Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback "Miss" is boring, "not hitting" don't have to be

We see a lot of people talk about the Low AC of monster, leading to higher hit chances. The argument being put forth is to avoid a lot of misses.
Today I also read an article where Swen mention this, and the mention of a "loaded dice" system.

Further more, there's the issues of "Save" powers, as well as the ransom skill checks out and about. These just show a dice over your head, but not what you rolled.

From my own DnD 5e group I know the frustration of save powers being done completely hidden with just a "it's saved" or "it hits". It's frustrating, because you get absolutely no feedback. I don't know if they saved by a little or a lot.
So we changed it: The DM states the result he rolled. That way everyone knows "oh yeah an 18 on the roll is high", it felt more dynamic.

In BG3 we get the hit chance as a %. That's really nice, it gives you an idea of the difficulty to hit. But you only get a "miss" or a "critical miss". To know how much you miss by, you have to go into the combat log... why not show the rolls on screen? that way we know what the actual rolls were, and the feeling of "just missing" at least feels a little less "broken" and more realistic. a 75% chance to hit, still is a 25% chance to miss that's quite a lot of faces of a d20 dice after all. (And some of us knows that our dice hates us)


Just a thought. I think we could get a more enjoyable game if the dice rolls are incorporated more in the visual aspect of the game (other than just crits and social settings)

I would also like to see the actual dice rolls on the main screen. It would make advantage and disadvantage easier to understand, too. It feels easier to accept seeing two low d20 rolls when failing an advantage attack than just seeing 91% MISS. It's the evidence the human brain needs.

Some of BG3's visual feedback is simply wrong, too.

In D&D Armor AC soaks all the damage. It doesn't make the attacker look incompetent making clean misses again and again.

We don't see and hear the metal clash of armor and shield on weapons which would be cool and look like actual combat. We see characters in heavy armor dodge more than anyone else. Tanks feel evasive rather than tanky.

That is my one grip about D&D in general. AC literally takes into account everything, like combat movement (dodge), armor providing protection (stopping the blow or keep a graze from damaging), and poor aim of the attacker.

I have always liked armor being separate from landing hits. *shrug*

Same. A smart DM can look at the player's build and describe fails in a way that is thematically appropriate.

"The enemy swung with all his might, but you bent in a way that their blow glanced seamlessly off your pristine armor" if the player is wearing plate vs "The enemy swings wide as you calmly duck back out of the way" if your AC comes from DEX.

A computer can't really do this intuitively. Having two different systems to calculate hit chance would make it easier.

I remember playing Fire Emblem. When your dodgy character dodged a hit you got a cool dodge animation. When the hit just failed to do damage you heard a metallic "Clang" sound and your character just stood there unphased.

That'd be a fun way to visually distinguish dodgy vs tanky characters.

Brilliant. This. So much.

Think of a great kung fu movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The battle sequences could be described as "not hitting" time and time again.



The somewhat generic and forgettable fantasy show Legend of the Seeker had many flaws but one thing they got right was the decision to hire dancers and not actors for the battle scenes. They directors brought in people who could actually bend backwards at the waist to avoid a sword swipe and it was great.

Larian did a great job with the menacing attack, would be see the defensive maneuvers be as visually compelling.

I also think more combat/miss animations are needed and I hope they will work on it. I want to see characters using their shields to block and weapons to parry.

The current "blink out of the way" dodges are probably the least fun kind of animations a game can have.

I'm not sure about dice rolls during combats... It could be boring too or not really interresting. Solasta did it and even if I don't think it's annoying, it goes fast not to slow combats and I'm not sure it's usefull as informations.

On the other hand, it create more "tension" to combats because even if you don't really have time to read, there's often a cutscene and the game show you more informations, leading to a feeling that combats are more dynamic.

I guess dice could be a part of combats, but "better" animations could probably solve the problem of "missing".
It could be great to have more cutscenes to see a weapon repelled by a shield or an ennemy that dodge your attack.

