Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interview with Sven by Gamespot

Congratulations!! This EXACTLY illustrates the problem with Larian's mindset. They are so convinced that their own ideas are better that when something isn't working, they keep trying to hammer on more things to try and fix their self-inflicted problem. We've seen this in happen.

Larian believes missing is not fun. So they reduce enemy AC and add Advantage to backstabs and high ground. This creates new problems: Enemies are dying faster than expected. They now increase enemy HP. This produces new problems: Saving throw spells are now a lot worse because they do the same damage and have the same chance of hitting as they do in the tabletop game. Their chance to hit feels worse than AC-targeting attacks, and their damage is unchanged so each hit feels worse because enemies have higher HP.


Your suggestion is to add in more rules, more code, creating more exploitable edge cases in order to fix a problem they created. The solution is to simply remove any bonus or advantage from being behind the enemy. Adding more and more rules to fix what they broke with their earlier rules is an unending cycle.

Wich part of its not my suggestion you dont understand? O_o
I mean its barely 4 words ... how should i speak simplier?

Hey @Stabbey, we've come a long way from last February to where we are actually in agreement about a lot of things about this game.

Melee characters are ALREADY supposed to guard around themselves at 360°, by the way. Especially if not already engaged by other enemies (which would make them flanked).

The fact that you can jump and/or slowly walk around them to do a backstab is a faulty implementation of the rules wanted by Larian.

Whether it's your suggestion or not is not the problem here... Again, you should try to see what others are really saying, as in "the big picture", instead of trying to pick apart words and phrases that have little meaning when taken out of context, just so you have an excuse to argue.

Yes, it's not your suggestion. You think it's a good suggestion and agree with it, and for discussion purposes, there's not much difference. My point was that the suggestion is not ideal because it is adding more complications for unnecessary reasons.

Sorry. But on the other side you're pretty much moving to the bare-bones approach, which may leave us with "just smack it to death".

Height advantage - dont mind that.
Backstab should only be applicable when the target is flanked.
Disengage / Weapon Swapping should cost an action.
Shove Should cost an action.
Fighters should not be turned into FF14 characters with big flashy abilities if that happens I am going to complain so hard about a refund its not DoS it was not advertised as DoS it was advertised as DND 5E as a game.
Mages do need divine spells removed.
Also less explosives and larger than average hp totals for enemies when your fixing that.

Except the fighters thing the other stuff could all wait to be patched till later in content.

The character creator needs a massive overhaul honestly.
Rolling ability scores option.
Equipment selection options.
More general character options. Height Weight Size ect. Voices.
Multi-classing in character development.
Mercs.

Again this is something can wait for all the classes and races honestly to be corrected.

The comment were not really adding new content in patch 5 really is not an impressive thing to say like I said a while ago 2023 release at this rate. They already made the comment 2022 is a hope currently they are unsure they will make that release date. With news in this patch I would not be shocked even if it got pushed back to 2024 lol. Not to be a negative nelly but its kind of true. Glad I invested in pathfinder wotr with the rate content is coming out for this. Its one of those situations where I would not be shocked if delays are because they were pushing stock up to sell off the company or to drive sales on another divinity game with bg3 really not being there main focus. Just more a publicity stunt.

Fixing long and short rests is an easy fix. Add random encounters based on map location when returning to camp on a random variable. This would encourage more use of short rests and it would honestly add more flexability with the game and less save to avoid results as well as by adding random encounters with some random loot options people want the loot but also they dont want to get caught without having rested. They could even do it as a level tied encounter possibility. Random mini map locations for the encounters could also help resolve height advantage in as many situations as its present currently for people frustrated with this by making more situations where height may not be reliable.

If they were really serious on resolving things classes should be the primary focus on releasing content. Once all the classes exist then at least your resolving all issues at once and giving everyone there options to play what they want to play rather than hey were just fixing a bunch of bugs and mechanical issues as a patch. Fixing issues is important when the game is broken and you physically cannot play the game. Massive Lag, Content crashing, in ability to save serious issues with emergency fix needs not minor bugs like a cinamatic needs to be corrected. A mild pathing issues. Those kind of things that need to be fixed but are not major can be fixed in between patchs.

Its baffling how they have so many people on staff for a single game when you have much larger games with much smaller staff having much smaller issues with content. MMo's I am talking about in this regard as they are massive multiplayer games and the staff for most of those games is around 200 on staff members for the content. Larion has 300 people on staff and they are having trouble managing to add even classes to the game on a regular basis. There are plenty of ways to be more efficient at what they are doing than how they are doing it.

