Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Turn based vs Real time with pause

Hello everyone,

I know this is a point of contention for a lot of people (or at least it was when the game was announced) and I am not here to try to start one of the typical flame wars that could be seen on reddit some months ago. I just want to leave my feedback regarding this topic and make some points as to why I believe the game would be considerably better in rtwp.

A bit of context on my part (skip this paragraph if you're not interested in my motivations or background): I've been a long time fan of the original BGs, being my all time favourite games in the genre, and have always kept an eye on cRPGs that come out. I played many hours of the originals and still do as I always find it fun to replay them every so often with different builds, parties, etc. Played several other games of the style, such as torment, NWN, pathfinder, etc. common denominator of interest for this discussion is that they were all rtwp. Then came Divinity: Original Sin. When I first saw that it was turn based it didn't appeal to me very much as I just thought "oh, must be some sort of XCOM game". And then I tried them. DOS1 I don't like for other reasons, but DOS2 I absolutely loved. DOS2 is a game I was genuinely surprised with, enjoyed the hell out of my several playthroughs and made a spot in one of my all time favourites. It's awesome. It's well done, the combat is really good and I can honestly say I wouldn't want it in any other way other than turn based.

When BG3 was announced and later confirmed that it would be a turn based game my first reaction was to pretty much give up on the idea of this ever becoming a good game. My second reaction was to realize that it came from Larian, and that I had loved DOS2, wanted more of that style of game and thought maybe it's not so bad that it will be turn-based, might be cool. And then I played the game.

I feel that Baldur's Gate 3 should be rtwp (or, since turn based is already implemented, should have an option to be rtwp) because turn based combat breaks the flow of the game. Combat encounters take too long. Not so much that it takes too long but more so that it is barely active. This problem becomes even more exacerbated the more enemies are in the encounter. Another factor to take into account is that many of the encounters are trivial and not challenging. This shouldn't be a problem by itself, it's expected to fight some fodder every now and then and it actually feels good to give them a beating in these types of game but the fact that I already know it's gonna take a long time and it's going to be very passive turns something that should make the player feel good for quickly and effectively disposing of the monster scum into a yawn fest and alt-tab galore. Are you seriously expecting me to sit idly and wait for 6 goblins to throw their boots and bottles at my party before I can actually play the game again? No. In my case thankfully I have two monitors so I can just browse the web, watch a stream or whatever in the meanwhile while waiting. It's boring. The combat should feel exciting and rewarding, not tedious. I should be casting spells and hacking pieces off of goblins, not scrolling reddit and every so often swapping to the game for some mouse clicks.

I get why Larian did it. D&D pen and paper is turn based and Divinity was a success, why not apply the same here? My thoughts on to why it shouldn't:

1. DOS had it so that all our characters could have an abundance of actions, action point gain abilities, several incredibly efficient movement skills for very little cost and the ability to chain a lot of stuff in a single turn. This made it so that your turns felt incredibly active and you could get a lot of stuff done. In D&D this is not so much the case. If we're talking about a caster, most of your turns are composed of doing a little bit of movement and casting a single spell. If we're talking about let's say a fighter, then you're gonna move and strike (and many a time you're gonna spend your entire turn just moving somewhere). It doesn't make for very action-packed turns. Couple this with the fact that after a particularly uneventful turn you need to wait for each of the AI turns, one at a time... As an example, try to imagine if the originals were turn based. Every time you spotted gibberlings people would be hospitalized.

2. DOS had a much more forgiving hit ratio. Not only you had more actions per turn as you also had much better chances of actually hitting the target than you do in BG3. More misses = more uneventful turns passed = more wait time.
Note: don't take this as me wanting to change the way hit chance works in the game for it to be higher. I don't! In fact I think it is already dumb the way it is with all the advantages available. I merely dislike the consequence of the system existing in the style of play that is turn-based.

3. Number of enemies. DOS2 usually kept the enemy numbers even(ish) so that the player didn't have to wait too long before being able to get a turn in. But even in DOS2 there are a few examples that come to mind where they failed in this regard and the same problem could be felt in that game. Take for instance the oil field fight (god, waiting for 72 goos to finish their turn, kill me now) or that one instance with 20 silent monks coupled with a bunch of magisters. This is what I felt near the start of the game in the goblin encounter at the gates of the druid grove. And later in many of the other goblin encounters or the multiplying imps in the swamp, or the numerous spiderlings in the matriarch encounter just as a few examples. The time spent waiting for AI to go through their turns is too damn high <insert meme pic here>.

4. During a pen & paper session, banter is the name of the game. A lot of the fun comes from listening to the DM describe the scenario or telling a story and the banter between the players. This makes it so that even though it is turn based and not a lot may happen mechanically during each turn, people are having fun and entertaining each other during that time. Even the fact that you are casting the dice yourself makes it more entertaining and exciting. None of this exists in the computer game.

5. Lack of thrill. A combat encounter should provoke feelings of tension, excitement and fun. In rtwp there is constant activity, the sounds of battle and spells going off, friend of foe being slain and falling to the ground, war cries and/or taunts "Let's see what yer guts be lookin' like!". BG3 has some fun moments during combat, for me they're mostly due to some happy combination of spells connecting for a bunch of damage, or throwing 3 goblins off a cliff, but they're few and far between, mostly it feels like I'm playing desk-job dungeons since it's so uneventful and devoid of life. The tensest moment in a combat encounter is when you finish a fight with one of your companions downed and the player has to struggle with the commands and action delays in order to actually get another party member to get him up before dying... (Also something that would be a non-issue with rtwp)


To be completely honest I don't believe that Larian will give this any thought given the state of the game thus far, but they wanted feedback, so here is mine.