Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Faith Leap Trial is still pretty frustrating (Act II spoilers)

Unlike some of the other puzzles which can be skipped, this one is unavoidable, because you need every umbral gem to complete the Gauntlet and advance the plotline.

The tiles by the altar show a map for the path, but the scale there is wonky with no clear reference to compare. It's hard to keep in view with the camera, and the path itself is also very narrow to follow. Whether the player/party has various light buffs or debuffs going on will also make the platform view feel buggy run to run. Like either the puzzle can be absurdly simple with the platforms in full view, or else excruciatingly difficult, depending on choices you made for the pixie lantern or Isobel's blessing etc. The trial is called faith "leap", so the very first thing I tried was the spell jump but there are kill planes everywhere which make that a no go. Same deal for flight or misty step. It's also super easy to run the whole party off the edge like lemmings by accident. Couldn't some more work get put into this one? Other than the Faith Leap, Shar's other trials are all pretty cool. The Gauntlet is one of my favorite parts of the entire game, but the Faith Leap just sorta drags it down.

I think when blood is offered at the altar initially this should automatically ungroup-all or enter turn based mode.

Probably could happen for the other trials as well since it's not particularly intuitive that this is what the player should be doing. All the trials are much more difficult with the party chained together, but the faith leap is particularly TPK prone. For a full party the companions won't path or jump to auto-follow the selected character route, but even in a solo like the slightest drift could end a run. Auto turn-based would at least give the player a chance to figure out what's going on, like before corpses start teleporting to the shadow platforms where they can't be targeted for resurrection. Maybe have the platform paths hug the walls on at least one side, so it's easier to tell where the breaks are? Again 'Faith Leap' would seem to suggest a leap = jump, but you can actually walk the whole way, which just seems kinda weird. If you jump to the shadow platforms thinking maybe that's the leap, you'll just end up dead with your body out of reach, which seems unnecessarily punishing. This one is still a chore even after I've solved it several times. I might skip Grym's battle puzzler or other optional stuff like Gith mind barriers just to speed things along and avoid grumbles, but the Gauntlet is main path so it seems like it could get a bit more care. Honestly feels like there should be 1 more Umbral Gem in the Gauntlet as well, so that way the player can just ignore the Faith Leap, or whatever other trial is particularly frustrating and just grab one by the Rats or whatever hehe. Faith Leap right now showcases the worst of my party control habits. I'd rather fight another Yurgir or a Shadowmonster in some random corner of the map. Or I don't know maybe something with sticks and knotted rope, like where we actually gotta run it? Cause that would be pretty gauntlet right there! Warrior needs food! lol

Anyhow, it's just one of those things. I'd nitpick on the other puzzles, but the Faith Leap trial is the only one that genuinely irks me. With Shadowheart in tow the suggestion seems to be 'darkness protect me' all night, but then if you let her make her own choices or follow the approval generally or even just go by her default loadouts, you end up with a lot of light spells and light buffs that throw a wrench in this one. Least at the entrance to the Gauntlet you can just misty step to blast past, but the Faith Leap remains pretty touch and go. I'm sure there have been more than a few rage quits after that leap, probably a fair bit of feedback over the past year too.

Auto-Turn based mode when bleeding at the altar would at least be simple, since that's used elsewhere quite often. It happens automatically when we first enter the Shadow Cursed lands, so the player has reason to expect it might happen. Of all the puzzle solutions, the simplest for this one seems to be "ungroup/stealth" then creep along with the cursor to get the pathing preview. With the path preview line up, the line will do a little dip at the edges of the invisible platform. Astarion might chime in for that one I guess, but then there's no guarantee that everyone will be around, just seems like something where that whole trial could be nerfed a bit so it's not as brutal. Those kill planes from the initial position I think should go, because they remove a lot of potential solutions. It's silly to me that spells like jump, flight, feather fall, dimension door, gaseous form etc would fail so miserably on this one, where in other places spells like knock or misty step can bypass similar frustrations without really missing a beat. For Faith Leap I think the main confusion is just the order, cause if the player walks out onto the platform at either side before using the spells or abilities it's no issues, but then if I try to actually leap them or fly or whatever from the first position up by the altar then they get got instantly. TB auto is probably the simplest, because it will prevent walk offs by accident, but to me it's still not clear that we'd have to walk down the stairs and creep out a ways before the spell type solutions will work. Pretty late in the game now I guess to revisit the design, but still, I think it could be better.


hehe

Anytime I have to grapple with the z-axis, group controls, and pathfinding, it's going to be a drag.

Actually... You don't.

You only need the 3 to open the door. You can skip the one for the platform by using Flight or Leap (As I figured out when the platform kept bugging for me and not moving my PC so they fell to their death so I had to figure out how to get them to the rest of my party). If you go from the area with the large pots (Nearby the statue and the helmet to trigger the hidden Sharran/Rats fight) you can make it across the chasm to where the platform takes you.

As far as the actual Faith Leap trial goes... If you have a lot of junk you can drop stuff down in front of you to help find the path (If it stays there it's safe. If it gets teleported to the nearest platform it's death). Also about halfway through you can Misty Step right to the end.

And for the naming "Faith Leap" is a reference to making a metaphorical "Leap of Faith". You walk out onto an invisible path and you need to have faith that the path exists and that you're stepping onto it.

I mean I just ditch all the gems into the chasm and cast knock with Gale, but it's not quite as satisfying or inspirational.

The other trials are a bit more obvious with names that are a bit more on the nose. Soft step and self same, even library puzzle gets the book, but the faith leap you go to do the most obvious thing first and just get nailed lol. I feel like this is what they were going for...


But then they maybe got caught up? Like cause they also wanted the part where Indy falls to his doom to come first, and then we have to see that a few times to drive it home, before noticing anything drawn on the floor hehe. I just think the design could have been simpler and accomplished much the same. It's the only trial in the Gauntlet that I always just want to skip and like just not even open that door.

Yeah, messing with the elevators in the gauntlet seems precarious... Shadowheart has been here before! Those boots have seen everything lol