Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Perhaps modern XCOM formula isn't alpha and omega of turn based design after all

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-rally-point-we-need-to-talk-about-overwatch

Interesting article criticizing "overwatch", it's artificiality and lack of player control. Interesting, as as of now, BG3 removed perfectly fine reactions system, in favour of automated, uncontrollable toggles. Perhaps, nicely implementing reactions would be a step forward, rather then backwards afterall.

Though that's not quite accurate, as "ready action" would be an equalent of "overwatch" though as I read 5e rules it is a bit more specific then that.

I definitely think giving the players control over reactions would be far better gameplay than any toggles system, no matter how well designed the toggles are. I am unconvinced by the argument that it would slow down gameplay in multiplayer, because combat is already turn-based and players can take longer on their turns. A simple timer of say 6 real-time seconds on whether or not to use the reaction would largely remove the complaint about it being an extra pause in the game, and the game is already turn-based so synchronizing the slowdown as a character chooses to take a reaction could probably be done as well.

It's true that characters could have many possible reactions, but they're triggered in different ways, so you wouldn't see one enemy action get ALL the reactions to pop up. Characters get one reaction only a round, so if they use it on anything, they'll have no more triggers. ... Actually, the toggle system could still sort-of be in the game as the action your character would take by default if the timer runs out on a reaction.

At the very least, I want to see "Ready Action: Attack if enemy closes", because right now if warriors don't have quite enough movement to reach an enemy, they're stuck. It's really unsatisfying watching enemies stroll up and hit your character because you don't have any ready action to attack.

This is the main reason to want ready actions in the game. I know that one of the bigger community concerns is how boring martials feel to play at low levels. People think this is an issue of lacking things to do, but I think the real problem in the context of BG3 is that they have few things that they can do if everything is out of range.

And the lack of ready actions AND reactions means that by default, the overall tactical balance swings wildly towards offensive strategies rather than defensive. There's really no answer to the high mobility/AoE spam tactics right now, because the major answers to those don't yet exist in-game.

On one hand the article is a whole bunch of aimless rambling that manages to identify the problem with its own arguments half-way through it and then somehow ignore it seconds later.

On the other hand it also name-drops Silent Storm and Jagged Alliance 2 and I always have a soft spot with people who know their shit about tactical games.

That aside, I think the Overwatch system in XCOM 2 was mostly fine as it was, and by the way the argument “Shoot when the enemy is in a better position” is completely bogus for that game: any shot made with enemies out of cover is pretty much the same regardless of positioning and ALL overwatch shots are considered “out of cover”.


It also seems weird to use this as an argument about BG3 , given that this game could only wish to have a “ready action” system comparable to Fireaxis’ overwatch.

+1
As a player that like melee characters more than anything else, I totally agree... but I'll add a few other points.

- The combat arena design is absolutely terrible for melee characters. Everything is too open. Your melee can never block any path or door. To protect your weaker characters, they're running all the time.

- The verticality is also a problem. Too much everywhere and too powerfull. The AI always rush highground and your melee characters have to run (or superman jump) everywhere, again.

- Too many ennemies are archers or casters. You're never surrounded in melee. That's what make combats hard and fun. When you only focus on "DPS" (archers and casters) the difficulty is always "nuke or being nuked", which is boring and may be frustrating.

- Too many ennemies have ranged attacks. Combats are often focus on ranged/verticality rather than melee. And if a melee ennemy cannot reach your highgrounded Gale, he's just gonna throw his surface potion, jump/teleport.

The only cool combats I can think of in which melee can really fit their role is the chapel at the beginning of act 1 and the 3 intellect devorer.

The ready action would really help to enjoy melee character but the "encounter design" (map and creatures) is definitely ranged oriented. That's the main problem IMO.

Blech, that "article" is so poorly written I couldn't even get through three paragraphs, and had no idea what it was even talking about. Amazing how low the bar is for video game writing...