Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Combat Improvement - Reactions

We have probably reached the point where we will not see any major tweaks to the game, however, I believe the following change would make the game feel better, more fluid, and it would not require much work. Talking point -> Reactions feel like they ruin the fluidity of combat.

The reasoning for making the game turn based was "tactical pause feels messy". It feels kind of "interruptive" then to have reactions pause the game, every time they trigger, and it becomes increasingly more "interruptive" the more characters have reactions, even multiple reactions for multiple characters.



In the interest of making combat feel more fluid and immersive, what if?

Reactions trigger a slow motion movement that gives you two seconds to choose a reaction. This could be accompanied by a hotkey function that lets you press for example: 1 (for reaction 1), 2 (for reaction 2). Or, any other key you would bind to the function. ->

- This could be implented as a slow motion that ends in a pause if nothing is selected. So as to avoid "stress" for players that want to relax.

- Slow motion that continues combat with no reaction.

- Or best of all: adjustment options in the settings for whichever you prefer.



The only thing that would need to change would be the coding of the game so that you get a slow motion effect before the pause, giving the option of bypassing the pause by selecting something before it triggers.

Thoughts?

Seems complicated to me and often not adequate. There are builds which offer several reactions for one char. You often have to consider what reaction is best in a given situation. Do I choose a lvl 3 or a lvl 4 counterspell, or do I use tadpole retaliation? Or maybe something else I even don't know. A turn based game should offer time to think. I would be more or less annoyed by a slow motion alternative.

On the other hand, if such an alternative could be a toggable option for people who like it, why not? It's then a matter of how many would like it and how difficult implementation would be.

Yes I agree, this game is a tactical game, therefore thinking is part of it, so naturally you should have time to think.

However, you have to remember, you are always thinking ahead in tactical gameplay. For example you can see that an enemy lvl 5 wizard has the next turn, and your party is grouped up. --> You already know you want to counterspell that before the turn starts, and almost always you would want to counterspell with a lower slot. So it doesn't require any fast thinking.

The games combat system is actually well done despite the fact I did not like the idea of turn based before, however, the reason to make a tabletop game into a video game would be to make it feel more alive and dynamic than any previous iteration. Therefore one of the main goals should be a dynamic feel and fluidity in how the combat flows. You want a video game to "come alive" so much that it immerses you, right ?

Reactions, are actually the ONLY pause function in the game, as such it feels really strange when they pop up, and they just feel like they disrupt the flow of the game. Especially since enemy reactions are not paused. --> Also, keep in mind, after a while you will get used to it, and you will already be sitting with your hands on the keyboard, 2-3 seconds is actually a really long time for something that requires you to move a finger 1cm. We are already using hotkeys anyway to separate the group with G for example. WASD to move the camera, and so on.

But yes, I guess we both agree on a toggle with a few options is best.

Well your late to the argument, there were at least one major thread about this before they implemented reactions. Originally they were just passives on the action bar that had a circle swirling around them when they were on.

I said the same thing about reaction system, it would interrupt the game play especially during co-op. I was the minority (majorly), to the point where it felt like I was just trolling the forums.

Cool suggestion btw.

Wow I did not realize the forum was this dead. I was going to post about another couple of small fixes that would improve the combat system, but maybe it is pointless now.

Regarding reactions, yes it does feel kind of disruptive the way it is. I am not talking about slow motion with a shaking camera and effects and so on, naturally. More like a slow motion function to increase the fluidity of the combat -> the moment you choose the reaction you want normal game speed resumes.

Idk what kind of solutions were being discussed before but people could have misinterpreted something. Seems a bit off if most people think the current implementation is fantastic.

They already released the last update, presuming it's going to be hot fixes for now on. If anything I'd recommend hitting up there discord for mod suggestions or this forum. Truthfully though, its more active on discord than here for mods at least.

It was a discussion before the implementation, I think it was before paladin class was released but don't quote me on that. Any discussion about the reaction system that is live now, I have no idea. I stopped coming here a while back and just dropped in cause I've been digging around the toolkit again.

Yes I know the last patch dropped. Idk if they have a stance on what entails "hot fixing" though. I was thinking if it was really simple improvements they might do it.

