Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback This game is far too easy to cheese

Here's the thing about features though. If this is the game working as intended, then Larian is going to build the rest of the game with those features in mind. They're going to build the game with the knowledge that the players have these tools in their toolbelts. Why should we assume that at higher levels, difficulty isn't going to be balanced around various exploits? If these are meant to be there, then what logic would move Larian to ignore them when thinking about how difficult to make enemies? Why wouldn't they give enemies more health when they know that players can throw healing potions? Why wouldn't they think "hey there should be a sneak puzzle here," thus forcing players to engage in the exploitable stealth system? Why wouldn't they inflate the cost of things in shops to account for how easy it is to game the store system? Why would they create all these systems and then forget about them when designing the rest of the game?

Oh I see, but they'd have to rework the stealth system entirely. This is how it also worked in of Div:OS1, which is the earliest title I played from Larian, so it might just be a limitation of their games. "Distracting" npc's by chatting with them and looting let's say the paintings on the wall for some quick cash was just part of the game, even if it's silly at times.

I would be ok with the earlier suggestion, everyone gets dragged into combat in the nearby area(which cannot be too big otherwise it's just plain annoying if your character has to run to the encounter for 10 turns).


You're right, as mentioned above, I had to steal all stuff in town to sell so I could buy equipment to progress using these "features" on higher difficulties in their previous games.
Whenever I didn't use an optimized party comp or lacked equipment I did the cheese as mentioned in the OP.
They might very well push you to go this route(if they add higher difficulties) because fights could be unfair otherwise.
Personally I don't care, it can force you to be creative with the many tools at your disposal but I can see why people wouldn't like this.

I think I am starting to understand difference between Larian's systemic design and Arcanes systemic design (which I brought up to discuss in this older thread). Arcane's systemic design adds gameplay, Larian's - removes it. The situation you discribe doesn't add to stealth, it more or less removes it. That's I think is the fundametal flaw I find with many of so called "cheese" mechanics. They don't add a wrinkle to the gameplay, that can be utilized and combined with other pieces, it hacks off chunks of potentially interesting content.

In this istance at least. As it was pointed out before, shortcomings of the stealth system are numerous and multifaceted.

Exactly. If the mechanic is totally unrealistic and/or completely undermines other mechanics, I don't think it's a good mechanic.

Stealth is just one example of this. You literally don't need the Stealth skill because you can distract an enemy by freezing them in time. Then you can do whatever you want while they're frozen. Unrealistic AND it totally negates Stealth.

How would some of us like this to be fixed? If your other characters are anywhere within say 300 feet (doesn't have to be 300. Just throwing out a number) of the "frozen" characters, pull them into turn-based mode too. Even if enemies aren't aware of said other characters, time is slowed down for everyone in the area so that there is still the potential for your other characters to sneak around and snatch things while the enemy is distracted, but it isn't so absolute. Then also give the enemy the ability to detect via sound, not just sight cones. So Stealth is used even if you try to maneuver a character around sight cones to get behind them. This, having a good Stealth becomes so much more important if you want to use stealth tactics.

See, the problem a lot of us have is that you can have Stealth -5 and still slip behind an enemy with Perception+10 without a roll simply by staying outside sight cones and locking that enemy in combat or dialogue. That's an extreme example, of course, but it's totally possible in the game. This makes Stealth completely useless. There's no need for it.

Now, before I shut up, I will say that it is MUCH better in Patch 8 than in the past. MUCH better. I wonder if some players might need to play the game again to test it out for themselves. For example, Arron the halfling merchant caught Astarion EVERY time I tried to have him pickpocket him - with Expertise. I even tried the method of distracting him with conversation so Astarion could slip up behind him outside of sight cones. That tells me they're working on it. They're trying to prevent such gimmicks. So I do think we should give them some credit. It used to be that I could steal full suits of armor with little trouble using the same method.

I dont really know what else im supposed to tell you ...

I repeat:
There is not much else ...
You have other experience ... thats sad, but not really my fault ... maybe we describe something differently, maybe we do something differently, maybe one of us suffered bug the other dont, or one of us is bugged in benefitial way ... dont know, and to be quite honest, dont care really.

Still, dont really matter how actively, or pasively agressive you become ... this *IS* my experience.
Anyway ... let me know when old Niara gets back. :-/

So ... dont? :-/

No really, you are absolutely corect ... its weird, unreal and totaly crazy ...

