Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Reactions like Solasta!

It's more than likely to be quite possible in the future, particularly after full release with mod support.

Oooh! Lovely! =)

Uncanny that the same person who was pushing the point that players can get what they want via mods was also trying to majorly argue to make the game be a certain way.
If you're so ok with players needing mods to have the things be they way they want, then let them have the game changed to be their way and YOU can mod it to be your way.

Kinda amazed I got through 9 pages of this with nobody mentioning the Battlemaster's counterattack, which uses one of their limited dice. Same as using a spell slot for a reaction spell, of course, but still.
Definitely need the ability to decide whether or not to use reactions at the time they'd be used, not beforehand.

How do you propose doing that?

Every time you get hit, the game pauses for a pop-up that asks, "Would you like to use Riposte now?"

That would be the desire all 9 pages of this thread are about, yes. People wanting that to happen.
For reaction spells, Riposte, opportunity attacks; all reactions.
And it's apparently what they do in this "Solasta" game people keep mentioning.

I get the appeal of wanting to decide, but that seems like it might get intrusive on an actual play level. Of course, I haven't played Solasta, so I'm not sure how it works in practice. I'm just trying to imagine what it would look like.

It's not very intrusive at all. It depends on the implementation. For example, the dice rolls for skill checks in BG3 could stand to be -a lot- faster than they currently are.

I have a higher level combat demonstration for Solasta here, and at one point I actually get a triple attack of opportunity from three party members/allies at once, and you can clearly notice my shock when the UI lets me pick if I wanted to spend my reaction with each of my three eligible party members at the same time. Shame the enemies never rolled high enough for the game to let my wizard react with throwing up a Shield spell in this footage, although Greenmage is busted as hell to begin with on a sheer utility level (it's a homebrew wizard archetype with archery fighting style, a few ranger/druid spells, and light armor proficiency!), and my Paladin did get to show off his protection fighting style at the start of the fight.


Then again, this is kind of expected for Solasta. The devs there clearly went all in on having a responsive, clear, and easy to understand user interface for the combat, and it shows. Probably by far the best UI in terms of actual functionality for any cRPG I've ever seen. They did have an interview last week, mostly talking about the recently revealed Dungeon Maker tool. But when the topic inevitably shifted into BG3 and other DnD games, they straight up said that they were focused on the combat for Solasta and did not intend to compete with BG3 in the narrative department.

That's actually a really nice video, Saito... it captures quite a few different elements and showcases a number of things. Hopefully it can put an end to the arguments that want to suppose properly implemented reactions will slow down combat; this is an excellent example of how they don't.

I actually have another video of a lower level fight in Solasta (from an earlier EA phase where they had the controversial homebrew rule where attacks against enemies in dim light imposed disadvantage - this ended up being axed rather quickly) where a boss actually uses Fly, Shield and Counterspell against my party. It also has a brief showcase of using ready action ranged attack to launch arrows at enemies during their turn, when there weren't any viable targets during my own turn before.

(But the boss also tried to 1 VS 1 my Greenmage Wizard and lost horribly because Flaming Sphere is actually a hard counter to his flying shenanigans, which was probably why the enemy AI was banking on trying to break his concentration with Scorching Ray. The one Scorching Ray that did hit rolled too high for my Wizard to counter it with Shield, so the game doesn't bother asking you if you want to cast it there, as it would be essentially wasted anyway.

Also my Wizard having the highest bonus to attack with his bow shots but having the lowest actual rolls seems like it's going to be a recurring theme for me.)

Those hater that hate "gray boxes because looks like mobiles games" , "reaction box appears every god damn times" and "graphics look like shit" not gonna change their mind no matter how many proofs that Bg3 need more improvement.

Funny you mention that first part. I used to be in the 'UI graphics > functionality' camp, up until I realized I'd much rather have a less stylish UI if it meant that I wasn't going to be wasting a lot of time fighting the game's controls instead. And let's be honest with ourselves, probably a good 10% of our play time in BG3 is probably inflated by some UI-related shenanigans.

