Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Artificial Stupidity?

Yeah, the game breaks way too easily, which is precisely why I'm not particularly fine with the principle either.

Here's the thing: players will ALWAYS find the vulnerability in your systems, the crack on the wall, the abusable weak point, the workaround to bypass the obstacle.
This is why the designer should ideally build his system to be as robust as reasonably possible, not purposefully add more vulnerabilities or ignore the ones that could easily be addressed under the assumption that breaking the game is a fucking blast.

Im suprised that Madscientist didnt reply here yet ... this should be his field of expertise. O_o

Sorry, but I did not program the AI of BG3.

Maybe Swens cat did

*** i do not know coding, but having watched video on how some games do their AI, here is my guess.


Do not think its complex, AI is often skimped out on by games because making proper Ai requires millions of dollars. If i had to guess how Larian does there Ai, it is the following.

1) check for player in PC cone of vision, once that happens set =1

2) roll a 1d20 for initiative, set movement order

3) enemy: roll variable: a,b,c,d [each pc]: move to hostile

4) roll a hit: 1/ all enemy abilities

5) roll a variable: e,f,g [shove, disengage, or bonus action]

6) turn done.

It would explain why the AI only targets the player it sees first, and any pc that attack from stealth will always roll a d1 for enemies and will never get targeted by enemies that already rolled an initiative roll. If my guess is correct, larian could fix this, by forcing a re-roll of initiative once a new PC joins combat instead of doing it as it is now.

Maybe also give Ai a perception roll after every stage 2, and change standing abilities [cloud of daggers, surfaces etc] as environment damage so that the AI can detect it with a perception check and avoid it.

If anything Larian "dumbed down" the AI compared to it's initial behaviour from release. At least in my experience.

They attack the targets closest to them ...after several patches. Initially they would always go for lowest hp/ mages.
Also they seem to change target quite often. If anything at no point I think Larian's AI suffers from lack of intelligence or capability to understand what's happening on the battlefield( If an archer decides to take the dash action, eat an opportunity attack to it's face only to run across the room because he recognized he has a high chance of shoving someone to his death it means they know very well what's happening. They can even ignore risk to get the higher"reward").

In the initial release two years ago on some rare occasions the AI was spending a long time (10-20 seconds ) to figure out an action. Every time it took them super long to decide they ended up doing some insane one turn party wipe combo.

So don't worry about that. Once in combat the AI struggles to find a way to NOT kill your entire party. That's his main issue. They just struggle to realize when they actually are in combat if hit by AOE attacks. Surprisingly.
Now that I mentioned it....I think it makes sense. The source of AOE attacks is the attack itself not the caster I guess. Which might explain why " Cloud of daggers(Or whaterver is the sorcerer AOE called) doesn't proc combat as shown in the recording.

Though I love turn base...Its SO EASY to abuse and really not fun doing so. Then its rinse and repeat. Super structured. No chaos.

Heres why I love the chaotic nature of RtWp <real time with pause>. Everything single battles is NEVER the same. There is always this little A SHIT moment. And abusing the system feels actually quite fun and rewarding because of all the crazy variations that can happen.

So...would love to see a little more ChAOS in that turn base system. Some random flukes that spice things up. Make a D100 roles for enemies which gives specific Buffs/Nerfs assigned to each number when battle starts.
Rolls very low on D100 the enemy suddenly changes sides! Or gets half stats...Roll high and they get an elite status or more items etc...
Just SOMETHING to make battles more exciting and unique to prevent rinse and repeat abuse.

A great mod that does this to a smaller effect for DOS2 is the Enemy upgrade mod:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1594606989

In DOS2 during most battles I was just spamming the same spell rotation for Fane, basically killing/weaking most creatures on that first turn. That MOD REALLY helped balancing things out and forcing me to play a game of chest. Some creatures were suddenly immune to some effects, had counters etc...

I would like to see a bit of randomness in BG3 encounters. It's all a bit too scripted and static. Surprise me with Goblin reinforcements from the rear mid-combat. Toss in some Bugbears or an Ogre to spice up the Goblin encounters. Or Drow. Oh that's right there is no night time, hence no night time combat, ever. 😤

Yeah, DOS1 Tactician did this.

Additional enemies and surprises in the middle of a fight. Random adds and events.

Ok that's nice. But were the reinforcements scripted or really random? If those are also scripted it degenerates into metagaming again where the best "tactic" is to have a Cloud of Daggers waiting over the spawn point.

I only played it once in Tactician, so I can't say which repeats. I expected more from DOS2 but it was so lazy.

It had most of what you mentioned: reinforcement coming from behind, middle of combat adds, things popping up in battle, some enemies having on-death effects.

