Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Batter fly for the game!

It's 2021 now and we really need some way other than "greater jump".

I have a vague idea about that:
1. Everyone is flying at a level of 20 feets. Thus it can be achieved by simply add a buff to the charactor
2. Flying creature is immune to melee attack, unless it's from another flying creature
3. Flying creature if immune to difficult terrain and most ground effect( unless it can affect as high as 20 feets.
4. Flying creature moves the same way as "greater jump"

It's not beautiful but already much better than foolish "greater jump"
And it's workable!

1a) Not everyone, some people should be falling. I'd say only races with the ability to fly, flying spells, or features that grant flying should allow a character to fly, if flying is properly implemented. Otherwise the character would fall and thus be a target for something like Feather Fall.
1b) I could have read your explanation wrong and instead you are saying everyone who flies should be always flying at a height of 20 feet in the air, to which again I would say no. Some creatures innately fly like an Imp or Raven, and not every dungeon has a headspace of 20 feet. Furthermore, just setting all flying creatures to 20 feet in the air would be a headache for actually controlling and interacting with things, and would be a headache in combat.
2) No, unless more verticality is added, no. And even then it should only be that they can not be targeted if they are out of the range of a melee attack. Just making flying creatures immune would be hell on balance and honestly kinda unfun. Even in base 5e flying creatures typically will swoop down into melee range for their attacks unless they too have a ranged weapon or spell, but those kinds are usually at a higher level when a party has enough ranged tools to deal with them.
3) That's already a thing I think. I might be remembering the BG3 implementation but I think it matches 5e in that a flying creature is not touching the ground so it is not affected by terrain. And I think flying creatures such as a raven familiar already show to be immune to terrain effects.
4) IDK.

Otherwise, I do think flying only amounting to a unique jump is a little eh, especially since it seems to break opportunity attacks and such. However, I am unsure how it should be properly implemented. Adding an entire 3d space of verticality for characters to rise and fall with flying is likely beyond the scope of this game. But I do want flying to be a bit more than a pseudo jump or teleport, but it could be beyond BG3 for that so I can be content with the current implementation.

Yes it would be cool. Verticality is not so cool if it's only to to higher for the sake of it and to push.

It sounds like first step in right direction ...
But still not quite there. :-/

I can imagine that some creatures like those Harpies on beach could easily become a lot harder to kill.
I mean, the game engine really need to add proper Z axis ... so you could start counting some range for meele attacks, and counting some height you can escape to.

I mean raven familiar, for example, is able to blind your oponents on meele range, quite usefull if you ask me ... how would you manage to work with that if it would be permanently in 20f range?
And i hope that you dont think about free swoop attack and returning to height, since that would make Raven a lot more powerfull against the other familiars. :-/

Or druid as another example ...
In this case, would he simply spend all his movement to get to enemy ... then attack ... and then turn into raven, to completely avoid any meele attack?

Yeah, I agreed they shall can not be targeted by melee attack when they are flying, and attack of oppotunity would still work on them. They don't just stay up 20 feets forever. I said so just to simplify the situation and place the flying creature in a position that not too far from ranged attack and melee attack can't touch it easily. They are still vulnerable ---- especially there are ton's of loots to throw on them.

If the programmer are willing to spend more time on this, they could set different height of flying seperately, from 5 to 30 feets,and a 100 feet for shotters, an untouchable height that none would be able to affect.

For myself, 5-feet-high flying plus 20 feet flying is already good enough. I only hope larian studio would listen to this and do something, anything.

I was thinking about it ...
The main problem i see in this matter, even if they would add Z axis properly ... would be movement, since you cant effectively move in 3D space when you dont have absolutely free camera (and implemented some way to mark the empty space as your goal destination), and we dont have that.

