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".
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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!