Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback This game is far too easy to cheese

Yes, it only pauses when it gets to your character's turn. Which can be admittedly rough. It can hurt.

But--just my opinion--I don't mind. Sometimes things are rough. It's just a reason to be careful.

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Regarding an above comment about combats going on for a while before realizing that some of the companions aren't in the combat: I can't help but feel like that's an issue that comes down to paying attention. Not a game issue, in other words.

It's like being upset that you forgot you had the thunderwave spell in a round where you could have used the thunderwave spell.

At some point, it's on the player to move carefully and pay attention to the surroundings. At some point, it's on the player to remember to go into turn based mode while positioning. I'm not trying to say "git gud," but I am saying that some faults don't lie with the system.

It's sort of like watching a youtuber playing the game with a character wearing the Gloves of Power without having gotten branded first and complaining the whole time about how they can't hit anything.

I vehemently dissagree. Presenting information clearly is the game’s responsability. While I believe there’s now a combat indicator on PC portraits on the left, I don’t think it shows on summons. This can get awkward if the summon is invisible and not auto-pulled into initiative.

It’s also very difficult to see which enemies are chilling on the sidelines of combat, waiting for a scripted event to add them to the initiative order. When Minthara raids the grove, a bunch of goblins on the backline will fully heal in real time if they’re hit by a Shatter. Telling which enemy is where in initiative is hard enough without having to weed out bystanders.

Yes, im aware that since Stealth is "working" (for the lack of better therm) as it does, you are technicaly able to exploit it if you want to, and stealth through whole enemy army into as you said "backline" ...
But lets not presume that everyone wish to abuse things to extremes, shall we?

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Right now when i want to position my group ...
I simply ungroup them, and then run/sneak every single one on their position ... no problem at all ...
If any one of them is spotted and that starts a combat, all i loose (wich can sometimes be allready punishing) is first round for that one and any other character that also get spoted before he reaches his position.

IF all my characters woud be stuck in turn based mode, i loose this ...
If i would wish to position them ... i would need to first check out wich have best stealth, and therefore least chance to start a combat ... then sort them based on chances they will get spoted ... then control them by the same key and run them in specific order, otherwise risk that i will be discovered before im ready.
Bcs once anyone of them is spoted ... my movement will be seriously restricted. :-/

I dont say its *wrong* ... i say it sounds anoying.

It simply seems like lot of effort, just to make sure that somebody who obviously wants to cant fuck their own game ...
Wich quite honestly is none of your business in my opinion. :-/

//Edit:
Actualy ... now when i think about it, even if i would want to sneak into backline ... even if i would wish to sneak as far as the whole map allows me ...
Why do you care?

How much clearer can the game be that you don't have one of your companions in the combat initiative with you? The character literally isn't in the combat line up. It's also evident on the side section of character portraits.

Again, just pay attention to your characters. Where they're at. What they're doing. This isn't an issue of the game obfuscating information. It's a matter of not looking at what's clearly happening on the screen.

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Just out of curiosity, do you play the game very often or are you waiting for full release?

The absence of a portrait isn’t a great indicator. If the absent character is invisible, just looking at the screen doesn’t help much. And if they’re a summon to boot, nothing onscreen will signal their absence from combat. The player has to know to look for the absence of icons when the game could actively announce it.

Maybe I’m just thick, but if I haven’t played Wyll in a while, I’ll usually forget about the imp in the first combat before I get into the correct mindset again.

Back to the Minthara invasion of the grove, picking out which goblins on the battlefield haven’t joined initiative yet is difficult even with great attention.

The party could also be split into to two or more seperate combat bubbles. The UI doesn’t make it easy to tell who’s involved in what, especially if the combats are near each other.

You’re not wrong to say that players need to pay attention. I still feel the UI needs polish in regards to the initiative track and overall battlefield clarity. I expect these things to get some love from Larian, along with the combat log.

It feels like you’re wondering whether I’ve played the game enough to have an informed opinion…

It's not quite clear cut as that. First of all the fact that I HAVE to check before encounter if every one of my characters registered properly into combat is a problem in itself. Part of the issue is of course expectation: when the game transitions into combat enocunter I expect it to do so for all character under my control. I don't expect nor want to have to check on my followers if they got the memo that the combat is happening. No sleeping on the job.

Another issue is that not getting caught in combat bubble can be detrimantal - they can join the enocounter, but won't get to act this turn - the positive side of course is that they might attack with advantage, but of they are caught or will just unstealth for whatever reason the game will behave like they never were there. Again, a problem that can be mitigated by player's awarness of how system works, but I don't think it necessary suggests that the system is any good.