I may find out a gritty, but possibly effective solution, and i would like to know your opinion:
How about implementing "fly high" ability?
(rest of the post was created by google translator ... so if anything seems weird, its not my fault. )

Each flying creature would be given the ability to "fly high" ... which should definitely cost at least half of its movement, and probably either an action or a bonus action point.
If this ability were used, the creature would fly 20f in height, so it would not be possible to attack it at close range, nor would it lose the possibility.
And if she used the ability again, she would return to the ground (with the Druids canceling the flying form in the air, I think he should turn back in a fall and fall and injure himself, in his druid form).

The main idea is that if you want to move a creature in the air, you have no way to control it, because there is nothing to click on in the air ... this way its position would still be controlled by moving on the ground, only with the change that it would itself the creature was much higher.

The "ability" idea could work. As for the z axis problem, it could be much more easier. I can enjoy this game even if the flying monsters have a foolish number(marking their hight) on their heads. We also need token on the floor to show where they are . And maybe that's all we need for EA. Once it's tested, I'm pretty sure everyone would have better ideas

I may sound like a broken record, but flying is well done in Solasta and I wish it would be implemented in BG3 too.

- Not everyone is flying. It requires the fly spell or the creature can fly itself, like a bird for example. Fly spell requires concentration so you may fall to your death if the caster takes damage.
- Flying does not make immune to melee attacks. You can attack any creature in range and flying creatures provoke AoO unless the creature uses disengage.
- Flying creatures do not suffer under ground effects when they fly. Creatures with the ability to fly can still walk and then they are hit by ground effects.
- Fly = big jump looks bad in BG3 and the merge of jump and disengage makes it worse.
- No need that everyone flies at 20 feet (20feet above what?) The advantage of fly is free movement in all 3 dimensions. Imagine you fly over a house, does it make sense that you fly 20 feet above the street, then you jump up and fly 20 feet above the roof and then you jump down and fly 20 feet above the street again? I do not think so. Of course there needs to be an upper limit because the map of a computer game cannot be infinitely high.

Main problem for flying would be selecting an empty space in the air as target, especially without the grid structure of Solastas maps.
I do understand that it is very hard to implement flying properly. It would be nice to have, but Id rather have it not at all than the devs add it in a bad way.

SOLASTA ALARM (go to 0:59 seconds):


Jokes aside -> You summed up the problem quite well ^^ Would be cool but I have no idea whatsoever how flying creatures work in D&D rules so can't help you more beyond my meme.

Those are perfect points!

I honestly dont have problem with big jumps ... as long as we can "fly higer" and our "high" remain unchanged when jumping or moving ...
So, if disengage would be removed from jump ... for myself, this issue would be solved. :-/

Yes ...
But the only way i can think of, to achieve free movement in 3 dimensions, is direct control of flying unit by WASD (and QE buttons for ascent and descent) ... or ofcourse any other 6 keys ... wich would be pretty messy, especialy if Larian want this game for consoles in the future. :-/

Sometimes sence must be sacrificed ...
I would say that in this particular example, Solasta have advantage of being more flat (i didnt play it, so i only concider screenshots and videos i have seen ... and i never seen anything even close to BG3 maps, in this matter).
I still believe that it should be completely doable ...
For example by ascending only "one floor" instead of "20f" by using "fly high" ... or having more options with different high (like whole movement, wich is for human 9m > 3 floors ... 6m > 2 floors ... 3m > 1 floor) and simply add the numbers up for your hight ... and then the same for descending ...
After all there isnt much on hotbar for flying creatures (unless Aarakocra will be implemented) and even then, since we have that ugly popup window, it would only take one slot.

High Cap might proven to be a little problem ofcourse. :-/
At least when you concider that Acrane Tower in Underdark.

Larian already have experience with creating very good flying with WASD. In Divinity 2 they were applying a bit different control scheme when you would turn into the dragon. It may work here as well. Just if you're flying, you have different controls. And it may even be hybrid of those 2 control schemes. Like this:
1. Click on the ground still works as "go there", without change of the flight height.
2. Each time the player presses X-botton for example, the character goes a bit lower.
3. Each time the player presses Z-botton for example, the character goes a bit higher.
4. Click+X means "land there".
5. Click+Z means "hop up as high as possible there".