Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Combat Pauses EVERYTHING

Nearby stealthed characters not being included in combat is really annoying. It forces you to manually move every character in real time to reinitialize the battle personally which is really wonky. And since characters in stealth constantly have to make checks to avoid being seen in real time, you can easily have a scenario where Asterion makes a sneak attack, the enemy turns around and initializes combat, but the rest of the party that was in stealth isn't included in initiative and is still in RT, but also in the enemy's vision cone-meaning they are taking bajillions of checks while you are controlling asterion. Inevitably they fail before you can do anything about it, and they enter combat with their turn wasted since they were spotted in stealth. It's nuts.

There is a lot of wonkiness revolving around how real time and tb interact in BG. Enemies running from several turns away to dogpile into an underway 'turn-based' combat. Traps and environmental effects continuing to trigger multiple times in RT on characters in TB (so you get hit multiple times by fireballs until you die, etc)

It's really frustrating to interact with, and I don't like that the gameplay experience as a whole noticeably seems to suffer from trying to get the multiplayer parts to work-particularly since (at least in my perception of it) the multiplayer aspect seems more oriented around the streaming/twitch sort of audience. IMO the singleplayer experience should not be compromised for that.

Again, what's the big deal if you are playing Multiplayer and one player triggers combat which then forces all players into turn-based mode?

1. How often are you going to play multiplayer and NOT be traveling together in the same group?
2. Even if you do, it makes no sense that player 1 is suddenly in turn-based while player 2 is roaming the map willy nilly. It's a turn-based game, not MMORPG or RTWP. In turn-based, 1 person is in TB, everyone is in TB. Again, you shouldn't be able to run from the toll house to Ethel's lair in a single 6 second round.
3. Not pausing the world when you enter TB messes up a ton of game mechanics.

For the sake of the overall game, they really should just pause everything.

I'd like to repeat the point that BG3 is a party based RPG.

Players being able to freely run around in another area while someone else is in combat shouldn't even be a consideration. This is not an MMO. You are supposed to act as a group of 4. If the party needs to split up momentarily the slow down is acceptable. And it keeps the party in sync.

So +1 to pausing the entire world at a time and preventing exploits and all kinds of nonsense.

Irelevant ...
Once its possible, you need to take it under concideration.

Also ... as mentioned previously ... they dont need to be "on the other side of map" ... people can be just a little behind, just talking with some NPC for example, or exploring for some reason totally unrelated to that combat ...

And once you put whole world into turn based their game just get a lot more tedious (waiting several minutes just to move a rock ... ugh) ​... and they are also litteraly unable to get effectively to that battle. :-/
Yes, this part "makes sence" ... but also "does not sound like fun at all". :-/

And finaly, while some people "dont care" about the others ... wich is kinda sad, but understandable ... to some extent ... note that Larian dont have the luxury of seing "you will not be taken under concideration" ... since for them we are (or we should be) all equal customers, no matter how hardcore DnD fans we are. :P

This is something i see quite often around here ...
Dont tell people how they are "supposed" to play ... nobody likes that. :-/

Important question that i didnt see here is what benefits will certain change bring.

This "system" even if its wonky in many ways, allows people to play separately ... at least to a certain level ... personaly i have no idea why would anyone do that, but if they want to, they can.

Sure, it opens space for possible exploits ... but as we know from the past there are three important points:
1 - Exploits are done willingly ... game will never force you to use exploit, if you dont want to.
2 - Larian concider exploits fun ... bcs when someone finds it, to paraphrase Swen "players feels good for outsmart developers".
3 - Its impossible to make game unexploitable.

Now what would this change bring ...
It would make game for other people more tedious, it will punish whole party for misstakes of their comrades no matter how far, it will chain us to our computers for whole session (i mean can you imagine that somebody will go AFK when whole world is on turn based mode? ).
Sory, but that dont seem too positive to me. :-/

I know about one.

---

Personaly i like the idea of combat bubble ...

I mean not every character needs to go "to combat" ... that would be ridiculous and often contraproductive ... lets call it rather turn-based bubble with some characters in combat.

