Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Ammunition management

Hi,

I read that we won't be able to manage "normal" ammunition. We'll have an infinite numbers of normal arrows and bolts.

We saw in a video than a normal arrow can become a fire arrow easily... So does anyone has an idea of what is called special ammunition ?
Does Larian talk about what kind of ammunition we'll be able to choose and stack in our inventory for range weapons ?

Anyway, what is your feelings about these unlimited ammunition ?

I personnaly find it bad, because I like to have to manage this kind of things.

I think it gives more realistic feelings to gameplay.
Even if you can stack more arrows than a normal person could carry, you have to think about it.
You have to prepare yourself before an adventure and this is one more point to think about when you're in town (such as anti-poison potions for exemple).

It's also important for money management and economy of the world.
It also looks more realistic but even if the prices in BG are not an inconvenient after 2 hours, you HAVE to buy things, you have to meet merchants, not only to sell or buy "better equipement".

There are impacts on your experience when you don't think about it and that's something I like.

I also really like that you can find arrows on dead bodies, which is also more immersive.
It gives you possibilities/things to/feelings of danger when you're on the 3rd floor of a dungeon without any arrows for your archer.
Even normal arrows can be a "reward" in such a case and give you the feelings you find something important that was missing for your expedition to be sucessfull.

I like unlimited ammo. Using a ranged character who has to buy ammo is almost a handicap; you're spending money on ammo that other players are spending on better gear.

Same with spellcasters; I like that most D&D video games don't make me buy all the reagents needed to cast spells.

That said; special, stronger ammo, like Arrows of Slaying, should be limited.

You can make an argument for infinite ammo, but I really don’t like it. It’s one of one those small things that add up to making the game more arcady and less immersive.

Hard disapprove.

I imagine the arrow ammo is going to work like it did in DOS2 (Oh no it's a DOS2 clone). But since it is TB it isn't like you are going to spam arrows. Either way, I am fine with no ammo management, though I love crafting arrows. (remembers the days of Everquest)

If 'immersive' is the argument for it, I could argue that we should have hunger and thirst bars. And we should have to find places for our characters to defecate when adventuring. And we should have to buy soap and bathe, or suffer penalties to CHA after a few days. And there should be a mini-game for sharpening our weapons after a fight, or adjusting the straps on our plate armor. And bones should be breakable and take in-game months to heal.
And the main quest to get rid of the tadpole should have a timer ticking down every second after you start playing; take too long and you just game over. This includes when doing inventory management, cinematics, and talking to people, because time passes regardless of what you're doing.

Sometimes you have to suspend realism/immersion for player convenience and a more streamlined user experience.
I know I did not play Amazons in Diablo 2 because I got insanely bored of spending my money on arrows while my friends were buying magic weapons and armor and rings. Or going back to town every time I ran out.

Haha. Well said.

The only benefit of BG1&2 manual ammo management was an ability to dose arrow quality (normal arrows, arrows+1, arrows+2, fire arrows) and this can be achieved with unique missles, while having base arrows to be free, as it seems it is doing just that. I doubt I will miss the absence of this feature.

Really ? Well said ?
These are really (sorry guy) stupid exemples...

No one said that it's unnecessary to "suspend" realism/immersion but arrow management compared to those exemples that comes from nowhere ?

You can find ammo/inventory management boring, no problem it's your opinion but what was said is true : it's more arcady and way less immersive.
It's easy to be more immersive here and I really don't find the "handicap" is huge regarding to the benefit.

Not saying it's a huge feature, I can live without it but it's an easy way to improve immersion, "realism" and management.




So it's good, we could imagine more "realist" stack because you won't need 160 arrows per dungeon.

I find maintenance tedious. Real life has enough of it. And they aren't stupid examples; they are comparable examples to help you see how others might view ammunition management.

I can't say I exactly have fond memories of ammunition management in BG. Nor do I remember ever running out of basic ammunition, so it seems a *shrug* for me unless there is some storage limitation that would make deciding how much ammunition to carry an important choice.

If you want to rationalize base ammunition being inexhaustible, assume everyone has a "create ammo" feat they use in camp. I'm sure mods will come to the rescue, if it bothers anyone enough to write a mod for it.