Jumping in BG3 should really be automatic outside of combat, for instance. But instead I have to press the jump button and spend half a minute fishing around for the correct angle for my character to actually make it across that gap. If party members can make it across automatically just by following you, I don't see why the first character can't automatically jump by just pressing a space on the other side to move towards as well.

Great video.

Yes, combat of Solasta and its functional UI combined with the size, graphics and story would be the game of the century.
I have not played Solasta yet, but I can only repeat what I said before:
BG3 is an absolute masterpiece in terms of graphic, exploration and reactivity.
But UI, party control and some game mechanics are terrible.

It's so nice seeing a "use spell" button to show all cantrips and prepared spells.

It's also great seeing a reaction for Divine Smite and Attack of Opportunity.

I'm genuinely baffled by people who compare these two games.

Solasta is a low budget, grid and turn based strategy game with light roleplay elements

BG3 is a big budget/triple AAA cinematic rpg, albeit with turn based combat

This isn't to disparage one or praise the other. It is just to point out the differences. BG is like Pathfinder, Solasta is like Xcom. That should be blatantly obvious to anyone who has even watched a video of both. They differ vastly in their scope, ambition, core market and most importantly basic design philosophy. Like Pathfinder, all the dice rolling is done behind the scenes and the result is depicted realistically and cinematically in BG3. The dice roll is displayed prominently in Solasta, all the information is available to the player. This isn't just for artistic reasons, it is because both game treat information differently.

In the video linked when smite applies a dialogue box appears. It is addressed to the player. There is no pretence that this is a realistic action by the character. It is an option for the player to choose.

How many times have you seen such a dialogue box in BG? Or any other cinematic rpg for that matter. It's rare, because it breaks immersion. It's very common in strategy or tactical games. RPG's are controlled almost entirely by context dependent menus and hotbars.

I just wonder how people asking for reactions would expect them to be depicted graphically? How do you know when to cast shield if you can't see the dice roll? How do you counterspell when the act of casting a spell and its effect are depicted as almost instantaneous like in BG3? And featherfall, how would that even work as a reaction graphically? In Solasta, if you don't tick the option to have a timer for reactions, the game pauses until you click yes or no. Can you really see Gale, having been pushed off a cliff, frozen in time as he decides whether to cast the spell? That happened to me once with featherfall in Solasta. Time just stopped as I answered the phone.

Genuinely curious. I like both and can appreciate both for the different type of games they clearly are. Anyone that is hoping for BG3 to turn into Solasta, though, is probably in for a sore disappointment.

Gonna leave my idea here from an old thread that i haven't mentioned here before.

What they could also do is implementing reactions the same way they are in tabletop games: by the player getting active and reacting to what the DM is telling him/her. "Wait, I'm going to use my reaction!"

What I mean for the game is that reactions are neither triggered automatically nor does the game hit the breaks and asks you every single time if you would like to use your reaction now.

The round just plays out, all enemies taking their turns, unless you hit a reaction button to pause the game and select an available reaction for what has happened within the last couple of seconds.
Got hit real hard by that goblin? Hit the reaction key and select uncanny dodge for the last damage value you received. The damage then gets retroactively halfed and the rest of the round just continuous to play out until it's your turn again.

I generally agree that comparing both games is kind of an exercise in futility, but it's not exactly what's happening in this thread, so I don't agree with your overall argument. People are largely comparing combat mechanics, which is the one common topic shared across both games, and comparisons are naturally going to happen when both games are supposedly adaptations of the same source material.

You could argue that BG3 shouldn't have stuff like proper reactions because it's supposed to be cinematic and immersive, but that's a flimsy cop-out bottom of the barrel argument at best, because chances are extremely high that's not actually why we don't have things like reactions, ready actions, and dodge actions to begin with. Features are generally cut due to budget constraints or engine limitations, not because 'they don't fit developer vision'. If the latter reasoning actually is at play here, I'm pretty sure we would have heard something about it from Larian by now.