How cool would it be to think you've finished a battle in BG3 and have limited resources for additional adds?


I just hope Tactician is fulfilling of difficulty. Larian games are not hard once you figure out the formula. You don't even have to cheese.

I was thiking about this topic a lot ...

Seems kinda odd bcs in my opinion OP is clearly exploiting this fight, knowingly, purposefully and intentionaly ... and then is complaining about it. O_o

Question i would like to ask is a little harder tho:
What should those Ogres do? O_o
I mean the house is not from destructible models obviously, and they cant really climb the ladder ... they could probably move from that AoE to prevent futher damage, but what would that achieve? You would simply cast the same spell two steppes aside ... AI is basicaly just saving your time.

What should they do?

The way I know the game, one of them throws the other one on the roof. The other one first takes the ladders and throws them at you, then he throws the second one up.

How high are your chances to shove an ogre down when they can see you?

Did somebody try to throw a party member at an enemy?

Having stuff like Ogres recognising AoE or hiding in a spot from which one can't target them from the roof would be solutions, but probably a complicated and not necessary one. I think the problem can be solved by two easier but more universaly useful solutions.

1) Better map design
Is impossible for Ogres to reach you if you stand on the roof? (I honestly don't know) If that is the case, then the map should be modified - there shouldn't be a place unreachable for a character. A longer path? Sure, but not a situation in which a player can tickle enemy to death from a safe distance. Naturally, if it is not in already, creatures attacked should go to the last spotted location of the attacked and perform a search for him - that should keep them away from stationary damaging AoE and make it a challenge for the attacker to remain hidden for too long.

2) Better system design
If, on the other hand, the Ogres have ranged attacks and are meant to use them to fight attackers on the higher ground - it's been argued before that like in 5e hide action should be full action. That way, the player cant hide and attack in the same turn with out spending extra resources, and at least putting some effort into abusing AI. Action economy exists for the reasons. This is one of the unforunate effects of making a dog's breakfast out of it for unknown reasons.

The ogres can throw chairs and whatnot at PC's on the roof. However, since it's turn based and there is no ready action, you can always end your turn in a spot they can't hit. Since Larian turned Hide into a Bonus Action for everyone, you can also end your turn Hiding for double safety cheese.

Two things should happen. Hide needs to be reverted to a full Action. That alone would fix all kinds of stealth cheese where you can attack and stay hidden, save for Rogues who should have it as a BA. Which would make Rogues.. rogues. But the AI should also investigate last known positions and sources of attack. Secondly, if they let PC's climb on a roof to pick off giants who can't get there, they need to make the roof destructible. Ogre smashes wall/beam/ceiling, PC falls down (Let's not forget DEX SAVE or Acrobatics check this time, ok?), takes heavy damage and is now prone at the Ogres' feet.

I was unaware you could break the AI by hiding at the end of the turn. I only ever knew to abuse the AI stealth from outside of combat. The fact you can, and I did not intuitively know it, likely means that once the game launches players won’t abuse it. However if it is as easy to do as you explain, it would be made a full action 100%

A little late for that, isnt it?

On the other hand, they could easily move them elsewhere ...
Wich would have same effect, with MUCH less needed effort.

Oh but Ogres do have ranged attack, as 1varangian mentioned, they are throwing stuff ... were throwing boulders in the past, but if you run behind edge of that roof ... they have no line of sight to attack. :-/
I admit that i didnt try that, but i belive that Stealth was not even necesary in this case ... therefore making it Action (even tho it would help in other situations) would solve nothing here.

I mean smart AI would most likely run out of your AoE ... and then even futher, out of your ranged attacks ...
Then the game would either stuck in stalemate situation ... they would refuse to come closer, you would have no way to attack them ... so you would send one of your characters down as a bait ... they would rush to attack, but that would most likely take more than one turn, so you would attack them with Ranged attacks ... and simply climb back to the roof once they would get too close ... so they would start running away again > another round of ranged damage.
>> The result would be basicaly the same, cheesed fight with little to none effort from player.

Why? Adding some kind of a ramp shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It’s a 3D game - individual assents and bits can be modified.

Ideally they should make sure such issues won’t exist while greyboaxing the area, but who knows how Larian’s pipeline works.

Does the smart ogre have any spells? Maybe he could have Misty Step to access the roof. Then, he could investigate last known location and throw PCs down to his buddies.

Edit: or Jump, since it’s a level 1 spell.

He does - he casts cantrips and mirror image on himself (or possibly blur). Giving Lump Misty Step and/or Jump would be amusing, and actually a pretty good compliment to his existing weaknesses.