Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General My frustration with BG3 combat

While I generally want to like this game, I find myself at odds with basically every mechanic that is combat related and after having played a few of the bigger fights now I do feel like I have to vent a fair bit, and elaborate why I am so frustrated:

1. The initiative system. I just do not get it. So it is a roll that sets the turn order. That is an issue for me, because it is just not planable. If you are outnumbered in a fight it might very well be that 6 enemies will move and attack before one your people can act. When your roll is unlucky it is also hard to use synergy. So your general strategy is to grease the ground, make enemies fall and then set it on fire before you move in? Well you need to be lucky with your roll. I would very much prefer to have a set order to act according to your portrait order and a balanced turn order according to number of enemies (8 enemies, each member of your party acts before and after 2 enemies). So fights are more predictable and planable. Prime example is the matriarch fight where you might have to fight up to 18 spiderlings, 2 phase spiders and the boss, that all can teleport freely and attack.

2. The number of enemies: You are often outnumbered by enemies that also have a lot of HP. That makes it hard to decide priorities. Taking out a key character might take a turn longer, which again emphasizes the power of numbers. Again the spider example is great.

3. The all-knowing AI: The AI always has perfect knowledge of the situation and what can and will happen. They know if they can reach your character with their movement or if your movement is not sufficient to reach it. It also knows your capabilities. They also have "cheats". The player can only make an educated guess, if their 9m will be enough to reach that player and if a jump is included whether enough will be left. I also do not know what the AI is capable of. In the hag fight a spawn cast whatever on my Laezel dealing 10 damage now and another 10 damage upon her turn. I have no idea what that was. I am also not aware what certain enemies can do, redcaps for example can attack three times with their sickle. The hag herself and her clones also seem to have 40m range or so on her spells, certainly further than I can, which brings me to:

4. Movement and range: I think 9m is way too short for movement, I think it should be 12-15m and/or jumping should not cost movement. I also think that 18m is about 7m too short for spells and ranged weapons. Many enemies can teleport freely and still act, so keeping up with them can cost whole turns, especially for melee fighters. Also there should be an option (or standard) to show how far you can go when using optimal pathing and including jumps. Basically a planning option before executing movement. I also found myself about 30cm away from my attack range, so I could see a slight increase in melee range as well. Tying into that is:

5. The out of combat movement: For a game that makes combat all about positioning and planning, actually doing so is just plain awful. Your party moves in a blob. There are no formations or distance options. You can unchain one character and have to enact special movement (jumping, stealthing) individually. If you want to position beforehand you have to enter turn-based mode and with great care individually place your companions, which takes way too long. Why is there no group movement, actions and unchaining of all individuals? This is further emphasized by most enemies having AoE spells, yet starting formation for ambushes is a tight blob. Counterintuitive. The possibilities you have are often not clear. You can destroy the eggs of the matriarch beforehand, however they never lit up and the whole place is pretty dark. Possible elevations are not highlighted either or not very prominent. Some are also to thin to stand on apparently.

6. Glitches, bugs and exploits: While this is EA I understand it, but at the moment each fight can easily be cheesed or bug out on you. Whenever I wanted to place my party beforehand the hag would simply not appear. I had Mayrina fall to death in her burning cage, because no character could have realistically reach the button in two turns, and even then it would likely have needed a turn of her to get out of it. Throwing water barrels from certain positions did not work multiple times, it would simply not throw for no apparent reason, or it would deal damage to the cage, making it fall. It worked with the Water spell, though. The fight was so frustrating, random and glitched, that I just initiated combat with one character and while no enemy could move because of turn-based, my rogue sneaked in, which makes no sense, and pushed her into the underdark. For the Matriarch I just destroyed the eggs from stealth and her as well. I do not know if this was all working as intended.

This surely all sounds pretty grim and borderline like mimimi, but currently for me it does not seem like I am playing a game, but constantly fighting and coping with it's mechanics that are mostly counterintuitive, intransparent, slow and cumbersome. So what are your own thoughts on the combat mechanic, the setting up pre-fights and the general state of combat. Do any others have the same or other issues with fighting in this game?

Broadly, I didn't have the issues you describe.

I think some familiarity with DnD 5e goes a lot way here. I felt like all the content in early access was appropriate for the labelled "Normal" difficulty. The idea that you can't form a strategy when there are some unknown elements is a wrong one in my opinion. The first four points frame the game as if it were too difficult but I really encourage you to redouble your efforts.

Lastly, you can in fact unlink all 4 party members. Try again.

I find Wasteland 3 boring for this reason, a little bit of randomness is more interesting. Probably just subjective.



HP bloat has already been discussed on this forum, also that fights with a lot of enemies are problematic for several reasons, but difficulty is not one of them.