Question here is how big this bubble should be ...
Personaly i believe that reach that is allready there allowing us to escape from battle, should also be limit for turn-based world.

Second, and possibly much more important question then would be if this is even technicaly possible for Larian ... right now it dont seem that game is even able to process combat and turn based mode at same time. :-/

Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. It is relevant, even if you think mine is not - which it is because it's my opinion. :p You're entitled to yours and I'm entitled to mine.

The current mechanic would be fine with me if it didn't break so many other mechanics.

1. Able to travel from one end of the board to another in a single 6 second round because 1 character is engaged in combat.
2. Able to steal countless items while enemies in a single round of combat. Did this in various places.
3. Able to kill enemies of untold power if your stealth is high enough to constantly shoot enemies from outside of detection range while they are stuck in a single round of combat. I killed the bulette before using this method, and the spider Matriarch. They never got in a single attack.
4. Characters get stuck in combat without you even realizing it or in conversations. There have been times when I have cleared out the entire Grove having conversations over and over again only to realize one of my characters is stuck in a conversation with somebody in the Grove because they thought that person was stealing or something. Not just the Grove either. Other places too like the underdark. One character is stuck in a conversation or in combat while the rest of the party is roaming everywhere else.
5. Able to use the fact that frozen enemies can't stop you to position other characters in better positions they wouldn't normally be able to get in simply because the enemies are locked in a single round of combat.
6. And the worst part? Many times I accidentally exploit the mechanic before realizing I'm exploiting it... Or that it's happening.

I actually could go on, but I won't right now. Got stuff to do.

Bottom line is, too many things are broken simply because they don't pause the world for the few players who want to, for some reason, play this game by splitting up and NOT adventuring together. Why the flip play the game together only to not play the game together and separate and do different parts of the story?

And I totally disagree. Just because someone wants to play the game a certain way doesn't always mean it should be allowed. If my play style is the minority, I would expect them to ignore my play style, not try to adapt the entire game to try to please everybody no matter how small the number of people who want a certain play style.

But who knows, maybe I AM in the minority.

For what it's worth, I totally agree that pausing the world would be the way to go. If my party decides to split up, then that's how it goes. You spend your rounds dashing to the rest if you're close enough, or you take a break and watch the rest of your party battle.

if your party separates in a D&D campaign, one half doesn't get to spend 6 months of time adventuring and exploring while the other half has one 10 minute battle.

The bitching about this game being co-op infuriates me. From what I can find, this is literally the ONLY current turn based fantasy rpg in the world. We've been through DOS and through DOS2 numerous times. Been through BG3 EA even more. Searched and searched for something else and there's nothing. So you want Larian to nix arguably the most clear cut feature of this game that sets it apart from all others. ALL others. ??? Really? Just so your personal gameplay is a bit more fine tuned to your liking? (Tuco, et. al.)

Once again you read it wrong, or not whole ... :-/
You asked about how often situation happened ... i claimed that the frequency of the situation is not relevant.

Not even a single word about any opinion. -_-
Sigh ...

1 > Exploit.
2 > Exploit.
3 > Exploit.
4 > This one is indeed kinda problematic ... but it sounds more like matter of game dont starting cutscene, if someone interact with your party member.
5 > Exploit.
6 > Unawareness of player is hardly fault of "broken mechanic".

As we said earlier ... exploits are optional, that can hardly be called "broken mechanic" ...
Its more like player purposely bypassing mechanic to get better outcome regardless of everything else.

Doesnt matter really ...
I mean the party who will go separated for "reason A" ... will not be any less separated than another party that will get separated for "reason B".



Well ...
If they would lead by this rule, no changes would be made since patch 1 ... since "majority" was silent ... and therefore satisfied.

We could know ... if you would add poll. :P

Extending the combat radius by another 18m / 60ft. and forcing undetected characters to enter combat would go a long way into fixing the exploits.

It wouldn't stop you from calling instant reinforcements from anywhere in the world though, including other planes of existence.

