Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback So, the reaction system...

It's been few months since its (very partial) first implementation in the game, with Patch 9 in early December.

Weirdly enough I expected a lot of discussion about how much people liked or disliked it, but the topic vanished from this forum (and other public spaces where the game is discussed) almost entirely.
I've read almost ZERO feedback about it.

I guess a starting point would be: does anyone here think its addition to the game was *detrimental* to the quality of the combat?
I remember a certain number of people at the time being fairly vocal about the fact that they did NOT wanted a Solasta-like system with confirmation prompts, but in the end that's exactly the solution Larian chose to implement.

Do these people still think the game was better just with automated reactions and before this current implementation? And on the opposite side, is there anyone here who wanted a reaction system but over time came to regret asking for it because they don't like how it works now?

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Personally I'm still of the opinion that its inclusion was a NET Improvement to the combat system and if anything what worries me is that:

- It's an incomplete implementation with a lot of possible uses of a reaction not implemented yet (starting with the basic AoO)
- it was buried in the game's options so it's not clear how many people in a more "casual" audience even realized the system exists to begin with
- the UI felt a lot like a "first draft" and with no more patches coming until release I'm a bit concerned about how (or IF) Larian will reiterate on the system to make it look or feel better.

There definitely was some discussion. I’ll try to dig out some links later if I have the time. But iirc there wasn’t a huge amount of actual debate as there was a clear consensus saying pretty much exactly what you have above, ie that it’s a big improvement and they (we) want to see it rolled out more consistently and niggles addressed (eg Hellish Rebuke resetting to auto rather than ask after level up).

Yeah, the threads since implementation have revolved around folks asking for the other unimplemented reactions to be added to the system. They even wanted Sneak Attack to be added to the system. I see no reason why the other reactions shouldn't be added, if folks don't want to be prompted they can uncheck Ask.

As far as presentation, I had to hunt around to find the menu. Having the default be Ask would go a long way to make the system's existence obvious to the player. The player could then arrange the system to their own specifications.

Most discussion revolves around how incomplete the implementation was - and that ideally all appropriate skills would be available as pop ups. The reaction UI could also use further improvements.

Players who campaigned against pop ups have an easy way out as system still can be fully automated if they wish to do so. What I would be curious to see is how many people opt to actually do that. Personally, I can’t imagine willingly not setting everything to pop ups. Dismissing those predictively doesn’t slow the combat, and instead adds more control and dare I say, satisfaction.

I would welcome some global option to set all skills as pop ups by default - just so I don’t have to do that for every character on every playthrough. And of course, make attack opportunity, sneak attack etc. as pop ups as well!

Oh no, I hated that it didn't ask before. You can deactivate the reaction when you don't want to use it. Less time spend pestered that way

Not sure how did you even "miss" this, given that "prompted reactions" are disabled by default and you have to manually activate them.

Miss what? I'm just saying I turn them off when I don't want pop ups. If the pop ups are /the/ big con to people, that's the current management tactic.

Edit: I use that window a lot to start with because of great weapon master, though.

Edit 2: Oh, I get it now. No, I do it like this:
Off until a window in the fight emerges where it might be practical
On -- wait for the best moment (hence why I like being asked)
Fight over. Potentially off again -- as soon as it becomes a bother.

There have been a few thread but it looks like you've been inactive here for a while.

The reaction system makes the game better even if there's a lot of things to improve... especially UI speaking.
I personnally still think they could have gone for something else but Solasta's solution is working well and is definitely better than what we had from patch 1 to 8.

Yeah, I've been banned for six months, courtesy of Composer.

But I've been lurking past threads anyway, which is precisely what makes me say that there wasn't much discussion about it past the initial "patch impressions".

Yes, I’ve been looking and while it’s come up a number of times in passing, there’s not been a lot of focused discussion. Which I guess is good news for Larian, as no one on either side of the previous debate seems to be complaining about the new approach .

There are a couple of threads linked below plus a few more that didn’t generate much debate.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=836708
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=836002

I’m wondering whether it’s worth taking this discussion to the Reactions like Solasta mega thread so it doesn’t similarly get lost in the noise?

I was also surprised how the discussion fizzled, considering the mega-thread that preceded it. I figured it was a sign of mollification. I think what we've got is a good start, but it's inconsistent, not all reactions are incorporated, and things like 'ask' can be further refined to only trigger when they're meaningful. Something Defensive Duelist doesn't need to trigger every time you're attacked.

I was aware of the existence of the mega-thread (I posted in it a lot, after all) but I made the deliberate decision to not use it and start this thread, because... Well, because the entirety of it is dedicated to what we had before this last update and the thread was deserted after Patch 9 released.
Conversely, what I'm curious about is precisely to hear the impressions of people after getting what they were asking for (or in some case what they were advocating against).