4-5 People sifting code for ways to fix specific issues while the rest of the staff is focused on more extensive content can generally resolve most issues. Honestly it comes off extremely disorganized and like they do not know how to handle content release. They are just really bad at how they are approaching the game while I would not want to see it pushed like cyber punk 2077 the difficulties they have for the amount of content they are releasing is mind boggling.

Don't fix what isn't broken. Larian's rules for advantage are breaking things. If you want advantage, then there are a lot of things which can grant advantage. Those all come with a cost or drawback. Giving it for free for being higher up or moving behind an enemy which does nothing messes with all of those things.

Im glad im not the only one who sees it that way. O_o

Anyway ...
I wonder what happened here ...

It was told here that someone would not mind backstabing being somehow buffed IF that would be harder to achieve, than simply "jump over" or "walk around" ...

I repeated for him the suggestion that was written somewhere around here by someone else, that was making backstab harder to achieve (not much, but at least something), and expressed my support for that idea ...

Even tho Tuco kinda confrimmed (unless i understand this quote incorectly), that the main part (turning around to face the attacking enemy) definietly SHOULD be implemented. O_o


Now im the bad one, since *i* sugested something that "would add more complications"
Well ... i must admit that im confused.

Advantage from height is not that big a deal, being behind a target without flanking the target is a big deal that should be fixed its not an emergency to resolve it but before live release it should be. Standard high Armor class vs standard high end attack roll bonus your talking +3 bonuses your looking at +6 + 3 + 5 to hit which is around +14 to hit +2 additional bonus for barbarians so +14 to +16 vs a standard ac around 25-27 so at beast without magical buffs or other tricks its around 45-55% with best gear to hit in melee range most of the time your looking at around a 65-70% chance but advantages your talking 78% - 85% chance to hit. Early access average to hit should be +2 +4 + 1 so + 7 to hit against ac 17-19 40-50% with advantage its around 70-75%. Since most enemies have around a 15 -16 ac in early access for the harder enemies your talking around 60% / 80% with advantage which is around where the numbers should be. This does not factor in buff bonuses and discluding magical buffs the average numbers.

If you were to talk absolute best possible its 49 ac vs +41 to hit which is 60% those are stars align abilities in dnd. Advantage its 80% chance to hit. So same as the numbers above. Little bit higher on average for the base to hit when your talking absolute best possible min max numbers. You can get a small small differences with min maxing based on class of around a 5%-15% difference. Advantage generally yields a 70-85% chance to hit vs not at advantage generally gives you a 40-60% chance to hit if your on par with the enemies your fighting. Any more or less would be stronger vs weaker situations.

Though they should add some more fights where height cant be as utilized / fights where situationally being higher up may be needed more so that your diversifying options and class needs. Like fighting big brutal melee damage characters where you can be up on a ledge can be impactful on combat same time not being able to be up there can be bad for casters / ranged characters exploiting height advantages. Making a fight harder. The minotaurs in most recient patch felt over tuned vs the prior patch where they felt under tuned. In same situation current more recient patch the spider matriach felt much easier vs the prior patch where it felt more challenging. I also min maxed an entire party using friends to allow me to run a 3 character party and add utility to the party via bringing in an npc as i felt needed. (One of reasons we need mercs quality of life).

Druid/Ranger/Fighter Build with ranger having a dex based build to utilize archery skills as well as being an alternate melee character and fighter being a main melee. Druid being jack of all with support from whatever character I needed to balance the group for the situation. I would cut the ranger as levels go up however as rangers are not good at higher levels currently based on standard dnd rule sets they get weaker the higher the levels go compared vs other classes early game they are on the stronger side.

I agree, but I don't think Larian is incapable of subtlety and I would use Gale as an example. Gale seems like on the surface to be a great guy but if you start peeling back the layers you realize he is a selfish, manipulative, beta-male, power hungry, stalker. There is debate on this, but anyone who does a deep dive on Gale comes to a similar conclusion, that he is at least untrustworthy and despite his virtue-signaling he really only cares about himself.

Every time I have pointed this out to people they have been incredulous *until* I start pointing to stuff he says and showing how this is a form of manipulation and that he starts doing it pretty early on.

Do they take things to 11? Yeah, they create some incredibly wacky situations as well, but for the most part those situations are superficial - they don't really matter. When it comes to the big parts of the story Larian has that shit on lockdown. Another example is the Dead Three connection. It's there, and there is a connection to the Absolute, but you have to look for it.

Shadowheart is another good example of subtlety. Probably the most fan speculation is around her actual story.

I'd like to get some other examples of writing where you guys felt Larian went over the top to the extreme. For science.

I have never used barrelmancy in 2 DOS games. I always thought it was a ridiculous way to handle encounters. In multiplayer I am not shy about letting people know that using barrelmancy is not ok as it cheapens every encounter. You only insult yourself when you use it. You are basically telling everyone how bad you are.

