Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback I'd really appreciate readied actions, or at least some ambush mode for initiating combat

Sorry but I have to launch in on that last exchange, because it speaks to my BG heart of hearts. The portrait there is at what like 120x120 maybe 10kb at most? The space we're given for a headshot in game could easily accommodate such a portrait. In BG3 you would never be able to achieve that look though, because there is no way to have a character glancing back over their shoulder in their headshot, or folding their arms like Turnipsome's Gnome. Instead we get the most uninteresting and least emotive of all possible views, the eyes straight forward deadpan mugshot for everyone? Alas, they clearly did not understand what made BG1 so great - the custom portrait! 3d avatars shouldn't preclude the concept of a portrait. It's easy to see from the various screenshots which people have posted of their characters that it's possible to cap a serviceable portrait in-game, so why shouldn't we be able to do that as part of character creation? We should, is what I'm saying. BG3 should be the game that finally makes the 3D portrait suite an actual thing. I mean we've only been patiently waiting for like 20 years now lol.

On the main subject, I agree. I also think they've conflated "No Real-Time with Pause" to mean "No Pause at all" and the game suffers for it quite a bit. I feel like I'm being constantly hamstrung as a Single Player, in order to accommodate a Multi-Player or Co-Op game mode that I'll never use. No good method for ambushing is one way that it manifests, but it's all over the place, everywhere - from the most basic controls to the flow of game time generally. Very frustrating. It makes their TB game feel somehow even more Real Time than RTWP, since the player is constantly battling with the flow of game time like this.

If players can ambush properly in MP without any form of pause that's cool I guess, but if it means the only way to ambush properly is in Co-Op that's pretty lame. The party movement megathread has gone largely unanswered, but this was noted more than a few times as a major downside of only being able to control one character at a time before "combat" proper has been initiated. I suppose I'd be game for an ambush mode, or special ambush round or gamephase if that's what it takes, but I think the real issue is this ongoing tension between cooperative play and single player full-party control gameplay. To me BG has always been the latter, and I think that should be prioritized, but everything about the BG3 game seems to suggest that the former is more their goal, which is kinda off putting for me.