Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Level 5 please!

Most everything by the end of the scenario is level 5, and outnumbers the party such that you have to adopt cheese tactics to win fights like the Hag/Gith/Spiders, wouldn't it be nice to at least have level parity so we can try fighting on that much of an even footing? Also, I hit the level cap around halfway through my playthrough, xp-wise, so it's particularly disappointing to just stop leveling well before the end of the Act. I'd love to see some more abilities and tactics come into play, as well as have a motivation to keep playing when everything else is gated for now.

I don't think we will get level 5 anytime soon. In 5e level 5 is a huge jump in power for all classes, and I think the whole point of EA is to iron out things and collect data/feedback on early level play. Similar to what they did with DOS

I think it would be a good idea to let us iron out issues with mid-level play as well given the things we've already discovered about low-level play.
If fireball can set 12 enemy combatants on fire, that's a problem.
If counterspell can only counter spells directed at you, that's a problem
If Haste allows you to cast two regular spells each round, that's a problem

There's quite a few things I'd like to make sure they get right with fifth level.

Yep. Level 5 literally doubles the power of the party as many classes now get multiple attacks. I dont think this game is ready for it, yet.

All true, but I think it's a little more troubling than you're giving it credit for.

That so much seems to thoughtlessly diverge from 5E before the first significant power spike, and that several delays were necessary before Larian could release what should be a relatively thoughtless exercise in game balance on an existing engine (I think most experienced DMs could design a fair level 1-4 campaign in their sleep) doesn't bode well for the future.

I don't think it is much to do with designing a campaign and more to do with developing the features. An experienced DM doesn't need to write the DMG from scratch, which is essentially what Larian is doing when moving from pen & paper to their engine, each having their own advantages/disadvantages.

Once the low-tier combat is tested and works reasonably well then they can move onto the firsts power spike. Tbh, if they patch in level 5 later on I would love to give it a go.

I know it may sound like a self serving argumentation, but I'd say that if anything that makes it for some excellent testing material.

It will, I just think that right now there are enough issues with Actions and BAs and weapon rolls and all sorts of stuff that to pile on top of a shaky framework would obfuscate issues more than reveal them. Once single strike stuff is solid, we'll see a lot of issues, I am sure, with multi-attack. Shooting twice from the same position where one was 80% chance to hit and the second 50% I can't imagine NOT happening. Im guessing they were very specific in NOT doing level 5 yet for a variety of reason. Gonna be a heck of a phase 2 though haha.

My feedback on early level play: We are way outgunned in early level, and just about every encounter is somewhere between Hard and Deadly for the party based on CR. If the intent is to make the party feel completely outmatched in every encounter, success. But also very exhausting slog fights. Will be better if we get more options, such as has been suggested, things like choosing starting equipment, and maybe some of the options like variant human and others from supplements like SCAG and Xanathar's. Also improved implementations of the 5E ruleset, so that some build options and min-maxing can be applied. I am cautiously optimistic since this is early into Early Access, but as it is now, it needs help imo.

It's already too easy, level 5s for the encounters we have in EA would make it boring.

I mean doesn't that sound like the very thing you'd want to playtest in your Act 1 / skill balance in general? None of the end-of-act fights are "easy", none of them, unless you exploit mechanics like LOS, stealth, surprise and environmental cheese. If you try and do a fight "straight", by having a couple guys at range and a couple in melee, you will get wiped by the encounters I mentioned. That's just true, be honest with yourself, you didn't really beat the spiders the first 3-4 times until you figured out a trick to the fight that will hopefully get patched. Likewise the Gith, Hag, Bullette, etc... There's not a single rollover fight in the back half of the Act unless you are exploiting some part of the mechanics.

+1

If there wasn't a cap on EA we would be able to reach lvl 5 on the first act anyway. If anything it will show which encounters need to be rebalanced.

I would rather they get 1-4 right first before they worry about 5 plus.

I feel like saying you think more issues will be revealed and compounded at level 5 is a reason not to put it in yet. The consensus on here and Reddit seems to pretty clearly point toward combat being pretty broken, and I agree. I don't see how adding a ton more complexity to the issue before fixing the underlying problems would help them improve the game faster. You always want to tackle these things in stages. When you're debugging code, you don't write the whole thing then try to fix it. You focus on small blocks that compound into bigger blocks. Once combat without tons of multi-actions and enhancements is working reasonably well, then you add the next layer of complexity and rebalance. Adding in the additional complexity when the foundation doesn't work doesn't just give them more issues to iron out, it increases the difficulty (and time commitment) of fixing those issues exponentially.

I say keep level 5 locked away until the basic gameplay is rock solid.