Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian! Please stop punishing good roleplaying

And that is exactly my point. If you want the game to go from good to EXCELLENT, you need to drive the narrative. You need to reward players for driving harder and challenging themselves, not the opposite. The game, right now, rewards me more if I don't drive towards the goal. If I carefully move around the map, searching every pixel, I find better weapons, armor, magic items, books, tomes, etc. that give me more context and story. If I rest a lot, I get more dialogue and character development.

I'm saying that Larian needs to do the opposite to make the game an incredible experience. Drive players to the helm of the mind flayer ship.

MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

This is how the game should be to make it a fully exciting and incredibly intense experience instead of just a nice, casual game:

I wake up after escaping the pod. I realize there's nothing around me to endanger me at least in the immediate future. However, I can hear combat outside. Everything is on fire. My heart is pounding. Now's my chance to escape if I seize the opportunity. I glance around the room. (Hidden Perception check. I succeed in rolling a 14, though the game doesn't tell me this. All items nearby that have a difficulty of 14 or lower are highlighted that are of any worth at all. Items like spoons, knives, forks, plates, food are not highlighted. Basically, my character is just looking for weapons and armor and anything that might help them escape like potions and explosive items.) I rush to these highlighted objects and grab them and bolt for the door. I don't waste any additional time trying to search every nook and cranny because the room is on fire and the mind flayers could return at any moment.

But let's say someone starts to actually search the room through all the other stuff Larian has planted around the room. Suddenly, the wall explodes and a mind flayer comes crashing into the room. He's not dead. Demons also drop in, battling with the mind flayer. One of them starts moving in my direction but doesn't quite reach me. The game instructs me that fleeing is a thing, using Tutorial to indicate that you should not fight this battle. You aren't going to win. So you hit the flee button and leave the room.

You're in the next room. Another hidden Perception check. You roll a 9. Only items with 9 or lower difficulty are highlighted and only if they are weapons or equipment that can be useful to escape or are story items, etc. I grab them and hear, "We are hear. We are trapped. Help us!" So naturally I go to try to see if I can help someone else escape, because I'm a good character in this playthrough. So I rush to the devourer and interact with it. Another Perception check. The two boxes nearby are highlighted. Something good inside that might be worth a look. I rush to them and grab them. I drop back down and start to explore more of the items in the room. Larian allows this for only a few minutes. Then, all of a sudden, the door from the chamber you had just been in is opened, and demons enter the chamber. At this point, you can either fight and die or run again out the flaming doorway to escape the inside of the ship. An explosion as you exit seals off the passage behind you. At least for now you've escaped from the demons.

You reach Lae'zel and fight the imps and reach the top of the ship. You start to explore. Boom! A dragon lands on the deck near you and begins to battle the imps and thralls on the ship. Now, you can either hang around and search bodies or bolt. If you hang around, again Larian gives you maybe a moment or two, but if you don't move your butt the dragon suddenly shoots flames near you. Enough to give you a warning. Get your butt in gear or you're going to be dragonfodder. You race to the next level up to escape the raging dragon. You get into the area where Shadowheart is.

This scene, I would expect Larian to allow more time to interact and explore. You are trying to save Shadowheart and so forth. Therefore, allow players maybe 5 minutes before, again, something like imps in greater numbers appear to attack you. After all, Lae'zel already warns you to leave Shadowheart because you are going to die if you don't, so why not make it so that if you don't just leave her you will actually potentially die? Wouldn't that make the situation more intense and exciting? If you explore around for more than a few minutes you might get attacked by even greater numbers of enemies?

So you flee again and dart into the next chamber. Let's add a small cutscene where Lae'zel does something to seal the entrance behind you, thus keeping out the imps that were chasing you. You heal and rush into the helm. Then the helm scene plays out like it does now, because they've already got something like this in place where demons show up if you're taking too long.

Finally, you are on the beach, and a new day has started. Here, you might take a bit more time to adjust to your environment and explore a bit. This is natural and makes sense. Here you might pick up items you think you might need for the future including fish that might spoil soon. You just escaped from the Hells. You're freaking out because you're infected with a mind flayer parasite and are told you might turn into one. So you would naturally want to hunt for supplies that might help you survive as long as possible. You meet Shadowheart and fight devourers.

Now, at this point, the game suggests and teaches you about long rests. That's fine except that at this point the game should warn you that long resting has consequences. Time progresses from day to night whenever you long rest, and certain events are time sensitive. So only use long rest when necessary.