I think it is only fair if the AI is good. Right now, it really is not. E.g. everybody focusses on the party member with the lowest AC (which is often Gale), which makes some fights exploitable. Some enemies will have abilities that you do not know anything about, beforehand. It was the same in the BG games. I fondly remember buffing up for two minutes before attacking Firkraag in BG:2, only to be hit by dispel magic, fear and an atomic bomb aka dragon breath in the first 5 seconds of the fight Or encountering a demi-lich with an endless supply of imprisonment spells.



There are fights that drag on and on and are quite boring, e.g. fighting all the L1 goblin groups as a L3 or L4 party, but movement and range are not important factors IMHO in this regard. Some enemies have a lot of movement (many have not), which changes the tactics, which I find refreshing. Ranged chars are at an advantage in those situations, just like it should be.



Yeah, that's really bad, as has been discussed on these forums in multiple threads.



That's EA for you. The hag is one of the buggiest encounters right now. Have a little bit of patience and try other areas, most are better.

Many problems come from TB mode. The others come from Larian design of combat (always outnumbering and outleveling you).

DOS 2 was much worse, believe me.

Turn based games should only feature difficult fights, IMHO, because combat is just too slow and boring for trash mob fights. There are already fights in the EA that made me listen to podcasts.

I get that this may break immersion, but to be honest, immersion is not a thing in Larian games. It is not something that they are going for. BG:3 is, to a lesser extend than DOS:2, but still, a collection of random fantasy cliches, set pieces that are riddles, waiting for players to use all kinds of shenanigans to manipulate them.

From a gameplay design perspective, DOS:2 and BG:3 are like BG:2, if BG:2 had only consisted of Weimer's Tactics mod and were only about challenging power gamers to come up with new ways to cheat the game engine.

Problem is that Larian gives every Encounter alot of Range Options for the lack of A.I.
Make a Zombie Encounter.
Single Zombie okay but when 2-3 Zombies reach a Partymember they are overwhelmed. So natural you may use a strategic retreat to kill Zombies in lesser troop strength because you can abuse the low speed. But in a typical Larian Encounter 2 Zombies teleport. 2 Zombies throw rocks and the Zombie is more or less same speed as humans. You Fight no Zombies, youi Fight 0815 Pixels.

It really should not by sacrificing immersion, which is why im i even playing CRPG in the first place. Even DOS2 had a few trash mob encounters where you can quickly score a victory - it makes the game have contrast and make the eventual hard encounters stand out and more interesting.

Otherwise it gets boring and predictable fast.

1) DnD core. Its a DnD game.
2) That is what makes it epic. If you are having problems read my guide: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=722075#Post722075
3) You can look up redcaps google "DnD 5e Redcap"
4) DnD core. Its a DnD game. Spells, actions, potions, items racial abilities can increase.
5) Agreed
6) It is EA, although some of your examples are flawed. "I had Mayrina fall to death in her burning cage, because no character could have realistically reach the button in two turns, and even then it would likely have needed a turn of her to get out of it." There are multiple ways to save her that work, Misty Step should be an obvious one. Stealth, Invisibility, jump spell etc.. However IMO Mayrina is a snotty bitch so she can die.

1- It's a roll adjusted by class/skill modifiers. It's actually pretty fucking great.

2- Fine tuning and all that. While combat balance will come over time, that's just ANOTHER reason I'd prefer a six-men party: getting more chances to inject your actions in the action queue AND giving the enemies more targets would reduce the focus on your squishy characters.

3- The AI *does* have a vague tendency to "metagame" the combat on some specific behavior, but your complaint is weird, because "the movement range, of all things, seems like something perfectly legitimate for the AI to know about.

4- Official rules.

5- Party control out of combat is absolute garbage tier. Preaching to the choir here. See my signature for more details on this specific topic.

6- Yeah, an Incomplete, unpolished game seems to be incomplete and unpolished, unsurprisingly. Also, bugs and technical issues everywhere.

This just about learning how the AI works:

Save before encounter. Try out things. Consider it like a chess game, think this way "how will the AI react if I do this?" (and run a few tests, every encounter, until the pattern becomes clear)
Reload save and now do it differently: sneak a wizard in a good spot and keep hidden, if gets revealed try again and pick another spot, high ground is best; move the rest in good position as well, then start the fight with a sneak attack from your fighter (which is tanky, can self-recover health once and can survive being focused), then after attack starts switch to the others and do something with each. If went well make a new manual save.
Then reload again and try a different approach. Just to study what the AI does. Learn what works and what not, how can the fight be made very easy and have can lose it or barely survive it.

I agree that many things need changed & improved.

I'm fully with you on #5 there. Not so much on the rest.

The A.I. hunt down low AC targets. YOu need AC one Mages to protect your Casters. A Frontline Fighter cant protect them because Larian has alot of Homebrew Changes that conter this.

