Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please stop all the elemental environment damage

Just ran into the trap area and I have stopped playing the game now after 2 times of player all burning to death because its too difficult for me as a player to control that fast enough. I absolutely hated this about DoS2 as well. This is not a RTS game where I want to micro my characters. Its just not fun. If there's a trap and I fail, hit me with it one time, like D&D actually does. I dont want to burn up as I quickly try to micro move all my characters out of the way. And ya i know you can switch into time freeze mode or whatever, but that is awful to control as well. And even when controlled perfectly, just an annoyance and waste of time. No one is enjoying that time that is being spent. Plus that mode is hard to tell whos acted in the round and who hasn't. All the sudden the end turn control works differently than it does in combat. Just a whole host of issues, but really the main issue is, there's no need or point in all the time based environment damage. The extra elemental stuff from firebolt and acid is also annoying and its not in D&D and its not needed here either. Just because you have all this environmental damage crap from DoS doesn't mean you need it here.

I agree with part of your statement. Party control is not good and leads to people getting ensnared, set on fire, etc. beyond the player's control. That should be fixed. However some people like the environmental effects. I propose that as an option.

I have a feeling that the button that forces you into exploring in turn based mode (even when there aren't enemies around) was implemented specifically for all these sort of environmental traps.
I really don't like that feature and I think it feels like a band aid that's not as effective as it needs to be. It's an interesting feature to be sure, but I don't think I actually used it more than once in the crypt at the start of the game.

Not sure which trap area you are talking about, possibly the crypt. There is a way to deactivate everything all at once to avoid getting burned, also when you trigger the trap the normal way the game automatically pauses for you for "reaction"...also there is a rain spell that can negate a ton of fire effects or water jugs you can throw at your characters or on the ground, also you can "help" an ally to put out fire if I remember correctly.

Tons of solutions to not get burned as well as negate the burn if it happens.

Yeah I feel that.
A few days ago I NUKED Ethel in her own hut with dicerolls like meteors.
But she threw some acid sh°° after me before she croaked.

We dominated so hard it was only overshadowed by our stupid, idiotic downfall right afterwards.

In order to perfectly position my group I de-linked their portraits.
So when the battle was over - the acid pool remained.
Its damage over time was so strong, it felled two of my characters.
Those IMBECILES stood in the harmful substance without going out of it.

Imagine my Honkler honking! =)
AND THE SUBSTANCE WOULDN'T DISAPPEAR!
It lingered on the frikking ground (!!!) and I could not even get these fools up anymore!
Everytime I did... they would take damage over 0 again and fall right again!

I had to let them die and bring them out of via Revive-scroll. °sigh°
Unbe-effin-lievable!
Guess this is what I get for dealing with a Hag.
Even when I nuke her I still feel the pain.

I agree with parts of your statement. But getting rid of elemental surfaces ? It sounds like a core aspect of their vision. I doubt they'll remove that.
At most, they may provide fine-tuning difficulty options that allows you to activate/deactivate some mechanisms.

I too find that the turn-based mode does a bad job of showing you who has already played their turn.
My guess is that they have so far spent a lot of time playtesting the game with a single character. They have probably introduced the out-of-combat turn-based mode tool to get a better control on the character when they do things that are not core-RPG, but they haven't properly finished the tool. Especially how it works when you have a party of more than one character.

The annoying thing is not so much that the tool isn't finished, it's the reason why it was introduced.
You mentioned feeling like you play a RTS. I have the feeling they are trying to make a game that is also a stealth game. And the focus on the jump makes the game have some platformer flavours. I wish they focused first and foremost on the roleplaying and tactical combat aspects of the game.

Agreed!

I ate shit and got blown up too because I was just wandering around admiring the scenery.
I reloaded, unchained my characters, and slowly snuck through until I noticed all of the traps by taking in my surroundings.
Now, I take much more care wandering through areas and don't just mindlessly press forward. It was a great lesson in restraint and attention.
The game shouldn't have to devolve, you should evolve.

