Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Large battles are nothing but a chore

I wondered about this myself. I imagine it'll be dealt with later; though feedback obviously helps. Overall the encounter was weird: I expected them to be much more bitey and much less... well, human.

I think barrels of explosives/oil/wine are ok when they are intended part of the encounter/environment. Problem arises when you can just collect all the bajillion of them all over the map and then do barrelmancy up the wazoo everywhere.

I really think they should weight much more so you can relocate them in the encounter area with STR character, but can't carry them in bags at all. Yes it might allow to still drag barrels across the map to other area, but at that point it's probably too much effort that is not worth it, as opposed to just yeeting a barrel out of your inventory.

It was less of an issue in D:OS2 despite there certainly being a lot of barrel BS too if you so desired, because your characters and abilities were massively more powerful as is. Here in BG3 though? Our power will be pretty tame even in Act 3 by D:OS2 standards and I certainly don't want barrelmancy to be a thing because it's so strong in comparison.

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As for topic - I definitely think they need to do a lot of work speeding up these 20+ actors encounters. I can clearly see all failings of AI from D:OS2 here, where if an actor can't act it will just stand there burning 10 seconds of your time with some silly verbal threat nobody cares about after 3rd time you see it. I don't need to be given these 10 seconds to read it, I don't care really.

People try to blame homebrew Larian does for all the failures in the world, but reality is that these are good ol' D:OS2 quirks - you could give to each just basic attack and you'd still have all these issues, because the problem really is the pathing - inability by actor to act due to no path/stealth/bugs in many cases and Larian insistence to make sure we read that curse/threat NPC subsequently throws at us. This is THE no.1 time burner in these encounters as I see it.

I'm going to start by saying that I don't know how this works under the hood - all I can do is speculate based on how things appear. Based on the existence of this thread, we can stipulate that enemies spend way too much time making up their minds about what to do. This is especially painful in large battles. It would probably help if there were a fast way to narrow the decision space for each enemy.

What if, at the beginning of each combat round, every non-player-controlled creature in the fight chooses one enemy to focus on: probably whoever is closest to them, but possibly whoever they were focusing on from the previous round or an alarm that they want to trigger or whoever is the biggest threat to them. What kinds of things a specific character cares about could be set by Larian in advance, (e.g. if I'm the queen's elite guard, I only care about enemies that get within 60' of her, but if I'm a big hulking brute, I'm going to look for another brute to square off with). Whatever the method for this choice is, it should be simple and fast. Then, when it comes time for each creature's turn, all it does is consider the ways to attack whatever they chose to focus on (instead of considering every way to get at each potential target).

This method certainly isn't flawless. It will potentially create other issues, e.g. "What do I do if the target I chose at the beginning of the round is dead or out of reach when my turn comes up?" But I would think, in combination with some other fixes, that it could speed things up quite a bit.

I feel like it's getting lost, so here is a summary of how to drastically speed up combat in order of (assumed) causes of delay:

1. Use an actual 5ft x 5ft grid pattern once in combat. This will make movement SO SO much easier because there will be a metric (ironic) ton less data for the AI to calculate. Use the same system Wasteland 3 used where a grid only appeared in combat, or don't put down a visible grid but still make each 'block' a fixed size.

2. Trust in the rules of 5e, including monster design. The overwhelming average amount of enemies should *only* have the Actions available in their D&D stat block. Less options = less work for the AI.

3. Fix the AI to prioritize proximity to the NPC rather than having magically perfect knowledge about which character has the lowest AC. This helps with #1 and #2 because less pathing will be needed, especially once they get in melee.

4. <insert list of 100 other small changes to more closely follow the rules of 5e, because each small change is truly a butterfly flapping its wings. Each small change adds up to a much smoother experience>

Yeah the environment effects while in combat are just over the top. There is too much stuff going on while in battle. Larian ought to keep environment effects in DOS, and leave them out of BG3. Large battles are ridiculous. I literally fell asleep in the middle of a battle while waiting for enemy actions. This turn-based business and AI is quite frankly atrocious. Like someone said earlier, small battles are okay in this but as soon as you start to have 7+ enemies the battles just become way too long. If you have the ability and sometimes necessity to save in the middle of battle, you know your battles are too long. Simple.

I totally agree with all this...
Larian try to make only special things but if everything is special... Nothing is really special...

That's exactly the feeling I have in every encounters.
The difficulty is totally linear and the adventure/the world/the bestiary is totally inconsistent because of this (among other things).

This reminds me a small problem I have sometimes with these sorts of games. The fact that even when the AI is rather good, there's no active effort to make you feel the clear distinction between smart and stupid enemies.
You should be able to perceive the clear difference between fighting a party of enemy adventurers or, say, a pack of stupid beasts.
Back to the gnoll example, I noticed how they kept focus firing my weak caster on the back line instead of dealing with what was in front of them.

