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

I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself. The issue isn’t with exploits that can be avoided, but with core mechanics being poorly implemented. I can’t imagine doing a good stealth based character, as stealth in how it is implemented doesn’t work well.

BG3 doesn’t have exploits and cheats - that would suggest a coherent ruleset. As it is some aspects of the game are just poorly implemented. The problem isn’t that perhaps certain specific combinations of weapons, feats and class skills create unstoppable combo - that would be fine. It would be easy to avoid, and finding such exploit would be rewarding in itself. BG3 crumbles when one uses basic features. That’s a very poor standard.

I like to judge a quality of a game’s design by how it handles pressure - both from players and raised difficulty. BG3 crumbles under a slightest of touches. A player can try to hold it together and pretend it doesn’t fell apart, and perhaps modders will be able to tape some of this together - but the product is still shoddy.

Once the game will be finalised there will be no point of complaining about broken mechanics - like it is a common knowledge you should put invest in swimming and lung capacity in Deus Ex1. I love DE, it’s a classic, but it doesn’t change that some of its systems are underdeveloped, poorly balanced or straight up bad. Now, when BG3 is still in development it is precisely the time to try to avoid having to deal with stuff like that in BG3 1.0.

Because I might want to play e.g., stealthy characters/party in such a way that isn't cheese, but BG3 rules don't allow that. Either I use the cheesy stealth (auto success on shoves from stealth, double surprise round, seeing the exact sight lines of enemies, enemies not searching for my stealthed characters, not having to make a stealth roll even in Heavy Armor as long as I'm not in their sight cones) or I don't use stealth at all.

Also, enemies use certain cheeses against the party, so you can't avoid those.

I have been following Masahiro Sakurai’s (Smash Bros designer) lately, and I think his recent video nicely touches on why I find “exploits” like that detrimental.


Even if I as a player chooses not to utilise mechanics that I deem OP it robs me from feeling the pressure. I KNOW I can just disappear at any time. I know I have a stack of guaranteed damage granades in my inventory that will wipe the enemy down. I know I can just easy stealth and push enemy to death. With being aware of how easily it is to break merchant’s reputation system being rewarded gold is of little value to me, and as such game rewards don’t feel impactful. And the OP mechanics have little to do with lvl up, so being in rewarded in XP is really irrelevant when it comes to my ability to beat encounters.

It is unavoidable that at some point this engagement will be broken - meta will be learned, player will gain too many resources to be concerned about gaining more. Doing self-imposed run feels fundamentally different to playing the game for a first time and feeling challenged by it. But in BG3 it happens too quickly and too easily.

Perhaps the EA difficulty setting is easy?

The game is not ready for harder difficuties. You raise the difficulty higher and "exploits" will switch from disappointing but skippable oddities to meta.

"auto success on shoves from stealth"
Don't shove from stealth.

"seeing the exact sight lines of enemies"
Don't hold the shift key

"not having to make a stealth roll even in Heavy Armor as long as I'm not in their sight cones"
Don't stealth in heavy armor.

"I KNOW I can just disappear at any time."
"I know I have a stack of guaranteed damage granades in my inventory that will wipe the enemy down"
"I know I can just easy stealth and push enemy to death."
But if you set your own house rules to start the game to exclude using these and then can't keep to your own rules...I can't help you and that's not the fault of the game.

This is something a lot of players seems to have a hard time to understand...

Agree with some of these, but not on not shoving from stealth. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to want to be able to try, but to feel would make more sense if there were still the possibility of failure. My problem isn’t with mechanics I can just ignore, but ones that I want to use but that work in a way that I think spoils the fun.

I recognise that’s a matter of preference, but I’m afraid it’s not *always* as simple as just ignoring stuff you don’t like.

Yeah no. Hard disagree. NPCs do not abide by my "house rules". Also, the game mechanics don't work well and make gameplay not as much fun for me and others who want something better. Also also, they aren't OUR house rules. Most of what we're wanting is based on actual D&D 5e rules. Larian's versions are actually house rules.

Example. Shove from Stealth. I want Athletics roll with Advantage, or something similar, not an auto-success. Can't play by my rules if BG3 won't let me.

Example. Sight cones EQUAL stealth. As long as I stay out of the cones, I win. Not how 5e works. Other senses besides sight come into play. You should have to make different Stealth checks depending on whether the enemy is facing you or not and even if you are invisible. BG3 doesn't allow such things. Again, if in cone, you lose. If out of cone, you win. Doesn't matter whether you wear Heavy Armor or not.

So I CAN'T play by my rules if BG3 won't let me.

Agree.

Agree, I have said elsewhere that on things like shove, it would be nice to be able to toggle off NPC use.