Let's hope there will be an option to turn on the D&D vibe dice display. It would be nice to see the bonuses and the raw d20 rolls for hardcore tabletop players. And I don't think it would be rocket science to implement.

I must say this game truly is wierd when it comes to hitting and stuff.

The last time I played a "D&D" was BaldursGate2.
Don't even know if DivinityOriginalSimp2 even counts.

So~ I remember times when enemys simply got the "safingthrow" and it was annoying as hell.
In this game I feel positioning can make a much better difference and I love it.
Whenever there is more to influence for how a fight goes, I like it alot.

( And it feels wierd to have 96% hit chance and still miss yeah. )


But there is a lot of stuff that I wish would be somehow answered easier.
For example... which weapons precision is influenced by what kind of attribute.
It is kinda implied, but not really.

"Finesse, Light" - what does this even mean?

Thx to some forumpost I know that Finesse indicates a weapon is rather influenced by dexterity as through strenght.
Should I google for "Light" know or wait for the enlightining reply to this post which might follow this very day?
But the fact that this is not answered somewhere ingame ( or incredibly hard to find? ) is a little annoying.


Also, I just found out about the Shadowdruid thingy in the "Beta". lol
Totally missed that one on my first "good run".

I mean, it would be better to have a more nuanced system for damage in general (i.e. different weapons more suited for different armors, etc), but I guess we are stuck with what D&D offers in this case, which is a fairly simplistic and limited system in general.

Still, there would be plenty of ways to "automate" this stuff. I.e. pick what type of "miss" you get according to how far from the target you went.
Possible examples:
if your roll would have it the naked target but it's his armor class that puts him above taking damage, you'll get a "clang" instead of a miss animation.
If you are in the range of 2 point from hitting someone with a shield, it's a shield block.
If it's a 1, you literally fumble and miss on your own, etc, etc.

That's about it for the suggestion.

Now the elephant in the room: I'm not sold AT ALL on the idea that this would be enough to make people satisfied with, say, not doing any damage for 4 rounds a row.
I'm not even saying that you should totally cheat the rolls, to be clear. It's just that I find questionable the idea that cosmetic variety would be enough.

+1

Disagree. You can try and spruce up the animations which is going to be expensive considering the huge array of different monsters but at the end of the day you're trying to spice up "Nothing happened" There needs to be a games design reason misses are interesting, trying to spice animations up just risks slowing the game down.

Still not feeling proper impact of melee combat in full release.

Even Diablo 1 had a really satisfying shield block animation and sound.

A lot of hitting or missing a heavy armor tank can be done with sound. Just animate a hit and declare it's a miss. Add a metal on metal deflection sound. How hard can it be?? Adding a "raise shield" animation shouldn't be that difficult either.

The sound they do have is the "ha ha!" on a miss that absolutely does not belong in a tough fight where you can die. If anything, it ruins the atmosphere of an epic boss fight.

So today I learned you can save the game mid combat. I saved on a 50% chance to hit a target with fire bolt, and it missed 20+ times before I gave up.

In early access a miss, if holding a shield would lead not to a dodge but to the character holding the shield blocking the hit with it. Followed by a short,crude sound.
This was removed in full version. Shame, but it is, what it is. I guess we'll have to wait for the next game from Larian for that.

But yes, it would feel so much better to have a character with a two handed axe simply block a hit if the enemy fails miserably at trying to hit, or maybe the weapon just grazes of the armor with sparks everywhere .

I would like to see the other dice in advantage / disadvantage rolls, even if it is just in the dialogue box. My d20 with advantage seems to roll a 2 disturbingly often and it would be nice to know what the other dice was (presumably 1 or 2).

This might be a coincidence. For instance, until I've read your post I was convinced my friend rolls 15 very often.

Yes, I am sure it is. It is just that I notice a 2 and don't worry about what I got if I make the DC. But it would still be nice to see the other roll.