it's core mechanics.
This is a fact for all those who can be objective.

Yep. Balancing, fine-tuning, numbers tweaking ... that's late stage development. I feel the more urgent tasks for Larian are : making the UI and controls right, improving the roleplay/story/writing, and figuring out the (combat and non-combat) mechanisms.

For instance, the short-vs-long rest discussion, and specifically how many short rests should be allowed per long rest, feels like putting the cart before the horse. At the moment, there is no sense of time, no mechanism or roleplay element around it. The resting mechanism isn't really figured out.

Likewise, yes, we've barely entered the Druid Grove and we reach level 3. But there's no need to worry about this until they have figured out how long the game is, how many encounters we will fight, etc.

Larian has to choose a limited number of settings to optimize balance around, correct. But not necessarily just one. I don't think creating balance for two game modes is an unreasonable ask: i.e.,
-"Normal difficulty" with the current set of Larian rules
-"5e Raw" with rules modified to be closer to D&D rules
This would be the ~same amount of work as creating a dedicated Tactician mode: a mode with better AI, more difficult fights, no?

@RumRunner151
I have a suggestion for your list: shared exp.
-Off: only PC gets exp and all party members are auto-leveled to match. This allows you to play a very difficult game if you choose to play solo, or very easy if you play with 6 characters.
-On: exp is divided between active party members. You level faster as a party of 1, slower as a party of 4+, which ~auto-balances encounters.

dotemtpy, please don't take offense to this, I am just using you as an example and I kind of agree with you but only to a point. And that is the point. Your vision of what this game should be is different than mine. Yet, we probably agree on 90% of things. You say: "I am with a lot of others here, the game's default settings should be more true to D&D 5e" yet no one above you made that comment. IMO you, like almost everyone else here, see something you agree with or see someone agree with you and think that makes a consensus when in reality you both still have very different visions. If I am putting words in your mouth, I apologize, but they apply to others if not you, so I am using you as an example.

Here is the point. If you say the game has to be this, that, and the other, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. The game will never be everything you or anyone else wants, it simply can't be. Left unchecked Larian will make their game. They have shown you the direction they want to go. They believe they have taken the 5e rules and adapted them as needed to make the game more fun. And they have stayed close enough that WotC is fine with what they have done.

So assuming that few of us share Larian's exact vision, my intent was to give options so that many more of us could have the game we want possibly at the expense of balance, but even that may be fixable with mods.

The reality is these forums are a small subset of the entire player base. And even within these forums, there are a wide variety of people and opinions. Instead of being a line and trying to say who it on what part of the line, let's call it a polygon with many points and then where people fall closest to the points. I am going to limit it to a triangle. One point is the "content" person. This person may not even care about dnd much less 5e. This person just wants to see the game. They want to make a character and go explore. Combat is just a break in the story. They want to choose their dialog options, not roll dice. The 2nd point is the 5e diehard. If it is not exactly as the PHB or MM or DMG state, it's wrong. Doesn't matter that some of this will not be fun for a lot of players. Screw them this is DnD 5e or GTFO. The third point is people that just want challenging tactical combat and a story to go with it. As it stands, while many may find BG3 acceptable it will not be the perfect game for any of them.

I am also going to single out alice_ashpool (Alice) as an example. Take Alice's comment about exhaustion: "This is the only one which is a hard no from me. I super dislike exhaustion mechanics." I am 100% in the same boat. If it were a mandatory part of this game it might even be a deal-breaker for me. BUT there are some who think if it's not in the game, it's not a good game.

Also, if you made the combat in the game challenging to Alice, 99% of the player base would be in tears.

The only way I see to make a game that is closer to what everyone likes is to give options. IMO from a programming standpoint based on a quarter-century of programming, it is not as hard as it may sound.

Lastly, in my long monolog (apologies), We have "balance". There are 2 problems. 1) You can't have both all these options and a game balanced around any combination. It's absurd to expect that. But you might have a choice between Easy (purposefully not balanced), Normal, DnD 5e, and Custom. And it might be reasonable to have 2 sets of balance - Normal and 5e. So you could do a custom where you deviated slightly from normal or 5e and the game would still be fairly balanced. You want a completely custom game...you have to be willing to accept balance problems. Problem #2 with balance: It's subjective. I promise you that your idea of balance and Alice's are VASTLY different. So just like the game with no options cannot possibly please everyone, neither can any set of options be "perfectly balanced".

Later, I will add to the list the suggestions made so far.

Thank you for reading this and please think about any significant options I may have missed.

may I add, NO jump/feather fall/flight/teleport create water/food spell. might also add any magic effect that would influence dice checks. like guidance. (low magic age mode) :P
and no fast travel :P
and the hardcore ... 1 save mode(when you quit the game(totally) (can still be abused but, darn, it will be way more annoying do to so)).

I would also like a full RNG mode where the game chose everything for me :P (story wise)

I definitely like the idea of having numerous difficulty options, instead of merely a set Easy/Normal/Hard trichotomy. There could be numerous different aspects of difficulty that are individually configurable, and I would like that very much.