Well it's the same as saying that "The Sims" are very immersive games because you have to go to the toilet and because you have to wash not to stink because if you stink ,people don't want to talk with you and if they don't, your social bar is going down and then......
I really don't think it's the kind of realism and immersion anyone is talking about for a BG game




In BG you don't really run out of ammunition if you buy them each time you go back in town. You just have to think about it.
The amount of ammunition you take with you is a choice regarding inventory management, because you find many things but you have a numbers of slots and not "unlimited bags" (generaly speaking, there are some specific bags for many things to increase your inventory capacity and the management of objects types).

And ammo costs only 1 gold per stack, so it's not a financial chasm. It's nearly just about management and situations you experience during your journey.

Yea, why not having a choice of creating ammo, but this need ressources management. Without it it's the same as if you have unlimited ammo.

Honestly, the idea of having a quiver with a finite set of arrows that need to be replenished has a certain kind of appeal, but I have always found the reality of dealing with it not so appealing or satisfying. And it does place a burden on archers that melee characters don't have to deal with, which seems a little unbalanced.

I am not sure about infinite ammo, just some random fact.

BG1+2 had ammo, but:
- a stack of regular ammo cost one coin, so they were not relevant for money management.
- Ammo did not have a weight. The main issue were limited inventory slots. If inventory in BG3 was only limited by weight, having limited ammo would be pointless, You just inflate your inventory with cheap and light stuff.
- You had limited inventory slots and usually (at least when I played) most chars had ranged attacks as default attacks, only tanks or "baits" for kiting went close to the enemy. So half of my inventory slots for each char were filled with ammo. I had to refill my ammo slots often and loot every enemy for ammo or buy it every time I went to a shop. It was realistic, but annoying. In BG2 one priority for my chars was to find weapons with infinite ammo. There were some magic throwing weapons (mostly daggers and axes, but also other stuff, even hammers), magic weapons with infinite ammo or bags of infinite ammo. So you could argue that ammo was an importent part of management, as in you want to get rid of managing it ASAP.

- NWN2 had limited ammo. I played a ranged character once. Early on you have only 1 or 2 attacks per round, thats fine. Later I found a way to have infinite ammo (not 100% sure how, maybe a magic bow). Everything was fine in the OC.
Then I imported this char to MotB. I quit soon after. The char had many attacks per round (4 base, + rapid shot, multi shot, haste) and you could not buy regular arrows. Arrow+3 was the lowest you could get. This char burned thousands of gold for ammo every minute. The damage done was fine, but spending all my money for ammo was so frustrating that I quit.

- When playing DA:O, PoE1+2 or D:OS1+2 I did not miss ammo management.
While there could be suggestions how to make the games better, I never ever thought about suggesting to add limited regular ammo.

- I agree that holding an arrow into fire does not make it a flame arrow.
There is a good reason that fire arrows were a magic items or a special ability in every game so far.

- The inventory shown in the demo was from a pre alpha version. They took lots of stuff from D:OS2 as placeholder. I do not know if we will get limited inventory slots.

PS:
Does PnP have limited inventory slots or are you only limited by weight?

I think the rules say you recover half your ammo spent if you search after a battle. That's too much of a pain to do in a tabletop session, but a game could automate that so after a battle concludes, you get a little line in the log which says "Recovered X arrows from searching the area" and get half the shots you spent back.

That said, I don't particularly care either way whether there's ammo taking up weight or if there's infinite ammo, just as long as it's not a big distraction from playing the game.

Limited-use crafted or enchanted arrows can be done without needing a limited supply of arrows, DOS 1/2 have infinite normal and craftable, limited magic arrows.




DOS 1/2 had a weight limit, but everything took one inventory slot. Pen and Paper says what the capacity of a backpack is, but enforcing that depends on the DM and players, so if they don't want to spend their limited hours every few weeks micromanaging their inventory, they probably aren't too fussy about that.

Diablo has a tetris-style inventory, but the capacity for what you can carry on your person is absurdly large, so a tetris inventory isn't much of an indication of realistic carrying capacity either.

Essentially, micromanaging inventory isn't very interesting, so it tends to be streamlined or ignored, and that's not a bad thing.

You alright there bud? Sitting on the edge of that chair it seems.

Gotta be tough in that black and white universe of yours.