But its also something you cant really do unaware, accidentaly, or non-intentionally ...
YOU have to freeze that character in combat / conversation / turn ...w/e ...
YOU then must pick another chacacter and stealth it around ...
YOU then must go steal all his items / save damsel in distress / i dunno, scratch his butt secretly w/e ... *insert weird action here*

Again ... yes, its weird, unreal and it certainly breaks some rule of logic if not the game itself.
But thats the whole purpose of exploits ...

I mean isnt that logical?
That person who freeze some character in conversation in order to steal all his possession with another character ... wanted to do that? O_o

I know this was said several times allready ... mostly by me.
But this is once again standing in the fire and complaining that you feel hot. :-/

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Bcs there is litteraly nothing supporting that idea present in EA? O_o

Bcs that is litteraly not what exploits are for?

Bcs Swen himself told us in various interviews that they like to keep this OPTIONS for players who like to do crazy stuff?

Bcs it would completely negate whole purpose of EA?
I mean if you want people to test your mechanics, what purpose would that have if for final release you would throw away everything that was tested for last 2y+ and implement something entirely different?

Maybe i could find some more ... but i hope this will surfice.

Bcs throwing potions is far from being the only, or the best way to heal your party?

There allready is sneak puzzle ...
Two of them actualy.

One is in Druid passage, those statues.
And second is in the Underdark, Turrets around mage tower.

How you exploited either of them?

Why would they tho?

Look, i like you uncolored spirit ... but reading this, i cant help the feeling that your fear clouded your judgement ... i hope it was just purposefully written this way and it dont reflects your actual expectations. :-/

But this is path to madness ...
You cant go out, bcs car *could* drive over you ... but you also cant stay home, bcs "most accidents happens at home" ... etc.
Yes, bad things *can* happen ... but what is reason to fear them if there is litteraly nothing pointing out that their probability is at least average? :-/
(Hint: There is none. )

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Depends on your point of view ...
For some people looking for flaws in system and basicaly (pardon my language) fucking with it is exactly the interesting content ...

As Swen said it in one interview (only paraphrasing) ... when player finds out something like this, they feel smart ... bcs they "managed to overcome the system" ... and for that reason, Larian dont remove theese things ...
And i would like to add to this that we need to take under concideration that playing like this is never possible in long therms ... players usualy have their fun (some longer than others i have seen videos of people puting buckets on Vendor's head for HOURS in Skyrim) ... but sooner or later, it gets boring and cheap, since when nothing is challenging, nothing feels rewarding ... and thats the point those people start play regular way (by the rules).

But you have to let them get there themselves ...
You have your fun, they have their fun ... eventualy you meet in the finish line anyway.
And even if someone will cheese and exploit through whole game, not solving even a single puzzle, conversation, fight ... nothing in "regular" way ... but still have fun, so what?

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And you are right ... this sounds like something that could be used as definition of Exploit.

Only if you are going to do that ...
And again, why would you?

I wonder if you realize that all this would change is that your MC who i "freezing" the vendor would need to do that further from the original place ... so you are out of hearing range.
Then you would simply skip through your other character turns ... and dont continue in that conversation, or start it over again ...

And the outcome would be that you would once again exactly the same way steal litteraly everything that poor guy have without him even having a chance to noticing. O_o

Right now nothing in the story requires the player to utilize those tactics. Doing so makes the game more fun for some folks, but it's in no way necessary to get around any challenges or progress the story.

What you seem to be doing is making a slippery slope argument. And it's a very shaky argument. You're essentially saying, "If this exists then I'll have to use it at some point down the line even if I don't have to use it now."

That's not a strong argument. It's making a prediction while pretending at logic.

Why would a feature exist that you don't have to use? Simple. Because Larian offers multiple ways to get past challenges. And it's there because some people enjoy it. It literally makes the game more interesting for them.

First of all, in the case of DoS2, when the npc was busy and the rest of the players did something inappropriate (not counting a direct attack), it started the fight. Sometimes it could just be an attempt to get past the guard. It was not used often, but it was present. So if Larian wanted to, this restriction is not a big deal.

There is probably no one in this forum who would say that the steath is not broken. This is largely an AI issue and I don't know if they can fix it in some way. It would require quite a smart AI which is rather rare.
You could make the steath a bit more difficult. I think that would be enough to just add small circles around the enemies. At best, however, it will make sneaking slightly more difficult.
As for armor sneaking, it is perfectly feasible even with full plate armor, the problem is that it is incredibly difficult and rather not very profitable.