Im not sure but I don't think my suggestion for reactions requires much more work than a handful of bug fixes. Maybe, maybe not.

Things that break the game are the only things that are considered bugs to be hotfixed from what I can tell.

For example, if you had saved the Tieflings and had the party with them, but from then on everyone would think you destroyed the Druid Grove and you'd find no Tieflings at Last Light Inn because of that. Or if you save Nightsong, but when you come out of the Shadowfell you find Last Light Inn succumbed to the shadow curse with Isobel, Jaheira and all residents either dead or walking around cursed and everyone acting like you killed Nightsong. Other things could be (parts of) combat not working as intended, like specific skills doing unexpected amounts of damage, being unable to perform actions while you're not paralyzed or restrained in any other way, etc. Beyond that, they won't be making any more changes to the game.

With BG3 having had the last update and being in maintenance mode though, even some actual bugs are still in the game after months. I made a thread about a bug with Lyrthindor's encounter, something that's been around ever since the Patch 8 stress test in January. It's been widely reported and talked about, like here, here, here, and here. I got a "Thank you for your report, this issue is known and may be fixed in a future update." as response to my bug report, but considering the bug has been around for 11 months now, I don't expect a hotfix to come anytime soon for anything being reported.

We DID fight to get these reactions you are arguing against in.
They used to be automated toggles and most of us on this forum hated how the whole thing worked, because the "annoying interruption" is precisely what gives the player agency and control over what's going on, so it's not annoying at all in our eyes.

The game improved SIGNIFICANTLY in the moment this way to handle reaction was finally introduced.

If anything, I'd love to see "ready actions" sneak their way into the game, too. But realistically this is two years and half past its original release; I doubt it will see any more additions and changes past some basic bug fixing.

Yeah, this game is very unlikely to receive any changes. Even bug fixes don't seem like they're being worked on anymore.

Though if we consider feedback in regards to potential implementation in future titles, then there might still be merit for discussion.

As far as the reaction system goes...

Personally, I think the pausing is fine. Like, the purpose of the game being turn based is that you have infinite time to make a decision, as opposed to real time where you have limited time to make decisions unless you manually pause (On top of other differences like actions happening one at a time in TB vs all at once in RT). So having reactions pause so you have infinite time to decide is expected compared to any sort of "Slowdown" that continues down some real time type limit.

Really the most notable source of irritation with the system is due to the number of reactions. Which is inflated due to being based on D&D whereby lots of interactivity is desired to make TT experience more engaging. Then exacerbated by being a video game and thus in order to create some semblance of challenge, there are large numbers of enemies. Which results in many pauses as all these enemies interact with all the reactions your characters have.

I'm not sure that this system would be as problematic in any other game, one that isn't based on D&D and so has more limited numbers of reactions available or ones that have more powerful enemies that lead to fewer NPC's in combat (Though, given Larian's past titles and their penchant for HUGE enemy counts, this is less likely)

As far as the idea about video games being "More dynamic" it seems that this is more along the lines of the TB vs RTwP debate.

Personally, I prefer TB over RTwP, even for a video game. The increased level of control that TB brings is more important to me than the dynanisism of RTwP (Especially if your RTwP ends up with you just spamming pause after every action to manually assign moves anyway, effectively creating a worse version of TB... Or worse, you just let fights do themselves because you have so little input into a fight that it becomes an auto-battler...)

That said, there are some ideas in regards to dynanisism that could be interesting to explore in TB systems. Such as enemy turns being taken simultaneously to improve overall combat speed by making the actions you don't need to make decisions for happen quickly (Which is especially noteworthy when factoring in the aforementioned Larian design of high enemy counts. Some of the most annoying combats are the ones with like 20+ enemies that you have to sit through taking turns one by one). Which happens to address one of the main issues many people have with TB combat, which is how long it takes for even a simple fight.

Now here's a bug that'll never be fixed! Lol, I just fired up BG2 for the heck of it (different company? Different generation of programmers!)

It should be "effect", as in "bring about", not "affect".



Bonus: Jaheira and Minsc.

Ehr...

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/affect

But grammar aside, there are plenty of bugs in BG2 that were never fixed. As in plenty of other games.

Actually, that is accurate.

Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun.

Someone affects something. Which causes an effect to occur.