In my world, there’s nuances to everything. I like ammo management because it adds a sprinkle of additional RPG feel and immersion. Especially if you can craft arrows yourself, and perhaps even gather the wood. Even all the FP shooters out there have ammo management, for a reason; it adds that little bit of something. Yet BG3 is a deep, loot focused RPG, and it doesn’t have it.

I would have liked some basic survival mechanics as well. There’s a reason the survival genre exploded; cause ya know, people enjoy that stuff.

It’s not a hill I would die on, at all, but finite ammo is definitely preferable. That doesn’t mean I wanna wait months for a heal bud.

Oh yes, I remember the cases I used to organize light goods, such as stacks of scrolls, and the various levels of magic bags for carrying around every interesting armour and weapon choice

Again, I don't *really* remember it with affection. It was what it was. I think it is important to have ways of practically using and controlling inventory without unnecessary angst, so the ability to prepare a number of items you can easily choose between is the sort of thing I find important. Conversely, having a realistic 3D packing representation that I have play like a jigsaw I like less. Having or not having to manage base ammunition just sits in no-mans land for me.

One thing I don't particularly like, that is common because a lot of people loath inventory management, is *party storage*. Never having to make a choice as to who carries what has game implications, and genuine party storage would really be pack animals that take time to access, so the shared storage notion seem inadequate. BG3 appears to have party storage through what Swen called "magic pockets", where you can just move items from one party member to the other, regardless of where they are, or even if they are dead. But at least if there is encumbrance ( I don't know if that's in the game ), a "magic pockets" form of shared inventory would still have individual weight.

Hmm, perhaps we *should* put in a request for a pack mule system for bulky and heavy items; could add spice to story aspects of the game

I was giving examples 'bud', but feel free to insult me or act like I'm in some black & white world.

It seems like an topic the two sides (infinite ammo vs limited ammo) won't agree on; both have good points for why they want it either way.
For some, it's more immersive to keep track of ammo. The world is more real.
For others, it's less immersive, by pulling one out of areas to run back to town for more ammo. Or if feels like a money sink.

..This just popped into my head as I was typing, but one thing I'd be fine with:
Characters have limited ammo PER ENCOUNTER. Both players & mobs. It refills after the encounter.
This would prevent arrow-spamming but also prevent running back to town or dumping money into buying more.
This would also not count for powerful/limited arrow types.

I'd be fine..ish with that. I mean, it would still cripple a pure archer build, unless Larian added 'quiver' items: the better the quiver, the more arrows-per-encounter it can hold.

It's a compromise, of sorts.

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Quiver_of_Plenty

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Case_of_Plenty

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Bag_of_Plenty

EDIT. On longer thought - I think of basic arrow management, the same way as weapon breaking in BG1. I thought it was cool, but gameplay wise didn't contribute much, and didn't miss it in BG2, were either system is completely abandoned, or because most weapons are magic weapons, I never run into it.

Still, it is one way to make progressions - from having to manage arrows manually, and carrying a spare basic weapon or two, to using this space for you default xxx-Of-Plenty, and carrying special arrow types and various unique magic weapons for various situations.

Generally speaking, the thing with immersive features is that you can easily make a solid, and indeed rational, counter-argument for all of them. It usually sounds fine and convenient on paper. After all, they’re rarely Needed. Its when you’ve removed them all that you notice it affecting the overall feel of the game. A good example that comes to mind is when WoW added the cross-realm dungeon finder. Sounds very convenient with no travel time or LFG interaction. The side effects? You were essentially no longer existing in an expansive fantasy world, and people stopped socializing outside of guilds. They meant well by removing the immersion of travel, and had good arguments for it, but the costs were essentially the start of the decline of WoW’s popularity.

Thats not to say that streamlining has no place in gaming whatsoever, but in RPG’s it’s rarely a good thing. Again, just generally speaking.

I agree with your assessment of what was done in WoW. I always liked larger, more open environments in those types of games and disliked waypoints and such (but they are needed with all the bad quest designs requiring so much running back and forth).

The immersion-tedium spectrum is broad and we all can being to draw a line in different places. For example, I like the idea of not being able to carry around sacks of gold and multiple sets of armor and weapons, but instead, having to make decisions on what to take and what not to take. For others, that would just result in a lot of running back and forth, though. There is no wrong or right answer here. It's just that a lot of these things seem good on paper, but don't end up that way in practice.