Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The so called "Tactitian" difficulty

Playing a multiplayer session with 3 friends of mine and everyone is extremely disappointed with "Tactitian" difficulty of the game. The game feels very easy, with no decision making , no resource managment, every fight is completed in 1-2 turns. And here is what's wrong with the difficulty:

1)Overlevel issue. 1 act is not balanced for characters above level 4 but if you complete all the side quests ( and 99% of the people do complete side quests) you get level 6. In dnd system 1 lvl difference is crazy and literally every encounter after you hit lvl 5 becomes a joke. Then the "overlevel" issue snowballs the game. Lvl 7 when you get to act 2, Lvl 10 before you fight Ketherik . This is super poorly designed, the enemies should either be much higher level or exp given should be reduced. This "overlevel" issue ruins all the fun and fights feels like a routine to kill all the enemies in 1 turn. Also enemies on tactitian should have much more hp but this has nothing to do with overlevel issue.

2)Dumbest AI imaginable. I have never seen an AI dumber than here. Here is the list of my favourite "Very strong AI" techniques:
a)throw alchemists's fire or any grenade at yourself;
b)press dash run 100 ft and then use misty step to go back to exact location you started your turn;
c)use hunter's mark on a target and hit a different target;
d)attack enemies(players) whith resists when you can literally move 1 ft to attack an enemy without them;
e)spend your whole action to cast lay on hands when you can literally attack 2 times with smite and probably kill someone;
And i am not even talking about their poor variety of attacks.No variety in spells, arrows and etc. Feels really bad.

3)Long rest issue. In this game there is no penalty for long rests. That means there is not resource managment. You can literally spam rage on berserk every fight, spam all your spells, it doesn't matter. In act 1 we found around 5000 food. 1 long rest requires 80 food. That means we can longer 63 times during act 1. How is this not balanced in any way? What would make a game much harder and interesting is the resource managment , long rests should inflict some penalties or be restriced to certain amounts. What we have now is a total mess.

4)Absolutely broken consumables. First of, why do elixirs last until long rest. I can literally pop giant elixir and not make long rest until the next act. Elixirs that last until long rest should be balanced. Potion of speed is also very unbalanced. It shouldn't give a spell classes second spell to cast, it should not give 2 more attacks, it should not exist at all. The nice way to balance is to make it last for 1 turn , no need to explain why here.

5)Broken stealth(as always), summons and other spells. I want to start with summons here. Why do summons not require concentration?Them not requiring concentration makes it no brainer S tier spell and you always use it after long rest and they last until... LONG REST. Like serioulsy who made this . Summons are very strong in this game and having them last until long rest with no concentration makes it very stupid. And on top of that you can have multiple of them. This should be balanced for sure .
Stealth. Stealth was dead broken is DOS 1 , DOS 2 , here it becomes even worse. Rogue with stealth exprertise can never be found. Enemies are too dumb , they can't make a check , they can't do anything. They just run around the rogue to fail 500 checks.The only result then need to pass the check is... 20.Critical.Probably they have disadvantage also , i am not sure, i wasn't the one playing rogue. But after a fight where he solo killed the whole Baltazar encounter to showcase how broken stealth is in this game, we asked him to respec). His favourite class is a rogue and he can't play it because the stealth in this game is broken and undeveloped. Huge disappointment here.
There are also a lot of broken stuff like haste which shouldn't work as it does right now, tavern brawler which allows to you hit enemies with 95% accuracy , sharshooter which works with both 1h crossbows and etc.

6)Enemie fall damage. Don't get me wrong here , it's really fun to push and enemy off a cliff . But it's only fun when it's actually hard to do it or when it's a rare opportunity. Here we have abysses in every encounter , pushing enemies becomes a routine, eldritch blast is broken since it can push multiple enemies from distance without any checks. And they just die , instantly. Same with bosses. It's just too annoying that you can complete 90% of the game by pushing enemies to death.