I'm quite sure if one tried justifying that kind of reasoning for the lack of reactions even at the BG3 subreddit, no one would accept that argument, even if that place is infamous for being an echo chamber that generally worships everything Larian and harasses anyone with any kind of criticism without a second thought. Most people would definitely prefer greater choice and control over such a highly subjective concept as 'immersion'.

It's a poor argument when one considers that BG3 combat in itself is already as non-immersive as it gets. Because if one is really trying to pin the lack of certain key combat features on such a vague concept as cinematic immersion, they should also be prepared to try and justify things like freely sneaking around and dropping barrels while all nearby combatants are unable to retaliate, for the sole reason of one player character that has rolled initiative purposefully twiddling their thumbs. Is that supposed to be a legitimate cinematically immersive experience?

(Do you know what actually was a major mechanic brought about by developer vision? Dim light disadvantage in Solasta, which the devs there publicly walked back several months later when they realized that it had an overwhelming effect on the game's encounter balance and actually clashed against the rest of the game's vision of being as faithful to the source material as possible.)

Seconding that by sticking to a turnbase system, BG3 has already prioritized mechanics over cinematics for combat. Turnbase combat is inherently non-immersive - characters taking individual turns is something that fundamentally breaks reality. As it stands, there is nothing done with BG3's combat animation or camera angles that make it any more cinematic than Solasta's. Both companies have chosen to keep combat visuals mostly functional, which is a design choice I agree with (as impressive visuals can quickly wear thin when constantly repeated).


Here's the thing though, we've already seen this implemented in game. Dialogue in BG3 is far more cinematic than combat - yet Larian has implemented a "visual interruption" with the skill check dice rolls.

Every time we meet Astarion and he puts a knife to your throat (which is far more cinematic and specifically animated for that moment), the game waits for you to make a roll while the two of you rock back and forth in an endless struggle.

On top of this, even if we accept that Larian does in fact want to prioritize cinematics, other AAA games that are far more cinematic than BG3 have implemented various forms of "visual interruptions" for years. This is essentially what Quick Time Events are.



Making them similar to the dice roll pop-up that interrupts the dialogue cutscene (but a bit faster to fit the combat), would be a good starting point. The alternative is something similar to the tutorial pop-ups they've just started implementing, if we want a less intrusive implementation.

In terms of triggers for specific spells/questions:

1) Shield - since information is freely available in BG3 (no metagaming issues), the reaction to shield should only prompt when the +5AC can prevent the hit

2) Counterspell - slow down or freeze time as the enemy is doing their incantations, show prompt

3) Feather Fall - slow down or freeze time as character is falling, show prompt

And lastly, there's nothing stopping Larian from keeping the current options too. Instead of simply having "on/off" for reactions, the reaction prompt can be the 3rd option - i.e. "on / off / prompt me".

This way for characters with less reaction options (aka the martials), you can just keep opportunity attack turned on instead of manually clicking each time.


My bigger concern of why we might not get proper reactions is similar to Saito's, in that the current engine doesn't support it. For example, it doesn't seem like the current engine support a "proper pausing" at all. There is currently no way to pause the game at all without quitting. Menus don't do it. Entering turn-base mode outside of combat is still a clunky mix of real-time and turnbase.

Larian people should play Solasta for a few hours to see how D&D combat should work and feel like. After that they can decide if they want to go more in that direction or not. It is their game after all.

But even Solasta has it'a issues. Apart from the really mediocre grahics it is really awkward sometimes. A real clickfest

I think a slow down with something like 5 seconds to react would be really awesome.

Magic missile incoming : cast shield ???
Shove on your ally : cast feather fall ???

It could lead to really dynamic combats in which the player have to be carreful and to act during the ennemy's turns.

Not sure about how.
Not sure "like solasta" is a good solution for BG3.

But this is an incredible opportunity to define what all TB games should be in the future.

Five seconds is a really long time. Two or three would be enough.