I think there isn't much discussion as people tend to be agree on what is good about current implementation and what should be improved upon release.

Fair enough. I might pop links to this and other post patch 9 discussions about reactions into that mega thread when I have a bit more time to rummage for them, just so there’s some closure.

Personally, I’m very happy with the direction of travel with respect to reactions, and hope that the approach piloted in patch 9 is rolled out to other reactions and things that could usefully be treated in a similar way like sneak attack. And that we’ll get Shield and the ability to cast it and Feather Fall as reactions.

I expect I’ll tend to have most reactions/conditional effects set to “Ask”, and would also appreciate an option to set all to “Ask” by default to save me having to do that individually.

I can understand having the game default to automatically trigger, though, as I suspect that it’s the easiest starter option for new players, who will have tons of other stuff to get their head around to begin with. But it might be helpful to have some tutorial pop-ups appear the first time a player gets access to a spell or ability that can be controlled via the reaction system, so folk know it’s there and can dig into it if they want to.

I posted on the mega thread that was linked from here, but its a dead thread from the looks of it. Sooo, I skimmed through the new feature and looks like it defaults to auto. If it stays that way, that would be fantastic. If not, then personally I'll have to try and convince a player that takes a hour per turn to not use pop ups for his reactions so our group doesn't have to wait another 30 for him to figure that out also.

Outside of that small scenario, I really don't care, I'll test it later to see if I'll actually use pop ups personally solo.

[quote=fallenj
I posted on the mega thread that was linked from here, but its a dead thread from the looks of it. Sooo, I skimmed through the new feature and looks like it defaults to auto. If it stays that way, that would be fantastic. If not, then personally I'll have to try and convince a player that takes a hour per turn to not use pop ups for his reactions so our group doesn't have to wait another 30 for him to figure that out also.
[/quote]
Could be something to consider for online session settings (for example allow or forbit manual reactions, set per turn timer etc.).

Wel i like it how is working but ..
There are some reaction like example Ligth cleric warding flare that are not present in this system.

Also i don't like that for rolls that should successful we still get a pop up to boost. I mean why??? If i have bard inspiration and if i roll critical hit why i got the inspiration for attack roll.
Or defensive duelist is the most anoying one if they failed to hit me 1-2-3 rolls why i got a pop up every time . The goblin camp encounter can increase nfrom 20 min to 60 if i need to choose every time not react when they miss. If i chose to turn it off then its a waisted system. And the same thing is applying with bard's inspiration.
I am sure there is some room for improvement.

For example a smal ai porgram what let us customize what should the reaction do for us. It will hep to speed up the game.

Well, “forbid manual reactions in online sections” would be a great way to make sure I’d never bother with one.

And personally I feel that making the system automated by default (forcing the player to look for the option and manually activate it) is precisely the thing that Larian got the most wrong in this partial implementation.
There's arguably no worse way to get feedback on a large scale for a feature than burying it and telling your players "Yeah, you'll have to go looking for it".

Doing the opposite would have worked wonders, on the other hand: everyone comes in contact with the new feature and gets a chance to try it and get the pulse of the system, while anyone who doesn't like it can disable it with few clicks.

Sounds one of these fringe cases that never actually happen. A reaction is a "yes/no" binary choice. It would take a special kind of mental impairment to drag it past two or three additional seconds and it's going to be even less typically.
One may as well ignore a turn-based game entirely with this mindset, because "What if the other guy goes to the bathroom or takes phone calls between turns".

Which incidentally applies also to real-time games where you can hit pause (DOTA 2, most RTS, etc).

I have this whole thing we go through before we start multiplayer where I simply ask people to try to keep their turn to under 20 seconds out of consideration for other people and to think about what they want to do before their turn comes up. I have never had anyone disagree with that because it really makes the game go faster. Complex situations are always excepted and it doesn't apply to New Player Runs that we host.

A lot of the cultivating I have done is to find people who are - not just good at the game - but good at multiplayer in general, which means good inter-personal skills and teamwork/consideration for others. It's just selfish to take 2-3 minutes to run a turn because you have to narrate EVERY single one of your options to everyone in discord and then proceed to fail to accomplish anything anyway.

What I am saying is that if you have a player taking too long per turn then you should talk to them or not play with them. The system itself isn't the problem.

I don't know how much work would it take, but again, toggle would be nice. Yes, I personally found it quite annoying that skills start as automated - I found myself not setting them the way I want to, especially on lvl up when new options are added, or when I try new companions (on whom I might have not set up reactions yet).