The third and worse situation, is that sometimes the thing just goes to shit - yes, if you character rolls high in initiative he can stop the combat encounter and other characters can set up/take advantage of the combat encounter being suspended in time. But if you character rolls low, or even worse gets incapacitated in some way, then enemy will take actions very quickly - that's is stupid, I have stealthed high dexed rogue, so he can act quickly in a turn, not sit aside as the enocunter is progressing without him.

In other words, it's a system which is often broken in favour or against player and rarely just works.


I am not claiming that anyone abuses it to extremes, I am saying that the mechanic is broken. Having an ability to ignore the problem doesn't make it go away. To repeat myself:


When I am playing the game I expect to be able to enjoy it and immerse myself in it - I don't want to think about balance, and game design, and create self-restrictions. Everytime the game takes my out of the experience, it is a failing on its part.

I don't quite understand what you are getting at. In the scenario that you described the characters who are still unstealthed could move into their position during their turn, and the proceed to attack - they are already in cue and get full round, the way they would if they were unstealthed. Most turn based games are entirely turn based, and getting into position is still very much a thing.

I admit: I don't understand why paying attention to what's happening is a problem.

Because you expect something else to happen? At what point do you stop expecting something else to happen and just focus on what's actually happening instead?

It's not hard to pay attention to where your characters are. A glance will tell you if they're in the combat or not. It's not like a series of math equations have to be solved.

Anyway. I hear your opinion. It's different from mine. I'll agree to disagree.

I know ...
Its not matter of making something go away ... its more a question if making it go away is necesary.

I mean, i dont really mind fixing this exploit ... but i dont use it, so i dont mind keeping it as it is.
But if that fix would strip away options i use, i would preffer keeping it as it is.

I believe that it obvious, isnt it? :-/

That is exactly what confuses me ...

I mean if (or when) i immerse myself ... and dont think about game design at all ... i would never end up in situation where i would use exploit allowing me to move infinitely aroun time-frozen battlefield. O_o
There is simply no way i would follow the procedure to achieve the said exploit ...

I wouldnt say half word, if it would be something you can achieve accidentaly ...

Presuming they are close enough to reach that position within single turn ...
Otherwise, nope. :-/

I dont think this is relevant anyhow ... we dont play most games, we play this one ... and this one isnt.

I just don't see a benefit from stealthed characters not being included in the encounter. As such, I see having to manually check and add characters to combat as fixing game's mistake. It's a hassle at best, a reload as you realised you ended your turn with half of your party in combat and explotative mechanic at worst. It's a bit as if the game would unequip my weapons before an encounter - sure I can rectify it without much issue, but it's annoying.

And then there are fringe cases like I mentioned in my previous post. At least summons, I think, were fixed. I didn't have a summon expire in a while because it wasn't added to the que in spite of the summoner being engaged in combat.

Let's agree to disagree then .

This

I remember on my very first playthrough I was nervous as hell when interacting with the NPC's in there because I thought one false move would bring the whole camp down on me. When I eventually learned otherwise it really cheapened the whole experience.

So you ARE using this system to get to places your character shouldn't be able to get to within their allotted movement range:).

And to me the moment I recognise that half of my party is in different dimention of time and space because they are hiding behind a rock, and I have to leave an excitement of combat engagement to switch to them and go through two extra combat initiations is when I am painfully reminded it is just a game, and one with some questionable mechanics. Maybe if transition into combat mode wasn't as bombastic it would be less jarring to switch back and forth.

The obvious reason for this werid design is most likely, that a player isn't meant to control more then one character and therefore not run into that problem - Larian framework has been build with coop in mind. It make more sense as in player coop with the way things are each player will be drawn into combat only if they themselves are spotted/attack. but with how far BG3 have moved toward providing a better singleplayer experience the more oddities like that stick out.

This is a tactical turn based games, Ragnarok. Trying to do the "best" moves depending the situation is the point of turn based /tactical / strategic combats.
Having clear best moves all arround the game and trying to avoid them should not be.

Well ... yes and no.

If i would start with positioning Astarion ... he have high Stealth ... so he would reach the spot without starting combat.
> No abusing of anything ... nobody was in combat, there would be no turn based more at all.

But since the game allows me to do that in any order (as long as they manage to sneak) ...
I can aswell position first Shadowheart, who will more likely fail her Stealth check ... and if that happens, i dont need to care, and still can continue positioning.

So if this would be implemented as suggested ... the only difference i would have would be order of controlled characters, and potentialy some pre-fight work like changing equip, maybe drinking a few more invisibility potions.

Anyway ... i see nothing wrong about positioning your party prior any combat encounter ...
And just the fact that this game allows me to position them even tho one of them was allready discovered suits me well ...

Acutaly i would even dare to actualy claim that it work against me, since if whole enemy team see only one of mine, they focus their damage to them ... and if they spot my character due to failed stealth check, they have also surprise round on their side.