I also wish they would ramp down the surface effects im getting flashbacks of dso2 in which my main tatic was throwing deathmist boxes everywhere. I also wish that companions out of combat would avoid dangerous surfaces
Maybe using perception checks to have them not realise initially and have them alert the party when they take damage so the rest dont have to make the check or something idk

Outside the goblin camp there's a passage full of hidden mines and explosives. In the middle of the passage there's a very small chasm that you need to jump across.
If you somehow manage to avoid all the explosives leading up to the chasm and jump across it with one character (since you can't jump with everyone at once) the remaining three characters will immediately try to walk the entire way around the chasm, triggering explosive mines and possible running into goblin guards (the ones you likely were trying to avoid in the first place if you went this route)

If you want to cross the chasm unharmed you need to unchain all four characters, select them one by one, jump across the chasm, move the characters out of the way to make room for the others (but without stepping on the explosive mines), select all the remaining characters and jump across, then continue to move through the passage without triggering the explosives on the other side as well. If you fail this at any point you'll trigger a mine which deals enough damage to take 1/2 of a character's health on top of leaving a puddle of fire on the ground.

This is extremely bad design if you ask me.

Yep. This is a situation were many of the serious issues with the current party UI and controls come together for the perfect storm :
- impossibility to have the party jump together,
- bad, over-reactive following-the-selected rule, where others characters will immediately try to find a path leading to the selected character,
- bad pathfinding and no sense of self-preservation, where you may well have found trap but auto-pathing will happily have your characters walk in the traps.
The tediousness of the chain-unchain controls only makes the matter worse.

Hopefully, that's one of the topmost priorities that Larian will focus on. Together with the hotbar and spells/abilities/items management.

I hope all the people involved with mechanisms design and development will focus on the smoothness of the gaming experience before, say, the depth and interestingness of combat mechanisms.

Most of these problems could be solved if they added the "hold" order

I would not say option ... but part of dificiulty settings.

The player AI is programmed so whenever there is a ground effect they scream "HEY YOU GUYS" and dive head first into it before rolling around. If there a hazard in your path the AI will run though it regardless, in fact they actively seek out new dangers like no AI has done before.

Not sure if you're complaning about controls or surfaces... But I agree that both should be improved or adjusted.
Surfaces definitely need to be in the game. Not as an option : as tactical choices




What is easier ? Toggle surfaces ON or toggle surfaces OFF ?

Surface effect is gonna become irrelevant anyway just like DOS2 once everyone somehow can teleport everywhere and anywhere with spells XDDDD

I’d like to see a homebrew toggle in options, so you can turn on and off all the surface shit and high ground backstab shits. Now DOS2 fans and dnd fans will all be happy.

Also, a work around for chaining/unchaining and walking people through hazards or jumps.

Get one character through it, fast travel to camp, then use the fast travel menu to exit camp. All your party shows up with you on the other side of the jump. Slightly faster than navigating one at a time.

That happened to me too. And there is no pause either to stop it from happening. Half the time the force TB mode glithces out and won't even activate.

The chain follow system is incredibly awkward. Even if they didn't run over hazards I still wouldn't want the team to spasm about when I move one character a few steps. When you unchain everyone you can't select all or marquee select which makes moving everyone individually painfully slow.

Why are they fighting so hard against the tried and true character movement scheme from previous games in this genre. It's like they have decided to reinvent the wheel but can't see their version is not round.

As for surfaces..far too common. Cantrips and arrows making surfaces needs to go away. Goblins are carrying way too many magical arrows and bombs. When a goblin or any other enemy has something like this, it needs to be obvious (Goblin Arsonist / Alchemist with fire surface making stuff) so you can mercilessly focus fire them down before they throw anything. Any random goblin spamming surfaces or pulling a magical force arrow and shooting you into a pit is just dumb. This stuff doesn't exist in Faerun to this extent.

Goblins are supposed to be dangerous because they can overwhelm you with numbers, not because they all have access to magic stuff.

Goblins can have a hard time overwhelming anyone, with their numbers since battles are mostly fought with small groups.