1. Larian Disengage + Jump Ability devalue Melee Zone control alot.
2. Larian give Monsters Range abilites they normally not have
3. Larian has High advance Bonus which normally not exist in this context

1) I find the initiative system is what keeps the combat fun and exciting . . . having to react to how things playout is a fun challenge . . . it forces you to get creative. With fixed turns you just use the same pre-planned strategy every time.
2) Again it forces you to plan and adapt . . . crowd control, clear out the adds, or focus on the boss. Or perhaps run away to a choke point. . . or better yet start the combat from a better position.
3) We know everything also, except monster abilities but those can usually be looked up in the D&D rules if you like. But its fun to be surprised!
4) I actually think they have nailed the movement/scale. Faster movement would let people run all over and things get way out of control (see Divinity Original Sin 2) and there is very little teleporting (sure phase spiders, but that's their thing)
5) I think a 'Unlink ALL' button would be really great. But I don't generally have any difficulty moving people into position. . . and never use the out of combat turn based movement. Unlink everyone, put them all into sneak, and move each to where you want to go avoiding enemy vision cones. I've really not had issues with this.
6) Agreed, bugs and Mayrina is a pain and flat out crazy . . . let her die!

OP your upsets with BG3 battle system, I think is because you are new to it. When you learn the system, the combat is exceedingly fun <3!

I found myself just loving the combat and gameplay after 50 hours into playing it ^^.

My advice is just to take the time learning the system, and abuse it like the AI does .

I disagree with almost everything you state in these forums it seems. Again your complains is pretty much made on the premise of wanting to be cuddled. Again all I can say is that there probably will be implemented an easy difficulty which would suit you better for almost none of these complaints are warranted in my opinion.

The first one is just straight-out misinformation, disengage + jump is only a bonus action to characters with tadpoles, 99.99% of the enemies do not have the ability to do it.

I am going to quote you, as a splendid example of mostly constructive feedback and valuable opinions in this thread. I was fully aware that I naturally hold a minority opinion with my pretty deep frustration, and I have not played a Divinity game for 8 years or so. As stated it is also a vent. I came to BG3 solely through the predecessors, I do not "care" for the studio or the D&D ruleset behind it for the most part. I just wanted somethig new in this world, which is not to sound disrespectful in the slightest.

I still think the initiative system is very frustrating, probably the thing that bothers me the most. I really can not wrap my head around why one would design the encounters in that way and not include at least a wait option. Most of the other issues could either be solved or diminished to the point of me enjoying most combat, by making a properly working and transparent UI and a crisp pre-combat movement system, these would go a long way.
Small things like:

- telling me what precisely the enemy is using and having a clickable tooltip in the combat log, some of this is already in, but many things just do not appear at all or only the name with no additional info and it keeps me guessing
- telling me right away what kind of enemy I am facing, with class, AC, HP and weapons, maybe even the available skills to mouse over on the right, without right clicking on the enemy and scroll through a full list, if an enemy has a certain weakness or immunity tell me right away as well (spiders immune to poison)
- same with buffs and debuffs they are already displayed as icons, but mousing over them does not tell me what they do and how long it lasts
- giving me a way to plan my movement, so I do not end up 50cm out of melee range. I still think movement range is too short, though, especially since a lot of enemies have bonus movement and bonus range (I know it is the rules, but they can bend it a lot)
- an extensive ecyclopedia giving me insight to everything from rules to lore to combat mechanics preferably with videos included
- a more thorough tutorial displaying all the possibilites the game has so new and overwhelmed players have actually seen possible solutions
- letting me set up my characters as I darn well please, synchronised movement, movement in formation, individual movement, grouping, group stealth and jump, preferably a complete overhaul to represent standard RTS movement outside of combat, and all doable with one click or key, two max
- saving and loading times drastically reduced, loading should not take longer than 10s
- a fully customizable, scalable and sortable UI, so I can, for example put all bonus actions in one spot, physical actions there and spells in this row. Unused resoures and counters could also be a little more prominent

I want to add that I had some fights that were enjoyable, but it definitely is not the standard, sadly. I know that the want to give the BG name their own spin, which I support, but a general streamlining, responsiveness and speeding up, while giving players all the relevant info would go a long way. And I certainly do not want to be "cuddled". Also I am aware that the standard difficulty will likely be scaled down in the full release, this does not mean that anyone with complaints just wants to breeze through a game and not learn about the mechanics, quite the opposite and it is the developer's responsibility to make their game as accessible as possible if they want to reach a wide audience. And even with a narrow audience transparency and accessibility is preferable.

Very cool to know!

I wouldn't say 99.99%. Goblins archers have it. They don't have the jump but an ability to disengage without taking damage from AOO.

So if trash mobs have a disengage feature, I bet lots of monsters do also have it.

Goblins' whole thing is that they are nimble and good at scampering around. 5e rules give them the ability to disengage: this is not something Larian has added. Almost no other "trash mobs" have this ability.