Right there, now I know that if I long rest things could go really bad for me. I realize I'm half dead, so I only short rest. That makes logical sense to be able to do every 8 hours without explaining to people that an hour just went by. We don't need time to be that sensitive that if you short rest you'll miss something. So I short rest and move on. Still Day 1. I meet Astarion, Gale and reach the Dank Crypt. I convince the mercs outside to leave me alone and I make my way inside. After fighting Marli and Barton and the gang, I am now almost dead again and have expended all my spell slots. Hmmm. Long rest seems reasonable now. So I rest for 8 hours just inside the Dank Crypt.

I have no problem with the mechanic that you just teleport to the mysterious camp that has no real place on the map. All it means is that the adventurers wandered about searching for a campsite to call their own and it took some time to find and they finally found it. Great. You have a campfire scene and trigger the first camp dialogues. Larian allows you to trigger all the dialogues that should have been triggered up until this point so that you get the Gale Mirror Image dialogue and Shadowheart's I'm not sure this is such a good idea dialogue. These make sense at the first camp. I rest. 8 hours goes by. Let's say they don't even change it to night. Big deal. Only 8 hours went by, so it could still be daylight out. I'm good with that. However, the point is that it is still Day 1.

So I complete the Dank Crypt after my first long rest of 8 hours. I short rest. Still doing good. I meet Lae'zel and fight the goblin fight outside the Druid's Grove. With them defeated, I maybe short rest, move about the grove, talk to a bunch of people, fight some harpies, etc. I long rest again. Now the first day ends and I have my second set of campside dialogues. Gale tells me to Go to Hell, etc. Because I even went through the Druid's Grove, I trigger Raphael too. How exciting! All that happened in just 1 day. Day 1 is now complete and I didn't even miss out on any dialogue. Along the way, I found all sorts of useful things with my hidden Perception rolls not slowing the game down by manually searching every little crack and barrel. I could have explored manually more deeply if I really wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything, but that is my gamer's choice at this point. I have no problem with that kind of thing if that's what a gamer wants to do and the story isn't driving you to rush so much that you can't search things. I could see people taking their time through the Dank Crypt searching all the nooks and crannies searching for diamonds in the rough that could even potentially help you with your situation.

Day 2 begins. I explore outside the Grove. I meet Ed and his siblings, Scratch, and wander my way into Blighted Village. Oh man! The battle with the goblins has left me almost dead with no spells. I need to long rest. 8 hours later, I'm back in Blighted Village exploring around. I meet more goblins and need a short rest after. Still good with this. I explore some more, find the spider's lair, and curiosity gets the better of me. Halfway through, I'm nearly dead. I didn't even reach the matriarch. I need another long rest. Dang! Day 2 is over now. Astarion tries to bite me in the night. I find out he's a vampire. Dang! Incredible discovery for Day 2. Back to the spiders' lair. I fight the boss fight. Almost die. Dang! I need to long rest again and do so. 8 hours go by. Still Day 3. I head south into the bog and meet the hag. I discover she's a hag and that someone is in trouble. I can't help myself. I have to do something to save Mayrina.

Now, here again, timing should come into play. I fight the Red Caps and defeat them. I should now have a limited time to get my butt down into the hag's lair to save Mayrina or it is too late. This should be like a Final Fantasy 7 prologue moment. I have thirty minutes on the clock to get my butt into her lair and fight her or Mayrina is shipped off to Hag's school in Baldur's Gate, or whatever. I might spend some of that time looking for lotions and potions I might need to recover from the Red Cap fight and the future fight against the adventurers that are being controlled by the hag, and maybe one of those potions could give me spell slot recovery so I can fully replenish my characters for the really nasty hag fight that is to come. Instead of making us do something like rest 8 hours before we do the final hag fight, which is totally unbelievable, let me find a set of 4 potions that gives my characters full health and spell slots back. Man! That hag can work miracles!

I fight the hag, she nearly wipes me out completely. We barely beat her, like I did in the first playthrough, with only 1 person left on their feet and by shoving the real hag into a bottomless pit. Now I need another long rest for sure after finishing with Mayrina. Man! That was intense and I barely made it. So I long rest. End of Day 3.

That night, at camp, a Tiefling is sent to me by Zevlor. "Goblins have been seen at their camps gearing up for an invasion. We suspect it may only be another day or two before they attack us. The druid's have said that they will give us until the goblins begin to march towards the grove before they are going to complete the ritual. Please do something before it's too late." My character then thinks in game, "Dang! I've wasted too much time already. I need to hurry if I'm going to save the grove." I, the player, am now cued in that I need to get back to the original main quest before it is too late. The next morning, I explore the rest of the swamp, just because I can't help myself, I find Kahga's deception and bring it back to the grove. Good gameplay! Now, I've dethroned Kahga and spared the Tieflings from at least getting kicked out of the grove when the goblins show up, if I don't make it in time to kill the leaders.