I think your list, however, is too long and includes things that Larian is just not going to change. While to some extent, they want to let players enjoy the game in their own way, game developers also have their own vision. They want to make their own game, and they want players to experience it in a specific way. That's a large reason why most games do not offer many options and significantly impact how the game is played, alter the fundamental design principles, or change how the story is presented.

Hypothetically, it would be nice to have every single thing as an option, complete customization of the game. But Larian is not going to do that. No developer is going to do that.

The ones I think are the most realistic as options are: 1, 10, 11, 13 (I think this is just a bug anyway though), 18, 19 (though I hope this isn't an option, but is in fact just implemented as a fix), 20 (in some form, perhaps, though nothing too complex), 21 (this is surely just unfinished AI and will be fixed anyway), 22, 23, 28, 29 (in the form of just better AI overall), and "a" from the bottom. I think the others are either part of Larian's core design philosophy, or too inconvenient to implement, or too minor to bother with.

But it's a good list, and a good thought. More individual difficulty/gameplay options would be great. I just think we shouldn't get our hopes up too high as to how many of them there will be.

I think pathfinder Kingmaker did it best. You have the normal difficulty slider, but you can also customise the settings which is great

Yep. Though I doubt BG3 will have the same level of rule depth, it is a good model.

I basically chose what was closest to the tabletop rules (so 1:1 damage taken and dealt), with Death's Door, but lowered Criticals (the Crit damages in PF are just too extreme. In tabletop PF1, I have seen a Paladin one-shot an adult Green Dragon who had ambushed us). It meant though not gaining a Steam Achievement for Challenging difficulty. I do not regret those choices as it was plenty difficult without being impossible.

Yes please add them all +1

Brilliant! =)

Many people are tossing in +1's. I'd like to hop on-board, and toss in a -8,589,934,592.

This is a completely impractical idea. It only seems like a good idea to people who don't know anything at all about programming.

You have listed 33 options, each of which has two states, "on" or "off". That is 2 to the power of 33 combinations, or 8,589,934,592 possible combinations. Do you think that there somehow won't be glitches and bugs, locks and crashes with certain combinations of those 8.6 BILLION combinations? That's not likely. Diagnosing bugs created in a game with that system will be impossible. The QA department would quit en masse.

It would also be completely throwing balance out the window, because there will be certain combinations which are balance-breaking - for good and for bad. There would be no way for Larian to even decide what toggles are on and off, never mind for different difficulty levels. This would be giving up on the idea of balance completely and telling players "do whatever, change some toggles if you don't like it".

The fact is, no matter how many options get added, Larian is not going to be able to test the entire game with more than like, 10 combinations. They are going to need to make the default balance around specific settings anyway, and test to those. Which means when players play with different settings among the 8.6 BILLION than what Larian uses, they will inevitably hit some encounters which are too easy with those settings, or too hard with those settings, and then they'll complain about bad balance.

Too many cooks spoils the broth. Too many options breaks the game.

The solution is to balance the game for a standard set of these options (maybe 2-4 permutations), but then allow players to freely adjust these toggles with a warning that "Doing so is not recommended if you want a balanced game." This addresses your balance argument.

As to bugs, you don't actually have to consider each permutation.
E.g. dipping: The toggle option just removes the "dip" button from your actionbar. No need to consider how the "lack of a dip button" will introduce bugs/glitches/etc. (At least I would hope so)
This won't reduce the number of combinations to 33 (the # of toggles), but it will probably be much much much closer to 33 than 8,589,934,592

I'm hoping there will be an "iron-Man" mode that combines more "realistic" stuff too, like limited overnight camping in dungeons where you need to set a guard and carry food/wood/tinderboxes and blankets around.

These are the sorts of things, along with some more difficult aspects like mobs using everything players do, and the fixing of some broken spell/class things that seem like they are currently just unfinished bits that will eventually come about, that I'd very much enjoy seeing implemented into the game.

I have been advocating this approach for the last 3 weeks, its defiantly the way to go, if Larian won't include an options page to customise the game im pretty sure some modders could do it.
Its basicly giving the player the option of a GM thats more suited for his/her playstyle.

also would like to see the following options.

Fast travel ONLY from portal to portal.
Only long rest (Main camp) acess from a portal or town
Only short rest from a safe area
Short rest has the chance to get interrupted.
Push distance is STR based as pr 5E ruleset
Jump distance is STR based as pr 5E ruleset
Sneaking characters can be detected by noice (not really viable to sneak in full plate mail)

100% WRONG
Obviously you don't have have a clue about programming.
The game as is is totally unbalanced and simply broken in a lot of ways right now, putting in more options for customising your game is only a positive and won't take anything away from anyone.
Look at the Long war mod for X-com that was made by modders and it singlehandeldly made the game many times better. if Larian can't handle to put in a single switch for different options they shouldn't be making videogames.
If by your flawed logic turning stuff on/off will spin out of contol like you suggest, why do we then have options for putting all the different items we pick up on the hotbar or not? , theres 29 options turn turn things on/off allready in the gameplay options menu, by your logic that is an impossible task.