Agree with this too, but there is also the reality that making a game 100% conform to all DnD 5e rules would be a nightmare to program and this game would never be released.

As such, some things don't get implemented and other corners get cut.

The problem is we all have our own opinion of how important some things are and they can differ vastly from others. Some people (not saying you...have not read enough of your posts" seem to think they are somehow THE voice for the community.

I think Larian has done an amazing job so far. I think even if all we ever had was EA, this game is better than any other I have played in years. I think that even with many things that bother me, Id still rather have the full content sooner than later because of trying to make myself and others happy.

Again... those are my opinions, feel free to express differences.

I can’t disagree with most of that! Though there are some changes I’d be willing to trade some delay for, within reason.

But while Larian are still developing and tuning the game, we may as well tell them what we like and what changes we prefer. They’ll obviously make their own minds up about what can be accommodated within their schedule, and balance their own priorities with those of different opinions amongst fans. But those who don’t ask DEFINITELY don’t get

+1
Even if I don't agree with everything in this particular thread, people should be able to give their feedback and I'm sure Larian Studios are more than capable to deal with it and make their own decisions.

Or they could just balance shove better ?

BG3 needs to stay accessible to players who just want to have fun. And for many (most gamers nowdays??) cheesing is fun!

Larian seems to make games that have wide appeal to the masses; I haven't played Divinity 2 but it looks like people who love this game are not your traditional hardcore RPG players.
On the flip side, Larian is marketing this game as a hardcore D&D tactical game? This might be a communication issue.

What we need is a chees-o-meter in the options menu!

This isn't entirely true.

You can stealth with anyone outside of a vision cone. That's true.

But you don't automatically lose if you're inside a vision cone. Your stealth skill matters. As well as the conditions within the vision cone. Meaning, is it obscured or not? Is it partially or heavily obscured? These things matter.

In the right conditions, with a properly built and outfitted character, you can easily stealth straight through a vision cone.


I think it's balanced fairly well as of patch 8. You'll notice enemies make shove attempts against characters far less often now, and some of the weight issues involved with shoving seem to be better. Meaning there aren't as many NPC successes as there used to be.

A lot of the videos showing enormous shove distances are based on old patches. It's still farther than some die hard by-the-book fans would prefer, but I like it where it's at.

The only thing I would change about shove is not letting it work to wake up sleeping targets. Other than that, I think it works fine. It's a wonderful addition to the game.

And as someone with well over a thousand hours in this game, I can say it's not an overpowered "go to" tactic, despite the occasional arbitrary claim otherwise.

Yes it's a wonderfull addition.

But no it's not balanced. And it will never be until they don't at least turn it as a full action, make it harder to succeed/easier to resist (hard to go deeper into details considering that the calculations are hidden) and remove the pushing arrows.

Being able to (be) OS so easily in a game that mostly revolve arround luck is absolutely a bad idea. You may have been lucky in your patch 8 playthrough. I haven't.

As someone with over a thousand hours in this game, I can say it is an overpowered "go to" tactic. When I'm mostly sure I'll loose a combat I'm just shoving to win and not loose my time to do it again. Being able to solo the entire game so easily just show how broken it still is (even if it's harder since patch 5).

I find shove as it is to be situationally broken - in a decent amount of encounters it works well, but in others it doesn't. It definitely went a long way into being better, but I still don't think it is quite good.

I feel like there could be a place for this over the top shove is some way - perhaps a right combination of stat, homebrew feat or equipment. Perhaps there could be a high level mighty shove buff spell. Allowing characters to do over the top stuff like that can be fun - allowing them to do so with a bonus action though, it's a bit too much.

But what if I would have really wanted to start the combat by shoving the high-positioned scout while I was stealthed, but I want that to be not guaranteed? I think it should be a check at advantage. This can't be done in BG3.

Enemy sight cones are a poor mechanic for stealth. Enemies also have ears that they should be able to notice things with. And yet in BG3, even if I don't press shift to view their sight cones, I can still easily guess their location and automatically succeed by sneaking up behind them.

Same as above. I want to attempt to stealth while in heavy armor, because it should be still possible if unlikely. But BG3 doesn't allow this - it's 100% chance if I just stay out of the enemy's direct sight.

tl;dr: BG3's stealth mechanics don't allow me to play in a way that I think is reasonable. It gives auto-success to too many things, trivializing the experience and making it not enjoyable because of the lack of risk/chance.

OH, you didn't even see the half of it jet! When full games hits it will be so funny and broken easy even on the hardest difficulty... Runing around with abursed stats with multiclasses. But at least Spiffing Brit will have his hands full.