This is basicaly what i had in mind when i said that i would like to keep at least some degree of curent options ...

As i said, i would have no problem with tuning system so the worse abuse wouldnt be possible ... or at least not as obvious ... i still think its not necesary, but certainly wouldnt mind it.
Forcing whole party (presuming they would be close enough i gues?) into initiative order is good ... even benefitial.
Forcing whole party into turn based and acting in their respective turns ... basicaly put them all in combat, just stealthed ... simply seems too restrictive to me. :-/

//Edit:
Agreed ... this is a tactical turn based game with certain set of rules ... trying to do the "best" within those rules is the point of such game ...
Having option to ignore those rules and completely break the game, isnt included in my deffiniton of "best move" tho ... thats simple cheating. :-/

I see nothing wrong with positioning your party before the encounter. But there isn't nothing wrong with stealthing your way to your enemy backline either - one is just a more extreme example of stealth mastery, or of how broken the system is. I just feel a desire for a well crafted ruleset that will provide an appropriate obstacle to achieve such goal.

Of course, you should use your stealth expert to get into place first. Of course clumsy Shadowheart should alert the enemy to her presence. And yes she should get bettered, if she gets caught out of position. That's a logical systemic consequence of roleplayiong and tactical decisions.

And I can see your point when in this situation not joining combat results is QoL feature. But it comes at a cost of actual stealth as a functioning system. As a convenient pre-combat set up stealth works ok-ish - as an actual stealth, it really does not. In most playtrhoughs, I don't care much for stealth, as I tend to not roll characters that specilize in it. But when I created a stealthy rogue, then darn, that was unenjoyable.

All games have a certain level of <cheesing>, you can't really prevent that. Though in this case I think its impacting a bit too much on the actual encounter designs; Don't remove the cheese, just have less of it and more <bread>

So many basic actions like shove, stealth, throwing and many consummables are cheats, I guess.

Cheats are by definition "better" (/more powerfull/less ressource consuming/more optimal/...).
You can ignore rules when you play Monopoly too if it pleases you. That said, the AI won't in a video game.

The more of these debates I read on this forum, the more it leads me to think about the inherent tensions in what Larian are trying to achieve with BG3.

On the one hand, it is a computer game, where our natural expectations are that our aim is to “win”, by understanding and exploiting the game mechanics as effectively as possible. On the other, it is a sandbox that allows us to, in a way, collaborate with the game developers to tell stories about the characters we create, and I don’t just mean plot and dialogue, there are also stories about how a particular fight was won, or avoided, or a treasure was stolen. Because the game is trying to function as a DM, and one that will say “yes” as far as possible to even bonkers things we want to try, it requires a level of flexibility in what it allows that means that pushing against its constraints isn’t satisfying for BG3 in the way that it is for many other games.

I still think that some of the mechanics just don’t yet work well, and there are particular weaknesses in how enemies exploit those mechanics. But given that BG3’s nature as a story-telling engine is my very favourite thing about it, I’m trying to be more accepting of areas where eliminating cheese would probably as a side effect stop other players telling the tales they want to tell.

Here is the thing about this game...you get to decide what cheese is and then whether you want to cheese or not.
My list of cheese includes barrelmancy, dipping, stealth cheese, etc. So When I play, I dont do that. I have no desire to force my play style on others.
Why limit how people can play the game?

I do have sympathy for players for whom finding the most effective strategies to achieve objectives or beating games on the hardest difficulties is a key element of their enjoyment. I can see how the existence of cheesy mechanics can undermine their experience. I just suspect that eliminating all such elements would unfortunately put other constraints on the game that would make it less enjoyable for the rest of us, and like RumRunner I’m broadly okay with just deciding not to do things I consider “cheating”.

As long, that is, as the game doesn’t actively encourage me to use cheesy mechanics by making life unreasonably hard or causing me to miss content if I don’t. I don’t think BG3 is often guilty of this (camp dialogue and long rest excepted) but it is something they need to continue to avoid.

And as long as enemies don’t then use cheesy mechanics against me (*cough* shove), thereby making them impinge on my games even if I don’t exploit them myself.

And as long as there isn’t a better mechanic that would be more fun and interesting than the one that can be exploited. I don’t think that the fact that a mechanic can in some circumstances be cheesed is *by itself* a reason to change it, but do think that some of the mechanics in the game that can currently be cheesed just aren’t as good as they could be. Entering combat in stealth is one of them, and I do hope it can be made a better experience for those of us not trying to exploit its holes, though also appreciate the likely difficulties with doing so that have been highlighted.

Im not sure if you are asking about my opinion ... telling me yours ... or something entirely different.
But if you were asking ... then nope, they arent to me.

There isnt enough + in the world i would like to give this.
+ Kazillion Bazzilions. :3