I agree with some of your suggestions, but it's worth noting that shove distance isn't based on STR, only the chance of a successful shove is. Shove distance per 5e is either 5 ft or 0 if you choose to knock them prone instead.

For sneaking, I'd really like to a ring that circles a creature to represent sound, along with the vision cone. Maybe with tiers to the circle using different colors, where the enemy had disadvantage to perception checks a certain distance not in their LOS.

Ahh yes sorry, i remeberred wrong about the shove distance your right it's only for sucess rate

There's a difference between gameplay and UI. 20-30 different settings for gameplay and balance which change different things and can interact in intertwining ways is different and more complex than an "add to hotbar" flag. It is not "a simple switch"; anyone who ACTUALLY programs should be able to understand the difference.

Larian has to make their balance based around a certain set of gameplay features. They cannot test that many combinations of gameplay-affecting options. So yes, asking that they spend their time and resources trying to manage eight billion different combinations instead of finding a solid base balance does take away from other people.

Your'e wrong here.
theres no balancing testing involved in turning off exploding barrels
Thres no balancing needed for turning off groundeffects for cantrips
There is no balancing needed for tuning off fast travel
Theres no balancing needed for runing off romance options
theres no balancing needed for tuning off high ground giving advantage.
this goes for most of the options,
its about ME wanting the OPTION to turn somthing off that makes the game a trivial mess and its NOT hard to include at all.

I tend to agree, with 2^33 potential mechanic variations the number of possible conflicts even at 0.001% is 86k. Normally options like this are cosmetic/graphical and difficulty generally comes in a generic hp/damage blanket multiplier which is easy to implement.

I agree with OP that a number of tastes need to be catered to so grouping said options into 4-5 difficulty modes would only require that many test scenarios. Even that is alot of game to test that many mechanical changes. Personally would just prefer a core D&D mode, DOS2 mode and ironman.

This

Three is no options that breaks the game , you can just leave them alone if you like how the standard settings is, what breaks the balance or dosent is up to the individual player.
I have been involved in gamed evelopment for many many years now and the way your looking at the numbers is just plain wrong, most of theese options is not about adding stuff, its simply about turning stuff off.

yeah, we know

what is that supposed to mean? just cant come up with any argument so you have to troll? grow up kiddo.

This is a good post, and makes a lot of sense. I especially like that your minus number in the first paragraph was the actual number of combinations and not just some random numbers strung together.

I'd like more options than merely Easy/Normal/Hard, but not nearly as many as in the original post. Kingmaker did it pretty well, from what I remember.

As the OP and someone who has made a lot of money programming in over a dozen languages over the last 25 years, I think I actually know quite a bit about programming. I think you have done a great job of making a dismissive argument. If I was arguing that the game should be balanced around all the possible permutations, I would agree with you. But I am not, so I don't.

For the record, I have very little faith that my suggestion would be implemented even in part. And if it was, it surely would not be in its entirety. But it's our job to ask for the stars and Larian's to have us accept the moon.

I hope there will also be a "different and more enemies" to mix up encounters. Regular gnolls for normal and heavily armored with magical backup on the very hardest.
Otherwise, since mostly everything is tied to rolling, having a +4 +2 +0 -2 -4 to rolls for 5 difficulties would already be neat

I agree with the following :
* Fast travel ONLY from portal to portal.
* Only long rest (Main camp) acess from a portal or town [along other Long Rest limitations]
* Stealth checks should be rolled by SOUND when not in vision cone and, in 5e tabletop, DMs rarely encourage hiding in plain sight. For example, Wood Elves have a special perk to hide in bad climate and tall grass, because others CANNOT.

BUT note that clunky armors already give Disadvantage on Stealth, but currently only in the vision cone.

I hope the enemies have their monster manual stats and not random Larion stats...

Monster Manual stats are for noob DMs. Real DMs customize their shit. And then they say...

I wouldn't call Larian DM a noob, but rather "lacking experience to create balanced and challenging multi-encounter adventuring day... experience".
But my definition also qualifies them to use stuff from MM ahead of all else.

Besides PF Kingmaker which is the king of these toggles, i really liked what Pillars 2 did with Magran's fires, somes of those toggleable options gave the player to chance to tweak certain rules around resting, tweaked food mechanic, downed characters died after some turns spent downed, added weapon durability, added timed quests where story reasons backed it up, weather tweaks etc. it really helped to customize my playthroughs. Given i also intend to play through BG3 multiple times (to try out more races, classes) i would prefer to have some options to alter the core gameplay mechanics a little bit every time i do.
Also as per their new community update it seems Solasta joins the club:
"We've decided to offer a wide variety of options that you'll be able to customize on your own (on top of the preset you can choose from if you want to keep it simple), such as adding modifiers to attacks, saving throws and ability checks, harder AIs that use their powers more often (still limited by the tabletop rules) and target unconscious characters to finish them off, different encumbrance rules - we're even adding weighted dice for those who've prayed extra hard to the RNG gods. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, there will be more for you to play with once we're done with it! "