This would be a great, but simple, change to enemy AI. "If Intelligence<10, attack whoever is nearest. If greater than 10, attack the squishiest enemy." Maybe add a couple more conditions so that smarter enemies try to avoid AoOs and/or focus more on getting high ground.

Well, it's a possible example among many, but yeah, that's the sort of nuance I'm talking about.

Another one could be that really stupid enemies don't worry as much about triggering attacks of opportunity.
Or that really smart enemies can make better use of the the environment around them (i.e. "breakables") instead of just attacking.

It would do wonders for our immersion in the game, and its closer to what I think an actual DM would do.

Made a post about that but its seems your explained it better. I totally agree , the goblin fight was so long. Its take three minutes of ennemy turn for you being able to play with your character. I was reading a book while playing. Merely moving to a hight ground took me 4 turn, so that 80+ enemy turn of waiting just to have a good position in the fight. Then its took something like 10 more turn to finish the fight.

The worst was, I completed it once before, and the fight was almost one hour long but the game crashed just before I kill the last couple of enemy . *take a breather and go walk outside*.

I did take it literally. If you were being sarcastic, then I join in your sarcasm.

And I also agree with you here, @Tuco.

I agree with this.

@peoples

I'm boggled by one of the posts how does a gnoll get it's hands on an acid arrow. that just using an arrow should be the limit of it's intellegence.... that boggles me

1. Gnolls are not anymore or less stupid then a normal int 10 person. Some are but most aren't
2. Gnolls raid as a lifestyle, which means they learn about their weapons, and how to raid. It's their life, and how they get food, materials, etc.
3. Even a child can be taught how to use a bow, and many can shoot better then most adults. Especially when their life revolves around using that bow, or other weapon. The hardest part about using a bow for gnolls, is claws. Yet different ethnic groups in the past have used other ways of holding the bow string so, claws are feasible. Not the greatest but still doable.

Some of the naunces about stupid enemies, vs smart enemies. Alot of the enemies in game the common ones goblins, ogres, gnolls, bugbears, orcs etc, etc etc, live by fighting, by raiding again this is their life blood. Furthermore even animals know when someone is moving away they can attack easier (attack of oppurtunity), they also know who is causing the most damage (basic survival sense). You see someone murder three of your friends with one go. Yeah attack him! or Run!.

Much like a pack of wolves will go after the weak animals, the elderly, the young, while avoiding mommy. They don't have to fight mommy to get what they want which is food. If they had to they'd do the reverse and go after mommy, and say screw the children and elderly. So again they sense who is the strongest, and who is the weakest.

It's not about stupid, vs. smart it's far more complex then that, and it makes sense.

Why is everything boiled down to such a blah thing stupid vs. smart... just wow. Stupid evil, stupid goblin, stupid penis eating minnows, stupid AI...realistically, and from experience I'd much rather fight a smart person then a dumb one. Dumb ones don't realize their not spose to be able to do what they do. Supposed smart ones are limited by their supposed smarts, for the most part.

Unless your Sherlock Holmes then that dude was kinda scary, in the pit.

I'm sorry but you're 100% wrong about that. https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/gnoll Gnolls have 6 int, 4 less than a normal int 10 person. And sure, they raid as a lifestyle. But they're also described as feral. The combination of instantly knowing which party member has the lowest AC, exploiting acid arrow to reduce our ACs, and ignoring attacking us to get a high ground advantage is just too much.

Ummm, did I mention anything about lowest AC, or acid arrow? No I don't think I did. But I'm going to humor you, even though you read more into my post then I put.

Taking advantage of High Ground is not something based upon intellegience which is the score that covers book smarts, reading, writing, arithmetic, and other in D&D terms Scholarly persuits. Which is how it pertains to wizards being that they are focused upon book learning, and scholarly persuits. So the fact you wish to bring the wrong score into it means your wrong.

Wisdom on the other hand would be the better score in D&D terms to describe this knowledge based upon experiences, how well you note things, and then put them together. So as for your AC comment yes they would know by seeing the fact that your wizard isn't wearing any shiny hardshell that they can do damage to him, easier then your fighter in that shiny suit of armor. The same thing would apply to knowing that acid arrow hurts that shiny thing, making it easier to get through to the soft squishy bits. (Even though they really don't know why it is doing that)

Then there is learned behavior which is based solely upon ones experiences. So a young gnoll raiding with a Veteran is told to go stand there and shoot. Does so later on he is on level ground, and notices he's having to adjust his aim differently then what he did when he was on the hill. He's learning albiet slowly do to mental processes, but he has an advantage no google, or wiki. or anything pertaining to book learning. Instead he has first hand knowledge, because his very life depends upon it. So he has to learn these things in order to survive and he does. Then there is fact that not all gnolls have an int of 6, just like all humans dont' have an int of 10.

