Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Will BG3 incentivize a “kill everyone” playstyle too much?

Not too worried about it, myself. Admittedly, I expect games like this to be combat focused to begin with, so my lean/taste might be skewed. I enjoyed DOS2, and truthfully the people we murdered by and large heavily deserved it. Whether that trend continues in BG3, I suppose we'll see!

One thing that bugged the hell out of me in EA was that all the evil npcs had lots of valuable magic loot on them, but almost none of the good ones did. Conversely, the good npcs gave out a lot more quests, quests which gave out quest rewards. So if you played a good character, you got to have the best of both worlds. Tons of combat exp from killing goblins/duergar etc you wouldn't get otherwise, tons of loot from killing the evil bosses (the reverse not being true generally- only Kahga has loot that can't be had as a quest reward among the druids) ANd you got showered with powerful quest rewards.

I really hope they rework that.

If you cannot play without minmaxing is really a you thing, the fact that you can get better stuff if you kill everyone doesn't mean you HAVE to do it xD. Usually killing everything gives you more XP than defusing a fight through diplomacy but if you don't level up by milestones is hard to balance, specially if you can get xp from ability checks and then kill everyone in sight.

Again, it's just a minmaxing thing and as everything else I think that having the option to do it is always better than having no options.

Has anyone taken a look at the recent playthroughs? Justice for the squirrel honestly.

In fairness, that squirrel had a little bit of the dark urge inside it, also.

You know, now that I think about it, how awesome would it be if you could get that squirrel as a familiar! I wish games would start doing that kind of stuff. Scratch as an animal companion, as an example. Squirrel as a familiar. Players would eat that up.

In table-top I tend to agree with that stance since it doesn't really make a difference one way or another when you are playing with friends.

However in a CRPG effort and time spent need to be considered when calculating rewards. If I get the same reward for rolling 2 skill checks in one minute as I do for fighting 8 baddies in a 45 minute long battle, I'd certainly be disappointed.

There could be the argument of, the reward for fights is money and better gear, not necessarily more xp. I'd be open to that with the caveat that they need to fix the post mission massacre. I think the fix for that is to flag all NPCs as worth 0xp after their quest(s) are complete.

Personally, I have always thought you should get experience for defeating/beating opponents even if all you do is come up with the right dialogue or skill check because it rewards playing smarter and husbanding your resources. You're already not getting the treasure, but I don't think you should be shafted on XP. Then again I'm a really old-school player and have been playing long enough that killing monsters wasn't supposed to be the primary source of XP in the game. Instead it was getting to the final treasure hoard that provided the real boost. But that was a long time ago.

Post mission massacre needs to give 0 xp. If you deal with the bandits by passing 3 speech checks you get, say 100 xp. If you kill them, you get 100 xp and their gear/money. If you bypass combat and get the 100xp, they are no longer worth anything, and you could massacre them if you wanted to for the gear/money, but no extra xp. imo at least.

Not the point. My point is that game mechanics shouldn't give you extra rewards for being extra violent. If you kill everyone, you will get their stuff. That's in the nature of the thing, and if you kill people for their loot, that's part of roleplaying. However, the game *mechanics* shouldn't give you an extra reward in form of xp, thereby basically telling you "Hey well done. Talking is for pussies".

Some games give xp only for missions. I always find that a big relief since I can then roleplay without having to wonder if I make myself extra-weak for future events by being an intelligent person and fighting only when necessary. And if I'm in the mood for an extra session of hard fighting, there are monster hunter quests or head hunting quests featuring special enemies where the killing is the objective rather than one of several means to the same end.

And that's not even touching the other two aspects I mentioned in my first post.

Really hate that most of the crpg's lately more focused on building the munchkin grind strategies, then the actual roleplay, and reasoning behind any battle encounters. Hope bg3 will have a good balance in that regard

I do understand your concern at the first point you make. It can feel really off and push the player to ambush when they start to get the idea that talking (and failing the speech checks) leads to being in a really bad situation combat-wise. Sometimes it makes narrative sense, other times not so much.

The bit where you meet the goblins who are enjoying the show of their victim going round and around while tied up to the windmill is a good example. It doesn't feel very natural. If they were watching and mocking, then why wouldn't they be more huddled around the spectacle that they're supposed to find so funny? I mean that's what goblins would be like, isn't it? I doubt they'd be so disciplined as to have a few watching whilst others set up a defensive perimeter and watch from a distance.

The setup looks artificial. Archer's on high round? Check. Tanky units closer to the character the player will be talking to? Check. This reminds you that this is essentially a trap, constructed as such, which in turn reminds you to approach it in a gamey fashion. One approach being, of course, to simply ambush them first. One could argue that the player shouldn't believe they can persuade evil goblins so what's the point of talking - that a sensible roleplaying approach would, in fact, be to attack first. However, that still doesn't explain their arrangement around the windmill.

If you were in hostile territory in someone's throne room and about to engage in tense diplomatic talks, being at a big disadvantage if things go south would make sense. It's their house and they are prepared for trouble so of course you can expect some archers looking down from somewhere and some full-plated guards in front of the King, etc,.

Making any old encounter feel like that when it shouldn't might lead to people attacking first more often then they feel makes sense thematically, for want of a better word. This is especially true if they don't like the idea of reloading if they try the speech route and it fails (especially those with slower computers - thought that's not Larian's fault, heh) and now the fight is going to be three times harder and longer than if they'd just said, 'Sod it, it's not really what my character would do but I'll just set up an ambush and kill them'.

As for the incentive of 'killing everyone' for XP, I think Larian will adjust things appropriately. I also think that with the potential for so many side-quests and XP rewards due to non-combat related adventuring, there won't be any need to worry about missed XP. This is just a guess but with a playthrough being 75 to 200 hours, I would imagine that you'll reach the level cap well before the end of the game without having to engage in more combat than fits your roleplay.

Not that I disagree of course, but "lately"? LOL, that's about the oldest flaw of the genre, ultimately stemming from the pre-Fallout times when systems to implement branching dialog and the consequences thereof were underdeveloped or non-existent. If anything, I perceive BG3 as being too traditional in this regard. I hope that assessment is countered by the full game, we'll see, but so far the character interaction has not been outstanding. Location design is, in true Larian style, the very best of the genre. Tactical opportunities, very good. The overall plot draws me in. And the number of options in character generation is, well, jaw-dropping. But companion interaction? Ah...you know, Pillars of Eternity did this better. It may be the full game will change that perception but I have the impression that the structure of the dialog interface prevents the kind of depth we see in POE1. Oddly similar to the way BG1 from 1998 was simpler in its character interaction than Fallout 1 from one year before.

Not to be misunderstood: I am an old and jaded gamer, basically impossible to be hyped by anything these days. And I find myself actually being excited about BG3's release. Any criticism should be taken with that in mind.

Well. I'm fine either way, really. I tend to roleplay these scenarios, too. My character's an adventurer and will take tactical positions if he feels it's appropriate. Byt the same token, I didn't find the combat in this game to be challenging in the slightest, so it might just be *fun* to put yourself at a disavantage and working your way out of it. A DM would come up with similar scenarios.

"Will BG3 incentivize a “kill everyone” playstyle too much?"

From what we've seen. No it doesn't incentivise it too much. Players will still roleplay their character and make narrative choices for their party

Murder hobo players will still do alot of murder