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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
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So, here are my suggestions after having way too much fun! I absolutely love this game so far, so I hope these help out in some small way. I’ve put headings for each one, to help in case anyone wants to limit their response to a single item, though often these suggestions are related to one another. NOTE: There are a number of instances where I mention storyline events, so people consider this a SPOILER warning. Proceed with caution. =)
• Alignment and the Dice Roll Mechanic: I feel like the dice roll mechanic is putting a strain on my alignment for my story. I really want to help people (saving the little tiefling child from the serpent, keeping the peace between Zevlor and Arradin, the mind-controlled sailors who were compelled to save the mind-flayer, etc.), but my dice rolls are so atrocious that everything is falling apart throughout my story! I mean, at every juncture I am choosing to help people, but my gameplay, and the consequences of it, it’s like some chaotic evil psychopath that wants to destroy every relationship and kill as many people as possible… If my party members criticize my behavior, I literally have nothing to say in my defense. I’m a net evil presence in the world so far, and it’s all because of these awful dice rolls! To me, it feels a bit strange that the ‘evil’ route is so easy to get. I can get ‘evil’ outcomes in any number of ways: by ignoring people or just attacking them, stealing, etc. But the ‘good’ outcomes for events are dice-walled (this is a term I just made up; think ‘pay-walled,’ but the ‘wall’ in this case is a good dice roll): the only way to get 'good' outcomes (the tiefling child is saved, Zevlor does not attack Arradin, so Arradin is welcomed into the camp, the sailors are broken from their compulsion, etc.) is to have a lucky dice roll, while it is the easiest thing in the world to get evil outcomes. In a table top game, when I let the DM know what I intend as a player, the dice is rolled, but the DM has a lot of latitude in terms of how the spectrum of the score plays out. If I needed to roll a 15, but I rolled a 14 instead, the DM has the leeway of making the game turn out such that I was very close to succeeding, whereas if I end up rolling a 2 my failure could be spectacular. However, in BG3, a failed roll is just as much a failure if I was one point away from the target, or if I rolled a 2. In BG3, there is only success or failure, whereas in a real time game a DM has the option of narrating the successes and failures along a spectrum. This luxury of a real time game is not something that can easily be implemented into a PC game. Hence, PC games have generally made the decision that story elements will be driven by the player, based on their skills, background, and choices, whereas combat, attacks and saves will be determined by dice rolls. Every once in a while I sit back and wonder at how my story decisions are being driven more by the roll of a dice than by my own conscious choices.
• Visible Dice Roll Mechanic: The visible dice roll mechanic breaks immersion for me. In table top role-playing, rolling dice is an integral part of the gaming experience, not just in terms of the mechanics and what it accomplishes, but also in terms of just time spent gaming. We spent a lot of time rolling the dice when we gamed in person. However, in a computer game, one of the benefits of Baldur's Gate series was that the dice rolling was handled in the background. Our attack rolls, our saving throws, etc., were all handled by the computer, so the gaming experience was seamless. I am playing as a character in Faerûn: I don't want to be constantly jolted out of the immersive and beautiful gaming environment that you all have created by this meta-mechanic dice roll. If there’s already an option to make these dice checks without having the dice actually appear, I would really appreciate it.
• Multiple Dice Rolls per Conversation: While I’m talking about dice rolls, multiple dice rolls in a single conversation makes for a difficult gaming mechanic. The Dice Roll mechanic in conversations is meant to determine whether I am able to persuade/intimidate/etc. someone. If there are multiple dice rolls per conversation, deciding at what point to choose a new dice roll seems to be rather difficult. Is the rule, every time I have to convince the person I’m speaking to of something I have to make another dice roll? I mean, if that’s the mechanic, then if I fail to convince them, why not just try to convince them again with another dice roll? And if that fails, can’t I just roll another dice to see if I can convince them to listen to me after having failed? If the rule were just: one dice rolls to see if I can persuade this character. I can see having multiple dice rolls if I have to persuade, then garner an insight, then having to deceive them. But overall, let’s try to cut down on the number of dice rolls needed for conversations.
