Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback please make act3 more difficult

Hello,

my main issue with this game is that starting from the middle of act2, the party gets too powerful, which results in the game becoming too easy.
While this is not really an issue during act2 due to the limited options left at that point, it only starts becoming a problem during act 3.

me as well as lots of people will take the most reliable approach that takes the least effort without obviously being a cheese strategy or abusing a glitch, the following points are based on that mindset. it is about "balanced" difficulty setting as that is what i would assume is as intended by the developer.

The party being too powerful has negative implications that take away immersion and lower the depths of gameplay:

- if the party can easily eleminate every npc in the entire city then all confident talk of quest npcs becomes awkward, they are essentially in a position in which a normal human would try to align to the powerful player character instead of talking big
-the atmosphere of the darker areas like orins or cazadors hideout gets lost as there is no tension when the player expects to win the next battles anyway
- positioning, items, strategy, classchoices all become meaningless in act 3. Solving problems can be fun but problems to overcome in battle dont exist in act 3 anymore
-it creates a plot hole in world building as it begs the question why the city still exists when such a small party can create so much damage effortlessly, while the city of baldurs gate already has so many enemies
-it prevents players from caring about alternative approaches to battle to get what they desire, in act 1 i was for example talking my way into the goblin village, in act 3 i would always use violence as its guaranteed to get the job done
-it makes the party characters feel bland because if the party cannot lose in battle, then the connections the characters have with the environment lose value as its almost ensured that the player cannot improve his odds of winning through sidequests as he will win all battles regardless

I also played DOS2 which also had the party become very powerful during act 3 and act 4, but in the case of DOS2, the atmosphere, world and villians established in act 1 and act 2 carried my excitement through the acts 3 and 4, which was well done.
In BG3 the ties between the acts 1 and 2 to the act 3 are much thinner, so act 3 kinda needs to build its own excitement, which in my opinion it fails to do.

My solution to this would be to increase the aggro range in which enemies call for backup, its already strange enough when the player attacks someone in one room and the person in the next room just ignores the turmoil. That way uncautious players would risk facing like 15 enemies at once and would be forced to find more interesting solutions. There might be better approaches but the others i came up with, like a level 10 cap, dont seem plausible anymore.

Act 3 difficulty is/would be fine actually, what's causing the problem are broken or overpowered game mechanics (e.g. Haste implementation, Illithid powers, nerfed crowd control spells), overpowered gear and easy access to long resting without drawbacks/consequences. Of course it doesn't help that Act 3 is the least polished...

Thats what happens when you make your Level 1 characters already demi-gods by level 5 and throw in all kinds of D&D high level creatures in act 1 and 2. By act 3 and level 10 the characters feel more like level 18 but the same kind of creatures remain.
Its the typical and much discussed Larian "throw everything but the kitchen sink" at the player in the beginning...Dragons, beholders, flying to other dimensions, the Underdark, level 1 clerics of Shaar, vampire spawn etc...

The only way to quickly balance things is with overpowered gear and inflate stats instead of changing level/creature/area design.

Reminds me of 12 year old kids at the DM table who make their first ever characters. They want everything and go everywhere!! Because, well, its more fun!
Why I don't play D&D with kids anymore. Thanks having rules, Its just so much more fun ironically.

They can't touch long rests. They're too crucial to story progression to mess around with. Honestly, removing paralysis autocrit, changing half orc racial to not grant damage dice on crits and deleting potion of speed would probably fix a lot of the balancing problems. Either way, Balduran greatsword also needs a nerf. Remove elixir of Hill Giant and Cloud Giant Strength. Sorc meta magic also needs a nerf. Too many classes get too many extra attacks and too many extra damage dice from gear.

Scripted bosses and their allies should be immune to Surprise status, none of this ambush cheese bullcrap should be possible. Bosses that are in dialogue and their allies should be damage immune while in dialogue and when combat initiates all your party should be placed in combat regardless of hide/invis status.

Absolutely correct

Haste is OP, though for me Hypnotic Pattern was the one that seemed to break most engagements.

Yep.

Not sure what the other one is babbling about.

Just increase all the damage and life of mobs in acts 2 and 3. If Larian wants to be more careful, then she only increases the damage and life of bosses.

The fight with most of the bosses in act 2 and 3 is really VERY disappointing. They practically die before we even understand how their mechanics work... Imbalance causing ease generates a very serious effect of loss of immersion in the game.

Not everyone has this, just those who enjoy real challenges a little more, but we shouldn't be left aside, we are also a large part of the public.