While at this moment it is both unclear (stuff may change, and there may be leftovers from using the Divinity Engine) and potentially sorta kinda clear (the saves say "Classic" on their difficulty label), it would be really nice if the game were to allow for either choosing from a bigger pool of difficulty settings (like in the NWN games) or fine-tuning it a-la Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Now, while Kingmaker has its many glaring issues, its implementation of adjustible challenge levels is probably the best in the genre. Having something similar for BG3 is going to address many of the issues players have with how the resting, the fast-travel, the revive mechanic and the rolls work, while some would want to, say, have difficult combat but make skill/ability checks harder, or vice versa.

A short (or not really) draft of the list of settings that could potentially be tweaked:
-- Enemy challenge level (+/- to their HP, AC, Attack and Spell DC) - pretty straightforward as far as making enemies harder/easier in D&D adaptations has always gone;

-- Enemy behaviour (Story - Classic - Tactician) - here's one that could be easily taken from D:OS, as different difficulties did make enemies' behaviour in combat more or less complex. You can have tougher opponents with the previous setting but not have them gang up on your spellcasters at the start of the fight or control you to oblivion;

-- Enemy critical hits (on/off) - straight from NWN where on "normal" difficulty enemy crits didn't register. Cheating? Maybe. But having to reload a fight after taking something like 60+ damage in one hit can be rather annoying (looking at you, Kingmaker);

-- Helping a downed character restores them to 1 HP (on/off) - at the moment you can easily spam-help your downed party members and just constantly bring them back on their feet, which for me personally made the Phase Spider Matriarch fight really derpy in how my characters had a helping-hand-train going every turn after getting one-shot by her. Now if it were to either only stabilize (remove the saving throw until the next damage taken but leave them unconscious, needing a proper healing to get back up) or only add one successful revival roll instead of all three, it would become less abuseable and make having actual healing tools more necessary.

-- Stabilization / recovery on death saves - a tie-in to the previous setting. An alternative to how dying works at the moment could be that successful death saves only prevent the "death points" from accumulating rather than add "life points", and in order to actually prevent the character from bleeding out they need to be stabilized (see above) and healed properly/ be out of combat to get back up (?). Seeing how there are no healer's kits in the game at the moment, it's a bit of a stretch as far as balancing goes, but still;

-- HP threshold for death / death saves - either go back to the old ways (dying upon hitting minus your Constitution score, losing one HP per round unless stabilized) or use the current system. A matter of preference;

-- Skill/Ability check challenge level - also rather straightforward. Tired of all the 15+ you have to roll to persuade someone while wanting to see the content but not feeling like safe-scumming, or getting frustrated at all four of your characters failing to spot traps (irrelevant unless the familiar exploit for search checks gets fixed, but it probably will be) - here's a setting for you;

-- Item identification (on/off) - I mean, it's a staple. For the time being characters just know how every magic item works just by looking at them - no need for an identify spell, or a skill check, or having a merchant do it for you. Having it off will remove busywork for those who don't want to have it around, having it on will please those who like having such a mechanic;

-- Exhaustion (on/off/some different ways it works?) - now this is an interesting one. The characters already have voice lines for needing rest, albeit at the moment they say them after barely any time had passed since their last rest, and there's a potion of vitality in the game which cures fatigue, but the effect itself is not present at the moment. Exhaustion and the passage of time/amount of fights/checks causing it could be a way to limit long rests by only allowing them between certain time periods and when all the short rests for the day are used up. Not exactly elegant, but this is a draft - and I think it's basically universally agreed upon that resting needs to be re-implemented at least somehow;

-- Free fast travel (on/off) - mentioned this one in a post a while ago. Being able to just jump to a fast travel spot out of anywhere destroys the premise of any and all "trap" areas and situations. At least you can't just hop outta combat like in D:OS, but, like in D:OS, you can just blink straight out of a tomb that closed in on you like you have a stone of recall or something. Either there should be more areas where fast travel is disabled (all the dungeons and some places like the sanctuary in the druid grove), or it should only work between rune circles, or there should be random encounters (which would clash with the way the world is designed and potentially ruin level balancing if abused);

-- Food heals / is used as camping rations - a bit of a wild guess on how food can work. There's a lot of it lying around, and it easily replaces healing potions/spells outside of combat if you choose not to abuse ubiquitous long rest. Why not convert it into rations that are used upon resting, which would by itself limit rest-spamming depending on how many food items get used/what their individual "food value" is. Add cooking on top of this which provides day-long bonuses and makes food more efficient by converting it into proper meals, and you have a solid system that allows for experimentation (cooking in D:OS was fun and food could be quite powerful even as short-term consumables, while Kingmaker makes the entire camping mechanic revolve around what you cook and which bonus you wish to have). A potential downside is how cluttered and awkward the inventory and camping (if there will be one) UI may become, but having an option to add a bit of complexity is always nice for those who value it - Deadfire's camping and food implementation, for example, made no sense before one of the patches added the optional option for spoiling rations (and, for masochists, only recovering health on rest and only with cooked food).