In short because most players won't be able to design fun experience for themselves. If they were, there would be no need for games and game designers, and a game engine, like Unity would suffice.


I said it many times but I will say it again: I don't pay £50 for a game, to then have to sit down and design it. I expect it to be a designed for me, with a ruleset that works and is fun to play. Exploits as they are in BG3 are hardly exploits they are broken mechanics. Stealth in BG3 is broken. It doesn't work. One either doesn't use it, or will find that it trivilizes combat.

Of course, Larian may believe that creating broken, exploitative mechanics is fun, and there we can just agree to disagree, and I will be upstet that they get to handle IP that I like very much and hopefully avoid their titles in the future.

That is the best part ...
They dont need to "design" anything, its all there ... designed and prepared, all they need to do is just follow the rules.
Or even better ... dont search for ways to bypass the rules.

Cute ...
But those other people payd exactly the same £50 ... and your money is not supperior to theirs, so ...

Dunno ... one old quote says: Democracy works only then, when nobody is satisfied.

And everyone will be happy ...

Except that's not the case. Transition from exploration phase into combat is a core mechanic and a key rule - and at this moment it has a lot of issues and imbalances. No one is exploiting bugs, it's just that the ruleset set in the game doesn't work very well.


Sure, that's I prefer to discuss mechanics from the perspective of how they serve the game, what playstyles they encourage and if they benefit or detract from other parts of the game, how balanced certain tactics are, rather then throwing "me like/me don't like".

A compromise is that the entire world freezes when combat starts, except players can finish dialogue/trading they've already initiated. And on their turn, they can teleport to the fight. This takes up their entire turn, having them effectively enter combat with a 1-turn penalty.

This is mildly unimmersive, sure, but emphasis on the "mildly." Importantly, it doesn't significantly affect game balance like how teleportal fast travel, unlimited long resting, and random encounters would. And it has a huge benefit for multiplayer. Imagine playing through DOS2 where you always had to play with your party, following the leader - it'd be so boring. This compromise is basically a QoL solution, allowing players to parallelize grunt work like trading/turning in quests/looting/exploring without too large of a combat penalty, for a small tradeoff in immersion (which, let's be honest, is already low enough: this won't make it that much worse).

Let me put it like this. Here's a Math Problem for you to solve:

I'm sitting down with a group of 4 players and we're playing D&D. The players are exploring a dungeon. They decide to split up to cover more ground. Players 1 and 2 go off together. Players 3 and 4 go off together.

Suddenly, Players 3 and 4 enter a chamber and get into a fight with a hive of spiders. Players 1 and 2 are approximately 600 feet away in a totally different area of the dungeon. If Players 1 and 2 can only run 60 feet per round, how many rounds will it take them to get to their party members 3 and 4?

Pst. Answer: 10 rounds.

Can I tell you? This is a moment for excitement. Players 3 and 4 are stuck in a huge fight with a hive of spiders. They're running in the direction of Players 1 and 2, and they are running round after round for their lives while a host of spiders chases them. Meanwhile, Players 1 and 2 are desperately trying to regroup with them round after round to try to back them up. If both groups run towards one another, they could reach one another in 5 rounds. Each round is blood pumping for at any point in time more enemies could pop out at either group to add more enemies to the mix. Also, if even one of the players, 3 or 4, rolled low on initiative, it may be that spiders get to run up to them and attack each round, and they either have to Disengage each round to avoid AOO or they have to risk AOO and Dash each round (because the spiders can also Dash and catch up each round). Will Players 1 and 2 reach them in time?

This is how splitting up should work. It shouldn't be that Players 3 and 4 get into a huge fight and players 1 and 2 can sell equipment, take a nap, have some convos, explore the rest of the dungeon, steal everything from enemies, etc. HECK no! They should be thrown into turn-based combat as well, and they should come running to the aid of their party members 1 round at a time so that they don't just randomly show up after 1 round of combat and partake in it when they were 600 feet away. The whole point of scenarios like that are that it is a race to try to go save your friends before they get caught and die.

