Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback One more whinge about lack of pause...

I know we won't get real pause, but I want to complain about it one more time and hope for Christmas miracle (also, merry Christmas, y'all!).

The closest we get to real pause is turn based mode, which isn't really the same. I get it that for multiplayer it makes sense not to offer pause, but for single player, it's a huge frustration.

I want to be able to put the game down and know that it's for real paused. Here's a practical example - it's Christmas and time to call the kids' grandparents when they finish the videos they're watching. I'd like to fire the game up right now, but I'm not, because I don't want to be in combat or otherwise in the middle of something when the kids' videos are done, and make them wait for me to find a good stopping place. If I had a real pause button, it would be different.

Yes, in practice, it's probably fine, just leave it at the end of a turn and walk away, or quicksave and exit to menu, but it just doesn't feel right. I'm struggling to find examples off the top of my head, but it's like one of those things that doesn't actually matter, but -- *waives hands vaguely* they -- do or make people do anyway, because it's expected and people wouldn't like it if it didn't happen. I'm really sorry I'm not coming up with examples, but you know what I mean, right?

I'd really, just for my own comfort, really like a for realsies pause button for single player.

An auto AI mode that plays for you?

The computer makes decisions so fast that it looks like real time.

That's basically what BG 1 and 2 did...unless you chimed in.


Make a toggle to "chime in" ..."player has joined the game".


Suddenly real time with pause looks plausible to me...am I oversimplifying things?

The AI already exists for the enemy moves.

I mean, I don't care about real time with pause, but for some this was a deal-breaker.



Of course it comes down to: how fast can the AI "think"?


Introducing slow motion with pause....the next step in gaming!

Im quite sure there are none.

Problem with pause in this game is that it dont really serve any purpose ...
There are no timers runing, there are no patrols coming, there is nothing that keeps you by your computer in general ... especialy in single player game.
And even IF you find some place (and i can think about few) where you can be discovered by NPCs if you go AFK ... the result is exactly the same no matter if you are preset or not while it happens ... either you get to conversation > and game is effectively paused until you pick something ... or combat starts and you cant do anything until you get your turn, when the game is effectively paused until you pick something.

But since your post can be sumarized to "i just want it since it feel better to me" ... its okey, you dont need them.

I wonder if addition of reactions brought the engine any closer to support a pause.

I often wish for pause butting in two situations.

I want to stop combat from processing so I can dig into combat log and figure out what just happened. It might be less of an issue if log was more readable, but right now having to way couple turns before being able to go back to a roll I wanted to check is frustrating.

Another is trying to control characters in exploration mode. I will admit it is a force of habit - I am so used to party cRPGs having a pause button I find myself searching for pause buttons when I notice a trap or want to reorder my party movement in a pinch. I think unresponsiveneness and lack of precision in party controls would be less frustrating if I could pause the game, make sure that characters are actually going to do what I want them to do, and then unpause, then having to deal with misread inputs in real time.

How is going into turn-based mode and not taking your turn any different from a full fledged pause?

Lots of ways.

The full game world doesn't stop when entering TB mode, so NPCs can still patrol and possibly find you.
Sometimes you can't go into turn-based mode (e.g, for a few seconds after exiting TB mode)
Pausing during a cutscene would be great.
A full-game pause would likely pause everyone in MP, while going into TB mode only affects nearby allies.
...probably more I can't think of right now.

However nothing changes for your character so it is a practical pause.
Quicksaving, if life places demands on your time, and reloading is likely the best way to freeze the game-state.

In a multiplayer game having one character pausing the world for everyone makes no sense and is considered bad design.
Most multiplayer games consider all games to be multiplayer, even if you are just running a single client.

Things can change for your character. For example, patrolling NPCs can enter your pause-bubble. Also, player experience is an (arguably the most) important consideration in game design.

Another reason: you can have unchained party members at different areas in the game (perhaps sneaking to enact an ambush). To enter TB mode, won't you have to go to every single party member individually? Whereas a full-game pause is a single command that affects all characters.

Quicksaving and reloading is not an adequate substitute for a full game pause, for many reasons. What if you're in the middle of a cutscene and thus can't quicksave? Just load up your newest save, which might be 10+ minutes ago??? Also, reloading a save is way more effort than pausing and unpausing, especially if you have a relatively slow computer that takes a while to load up a save.

Disagree that full-pauses in multiplayer "makes no sense and is considered bad design." It highly depends on the game. A full-game pause in Stardew Valley, for example, is incredibly useful.

Exactly this - say you want to climb into the rafters and shoot all the burning braziers so they fall on your enemies... even in turn based, by the time you're shooting the second, the dudes below are already healing each other, which in practice you have four people, four braziers, you want them to all shoot and drop at once, and that's basically impossible without a real pause in which to issue commands

Im ready to argue that this is not true ...
Willing to even download some software and record any place you name where are NPC patrols, bcs they all stop ... stoping them is main (and often the only) reason to even use turn based mode. O_o

This may seem like good argument ...
The problem is, its litteraly few seconds ... i mean, IF there is anything in real world that requires your IMEDIATE atention ... pausing game should be last of your priorities. O_o

This one is true ...
Except if we count error messages in game, it seems we will be able to save mid-dialogue ... and i believe there is also something about mid-cutscenes? Not sure about this tho.

Dont really seems relevant since OP asked only for Single Player.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnyway ...
Quetion that is just as important (imho) as "IF" Larian will add hard Pause ... is "HOW" Larian would implement hard Pause ...

I mean, i have read something about reconfigurating party, or preparing an abush in every single topic about this ...
But would that be even possible? :P

Remember, that lots of computer games offers pause, but that pause freezes whole game, and dont allow you to do ANYTHING with it ...
Pause from RTWP, where its core mechanic, very important for gameplay, is certainly not the only way.

After 20 years, BG 1 and 2 are still the most played and highly regarded RPGs out there for PC, so there must be something people like about the combat, despite what all the DOS-ites here say.

I can say that when you're dealing with torturer spike in the goblin camp, there's at least one patroling goblin it is incredibly hard not to have pulled into the fight after a little while. I ended up dealing with two patrolers in my most recent playthrough.