Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Gameplay Suggestions

OK. Let me put it this way. I've been a DM for most of my life; like 30 years. When you play D&D, the idea is to put yourself into the world and be the character you have created.

So put yourself in your character's shoes. You wake up from a mind flayer pod after getting that thing put into your skull. Everything is on fire all around you. Are you going to:

a. Run around and explore the entire mind flayer ship, opening every container and searching every body
or
b. Run like crazy to get the heck off that ship and escape from those nasty tentacled freaks?

You might run around and search bodies in your path and maybe a few things you spot while moving around, but you aren't going to painstakingly spend 30 minutes searching every inch of the ship while you are blazing through the Hells. Right?

But you are not actually in the video game world. You can't spot things like a person might be able to spot things if you were really on that ship. This is why I was suggesting a Perception Roll while moving around the place. An Auto-Search feature means that your character is doing the searching for you. They can see things you, the player, can't necessarily spot as you are racing to escape a blazing airship full of demons, imps, mind flayers and devourers.

Imagine how much more fast paced the game would be if you didn't have to search all the boxes and bodies and containers. Instead, you run about playing the game, as you should, focusing on trying to escape a burning mind flayer vessel. Instead, as you are escaping, your character secretly rolls for Perception. All items that have a lower difficulty to your roll are highlighted, indicating that your character has spotted something, while running around, that they feel is important enough to warrant a pause and grab. That makes a whole lot more sense to me and is a lot more exciting than allowing players the ability to roam about the ship without any kind of consequence. It's like you don't have to care that you are in a burning ship in hell. You can leisurely walk around and pick up and search everything. Makes no sense and has no excitement value at all.

Think about games that create tension and excitement. Some monster is chasing you, and if you pause even for a bit, it gains on you. That's the kind of feeling you should have right at the beginning of this game. If you are sifting through boxes and bodies, something should spot you and attack you because you're wasting time. However, if there is no Auto-Search feature, then I am likely going to miss stuff simply because I didn't hover my mouse carefully over every pixel on my screen.

So that's Auto-Search. Now imagine this. You were captured by mind flayers. Did they leave you with standard weapons and equipment? Maybe, but you have no packs and no carrying items at all. How are you carrying around tons of gear when you have maybe two pockets, a belt and nothing else? Makes no sense. Totally destroys the realism of the situation and makes it less exciting.

Instead, I was suggesting that a person has less item-carrying slots so that you feel like you are limited. This creates, again, less of a desire to grab a bunch of stuff because you can't carry it anyway. So what am I going to do? I'm going to grab only that which I need because that's all the time I have and I can't carry much right away anyway.

So that was why I was suggesting limiting inventory. You have practically nothing at the start of the game. So how are you carrying around three crossbows, 3 speed potions, several hand axes and battle axes, a long sword, a shield, scrolls of revivify, etc.? I understand it's a video game, but there is absolutely no limits on it, which destroys immersion and makes the game way too easy.

If I'm running to escape from the mind flayer ship, and I have no bags or pouches, I shouldn't be able to carry around tons of gear. It's practically worthless anyway once you even get to your first merchant. So why allow players and encourage players to destroy the entire pace of the beginning of the game because you allow them to carry unlimited gear.

Instead, only allow a few item slots. This means they can't carry much but their starter gear and maybe a few extra items. This is smart because then players won't waste time searching for items they can't carry anyway. Then, maybe halfway through the prologue, you let them find a pouch or two, allowing them to carry a few more items you might find on the ship. You still leave all the junk and weapons lying around for immersion effect and in case players want to trade up their starter weapons, etc., but you prevent them from wasting their time on stupid gear they don't need and thus slowing down the excitement.

Finally, AFTER you escape from the Mind Flayer ship, then you have them end up on the beach in the morning of the first game day, and you have them find a backpack lying around on the shore which then allows them to carry even more gear. Now they can start playing pack rat if they want because they are now exploring the world map. Even still, if you limit inventory space, this still creates that element of realism, preventing characters from running around with loads that make no sense in an actual RPG. Only in video games do RPG's allow players to carry unlimited equipment without consequence, and even most of those do not allow this. There is usually some semblance of limiting players from senseless inventory management. BG1 and 2, for example, only allowed players 20 inventory slots per character, I believe. Then they had to either drop stuff or shift it around or sell it or whatever. So I'm not asking for something that wasn't already in previous BG games.

Again, it is all about realism and immersion and creating challenge and strategy and excitement. The pace of the game is ruined by senseless item management and playing Hidden Objects. So I'm mainly asking Larian to limit inventory and such so that it will create a better game in terms of really making people feel like they are the characters that they are creating.

And as far as resting is concerned, the D&D 5e rules state that a short rest is at least 1 hour. So it isn't specifically designated that it is exactly 1 hour. However, a short rest should not amount to changing day to night or night to day because it is only about 1 hour of your day. So, imagine you landed on the beach after the prologue and it is literally dawn of a new day. You run around and explore and meet Shadowheart and then fight some things and meet Astarion and Gale and arrive at the ruined crypt and meet the mercenaries and maybe even get all the way through the Dank Crypt. How long did that take you to do all that? Maybe an hour? So in real life, the character spent maybe an hour adventuring. That might be pretty traumatizing since you may have fought undead and met a powerful undead lich, so that might make sense to at that point say, "Hey. I'd like to take a long rest and rest for 8 hours."

Long rests are supposed to be a minimum of 8 hours. Again, it doesn't have to mean exactly 8 hours, so it could be that one long rest at one point is 9 hours while at another time you do exactly 8. Whatever, the point is that 1 or 2 hours of actual adventuring plus 2 short rests plus 1 long rest should be 12 hours, not 24 hours. I should adventure for 2 hours, do 2 short rests and then long rest for 20 hours. That, again, makes the game too easy and ruins immersion. There are no consequences to resting at all. There is no sense of urgency or time at all. You can just rest any time you want and the gobbos never attack the grove and the druids never complete there ritual and the mind flayer parasite never eats your brain. Thus, the entire game's excitement level drops dramatically because you have no sense of realism or urgency or time at all.

So imagine you go with what I'm suggesting. Imagine that you took some serious hits in that first battle with Shadowheart against the devourers. You do need to long rest to recover and replenish your spells. Then you have an issue with the mercenaries and fight them and nearly die. You have to long rest again to recover. Suddenly, you have a dream with your dream girl/guy. The tadpole's at work in your head because you have already wasted 2 days and you haven't even completed the Dank Crypt. Now, all of a sudden, the game is much more serious. You feel as though you really have to get your act together or you are going to turn into a mind flayer.

SO much more exciting. Wouldn't you agree?

Now add food to this. How is it even remotely realistic to eat food when something is trying to eat your face off? It isn't. So food should only replenish health during resting in between adventuring. Not while you're running around all over the place or fighting something.