And yeah, the other half of the solution is you shouldn't be able to put large objects into a backpack. No crates, no barrels, no chairs - and I have zero doubt that they could end barrelmancy in 10 minutes by changing the conditions on all barrels, crates etc to DOES NOT FIT IN PACK and making the weights accurate. If you give them ownership as well and any attempt to move them is seen as theft and Barrelmancy is done.

And if not that, at least I would like to hear why they think its a valid system. What does this add to the game to have a player be able to carry 3-4 oil barrels in a backpack and throw them around and explode them? What is the justification?

Eee-yup.

You're missing that this game is ALREADY 'just smack it to death', the argument is over how much positioning should actually play a role in that, and how much these easy advantage mechanics completely change the flow of the game for both the player and enemy encounters. The main thing is that the usual ways to gain advantage are generally not worth using, because they use a limited resource and are so much harder to maintain, and flat rate modifier spells like Bane and Bless are far less impactful as a result as well. (Why use a concentration-based Faerie Fire spell when you can just move to high ground and cast a ranged offensive spell or grease instead?)

The only things that aren't 'smack it to death' involve the use of things like barrelmancy and shove, which can potentially end fights before they even begin and every character at level 1 has access to that. But that's a whole other can of worms that then veers right into the 'you're highly encouraged to use these so that you don't have to deal with the base combat mechanics' argument. Which is another big problem in this game.

I think the biggest reason why people with tabletop experience are especially critical towards BG3's combat design is that in Larian's efforts to combine their DOS style with DnD mechanics, all they've really achieved was to have the DOS-type design completely overshadow the DnD mechanics, to the point where engaging with the DnD mechanics at all feels like a severe RNG-based punishment for failing to utilize the DOS-style mechanics correctly. The biggest example of this being height advantage/disadvantage - one can argue about the value of the advantage, but I see most people in support of the system conveniently ignore any arguments about what kind of valid purpose the disadvantage portion of it is supposed to serve in this type of game, and it's absolutely not something you can just ignore.

That said, I'm not some tabletop purist, but the main crux of these types of arguments is that the changes that were made basically railroad the player towards a set group of strategies (generally completely revolving around some kind of out of combat setup cheese), and simply do not improve the experience in the long term at all.

On the other hand, I also feel a lot of things would be dramatically dampened in severity if we were allowed to control our reactions and have ready actions set up. Some characters would then have the option to react and defend themselves during the enemy turn.

(I never thought barrelmancy was required at all in DOS2, for the record. It wasn't worth the effort to set up in most cases when your base skills were already so strong to begin with. I can see why one feels much more pressured to utilize it in BG3, when they're an unavoidable source of heavy damage placed in a system where misses are to be expected, one could do enough damage to one-shot most enemies while they generally didn't in DOS2, and there are generally less abilities to utilize overall.)

So look at how those guys are struggling to lift barrels and I would guess those strong men have like a 20 strength. how they handle barrels is just silly.

Yep, and we aren't talking about cute little kegs of beer here.
We are talking about barrels that go high up to the to the chest of an adult person. They can go up to QUINTALS of actual weigh depending on the specific caliber and filling.

Also, I'm not seeing anyone in that video making barrels flying several meters away.
They are putting their backs on the line to just lift them from the ground.

Honestly, the situation where it'd be fine to carry a barrel without any problem would be like Bag of Holding or Tenser's Floating Disk (or other conjuration spells), but that would be employing a Magic Item or a spell just to move one barrel, and the Disk likely could be spotted by enemies, which means the player is using a resource and is actually engaging with mechanics and is strategizing with the barrel instead of just picking up 5 and going to town.

Which would make Barrelmancy actually include casters and be a limited strategy instead of something that can be done constantly by anyone like it is now.

This barrel weight talk makes me think back to how they were handled in DOS2. They were actually extremely heavy in DOS2, to the point where most characters could only carry one maximum. Strength based characters could easily carry more.

Which is why I raised my eyebrow when I realized my BG3 characters could carry like 4 at a time, when my preferred party (DEX archer Bard/Shadowheart/Gale/Wyll) is generally lacking in strength to begin with. 10 weight is COMPLETELY absurd. (No, I will never include Lae'zel in my party.)

In 5e RAW, a character with 20+ STR could carry one 300-lb barrel so long as they have nothing else worn or in their inventory. They'd be naked. (Carrying capacity is 15 x STR.)

A character with 10+ STR could drag a 300-lb barrel around, but not lift it. (Pushing/dragging capacity is 30 x STR.) I would argue that this would make it (nearly) impossible to position that barrel stealthily.