Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Honor mode still too easy

- Careful planning required.

Restrictions on availability of resources need to be very carefully planned. Otherwise, it will be just another way to cheat. Think about this: if you raise difficulty to your suggested new level, how do you want the game engine to remove items/resources from the game? Which/what/how many items to be removed from where and also exactly when?

- Ramifications have to be considered.

Also, keep in mind: if it's not a player self restriction, if you want Larian to implement a new rule, the change (new rule) will equally affect millions of players worldwide. However, the perceived "too easy" is not universal at all - no known data suggest that. If I had not spent a lot of time, the game would still be very hard to me too. Regardless, I suffered a full party wipe on the first day I played the game.

Among roughly 20 million BG3 players worldwide (which is an estimate by a company based partly on Steam's data), according to Larian, 1.3 million playthroughs had been completed by end of Nov 2023 (in roughly 3.5 months after the full release of the game). Think about this: if ~95% of BG3 players have not completed the game, how do they even know if the game is genuinely too easy or too hard? If you have completed the game and can confirm the game is too easy (or not), you are minority. You are among the 1.3/20 = 6.5% of player base.

- On the technical part.

Technically, the abundance of resource items cannot be the most relevant source of perceived "too easy" - such that: let's remove some items and the game will immediately magically become harder. if you remove weapons, I can switch to scrolls. If you remove scrolls, i can switch to the actual spells - you cannot remove spells themselves, right? by removing weapons, you cannot remove my fists, right? I can switch to monk class and continued to feel "too easy". if you remove food, I personally don't care. I can always take a long rest without using food and still get half of the full rest effects. On average, I play 10+ hours and take 1 long rest.

- My opinion: The ultimate reason for perceived "too easy" is that Larian has deliberately kept the game manageable to millions of players, thereby making it inevitably feel "too easy" to a tiny number of more experienced, returning players, such as you. All the players like you, put together, are possibly less than 1.3/20 = 6.5% of player base, as 1.3 million completed playthroughs could very well be done by much fewer players than 1.3 million. If 1.3 million playthroughs were done by 1 million players, you are among 5% of the play base.



- The game deliberately tries not to raise NPC levels to match the player party - at least in Act 3.

In Act 2, most guards are level 8. My Karlach party of level 6 are already powerful enough to kill all of level 8 guards.

In Act 3, most guards are level 10, with some variations, whereas robots are always level 11. But my party can quickly earn enough XP ready to hit level 12. Yet, potentially hostile creatures and bosses seem to be capped at level 11 most of the time. Very few are level 12. How can level 10/11 enemies beat a party of well-armed level 12 characters?

Additionally, every party of 12 can create a huge army of summons, making the total of a player party up to 30+, if I counted correctly. On a fast computer, a player party of size 30 is still manageable.

To make the game feel "too easy" you really don't need items. One way to do so (without any items) is: just use spells to create a huge army to outnumber your enemies - that's about it.

Here is a concrete example of how Larian has deliberately kept Act 3 easy enough to millions of players:

A most deceptively easy fight in Act 3 is when I expected a serious wizard duel in a wizard tower. Before I entered the portal, I was even a bit nervous, as I was recalling my memory about the tower called "Watcher's Keep" - an unforgettable experience from BG2. I hesitated but decided to level Gale up - he should lead any wizard duel - making Gale the only level 12 character in my party. However, after I entered the port and saw my opponent, I was hugely disappointed... Do you know that human mage's actual level? Or at least give me a guess about his level, please? Anyway, we finished this "duel" with zero HP lost among all my 4 party members. And that was on Tactician difficulty. That was in Act 3. This kind of perceived "too easy" has nothing to do with there being too many items and so on. I don't use potions, scrolls, barrels, etc. Larian has also made it unnecessary to use items in such a mage duel. Gale, being a level 12 wizard, is supposed to be miles ahead of a lowly low-level mage, who is no better than a wizard in Act 2 who at least fought us in a more or less honest way and felt mighty in Act 2.

In BG2, dragons and hordes of creatures are summoned to guard occasionally worthless treasures. In BG3, only a lowly wizard tries to guard a huge collection of most expensive scrolls. And all the traps/locks are more cosmetic than a real deterrence to any thief. Unbelievable. Yet, believe or not, this mage has given quite some players and even reviewers a headache. Some reviews picked by MSN even claim this is a hardest battle in the game.