7)Legendary stuff, mostly weapons. They are very cool, we love them. But the problem is that the game is not balanced around them at all, which is very sad. That means to have some sort of smooth experience you can't use them at all because fights become very easy(they are very easy already, but with them it's beyond easy). Either nerf them on tactitian on balance the game around them.

All in all, that's about it. I probably missed something but it doesn't matter. The thing is : tactitian should be actually tactitian , it should bring challenge, decision making , resource management. It bring none of these things. It's a huge disappointment because the game is very good , the turn-based system is our favourite , but the game is too easy, feels like it was balanced mostly for new players and for players who have some experience in turn-based rpgs there is no challenge here at all. It's very sad that to play this game with some challenge you need to download mods, like tactitian plus, better AI... In solasta for example there was a huge difficulty setting option. Here we have nothing. Only mods and artificial restrictions, like don't use that, don't take that. Please add an actualy "tactitian" mode to this game. Please.

On the Elixirs they should last 1 hour which I think Larian felt was enough to count them as Long rest from a "battles fought perspective".

On Summons, a lot of summons don't require concentration RAW. Planar Ally and the Animate, and Create Undead spells. Larian just extended them to the Conjure Elemental/Woodland being spells for consistency and restricted them to Wizards/Clerics, and Warlocks in most cases - which is also RAW. Sorcerers don't get summon spells at all, unless they exploit the game and Multiclass into 1 level of Wizard.

As for the rest I mostly agree, Tactician is too easy. The AI needs major work.

Watching all the sheer number of 'noobs play BG3' videos and Streams, the whole OP is just lol.

'Completing encounters in 1-2 turns' when on Tactitian you will constantly be missing attacks throughout Act 1.

The game is too easy once you know how to beat every encounter, so is literally every other CRPG.

"Overlevel issue. 1 act is not balanced for characters above level 4 but if you complete all the side quests ( and 99% of the people do complete side quests) you get level 6. In dnd system 1 lvl difference is crazy and literally every encounter after you hit lvl 5 becomes a joke. Then the "overlevel" issue snowballs the game. Lvl 7 when you get to act 2, Lvl 10 before you fight Ketherik . This is super poorly designed, the enemies should either be much higher level or exp given should be reduced. This "overlevel" issue ruins all the fun and fights feels like a routine to kill all the enemies in 1 turn. Also enemies on tactitian should have much more hp but this has nothing to do with overlevel issue."

For me that is currently the biggest issue in BG3. And the simplest of simplest fixes.
Lower EXP for everything.
At least for Tactitian.

The game needed 5 difficulty settings

Story mode (for your grandma and game critics)

Advanced (you have some experience, but not with D&D, nor finished the game. No buffs, but no real maluses, either).

Challenge (some survival restrictions apply. Without good planning, you may have to reload. Enemy rolls and AC are buffed. Exp is mildly decreased). = current improved Tactician

Tactician (for people who've finished the game and use strong builds. If you can dish out 250 damage/turn with one character, congrats. This is the bare minimum. Later bosses now have 2k hp+. Exp is decreased. Food starts to rot over time. Enemies have 2-3x the health, depending on act).

Bloodmarsh equivalent (for people who literally hate themselves. Exp is decreased considerably. Food rots much faster. Various little nightmare tweaks)

I'm beginning to believe Josh Sawyer when he says that they're over-fixing difficulties just because some people is having easier time than others.

That would be nice.But never going to happen.

The realistic answer is to add mods. There are a few out there that will address several issues and make your 3 player coop fun more challenging.

When you run out of time to balance, you end up with an easier game and respecs, because developers know it isn't good for business hitting a wall because of poor choice unknown until you hit such wall. They weren't able to spend a year balancing everything before release.

More difficulty settings could be nice, but your choices are kind of weird.

