Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback We need to talk about Reactions

I think that would be ideal. I can definitely picture how that could be made to look quite clean if done well. I think they could also do some other stuff in terms of how the prompt is displayed on screen to make it much less intrusive and more intuitive/fast than perhaps some would imagine. It also has the benefit of indulging a bit of the action game influence with more active engagement during enemy turns.

A frequent complaint about BG3 combat has been that it is kind of slow, and fears about it becoming even slower are often a motivating argument behind not developing something for this game. Even where the concepts might seem promising, or have a precedent from the earlier BG games or from D&D sourcebooks -the apprehension remains and isn't totally unwarranted given what we've seen so far. The number of enemies to party members ratio tilts heavily towards the enemies here, and there are many set piece combats where "friendly allies" are added into the mix too, which can make the whole thing feel even more protracted. A proper reactions system would alleviate that feeling somewhat, because there would be more opportunities for active engagement on the enemies turns, as opposed to just spectating for long periods.

I have yet to play this game in any form of MP or Co-Op, but I'd imagine that in a fight with a dozen or more participants, and if the PC was only controlling one of them, many fights would feel like the 'everyone else but me' show. Whereas the slowdown to terminus thing would perhaps incentivize players to be extra attentive, instead of tuning out during combat. Like that never really happens on the table top, the tuning out I mean. Once the battle is joined everyone is generally hyper focused, cause that's when the stakes are highest. In this game though, you can almost phone it in (especially the way saves work here at any point) so that might be another reason to really invest in the Reactions concept, instead of running away from it.

Quick Slo Mo might sound like a contradiction, but I can totally see it working for something like this. And again, if someone doesn't like the way that feels, they could default to auto, or turn it off entirely, or do a very tight window before the chance disappears like the 3 second idea. It also doesn't have to actually be a slow motion animation per se, but just an extra bit of animation that signals a Reaction capable situation. You know, like perhaps the enemy does a brief flamboyant gesture with an extra bit of audio to key off, or the PC does the same similar to what the OP described in his counterspell example. So instead of being an actual pause, its just a more elaborate and cool looking extension of the standard animations.

I think what they should really try to avoid is doing this anything like a mini-cutscene animation, or like a crit zoom, or where the camera is constantly taken away from the player's control to try and be all extra flashy about it. I also don't think they should present Reactions like a dialog prompt in the middle of the screen, or as a dramatic dice rolling animation thing that's all in our faces. Better if it remain down by the main GUI controls near the bottom of the screen, but just highlight while the slowdown to terminus thing is going on. The animation while this all occurs should have a seamless flow.

In my experience with other table top dice games that have been translated into computer dice games, it is always best to have 3 options there too: display animated dice, quick dice, or hidden dice where only the results are shown. This also works better when it is presented not in a separate window, or in the middle of the screen, but rather somewhere off to the side or the bottom where it's less intrusive. I think people appreciate the transparency of dice games, but that doesn't mean they always want to have the game being slowed down by the dice rolling flavor. The varying attitudes towards Reactions will probably be pretty similar to the varying attitudes towards dice. Sometimes people may want to see the full spectacle, other times perhaps not. Better to have all that stuff be more a preference that can be quickly toggled on the fly from the settings. Anyhow, I like the idea quite a lot. I think the concept presented in Solasta is pretty cool, but it could be made to look much cleaner and feel less like a break in the action, but rather something that enhances it. Hopefully they do something more with Reactions than what we've seen thus far. I also still think a general pause function would be really quite helpful. The game's combat system doesn't have to be built entirely around it, but it should still exist.