Yeah, it sure wasn't short. I am curious to see other opinions and suggestions, though.

I agree PF Kingmaker is the king of these toggles (one of the most requested one i remember was the encumbered matters or not in movement toggle), and as far as i heard Solasta also plans to take a similar route, they just gave some hints in their new update. I also really liked what Pillars 2 did with Magran's fires, some of those toggleable options gave the player to chance to tweak certain rules around resting (especially how often spells and actions are refilled), tweaked food mechanic and added food spoiling, whether downed characters permanently died after some turns spent downed or not, added equipment durability, degradation and repair, added timed quests where story reasons backed it up, weather tweaks, special resistances for monsters, hidden enemy stats without identification etc. all of these additions were really clever and they really helped to customize my playthroughs and i think most of these would be beneficiary for BG3 as well to have a toggle for. Given i also intend to play this game multiple times as it looks really cool (and i would like to try out more races, classes) i would prefer to have some options to alter the core gameplay mechanics a little bit every time i do. I know there are mods coming but its just not the same, sometimes mods tend not to be updated every time with the game and usually they also have glitches and clashes with official content (i like mods, there were some magnificent mods made for DOS2, but i prefer to have the option to officially customize the core gameplay with little tweaks for my first playthroughs).

I think a lot of the debates on the forum could be settled amicably by implementing some toggles. Pathfinder: Kingmaker has a lot of options there for example.

Well it seems (i know, i know) Solasta indeed thinks making the game more accessable to everyone (hardcore dnd fans and casual players) will be achievable through many toggles implemented to tweak rules and difficulty as you wish:

Yeah, I read that update, too.

They are doing a great job! I bought the game a week ago and can't wait to try it!

I'm always supportive of having more options.
But there is one problem with large number of options - it is VERY hard to balance game around all combinations of those options. Usual way to overcome that is to define few "predefined groups" of options, like "Easy","Normal","Hard" etc ... and balance those by tuning all options accordingly for that group. And when player decide to change some predefined option, they accept risk of slight disbalance.

I see that Solasta is doing similar thing, with 5 "Story modes" predefining large number of options, and possibility for player to customize them further - which looks good.

Well doing the balancing for yourself kinda is the whole point of having extensive difficulty options like that. What would help of course would be a solid basis like a well balanced "normal" difficulty and players can take that in any direction as they like, from ridiculously easy to unfair hard.

Yeah, I'm all about this right now, but what about these Difficulty Level Settings:

1. Story Mode = Backstab, High Ground, Barrel Throwing, and all the things we have now. Loaded Dice by default, more inspiration points by default, unlimited long rests, etc. Game doesn't change much from current state except maybe more inspiration points handed out like candy at Halloween for those who hate failing on dialogue rolls and inspiration can be used for combat too so players can gain extra help in combat. Also, maybe less enemies in various areas like the Necromancer Lair, Spider Lair, etc.

2. D&D 5e Mode = Actual 5e rules implemented. No backstab or higher ground, etc. Potions are Actions. No food during combat. True RNG. No loaded dice. Enemies have true 5e stats like accurate HP and AC. Disengage is an Action. I mean full blown D&D 5e experience. Game is harder because it is full blown rules with no cheese and nerf.

3. Dungeon Master Mode = Like 5e except even harder for those who are insanely good. This mode would be for people who truly know all the weaknesses of every enemy and they can exploit them really well. More enemies with more HP and AC and so forth.

i see this got moved. Oh well. Let me know what you think. I did not read all your posts here. I created my own and it was merged, so sorry if someone else had something similar.

Larian cheese systems and the term "story mode" as it is typically used do not go together. So it should be: Larian cheese mode, and then a separate story mode that excludes Larian cheese but also simplifies some D&D 5e rules to make combat easier overall.

Sounds heavenly. <3

If you are hoping that you are going to be able to customize things like surface effects, shoving, and barrels, you may as well give up now. Not going to happen. Major battles are almost certainly being balanced around these features. Imagine how easy the goblin battles would be without the explosive arrows. This is the game we have and we are going to have to enjoy it for what it is.

Why would you remove highground ? What would be the point of taking a good position in your system ?

I'm all for a better balance and various difficulty level but what you ask is a complete other system with bonus actions that becomes actions depending your choice (UI ?), a useless verticality except to shove, specific creatures for every mode, an action to heal (maybe) 1HP,...
Being 100% faithfull to the rules is not necessary and as you described it, it looks boring to me.

The game has to be balanced first and it has to have strong foundations.
Tweaks could then increase/decrease the difficulty (i.e +1/+2/+3 for highground, +0/+1/+2 ennemie's AC, +0/+1/+2 to allied ST or such things, barrel weight 100%,70%,20%,...).

Even Pathfinder that has A LOT of options to customize your experience don't allow players to custom what is action and what is a bonus action (Don't know the EN words for Pathfinder but you get the idea).
What you ask looks completely unreasonnable and would require to balance the game differently for all difficulty.