I woudl suggest something like:

- Story (you cant die)

- Normal (mainstream conveniences, like enemies cant crit on you)

- Core (you play by the same rules as the enemies)

And then whatever you fancy as harder difficulties, really, like:

- Hard (You are level limited to 4 in act 1 and to 8 in act 2, and enemies get some flat bonuses like 50% more hitpoints and a +2 bonus on everything)

- Nightmare (all kinds of nasty stuff happening, like even harder flat bonuses, enemies gaining random bonuses, enemies with damage immunities are now healed by that damage type, status effects have their duration doubled, etc)

I'll share some wisdom with you.

tactician
noun
One who is skilled in the planning and execution of military tactics.
A clever maneuverer.

tedious
adjective
Tiresome by reason of length, slowness, or dullness; boring. synonym: boring.
Moving or progressing very slowly.

I think the hardest difficulty should be where the game only saves when you quit the game or go back to the main menu. And it should always save when you do that. And all of those saves should overwrite one another.

So you basically only have one save. A real ironman mode. No save scumming allowed.

And no revivify scrolls. And no Withers. A real permadeath situation.

And no fast travel. And you can only camp when you touch a waypoint.

And no magic pockets. What you have on you is what you have. You need to spread the consumables around beforehand if you want to use them in combat.

Totally agree with this topic. I tried to play rogue, it solo's every fight without enemies detecting it, then i tried eldrich knight, it destroys everything from any distance with 95% to hit and huge damage multiple throwing attacks (added tavern brawler and rings), my friend tried barbarian, from the start of the game barb capable of hit and outrun every fight in open area solo, without being hit even by ranged enemies (due to crazy movement speed and jump distance), etc.
I want to play this game with party of 4 people, but in today's state it's only fun to play it solo. Right now me and friend are doing 2 people run, we aren't using rogue or throwing weapon chars, and its still easy (we just completed act 2), we even reloading sometimes just because some boss dies in one round to see what this boss actually does. And we aren't some speedrunners or pro players, we aren't using some internet builds to min max or something. I'm not even talking about 5 tons of food in my camp chest and i'm playing a caster which needs to long rest more often (actually he doesn't because you can build yourself around cantrips kinda nice, but i want to cast cool spells not just same cantrip every fight!). I hope act 3 will be harder due to us coming closer to 12 lvl, and fighting 12 lvl enemies will be more equal than being lvl 9 and getting lvl 5 mobs as opponents. As i'm planning a one more playthrough without a friend i am forced to try it with 1 character party, since even doing it with 2 is not hard enough.
Pathfinder did really nice with difficulty settings, with lots of tuning player could make his game a nightmare ( if he wishes so ). Also pillars of eternity 2 had some optional difficulty boosters. I saw a couple of difficulty related mods and will try them.
I understand noone will remake all game mechanics, i'm not asking it, just add 1 or better 2 more difficulty levels with higher level/better stats/more multiple enemies, please Larian!

^Can you post your fight against Raphael?

Comparing WoTr difficulty options (and other options...) to BG3 is night and day different.
Thats one thing I don't get with Larian. They boast all these amazing options you have IN GAME, but give you very few to adjust!!
The gameplay "options" menu is sad looking and lacking.

The game doesn't need more difficulty tiers. What it needs is a nerf to speed potions/haste, and the amount of extra attacks and gear power creep martial classes get. Remove autocrit from paralyze.

If fighters, rogues, monks, and barbarians weren't attacking 3-5 times for 50+ damage each hit, and paralysis didn't grant massive crit chains while easily applied with venoms, and spells like Hold Person/Otto had less effectiveness on boss units, Tactician would be actually challenging.

The problem is martial class gear is a massive power creep, they get too much benefit off the extra attack from thief multiclass, and speed potions/Haste are BROKEN. Paladin Smite and Half-Orc racial also needs nerfing.

Seriously, go play a Bard without martials in the team or a Beastmaster Ranger or a Spore/Moon druid without martials in the team and get back to me about how easy Tactician is when you can't 1-2 turn boss mobs and elite units.

That doesnt make any battles harder at all.



BG2 had five difficulties, so I like the idea that BG3 gets five, too.

Hi all, we have a thread on difficulty levels already over at https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=882612, so please feel free to add your thoughts to that.

I'll just lock this thread to cut down on duplicate discussion. If anyone wants anything here moving to there, feel free to PM me.