Should characters that have not been detected automatically be involved in combat? Or should combat automatically trigger turn-based mode for the entire team?
In my opinion no. It would limit the freedom of the player very much. At most, characters should only be drawn into combat automatically when they are connected to each other (it sometimes worked differently in the case of DoS)
The strength of dos games is that players can do whatever they want independently of each other.
Honestly, the more freedom you give the player, the more it is facilitated by various types of exploits. At the same time, if this is the basis of your games, it might not be wise to change it.
The game is designed from the ground up as a multiplayer game after all.

True. I feel like most people like it when a game forces them to be creative with tools that the game system (dnd) provides (spells, items, calss/race abilities etc.) and don't like it when a "dnd" game forces them to be creative with abusing the bizarre engine itself. Next step would be to literally code exploits.

I wouldnt call it broken ...
There is space for improvements, sure ... but as it is, it work acceptable for me.

Not necesarily ...

All Larian would need to do is to made this optional part of Difficiulty settings.
And voila! ACTUAL Win-win-win ...

Ofcourse there will still be people bit... complaining about existene of possibility to turn it off, bcs ... nah, dont know, dont care, just reasons ...
But thats inevidable anyway ...

This is an amusing exploit.

Now this is an example of an exploit that 100% doesn't affect normal game experience---specifically flaming sphere and consumable usage mechanics---if not used. Like, it should probably be at least investigated in order to make sure BG3's enemy AI won't learn to make use of this and there aren't other unknown consequences of this interaction, but otherwise it just seems like a fun relatively obscure thing to stumble upon in a run.

Yeah, exactly – your ‘guess’ is the casual player fits a certain definition that you’ve subjectively assigned to them. How many casual players have you interviewed? My ‘guess’ would be zero based on what I’m reading. You cannot claim to speak for people you don’t know, especially based on this rather bizarre logic that the majority enjoy games with loose, easily broken systems.

I’ve never heard anyone, anywhere, request anything like that in my entire life. Links to those that have (outside of the R-guy who’s suspiciously defending exploits as though this were an attack on his very being)?

Maybe go on BG3 Steam and breathe in the contempt for a while – it might change your view on the ‘casuals’, because there’s certainly no love for the design exploits going on there. And BG3 Steam is overflowing with randomers.


You might want to stop speaking for everyone and anyone – it’s the most socially blinkered quirk I’ve come across. Whatever about the other glib claims to psychically know the mind-set of ‘casuals’, as you condescendingly label them, you cannot possibly know, either, who is ‘obsessed’ with the game unless you see stats. As in, hours played. This in not available here. Merely posting with any regularity in no way implies the player is ‘hardcore’, eats, sleeps, drinks the game.

I can’t claim to speak for everyone either, but my stance is that if I try to think outside the box in a game, and the game can’t respond in an intelligent way to it, then the game is broken – or ‘thrash’, as they call it elsewhere in forum-world.

Again, I can only assert that I know of no one who says ‘All right yeah, can’t wait for some broken mechanics lads – bring them on!’

There’s a thing called a console that can accept cheat commands to open up these ‘exploits’ for those who enjoy them – the two-or-so people here, that is, who are the only other people I’ve ever read, anywhere, who enjoy broken or exploitable systems. And that is a fact – I simply have not encountered anyone here, on reddit or Steam who's this pro-exploit.

Sven saying he’s all for them is not evidence that they’re part of the plan – Sven is the CEO of the company: if you really think CEOs don’t put positive spin on negative aspects of their products, you need to listen to more CEOs. Believe or not, their main goal is keeping the business alive and making the product look good. Addressing the exploits costs money/time – so it’s wiser to make them look intended rather than admit they’re in the pipeline for fixes they don’t have the time to implement.

To bring up an example, in numerous games with lots of items that do varied things, the difficulty levels often point out specifically that at higher difficulty levels good use of items will be necessary for success. But at lower difficulties you can usually just ignore items. In the pathfinder games, at low difficulty you can more or less ignore the specifics of equipment, but after a certain point you need to nickle and dime every benefit you possibly can. My argument is that if these are features that are meant to exist, then Larian is going to take them into account because why wouldn't they? And if these are exploits, happy accidents that Larian simply are allowing to continue existing, they either should be removed unless their removal would make the game as a whole tangibly worse, or it should be understood that the onus for them being disliked should be on Larian for leaving them, and not on the players who dislike their presence.