I agree, I'd like to see an option to create a "custom" difficulty setting like in Pathfinder. It was great to be able to tailor the diffirent options, instead the usual difficulty presets games have. But I think Larian needs to put more focus on enemy ai, because that impacts difficulty in general (regardless of stat tweaks) and currently e.g. stealth detection is lacking. That was also the issue in Pathfinder; all the tweaks were stats, but even on higher difficulties enemies would usually just "attack closest".

Oh yes! If we could get custom difficulty that would be the best. Then players could customize their experience however they would like. The only reason I was suggesting those difficulties is because custom difficulties seem so much harder to implement especially with a game has complex as this one. So, I was thinking it would be at least a good idea to have different difficulty modes. At least give me and others the ability to play with a genuine 5e ruleset.

Why would you remove highground ? What would be the point of taking a good position in your system ?

I actually don't have an issue with high ground. It is not, however, a 5e rule to get advantage for high ground. To me, ut makes sense, but for full blown 5e rules for strict followers, that was why I mentioned it.

I'm all for a better balance and various difficulty level but what you ask is a complete other system with bonus actions that becomes actions depending your choice (UI ?), a useless verticality except to shove, specific creatures for every mode, an action to heal (maybe) 1HP,...
Being 100% faithfull to the rules is not necessary and as you described it, it looks boring to me.

I'm really just wanting things that make more sense. Eating food while in combat doesn't. Even drinking a potion as a Bonus is a bit hard to believe. You try chugging a bottle in 3 seconds. A potion should be an Action, almost 6 full seconds.

Its not a completely new system. Its a tweak of current. Instead of Shove being a Bonus, its an Action. Disengage is separate from Jump so characters aren't jumping 30 feet across the room.

The game has to be balanced first and it has to have strong foundations.

Absolutely, but many are already complaining about 5e is too hard even with cheesed homebrew rules to make it easier. So, how you gonna get good foundations without a solid base ruleset? Give us a 5e ruleset as the base and then cheese it for Easy Mode or whatever you want to call it.

Tweaks could then increase/decrease the difficulty (i.e +1/+2/+3 for highground, +0/+1/+2 ennemie's AC, +0/+1/+2 to allied ST or such things, barrel weight 100%,70%,20%,...).

Yes, except 5e should be the starting point. Easy would be offering advantage instead of bonuses. Hard would be increasing AC by 2 or whatever.

Even Pathfinder that has A LOT of options to customize your experience don't allow players to custom what is action and what is a bonus action (Don't know the EN words for Pathfinder but you get the idea).
What you ask looks completely unreasonnable and would require to balance the game differently for all difficulty.[/quote]

The point is that 5e is a solid, tested set of rules already established. So it should be the starting point. Then tweak it for other difficulties. The 5e system balanced things well. Its because they made things Bonuses when they should be Actions that everything is jacked up now. Shove is an attack. Therefore, it should be an Action like Melee Attack. Disengage is an Action because you have to work hard to avoid getting hit while moving away from am enemy. Making these bonuses throws off the whole combat system, making it easier. Thus, the game as is seems set on Easy. A 5e authentic ruleset would be more like normal.

Because high ground doesn't give automatic Advantage in 5e, and the mode is called "D&D 5e Mode"?

Advantage is not the only bonuses highground could give (and it shouldn't give advantage).

Highground has to matter even if it definitely shouldn't be a god mode. Delete the whole concept of verticality and positionning for the sake of "D&D 5e" is a bad idea.

The starting point should be a balanced homebrewed campaign, not a 100% RAW campaign.

The whole maps are designed with verticality. It has to matter whetever the game difficulty but obviously it shouldn't give advantage for many reasons.

Highground should be another bonus they can decrease when the difficulty increase. Highground should also always increase the range of ranged weapons.


These things should be a part of the foundations I was talking about for many reasons. This shouldn't be exclusive to a D&D game mode. This does not prevent the "funny cheese" and this would help to balance the game and make it a better tactical TB game.

Potions as bonus action is a rules many DM use so that's not a problem.

The game should be better balanced arround the rules its using but not for the sake of D&D's fans and their D&D RAW mode. It should for the sake of BG3 and players that want to enjoy a tactical TB game with tons of possibilities and choices that also allow "funny things".

And the point is, like he stated, the difficulty would be "D&D 5E mode" which would entail, implementing 5e rules, height giving Advantage not being one of them.

In his scenario, f you still want to play the game with Larianisms, play on story mode.

That 100% unfair because most players don't care playing a 100% RAW game. There's something between RAW and the "cheap" combat system that is now in the game.

His scenario only give solution for those usually called the "D&D purist" and that's probably a very small part of players.

I'm 100% for a game that is closer to 5e for many reasons as I said in many threads but these difficuty level suggestions are only thinked to satisfy :
- a minority of players that say "the game is perfect"
- another minority saying "the game should be 100% RAW".

