Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian please add another difficulty. Game is too easy

I wonder if the analytics agree that the game is easy.

What percentage of the players actually walk through all these combats?

Also worth considering, how many people are boasting about the size of the fish they caught?

Problem with the current game is that the Larian rules implemented don't respect the base action economy of 5e.
So when you have characters being able to cast two spells with haste or in case a fighter being able to spam 9 attacks in a single turn. Unless you spam a massive amount of enemies on the battlefield of throw their HP pool into absurd number no way the encounter design will be able to do something interesting. No wonder by the end of act 2 you feel everything is a joke.

Hope Larian add a new difficulty with action economy more close to the original ruleset, new enemy composition to make things interesting and maybe even new items to encourage people to try it.

Imagine if the enemies used the same such tricks.

An encounter where the enemy has a team of pocket mages casting haste or a encounter where all enemies abuse potion of speed and consumables would be hilarious and painful at the same time.

A lot of enemies in BG2 from mid game SOA and into TOB were pretty much perma hasted and buffed and such.

Liches being able to see right through illusions and hide in shadows those damn cheaters!

I agree 100%, I recently started my second playthrough since Minthara was fixed and I wanted to finally do my evil playthrough.
But I honestly just lost my enthusiasm for it the moment I entered combat because I remembered how easy and tedious it became.
Ngl tho I also started thinking about all the dialogue and I dunno why because I've played and replayed so many countless RPG's before but I just feel such a lack of motivation to play the game again.
Obviously I want to see the Minthara stuff, but is it worth sticking out all of those hours for that?

Especially after Act 3 and I'd argue Act 2 felt way less open and more on rails replaying the game just feels like a chore and I really think the combat is a big reason why too because it's not very fun imho.
And I usually love these types of games I am not new to them, and I am not even min-maxing either I am not THAT knowledgeable about it.
But there's no real challenge to any of the combat, if this was Pathfinder I would've turned turn based off most of the time just to speed it up which is at least an option you have in Kingmaker and WoTR.

Yesterday when I started my second playthrough the moment I got off the ship I just had a big '' ugh '' feeling and wanted to go continue WoTR or even start a DA:O playthrough because I rly want to replay that too I haven't since I was a kid and my disappointment with Act 3 in BG3 made me remember DA:O because it got me thinking of other RPG's I had played.
Story and such in BG3 is very flawed and I do think it has some issues in terms of replaying feeling like a slog.
But if the game had better difficulty/ scaling and the amount of options WoTR had to customize it then maybe it'd be better.

Ngl I am not sure if I agree with people bringing stuff I've seen like increasing camp food req because I think that would just make it even more boring since you'd have even less tools to play with.
But just going to camp to rest and refill feels like it just adds even more to the chore.
I know that's a DnD thing but I think it translates awfully into video games.

The ai is just weird too, and it gets worse the further into the game you get.
But it does really dumb things like shooting bows and then moving closer to your melee characters before ending the turn or not moving or doing anything at all.
It feels almost like Larian pre-made decisions for them and then when they have to do anything that wasn't pre-decided the ai is just like '' oh no what do I do!? ''.

I don't even want to think about what it's like for people much better at these games than me who min-max.
But I think there should be some '' impossible mode '' for those people too.


This is obviously just me guessing, but I think there probably are people who would say it's difficult because they don't understand how the game works.
I had no idea how Pathfinder worked and got really confused and had to constantly look things up all the time when I started Kingmaker.
In WoTR tho I have a much better grasp of it and it makes a big difference.

But it wouldn't surprise me at all if the majority of people playing BG3 have never played DnD before and don't even know what stuff like AC is.
That's not me justifying the game being too easy for people who do tho, I mean that's what '' story mode '' is for lol.

Considering the amount of complaints about overtuning and the objective fact that nearly every fight would be ranked at "deadly+" in the actual real ruleset, I'd say this whole thread feels like a big echo chamber of people captive of their bubble.

Was there really a lot of complaints about that tho?
In regards to the '' deadly+ '', I actually wish that bigger monsters were more dangerous.
A mind flayer or a dragon SHOULD be hard to beat imo, or I am assuming at least that mind flayers are dangerous I am not a DnD expert in terms of lore and such but that's the impression I get at least.
It kinda loses its impact imo when you end up fighting an army of mind flayers + beholder + giant or a dragon simultaneously, I'd actually prefer if it was a bit more minimalist.

I get that not everyone agrees with that, a lot of people ( perhaps most ) like that power spike where you're just slaughtering really dangerous beasts etc en masse.
To me it just feels a bit silly and like it makes the combat feel less impactful and like there's no real threat anymore.

It's kind of an issue I have with Pathfinder WoTR too, where you too quickly just slaughter hordes of giants and massive demons of doom even while just traveling.
WoTR is a bit more of a power fantasy so I guess it's more the point there, but it still ends up feeling like nothing I am fighting matters.