• Party Member Participation in Conversations: However, if we are to have conversations with so many checks, I would like my party members to chime in and help me out. If I’m a wizard, and cleric begins to speak with me, I would really like my cleric companion to be able to chime in at appropriate moments, to help out with Religious checks and what-not. One example comes to mind: when I entered the idyllic, ‘lamb’ cavorting area surrounding the hag’s cavern. If I failed my check to discern the illusion, why couldn’t my other party members roll a check to help us out?
• Dice Roll Mechanic and Lore: There’s a sense in which the dice roll mechanic breaks apart once we get to questions of Lore. For instance, how is it that the roll of a dice determines whether or not I know what an intellect devourer is? How is it that this is something I do know if I roll a 17, but something I don’t know if I roll a 2? Put another way: How is it that what I know is random? And how random is my knowledge? Or what parts of my knowledge are random? Do I know my own past randomly? When employing a skill, I can see that people can perform skills along a spectrum: you could perform well (i.e. I roll a 19) or poorly (i.e. I roll a 2), but skills do not work in the same way knowledge does, and to treat them the same is a bit bizarre. If the dice roll for Lore is just measuring my capacity to recall the information, then I suppose we could have a skill called Memory (although that’s pushing it… I don’t how much sense ‘Memory’ as a skill makes), and then have LORE be something that you acquire through gameplay and backgrounds. For instance, if you have a Sage background, you have a large store of Arcane and History lore, but Religious lore is something you’d have to acquire through gameplay, or the people in your party with Religious lore could pipe in at appropriate moments.
• Pathing Mechanics: Yes, Astarion cannot pass through running water. This leads to difficulties in pathing when I tell my party to go in one direction, and then Astarion runs off in a completely different direction in order to avoid the running water. It was bewildering at first, and I didn’t understand why Astarion was agroing every monster he ran across, running across every trap along the way, in order to avoid like 1d8 dmg from the running water, but there it is. Likewise, when I’m moving around with my main character, and my party runs into traps despite my best efforts, so I end up having to disconnect all my party members, walk them through one by one, and then reconnect them on the other side. That’s a hassle… Or if I see that I am about to walk into a trap, so I turn my character around, only to have my party members rush past me so that they can stay in formation behind me, and then they run into the traps. I would prefer the Baldur’s Gate way of selecting my whole party, and being able to choose a formation for them to fall into.
• Safe Jumping: If I’m jumping, I would like some sort of alert as to whether I’m going to go prone and succumb to damage. I thought the white circle indicated the “safe” places to jump, but I still find myself taking damage and falling down prone, but sometimes it’s okay… Please give me some way of knowing whether my jump trajectory is safe or not.
• Party Jumping: Furthermore, I would like it if party members would be able to follow me by jumping, as well. It is extremely tedious to have to individually select each party member and individually choose each jumping destination, making sure that each jumping destination is safe for each character, and then go back to my main character to keep travelling. The Intellect Devourer at the beginning of the game follows me across that first jump, why can my other party members not do the same?
• Full Party Rest: If my party rests for the night, then my *entire* party should rest for the night, not just the four characters in my current party layout. I rested, and Shadowheart, Wyll, and Gale were fully healed, but Astarion and Lae’zel still were near death in the morning. Did they just decide not to sleep the entire night? Did they see us sleeping and think they’d keep watch the whole night? I’m okay taking shifts if it means that we all get a good night’s rest!
• Light Resets Perception Rolls: So long as we’re talking about Dice Rolls, if I’ve failed a perception check while in the darkness, then doesn’t it make sense that I should roll another perception check once the light is turned on? If I’m in darkness, and I fail to perceive that there’s an Owlbear ten feet ahead of me, once I light my torch, it’s not as though I decide not to check anymore. Once the torch is lit, I’m going to get another perception check, and behold, I now perceive the Owlbear that is in front of me. Shouldn’t we have another search roll, when we have some better lighting?