This is why fully customizable difficulty settings is best. The game could recommend difficulties with preset toggles (e.g., Full Larian, D&D Raw, etc) but you can freely adjust each mechanic to be what you want.

Height Bonus Options
Advantage / +2 / Only Range Increase / No Bonus
(Alternatively, to-hit bonus and range increase can be 2 separate settings)

Yeah it works (+-) for highground but what about things being an action or a bonus action ?
What about AC/HP that should be RAW in one mode and "Larian" in another one ?

I'm not a game devs but I never saw a game in which you can custom action economy or ennemies abilities ("80% damage" custom the damages, not individuals abilities of every creatures).

Again, I'm 100% fine with many options to custom the experience but according to me, what GM4 and many here suggested is mods inside the game. Not custom difficulty options.

Nah. My preference is what you suggested, Custom Difficulty. That would be, hands down, the best solution that would make everyone happy.

My Game Mode suggestions is more like, "Please at the very least give me something. If Custom Difficulty is too hard, or you really feel that the current cheese factory we have is what a lot of players actually want, at least give me something." Shoot! I'd settle for even just 2 Difficulty Settings: Larian Homebrew Mode and 5e Mode.

The point is that there does seem to be enough people who like the system as is or at least similar, so fine. Let them have their quasi DOS gameplay. Just, at least, let me have something better.

I got back to spider lair. The fight was ridiculous, and I'd forgotten just how bad it was. And the amount of issues I had trying to play by something close to 5e rules... So frustrating. It's as someone said in one of the other posts. You can't really even play close to 5e even if you try because your enemies are cheesing the rules so hard.

I mean, one playthrough, a phase spider just let my Drow Fighter sit there at a distance and continue to fire at it and kill it just because somehow she was stealthing it from higher ground. Combat didn't even start until it died.

Even still, Mama Spider just one taps two of my level 4 characters in one spew of poison, both my Drow Fighter and Lae'zel. Just ports across the board, spews her poison, bye 40 something hit points. Then she hits my ranger and same. One taps.

Then the opposite happened. Another playthrough, her babies just sat there the whole time doing nothing. They just let us kill Mama. We got her down to her rage moment, and then she went all psycho and killed my team anyway in like one round.

It's so unbalanced. One minute I'm wailing on everything and killing everything so easily. The next...Im dead. I get that RNG can do that, but there is too much of that right now because the game is not given a proper rule structure. It's all over the place.

Anyway, so Custom Dif is my preferred with maybe preset Modes. At the very least, though, give me too modes:

1. Larian HB Mode
2. True 5e Mode

I will bet you, though, that if they started with True 5e Mode and THEN tweaked it a little, they'd balance the whole dang game real fast. They wouldn't even really need d if settings.

Highground : no more advantages and disadvantages.
- Ranged increased (range weapons only)
- Options : Flat bonus (0/+1/+2/...)
=> Solved issues : useless features/spells/possibilities
=> Solved issues : missing too much

Backstab : Flat bonus
- Options : (0/+1/+2/...)
=> Solved issues : useless features/spells/possibilities
=> Solved issues : missing too much

Simplified flanking rules implemented
- Advantages if 2 creatures are engaged with 1 (no matter if they're on both sides)
=> Solved issues : lack of synergies between characters

Shove (to push) is an action
- %to hit depending your strength
- distance depending your %to hit
=> Solved issues : shove is too OP and works as a win button

Shove (to prone) is implemented as an action
- %to hit depending your dexterity
=> Solved issues : classes that have 0 strength have a specific actions that could help them to disengage and/or create synergies with other characters

Ready action implemented as an action
=> Solved issues : increase the tactical possibilities

Dodge action implemented as an action
=> Solved issues : increase the tactical possibilities

Hide is an action
=> Solved issues : everyone use hide like a rogue

Disengage is an action
=> Solved issues : melee ennemies have a proper zone of control and our position really matter. Being engaged has real consequences.

Jump is a part of your movement and only cost speed
- Distance depending your strenght (if you can jump further than you can move, you're stuck after you jumped)
- If you jump 5m your speed is reduced by 5m
- Jumping if you're engaged is not possible
=> Solved issues : jumping to move further.
=> Solved issues : jumping like kangaroo for everything

Eating in combats is not possible
=> Solved issues : immersion breaking
=> Solved issues : eating is better than healing potions
=> Solved issues : healing outside combat is easier

Changing equipment from inventory is not possible in combat
=> Solved issues : everyone has a shield during our ennemy's turn
=> Solved issues : everyone can use the best weapons at each turn

Weapons slots fully customizable (no more "1 melee and 1 range")
=> Solved issues : characters that don't want a range weapon can have 2 melee sets

Surfaces damages always trigger a ST
=> Solved issues : concentrations spells are broken too often
=> Solved issues : surfaces damages can be too powerfull

Ennemies don't always have surfaces arrows or potions
=> Solved issues : concentrations spells are broken too often

Arrows +1/+2/+3 are implemented
- We can find/buy them by stacks and some ennemies may have some
=> Solved issues : missing less often with ranged weapons

Surfaces arrows
- No surfaces if you miss
- Better option : you can target a creature to deal elemental damages or target the ground to create a surface (the accuracy should be a thing, you should miss the ground you targeted)
- Less surfaces arrows in the game
- Option : more or less surfaces arrows in the game
=> Solved issues : concentration spells breaked too often
=> Solved issues : no more damages even if you dodge

Proper reactions
- Options : popup / auto trigger
=> Solved issues : players can have a better control on their actions

Using consumables is a bonus action
- A real "bonus action button"
=> Solved issues : there's no more "bonus action buttons!"