I was mainly arguing against JandK's claim that these are features rather than mistakes, since my understanding of an 'exploit' in a video game context is that they're inherently mistakes of some description.


Fun fact, I've only encountered the druid statues in one playthrough. I did not understand what was going on at all and Gale died and it was a whole mess and I just ran away. I don't think I even fully understood it was meant to be a sneak puzzle. My party just started getting damaged and I think one of them died before I understood the statues were causing it, I panicked and everything just got weird. I've also never been to the Underdark in any playthrough. Even in the one playthrough where I got into the chamber under the selunite temple, I couldn't figure out how to get the door open and it didn't make sense RP-wise for my character to just randomly jump down crevicies until she by chance found a different way down.


My posts the other day did get pretty passionate. My prior post about feelings towards exploits started getting a bit of "purge the heretic" energy that I hadn't intended, based on my insistence that the default approach with any mistake in game design should be to remove it unless it definitively would make the game worse not to. As for the fear you're talking about, I like to think it's not refective of how I am. I think these exploits are all just mistakes and because of that Larian isn't actually going to plan things around them. Even if they were, I'm gonna be playing this on the lowest difficultty level anyway so I'd probably be safe. In life generally, I'm self aware enough to know that I probably do live with an unhealthy amount of fear, but not to the level of your examples. I can go out, but I do get pretty nervous about crossing roads, and I will never actually drive a car because the danger and responsibility there are far too great for me to shoulder. But that's all an aside. I do appreciate your concern though, thanks.

I understood your argument. I responded directly to it. My response remains the same.

Fair enough. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

This is horrible way to approach any statistic results ...

You should keep i mind (but i know its hard to accept) that humans tend to suround themselves with people they have something in common with ...
Its perfectly fine to talk with person with different religion, if you agree on politic stuff (or vice versa, or something entirely different) its perfectly fine to talk with person who have different politic ideas, as long as you can talk about sports, since you both like the same team ... etc. etc.

BUT (and this is the important part)
Once you and some random non-specified person have nothing in common, you will not stick together. Thats just how our mind works, there is nothing bad in that.

Once you grasp this idea, its not so hard to expand it futher ...
Why i never meet anyone who voted for the other president than i did?
Why i never meet anyone who thinks this horrible noise is actualy beautifull music?
Why i never meet anyone who would like that stupid sport (team)?
Etc.
Why i never meet anyone who would like such ingame features?

The answer is often (almost allways) the same ... those people simply arent part of your social bubble, it doesnt mean they dont exist.

Aww thats cute.

That R-guy simply defends his fun ...
Isnt that litteraly the same as everyone else do here? :P

Funny that nobody else was marked as taking it on attack on their being ... wonder why.
OH wait! I know why ... bcs its gibberish.

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I see ...
Fun thing, you both are right.

I mean exploits usualy start like oversight, or misstake ... but once they are left there on purpose, they indeed become feature.

I believe Larian improoved this ...
Now when you enter the tunnel and come few steppes inside, your party gets really low Perception check (i dont think i ever failed) and warn you about those statues.

You can still miss it, true ... but RP-wise, it seems lot better to me now.

This was also improved ...
There is now way to get out of that post even in case you dont deactivate that statue.

Wont tell you more tho, dont want to spoil surprise. ^_^

We generally surround ourselves with people that hold similar political & religious views and/or have similar enjoyment of sports, media, etc, and as you even mention not all views need to match. We can talk sports with someone who doesn't have the same religion, etc. In fact, knowing only people who have the exact same opinions as you on everything would be incredibly boring.

People obviously don't make or reject friends/acquaintances solely based on musical tastes and/or having the exact same view on a single mechanic in a video game. In fact, such a small detail likely wouldn't even come up until the friendship has already been made, and thus one can expect one's friends to have a wide range of views on something as small and specific as that.

I am extremely grateful to you for coming to refute a claim that no one has made here, mrfuji3.
Very useful!

Is there a tl:dr version?

I tried to skim through the content. I'm not sure what the point is.

I'm saying that I don't think the folks here make for a good representative sample for polling purposes. Are you trying to say that the folks here do make for a good sample?

Or is it mostly just a bunch of piss and vinegar?