I can't tell you how many exciting sessions I've played out with scenarios like this. It's like, "Holy Shoot! Jon and Anne are in serious Poop! We can't get to them fast enough. Do we have any haste potions we could use or spells to get us there faster? ANYTHING!!!"

I'm just saying, the world should freeze. If someone's in a conversation with someone else, then yes, their conversation should finish and then they're thrown into combat, but otherwise, the world should pause and people should be in Turn-Based mode. The only exempt thing that I can think of would be dialogue, and even when it is finished, they shouldn't just teleport to the battlefield. They should just pop into Turn-Based mode immediately and have to move and do round after round in initiative order like anyone else. So if they were trading with Arun at the Grove and their party is in the Goblin Camp, they should have to spend round after round running to get to the nearest Waypoint so they can fast travel to the Goblin Camp Waypoint and then run turn after turn to where their companions are.

I'm not sure what are you even trying to argue about.
Larian IS NOT going to give up on that type of "convenience" feature and no amount of crying and moaning is ever going to change that.

There are two options here: suck it up as it is or find a compromise that they MAY be willing to consider because it doesn't disrupt a feature that they've been adamant about wanting in their games ("competitive co-op" and the freedom for each player to go on their own separate way).

On the other hand, the insistence of having mandatory engagement in the initiative queue for anyone inside a certain range is a lot more reasonable, because it's contextual: if you are far enough, feel free to mind your own business, if you get close, stealth or not, you are sucked into the turn-based mode.
And you can push this last point because the only objection from a design standpoint there would be "What if my companion started shit and I want no part in it?" to which we can answer "Well, tough luck, sucker. Look for better company next time".
If I go around with a friend who starts throwing haymakers to passing people, I can bet my sorry ass that I'll be involved in a brawl/street fight even if I wanted no part in it".

Its odd they wanna keep these 90s forums up. These are always gonna be full of criticism, opinions, venting, suggestions, expectations, hype etc. They could go with commercial communication like YouTube or Social Media but they dont want to. I would have changed the way game industry communicate like 10+ year ago. They just wanna keep the troll boat floating.

In a movie this would be exciting, sure. And if you've had countless such tabletop experiences, then I'm glad for you. But in my experiences as a player and those of fellow players/those I've DM'd? Party members being 10 rounds away almost always just sucks. Usually they won't be able to reach the combat before the enemy or their other party members die, so effectively these 2 players are forced to watch everyone else play for the entire combat. Which can last from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on how slow the players/DM are. Even 4 rounds away is on the edge of being enjoyable - that's still a long time to be not actively participating in the combat.

At least in tabletop the DM could make something up on the fly and have monsters simultaneously attack the far-away party members, for a tense split party fight. This can't be done in BG3 however, and being forced to take my turns because the game put me in combat even though I'm a lightyear away? Nah.

Wooooooow!

Who's crying and moaning? It's a suggestion. The Devs can take it or leave it. If they leave it, whatever. That's their choice. I respect that. Who knows what they'll truly like? Maybe we'll persuade them. Maybe no one will. I figure I've about as much a shot at it as anyone. So why not throw it out there? If enough people do, maybe they'll actually listen. Pigs might fly, but you never know.

I'm not opposed to the range thing entirely. I just think freezing the world is better, because, you know, every reason I gave already.

And what the heck? Who's trolling? I didn't see anyone trolling here. Hmmm. Though someone does seem to be criticizing the posts of others as if trying to get people upset, as if trolling.

You know... I've had a good group of players for awhile. I forgot how sucky some can be. They trigger a no-win fight and then just stay there and die while others race to try to save them. That does suck! I guess, when I think about it, I am reminded of some nasty play sessions with obnoxious players constantly doing crap to agitate others.

Well, I can see this argument to a certain degree, but how much does this actually happen, I wonder. I mean, how often are people going to play BG3 multiplayer and separate? Again, what's the point of playing a video game RPG with someone if you are not going to actually play together? And, should single player suffer because of it?

Laws of nature have ben broken ...
I agree with Tuco, completely.