• Rope as a ‘Ladder’ Mechanic: Since there is “Rope” in the game, shouldn’t there be a game mechanic where I can fasten the rope to a ledge that I’m on, and let it down, so I can slide down and create a kind of “ladder” mechanic for my party there? And then I could collect the “Rope” after I’m finished with it and take it back with me?
• Race Abilities: Aren’t some of the races missing some abilities? Drow don’t have Keen Senses? Half-Elves lost their Skill Versatility?
BUGS
• Be aware that the ‘Iron Ladder’ that you pull down with the lever in the Dark Crypt is a bit glitched out from certain angles.
• Why cannot the Cleric use the ‘Sacred Flame’ cantrip to hit objects in the world? When I attempted to cast ‘Sacred Flame’ at the brine pool in the very first room of the game, it was marked as “Not a valid target.” However, when I tried to use ‘Guiding Bolt’ against the brine pool, it worked fine.
• When I was sent to ‘jail’ in the tiefling camp, and moved around, the cutscene started with the two tieflings and the goblin (with one the tieflings holding the crossbow at the goblin), and it proceeded as if I were out of my jail cell. After the cutscene was over, I was back in my jail cell.
• Walking around the caged goblin (whom we just saved from the two tieflings) prompts conversations with her, even when I haven’t interacted with her. I keep getting into the same conversation! I just want to walk around and explore the area, but it keeps making me have a conversation with her!
• Elven, Half-elven, and Githyanki ears a clipping through the helmets. You may want to have helmets ‘remove’ the ear graphics to avoid this issue.
• On the subject of clipping, there are so many hair options for character creation, but I’m basically limited to maybe 2 or 3 because nearly all the rest clip through elven ears.
• After playing for a while, the game gets more and more laggy, until it’s ultimately unplayable.
Last edited by RadiantHeart; 12/10/20 07:00 AM.
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Oct 2020
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addict
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addict
Joined: Jul 2017
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• Party Member Participation in Conversations: However, if we are to have conversations with so many checks, I would like my party members to chime in and help me out. If I’m a wizard, and cleric begins to speak with me, I would really like my cleric companion to be able to chime in at appropriate moments, to help out with Religious checks and what-not. One example comes to mind: when I entered the idyllic, ‘lamb’ cavorting area surrounding the hag’s cavern. If I failed my check to discern the illusion, why couldn’t my other party members roll a check to help us out?
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• Rope as a ‘Ladder’ Mechanic: Since there is “Rope” in the game, shouldn’t there be a game mechanic where I can fasten the rope to a ledge that I’m on, and let it down, so I can slide down and create a kind of “ladder” mechanic for my party there? And then I could collect the “Rope” after I’m finished with it and take it back with me?
For first point: https://old.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...rolls_are_coming_just_not_ready_in_time/44 mins at the stream linked, it is being worked on thankfully. As for 2nd point I quoted, i started looting rope because i thought it would be useful for that exact reason, but have found nothing so far. Would love to have this mechanic.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
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I agree with most, if not all, of these. I think the dice rolls were kept in to make it fun, because admittedly this doesn't have the same feel as previous titles and as you may have noticed in other threads, the links to Dungeons and Dragons are a little tenuous. It doesn't bother me, but I could definitely do without it. I think it is sort of like how the original titles used an isometric perspective in order to make it feel like you were guiding minis on a table top game. Its less subtle, but its still a way of adding the comfort of familiarity for those who are more table top gamers than computer gamers -although in 2020 I imagine the number of them is quite few. You are absolutely spot on about how as conversation knowledge/responses have been implemented and ultimately restricted, the dice checks in conversation only detract from the experience and contribute nothing of value. Its like they felt they had to respect the mechanic at the expense of player satisfaction. A few of us have been pushing for alternate interpretations and compromise, such as waiving dice rolls when the player has proficiency and retaining them only when they are unskilled, but there is no way of knowing what the studio has heard or is considering. Still, welcome to the board, fierce entry 
Last edited by DistantStranger; 12/10/20 07:21 AM.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2015