However, I'm also back to needing a long rest to recover. So 8 hours goes by. I move on towards the goblin camp. Ah, but during camp during that long rest Lae'zel approaches me. "You're wasting too much time. We know where the creche is. If you don't take me to the creche today, I'm going to leave your party." Now you have a tough choice. Either get your butt to the Githyanki before you long rest again or you'll lose Lae'zel forever as a party member. I hurry north instead of towards the gobbo camp. Lae'zel, I decide, is more important to keep around and I still have a few more days to get to the gobbos. I head north and west, encounter the Flaming Fists and Zhents. Oh crap! I need another long rest. I don't want to lose Lae'zel. So I risk it to get to the Gith just using potions and short rests to heal. I have no spell slots anymore, but at least I'm full health.

I reach the Githyanki, they betray us. 3 out of the 4 party members die, but 1 escapes back to camp using the flee feature. Well, now I have to spend money on the currently useless lich guy in order to resurrect my fellow party members. Now the lich guy has more value in the game. I don't have enough gold. Oh well, guess I can only resurrect 1. Let's say Astarion and Wyll and Lae'zel all died in the encounter. Guess I'll resurrect Lae'zel and just add Gale and Shadowheart to the party. Later I can resurrect the other two, but I'll need more gold for that.

Now I can rest another 8 hours, but if I do I will never get the item I need to find the Githyanki creche. Dang! Another tough choice. If I sleep, the Gith will be long gone by then. If I hurry back to the spot, I can still fight them and maybe kill them and get the item. Decisions! Decisions!

I go back, fight them, get the creche location and I'm golden. Now I can sell items, get enough money and resurrect Astarion and Wyll. Long rest means another day is gone, but at least I keep Lae'zel. End of Day 4. Back on the road, I spot the dead bodies and I've agreed to help the Zhents so I go looking for their shipment. I battle gnolls and Tyrites to save the Tiefling hunter. I need another long rest. 8 hours. Half of Day 5 is almost over already. At camp, Wyll approaches. He's angry. "Why do we keep wasting our time when the goblins are about to attack the grove and kill all the tieflings? If you don't get to the goblin camp tonight, I'm leaving the party and will try to do it myself." So again, I know that I need to beat the goblin camp before my next long rest or I'll lose Wyll. Good thing, I've got nothing left to do now but head towards the goblin camp. I make my way in, fight some gobbos, and get to Gut. After battling with her, I'm almost dead and need another long rest. I decide Wyll isn't worth it. I can't push on. I long rest, returning to camp. Day 5 ends. Wyll departs in the morning. It is Day 6 now. When I wake up and find Wyll gone, a Tiefling approaches. "It is clear the goblins are going to attack at dusk. If you're going to kill the leaders, you'd better do so now!"

So I rush back only to find that the entire goblin camp is hostile towards me because I killed their priestess and then went and rested for 8 hours. They discovered her dead body and figured out it was me and my companions. Who else would it have been? The battle is too fierce just to get into the base. I lose most of my team gain and am forced to flee. I return to camp and resurrect the fallen. No choice. I need to long rest again. A Tiefling is there when I wake. "The Goblins are coming! If you are going to help us, you have to come to the grove now."

The Astarion says, "You know, we could really use this opportunity to sneak into the base camp to find this Halsin fellow. Leave the Tieflings and Druids to die. Who cares? If we don't rescue Halsin...well. He's our last chance for a cure right now. Right?"

Another tough choice for the player to make. How exciting! I can either sneak into the goblin camp easier while the goblins are all fighting Tieflings and Druids, who should fight as a united group if I proved Kahga is evil, or I can help the Tieflings and Druids fight off the goblins. What do I do?


Sigh. So, hopefully you see my point. This is a much more exciting story than what Larian is giving us right now. Add consequences to slow actions and bad things happen. Keep the pace moving and you are rewarded by having good things happen. If you move fast enough, you save the Tieflings and Druids, or whatever. It is a reward for good roleplaying. Likewise, finding Kahga's deceptions and dethroning her should reward me with NOT having Tieflings kicked out and the ritual complete even if the goblins come and attack. I should also be rewarded for this by having the Druids actually helping defend the grove against the goblins at the gate. Consequences for bad roleplaying and rewards for good roleplaying create incentive to play the game good and makes the game more meaningful and intense and exciting. If I know that I only have a few days to do something or people are going to die, I'm going to feel the tension and stress, and I'm going to try to prioritize my goals a whole lot more. What we have now is too forgiving. It lacks tension and excitement because there is no negative side effects.