Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General More ways to retrieve an item other than stealing

In video Community Update 01, "Player Agency" was mentioned.

Hopefully, the game would go one step further and let us have more ways to complete an item-retrieving quest. For example, if the objective of a quest is to retrieve an item from enemy, I really hope "stealing" is not the only way because that behavior might be objectionable to some players (like me). In those quests, I hope we could also use Diplomacy or other less-controversial ways to retrieve the item. Thanks.

I agree. Hopefully for all (or almost all quests) there should be multiple options. Ok you need to obtain an item. Maybe you can: steal, buy it, craft an alternative. Kill for it. Use pursuation /diplomacy. Complete another quest to obtain it. With alignments you can't expect a lawful good party to either kill/steal from a good npc.

I hope the game will have good thievery mechanics but several options to complete quests and a good crafting system will be welcome.

I totally agree. But it should also be noted that the different ways to achieve a goal should all result in equivalent XPs and loot. There should not be a 'default' way of doing something such that the "best" payoff is from that path.

I think the xp should based upon the length of time it takes to get the same objective. The quick way vs the long way.

I respectfully disagree.
. Except in a special case e.g. you need to quickly stop the enemy before they steal the magic items. If you do it in 2 rounds you keep 5 items, 3 rounds save 4 items etc then a biggrr reward (gold and /exp) can be effected by time

In most quests how you do it or how long it takes should no effect on exp.

But there should be some missions that are timed.you have 1 day to stop the queen from being poisoned.if you do a full rest then need a few short rests you cant complete that mission. In fact if you rest at will without risk it will be like DOS2 using a bedroll which breaks resting which is a core mechanic of the game (i.e. saving spell slots/skills) for the boss fight.

No, exp should be given depending on the outcome of a quest, not how you get there.
Of course, how you do it can change the outcome and it might influence later quests.
If I take your words literally, speed runners would profit most from this and think this is not how an RPG should be. (I don´t think you mean it that way.)

I really like the original Deus Ex.
EXP is given for completing quest objectives and exploration, not for killing enemies or using skills.
Players will do things that give a reward. I have tried role playing some games, but most of the time I ended up doing things this way because it gave the best reward.

Deus Ex rewarded players for doing quest objectives and exploring the environment.
Most RPG reward players for killing as much things as possible, so your main char is a psycho killer.
One thing I really dislike is when the most rewarding way to play is to do all quests first and then kill everybody before you go to the next area.
Like you save the village from a monster attack and save some kids from a dungen and after you get a reward for it you kill all villagers.

PS:
Playing as psycho killer can be an option in games.
My point is NOT that I am against certain playstyles.
My point is that one playstyle should not get better rewards than others, at least on average over the whole game.
If you have the quest to save villagers, you should get less or even no reward if you kill some of them.
If you have the quest to kill all villagers, you should get less or no reward if some of them escape alife.
If you have both quest you have to chose which one you follow. If you kill some of them and save some others, both quest givers will give you no or little reward. If you save them first and kill them later both quest givers will be angry, give no reward and will never give you a quest again because you are completely nuts and unreliable.

I literally meant it that way.

edit: After rereading. It isn't what I meant. I meant it like you said. Speed runners should not be rewarded equally as the person who took the long way around.

I do not think that XP based on rapid completion is suitable to RTwP games (if bg3 is going to be like that), it is more a TB thing or tactical games like Valkyria chronicles or Fire Emblem.

Even in games that use xp based quest outcome, not in enemy killing like VTMB you can have different xp rewards depending on how you complete the quest, skill usage, etc. ej: Not being detected, achieve a diplomatic solution, rescue all hostages alive, etc.

Yes, VTMB was also a great game in this regard. VTMB, Deus Ex, the original Thief and maybe some other games encourage you to play in a way that makes sense in the game world.

If there was an RPG that rewards you depending on how fast you play, I would not like it because I am a very slow player who likes to explore everything and actually read all these walls of text.

I am perfectly OK with quests like "You have to rescue the kidnapped person in 2 in game days or she gets killed.". In fact, that makes much more sense then the usual "You can take as much time as you want, everybody is waiting for you to arrive."
I think Pathfinder Lingmaker did it right: There is a time limit and failing it has massive consequences, but the limit is so large that you should not have a problem unless you rest after every battle or you chose to explore the entire map when somebody tells you to go somewhere now.

I don´t think that role playing and speed running fit well, unless you role play a speed runner. The result would be something like Mirror Edge, I guess.

Yeah, In any decent RPG game you spend high amounts of time talking to commoners and people you found, checking trainers or merchants, crafting or burglarizing people´s homes without really do anything to advance the plot. And of course, talking to cats and dogs to see if in this game they do not say only "woof" and "miaw" (I have to thank DoS games to change this tradition. Melicamp doesn´t count).
So a speed run is out of the question unless the game world is not very interesting or it is empty. (or if you are playing Fallout 76, but why do you want to play that?).

But I think he meant rewards for fast combat completion if I understood him correctly. I do not think it is well suited in RTWP, as I said before, but rewards for completing fights under certain conditions (achieve victory in less than X turns, Winning with only 2 fighters, do not use any spells, stun 2 enemies, etc) are found in other games ( Mostly JRPGs like Trails of cold steel) and they are usually fun to do, but those are rarely used in western CRPGs.


The achievements that now exist in almost every game, from steam to Xbox now covers that kind of, well, achievements or feats of gaming prowess, I do not feel the need to add more to that.
I prefer rewards for skill usage, or different approaches for different classes, races, genders, alignment, spells etc, following in the spirit of D&D and Roleplay games. If you can have the two options, it would be welcome, but the devs have rarely time to put all in the game, so If I have to choose, the former would be the focus in a BG3 game.

If the game is TB that is bad enough that if it also had timed or in other ways constraining conditions on how you engage in combat it would be the death knell for my interest in the game. Honestly, none of the above sound fun at all. They would make combat all the more a tedious chore.

I'm wary of this kind of feature too. Back when I was playing Valkyria Chronicles on PC, I played every single mission for an S rank, and refused to move on until I got it. I played until just before the final mission and then just stopped, and never returned to it. I only meant to "take a quick break" before the last mission, and then just never found the inclination to actually do it. I guess I got kinda burned out at the end there, without actually realizing it, even though I did enjoy my playthrough, more or less. Was a huge pain to get S for some missions, and it didn't even feel that good when I managed to get it.

Exact same reason why I stopped playing Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I got pretty far in the game, and after one certain mission, I thought I did really, really well, and still didn't quite manage to get the highest rank. I felt kinda discouraged, and realized you'd have to pretty much speed run and pull off crazy plays throughout the whole mission to get the highest rank.

Someone could say, then just don't pay attention to it, just play how you want and enjoy the game. Yeah well that is easy for someone else to say. I like taking my time exploring the environment, experimenting with things, creating memorable moments, so the "achievement for fast completion" thing really turns me off.