Diping require two step
- Using a consumable + dipping in a fire surface (not on items)
- It last 1 more turn than poison
=> Solved issues : dipping is way too easy and way too OP
=> Solved issues : so much immersion breaking


That's something I did very fast so everything is not perfect but this looks to me like better balanced foundations.
It's not Raw and nearly no one would care. I guess even those some could call "D&D purists" would agree with this list.

It would increase the tactical value of the game, it would increase the synergies between our characters, it would open the game to many overshadowed features and spells.

Would players still be able to shove ? Yes, they could even create strength builds to.
Would players still be able to create cocktails inside boxes ? Yes
Would players still be able to use barrels ? Yes
Would players still be able to equip a shield on his characters after their turns ? Yes (if they have a weapon slot that has a shield)

What are other cheeses people are asking for ? Solo'd the game without any lone wolf mode ? No one care.
Even players that only play to cheese the game would still play the same as now.

We don't have enough action / turn in this system ? Just add another slot in the party size.

According to me it's not a matter of "raw" or "cheese" fans.
The game is not balanced at all and everyone's experience suffer from this (too hard, too easy, missing too much, lack of creativity because many options are suboptimal...).
Good foundations with things that can reasonably be custom is what this game need for the sake of all of us.

The "D&D players" and "DoS players" thing harms all of us and won't help BG3 to be a better game

Difficulty options :
- Flat bonus on some mechanics more or less
- Damages more or less
- AC more or less
- HP more or less
- Unlimited rest or not
- Random encounters or not
- ...

This is options that can apply to every game mode and that doesn't require to rebalance everything.

Want a story mode :
- +2 to higround
- +2 to backstab
- ennemies deal 50% damages
- ennemies AC reduced by 2
- unlimited rest
- no random encounter
- +120% HP

Want a normal mode :
- +1 to highground
- +1 to backstab
- ennemies deal 80% damages
- ennemies AC reduced by 1
- 3 short rests / long rest
- random encounters (or not)
- 100% HP

Want a D&D mode :
- +0 to highground
- +0 to backstab
- ennemies deal 100% damages
- Ennemies AC = Larian's base AC
- 2 short rest / long rest
- random encounters (or not)
- 100% HP

Can we have a post-upvote button ?

I may not agree with, or even care about, every single suggestion written in Maximuuus' post. But everything is clearly presented and motivated. And it's also a good summary of a lot of the discussion that usually takes place around combat.


ps : I don't know how much I think that accuracy should be a thing, but accuracy is currently a bit ridiculous. Take a Dexterity-16 character with a bow, with proficiency, with Archery Fighting Style, aiming at large enemies like Ogres, from a moderate distance, while unseen (invisible, etc) and thus having Advantage : you have a chance of missing. Take a Dexterity-8 character with a bow, without proficiency, aiming at a war drum or the rope that prevents a big rock from falling and killing half your enemies : 100% chance of hitting.

Ok, Max. You win. Well written.

So, let's call copy/paste what he wrote and spam Larian with it until they get sick of it. 😄

Seriously, I'd be REAL happy if they implemented all of that. LARIAN, please do this. Shut is all up please!

If a significant portion of players have to use a mod, the same mod, to achieve a higher level of satisfaction from the game = bad game design.

For DOS2 players, you will remember in the Definitive Edition that Larian ended up officially adding some of the things from popular mods to the purchased copy of the game. No one wants to wait over a year or more after BG3 release for them to realize and add these features to the game.

Some people care about Steam achievements. If you have mods, you cannot get achievements. Mods are also unstable after updates and may require constant updating after every patch and every hotfix. It could also be cumbersome for some to initially install.

It is the easy way out for someone like Swen to flat-out say that they will rely on mod support for certain issues, i.e. things that people do not like.

I just hope dificiulty settings will be the same as video settings ...
Profiles: easy / normal / hard / hardcore / custom ... (no matter if you want to call it easy, or story mode ... w/e)
And then there will be things that you can adjust to your liking.

I mean, i really like some ideas, but i borrow and example here:
So i could choose "story mode" for dificiulty profile ... and then, when i decide that is not exactly what i had in mind ... i would disable AC reduction, set damage back to 100%, etc. etc. ... and yet keep things as unlimited rests, or no random encounters, etc. etc.

I certainly hope there wont be just single button to set everything without any chance to interfere. :-/
I hope game industry evolved since that was standard.