The intelligence and other attributes is for a normal gnoll, not the more elite, but the ones that make up a majority of community. They who learn from the smarter ones. Such as the shaman, and warlord. Who are in many ways mimicking the smart ones, and following the smarter ones orders.

If not even Homo sapiens would of long been wiped out, as by your standards anything with an int of 6 doesn't know shit, and can't make tactical choices, or formulate plans
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Wolf#content

intellegence of four, 2 lower then Gnolls, are not even feral, but animals. Yet they form tactics, they learn by doing have no opposable thumbs, or fingers unlike gnolls. Yet many of their tactics are used by hunters, and have been used by hunters since the dawn of man.

Much I could add, but will wait.

Well, he just proved you wrong on the actual int score of gnoll. So now you can say all you want that int score doesn't matter, but that means that your first argument was wrong in the first place. Then why would this new argument be any more accurate?

Please don't attack me for quoting you. I don't necessarily disagree with you that a creature with int of 6 should be able to use an acid arrow, but claiming you "never mentioned anything about...acid arrow" is disingenuous.

And true, you didn't explicitly mention AC, but others in this post have. The enemy AI prioritizing our squishies, often completely ignoring the fighter with the sword in front of their face, is very relevant to this topic on battles. On the one hand, it is interesting to fight against a smart enemy. On the other, we want our fighter/tank to be able to pull aggro and do their job protecting our mages. I was suggesting a balance, where some encounters are against enemies that allow our fighter to shine, while others are against smarter enemies that are more difficult.


Somewhat fair point. Gnoll Pack Lords have ints of 8 and gnoll fang of yeenoghus have ints of 10. Plus there is spread for individuals. But most gnolls DO have intelligence under 10 whereas most (or the average) humans have intelligences of 10 in this world.

Now, you also have a lot of points about using Intelligence vs Wisdom to determine tactics and how smart the enemy is in combat, which are good points. There is a lot of overlap between those 2 stats and this discussion can apply generally, and not just to gnolls. So sure, I'd be fine if the average of wisdom and intelligence determined how smart the enemy AI was. I just want the game to be in a state where not every single enemy knows exactly which of my party members has the lowest AC and focuses entirely on them.

As for the attack it wasn't really, it was me being my mix of sarcasm, and odd humor. Much like someone rubbing their hands together irl, in anticipation of percieved bout for whatever reason. I try to rein it in, but sadly as you can tell I fail at times. Case in point telling my kids i'll kick the white out of them. 'despite what others may think I wouldn't kick them, let alone try to kick the white out of them. One it's impossible to kick the color out of anything. Then there is the one that went horribly wrong, but truelly epic. I told my then five year old "if you feel froggy, just jump' she responded by ribbiting and hoping around the entire house. So you see it's my nature to say things like this, and in your place I'd of put. 'Stop being an ass, Clavis.' then moved on as you did. Now then lets put on the gloves. (j/k should prolly add this to most of what I say, and text, and everything else, just a bother.)

I honestly didn't read through the whole thing and was only commenting about their ability to use arrows, bows, and have basic tactics. Nothing else. True about the ignoring things, I to would like to be able to be able to pull aggro. yet currently do to level cap there is not many ways to do so. Shield expert is one, also sentinel?? I think it's called is a feat that allows you to stop enemy movement if you hit them. Unsure if it's in EA or not, I find that some of the feats should be subclass features (there are some subclasses that do, just not the ones in EA. I believe not 100% sure) at times it sucks to have to build your fighter around such things, but it's part of D&D and 5e.

Next point I actually agree with... your making it hard for me to be a dick btw with your logic!! This usually is up to the DM and I"ve had a couple that would always go for my parties squishies. Though in the game, it is a valid tactic to go for them rather then your heavily armored person. It's honestly what I would do, from standard that it's going to be harder to take down shiny man, versus soft man.

correction shield expert is wierdly worded to me for some reason. It implies disadvantage if your near an enemy who attacks an ally? or is it if your near an ally enemies get disadvantage if they attack they ally. My brain isn't wrapping around that one again.

Your poor kids! o.O Don't kick them!!!


I don't think sentinel is in EA yet. There's a Xanathar's Guide to Everything fighter subclass called Cavalier, and their 10th level ability is basically the Sentinel feat. I'm skeptical that they'll put it in the game though, as they'd also have to deal with horses and mounted combat


Muahahahaha


Are you referring to the Protection Fighting Style that fighters get, or the Shield Master feat? If the former, then you protect an ally who is within 5 feet of you, imposing disadvantage on an enemy attacking them (putting your shield in harm's way)

Agreed with OP, big battles are boring work, just like DOS.

A single player game is bad if I'm on Twitter waiting for my turn.

Fortunately the rest of them game is good, if flawed.