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Visible Dice Roll Mechanic: The visible dice roll mechanic breaks immersion for me. In table top role-playing, rolling dice is an integral part of the gaming experience, not just in terms of the mechanics and what it accomplishes, but also in terms of just time spent gaming. We spent a lot of time rolling the dice when we gamed in person. However, in a computer game, one of the benefits of Baldur's Gate series was that the dice rolling was handled in the background. Our attack rolls, our saving throws, etc., were all handled by the computer, so the gaming experience was seamless. I am playing as a character in Faerûn: I don't want to be constantly jolted out of the immersive and beautiful gaming environment that you all have created by this meta-mechanic dice roll. If there’s already an option to make these dice checks without having the dice actually appear, I would really appreciate it. Undecided on this one. I've had several high DC conversations where I've felt a great moment of excitement and then relief as I rolled high. Getting that 20 on my DC 19 conversation roll would've been a lot less exciting if I didn't see the DC and the roll. Multiple Dice Rolls per Conversation: While I’m talking about dice rolls, multiple dice rolls in a single conversation makes for a difficult gaming mechanic. The Dice Roll mechanic in conversations is meant to determine whether I am able to persuade/intimidate/etc. someone. If there are multiple dice rolls per conversation, deciding at what point to choose a new dice roll seems to be rather difficult. Is the rule, every time I have to convince the person I’m speaking to of something I have to make another dice roll? I mean, if that’s the mechanic, then if I fail to convince them, why not just try to convince them again with another dice roll? And if that fails, can’t I just roll another dice to see if I can convince them to listen to me after having failed? If the rule were just: one dice rolls to see if I can persuade this character. I can see having multiple dice rolls if I have to persuade, then garner an insight, then having to deceive them. But overall, let’s try to cut down on the number of dice rolls needed for conversations. Their take on conversations is a bit weird, it almost seems like they've misunderstood how likely you are to fail with a DC of 10-12. They're over-relying on persuade big time, and we should have multiple chances of success, not multiple checks to see if we succeed. Party Member Participation in Conversations: However, if we are to have conversations with so many checks, I would like my party members to chime in and help me out. If I’m a wizard, and cleric begins to speak with me, I would really like my cleric companion to be able to chime in at appropriate moments, to help out with Religious checks and what-not. One example comes to mind: when I entered the idyllic, ‘lamb’ cavorting area surrounding the hag’s cavern. If I failed my check to discern the illusion, why couldn’t my other party members roll a check to help us out? +1 Dice Roll Mechanic and Lore: There’s a sense in which the dice roll mechanic breaks apart once we get to questions of Lore. For instance, how is it that the roll of a dice determines whether or not I know what an intellect devourer is? How is it that this is something I do know if I roll a 17, but something I don’t know if I roll a 2? Put another way: How is it that what I know is random? And how random is my knowledge? Or what parts of my knowledge are random? Do I know my own past randomly? When employing a skill, I can see that people can perform skills along a spectrum: you could perform well (i.e. I roll a 19) or poorly (i.e. I roll a 2), but skills do not work in the same way knowledge does, and to treat them the same is a bit bizarre. If the dice roll for Lore is just measuring my capacity to recall the information, then I suppose we could have a skill called Memory (although that’s pushing it… I don’t how much sense ‘Memory’ as a skill makes), and then have LORE be something that you acquire through gameplay and backgrounds. For instance, if you have a Sage background, you have a large store of Arcane and History lore, but Religious lore is something you’d have to acquire through gameplay, or the people in your party with Religious lore could pipe in at appropriate moments.
Actually this is pretty close to "rules as written". A DM can accommodate for partial success, but that's very much a houserule - a houserule that's also deviously hard to implement properly in a computer game. So I'm fine with this implementation.
Safe Jumping: If I’m jumping, I would like some sort of alert as to whether I’m going to go prone and succumb to damage. I thought the white circle indicated the “safe” places to jump, but I still find myself taking damage and falling down prone, but sometimes it’s okay… Please give me some way of knowing whether my jump trajectory is safe or not.
Yes please
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