Agreed. Playing tactician, and it doesn't feel like I need to cheese anything at all. The "puzzle bosses" ARE fun, but as soon as you realise that if you play the puzzle correctly, the stats almost don't matter, it becomes too easy. Most bosses go down in one or two attempts.

One of the bosses (end of Act 2?) really scared me with the visuals, it was phase 2 so my resources were not full, and I thought I was in a fight for my life. Yet he failed to kill a single character and I just DPS'ed him down. It was a strange experience.

Part of the fun of playing DoS2 (at least the early - mid levels) was that you had to be smart about using multiple various tools - consumables, positioning, teleport cheesing, and it was satisfying. The odds face-on in tactician were never in my favour.

Yet in BG3 there is no point to think about builds, combos, and max out the tools that are available - they are never needed - and I would expect that to be the case on the highest difficulty.

Tactician, Level 7, End of Act I - ploughing through every fight without any decent effort. No need for potions (so many of them!), grenades, scrolls, barrels, anything. Do not even have to "bother" to position or hide my ranger/thief and casters... all of the combat has lost all the spark.
The last meaningful fight was Phase Spider Matriarch... at eee... lvl 3 or so. That was a challenge and one single moment considering turning away and coming later. I see as solution to drop one of the companions in Act II, to make the fights more challenging, but do not want to have it impact the storyline and the rest of the playthrough

I understand it is extremely difficult to balance the game for fastrunners with lousy party comp and those who scrape every piece of experience, but still, the current challenge of the "highest" tactician difficulty is laughable.

It does not have to go as far as DOS2, but one (or better two ) difficulties more after tactician would be great.

On Difficulty.

I've been mucking around with mods and difficulty to get my experience to where I want it.

I don;t *really* like Tactical, because of the increased AC and Saves on enemies. Casting spells three rounds in a row none of them doing what you hope they do, is just annoying. Same as wasting your attacks on misses. It really locks you into obilgatory ASI improvements, where Feat Selections are quite rare on anyone but a straight fighter. At the same time, things like 'All In' on a Great Weapon Master will jsut never land until you've boosted your Strenght score to ludicrous levels. And it's teh feats and class combos that set the characters apart, or make them work really well together. So that's not it, for me.

So, by that rationale I much rather have the difficulkty increase with added goons to a fight. Instead of Five Gobbos in the Blighted Village ambush, make it Ten. Also, increase the radius of non-hostile environments detect a fight. So, aggro the Bugbear Trader, have the whole tower come down on you. That makes it a little riskier to try and steal his Halberd.

But, then, there is the metagaming aspect. I know how to beat a fight, and that it's coming, and no amount of increase of enemy numbers or stats is going to make that more fun.

So. What I think the crux of the matter is, is the resting.
I can rest after *every* fight if I so choose. And therefore, every fight happens at my party's full strength. And that, to me is what makes it a little too easy. In tabletop, you don't long-rest once you've entered the Dungeon. You go in with what you've got, you can take a breather in the form of a short rest, but that's it. From the first Gobbo to the Final Boss, these are your resources.
And, therefore rogues are way more useful, because of this. Yeah, don't have all the fancy tricks everyone else has, but what they have is effective, and always available every single turn. Because everyone else has to be careful about using all their stuff in every fight, rogues carry a lot more weight in TT.

Yet, in BG3, whenever I'm in the Shadow Cursed Lands or The Underdark, even Shar's Place.. I can hit 'full rest' and be safe in camp and watch a ballet show. There needs to be a drawback to this. More timed quests, scarcity of food in said lands, outright not allowed to camp outside of Moonrise Towers or Little Lamplight or - like the classics did it - risk of ambush in camp.

Or, rather, Risk of Ambush when fast-traveling [to and from camp]. You know: "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself!"

I play a lot of no-reload Classic BG, and that's always a thing. Yeah, we're bruised and battered and down to our last handful of spells... We need a rest. But, risk of getting jumped by Umber Hulks is high, and we've no more Chaotic Commands to cast. Do you take that risk?

This needn't be hard to implement, I figure. There's tons of funky cool enemies already, make possible semi-random combinations for Absolute War Parties and have them jump you. You can even add the Wasteland 3 Mecahnics where you could try to influence the upcoming fight with certain skills, or outright avoid them; granted you pass a check, of course.

Yeah the game is way too easy, stopped my playthrough at Act 2, combats are getting bored. I feel disappointed by the Tactician Mode which was so called to appeal veteran cRPG players.
Combining with broken rules (badly applied from 5e to BG3), bugs, way too many consumables (which i barely use, because it's already too easy), too many foods for resting, etc...
Dialogues options to skip combat, is great, but at the same time is also way too easy to bypass.
And also I thought Tactician mode would give more mobs in each encounter, as they said in their livestream, which is def not the case from my previous experience in EA 1 year ago.

I definitely agree with this. I'm an experienced CRPG player but no pro and I found Tactician easy from the start. I don't use elixirs or scrolls except in rare circumstances and I just cakewalk through most, if not all encounters. +1 for another difficulty.

EDIT: Even the +100% supplies needed for long rest were not even close to making me anxious about not having enough supplies when I needed to rest. I gathereed all food I saw and it was just, well... I would've liked to have been closer to running out and therefore to compromise.

Thank you all guys for replying. That just shows we really need an additional difficulty slider. Tactician on your first playthru isn't already challenging, but dont you dare playing a second playthru. Then it feels like storymode

Tactic mod, coop. Won last fight in 1 round. No challenging fights since spider mama at level 3, then 1 shot everything. No illitid powers, just pala+druid = unstoppable.
The story is amazing, still fights are 1-2 round at max.
Larian, please add 4th difficulty. More hp to bosses, more potions of speed and health potions to npc enemies, just more enemies.

I agree with this to an extent.

From an RP standpoint, when you realize you have a tadpole in your head, it makes 0 sense to spam rests. All "end of day story" should be queued so you don't miss anything. You should be able to see 3 events in one camp for example, not just 1 per rest.

I like timing of quests (in the sense that you have one long rest to finish X quest). But not ambush in camp, when I come to camp I want to relax with the story content.

It's really much worse than you think. The best way to play any sort of melee character is with STR 8, and abuse Elixirs to have your STR permanently at 21 in acts 1 and 2 and 27 in act 3. 8 DEX is also fine since you can get the gloves that raises DEX to 18. WIS checks are by far the most common, so go ahead and pump up that WIS and why not CHA, since you can boost your CON to 23 in Act 3 anyway. Feats are pretty much free to choose after that, you could min-max there but... the game is so easy, you don't need to. The game can rather easily be finished solo as a Fighter on Tactician mode.

Above all else I blame 5e, if we were playing with DOS:2 rules this wouldn't be happening (unless barrelmancery). Even so, there are ways to make the game more difficult with the 5e ruleset. Camp supplies are far too numerous (probably a side-effect of them leaving out crafting. They had to fill all those barrels and crates with SOMETHING). Resting is indeed to easy (and even required to see camp events, which is another problem all-together). I'd welcome some camp ambushes. Unfortunately the way Larian has implemented fast travel (via magical waypoints) has made ambushes while fast travelling harder to introduce story-wise. Not sure why they went this route, it's really not common 5e practice.

The game has quite a few scripted ambushes while exploring and they are great, I think that they could add in more on Tactician. They can use the data they got post-launch to add ambushes to places people use to cheese fights (looking at you, holes in rooftops).

One thing that would be rather easy to implement would be to give enemies buffs right from the start of combat. Having a hasted enemy (or later on, a sorceror enemy who decided to twin cast Haste on allies) would be a fun addition. Having summons such as elementals pre-summoned instead of the caster wasting their first round to summon would also be a good start. The players action economy is a bit too good for 5e standards while the enemies' is pretty much the same as 5e unless they have a Haste potion (which is rare, and the AI usually fails to make the most of it). I also see no reason why enemies can't use Elixirs. Do it sparingly in act 1, but by act 2 they should be drinking elixirs in Tactician imo.

One thing I've noticed is a general lack of support enemies in enemy squads. Some can cast Rally or Bloodlust or so and that's cool, but throw in some Life Domain Clerics in there sometimes. The Hags den had a fantastic party comp, and the support had fun spells. Moar! Regen enemies are cool, but enemies should have access to more healing imo (so that we need to shut it down with Bone Chill or similar instead of just bursting them down). Potions for everyone!

Another thing that would be nice is enemies having (more) Feats. Mobility, etc.

There are definitely improvements to be made on the AI front, but I'm sure Larian already knows this. Enemies dashing somewhere and then jumping back to their original position can really ruin some encounters.

One thing I would not like to see is more burst damage - I think character Health levels are just right and for the most part the game isn't too bursty unless you get unlucky, but I think that generally nuking should stay where it's at right now. A hasted enemy or two will be enough to increase enemy damage to dangerous levels.

I''m sorry for anyone playing D&D with DM that actually seriously takes into consideration CR and what WOTC considers a "Deadly" encounter. I'm extra sorry for people playing with a DM that decided to build an "Easy" encounter with some low CR enemies that will absolutely obliterate a low level party within one turn Leave that garbage where it belongs, in the trash. Thanks.

Agreed! I have tried and failed in 3 playthroughs by having one character near the console (just in case) and in one going all-in. The cambions are a really bad idea to try and fight on Tactician regardless, and I think that's a very nice touch. Finally killing the Commander and getting his amazing greatsword just feels like such a WIN in Tactician, I LOVED it.

I just used "Command" to drop his weapon :p Snatched it and used the console ...

You started out on bad footing but got there in the end. Nearly limitless drugs, unlimited rests with almost no consequences, enough magic items to make your characters look like a christmas tree, going from one end of the map to the other with no random encounters, all the stat boosting items - all that stuff was changed and added by Larian because "it's really difficult to adapt D&D as a video game mmm'kaaay?".