Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback D&D needs more than verticality, it needs elevation

Flight is a great way for squishy players to stay out of reach of melee opponents. Let’s not forget that Mind Flayers are supposed to be able to levitate at will. That’s up to 20’ of height per turn, not just skimming along the ground (which is really only good for avoiding traps/surfaces).

Yeah but where in that paragraph does it say flight? Verticality can be as simple as being on a cliff or rooftop firing down on the enemy. It looks more like they were very specific in leaving flight out of the description.

Funny how they put emphasis on this verticality but yet we are unable to look upwards with our characters....
If they could give us proper camera movement (up and down) then I bet it would be easier to implement flying.

We'll probably eventually get some kind of photo mode (such features are baseline now), it certainly won't make implementing a true flight system with altitude any easier.

Being able to tilt the camera up as if it was normal eye and head movement in general is what I am looking for, not just pictures. Currently I find it a pain to do even simple exploration because I have to "scout" with the camera first and hope it decides to go over a hill or building (it often still doesn't go as high as I need it to) then go back and fetch the characters to put in position. I have to do this everywhere unless there are ladders which I can see the base of and it breaks immersion, should be able to have the party stealthily exploring and see things without the micromanagement. Should also be able to look up with the camera on rafters before climbing a ladder.

For flying, being able to tilt the camera up with either the mouse or the kb would allow us to gain height. With the current broken neck camera view it would be impossible, there would have to be a ladder or a hill we first had to climb. An example would be the rock at the ruins that you can drop. With the current camera angle, I never saw it on my screen and didn't know it existed. Even with moving the camera everywhere I could only get a tiny part of the base to show because I began to search for it at ground level. If the camera could tilt up, then a flying creature could get to that elevation from the ground to see and interact with it it at eye level. Otherwise it would require climbing up on the walls then moving straight forward, which would be ridiculous for a flying creature to have to do.

Flying would be extremely abusive to the game in its current iteration and almost has no real advantage to the game itself. the entire reason most people want flying in games is to ignore the terrain, which basically would invalidate the entire games size, and means of exploration. Adding flying to the game would be extremely abusive to the game, and very determinal to the over all experience. I am extremely against the idea of adding it to bg3, or even after working on wow for so long any other game.

That being said, as a seasoned game designer, I recognize that it is one of two universally unique and trans-genre game concepts that are considering "fun" (the other is extreme speed).I'd be more willing to upgrade the value of things like movement speed skills, or even adding something that increases movement speed out of combat. adding flying to bg3 would make a large, explorative form of game play feel like we have no room for anything, would result in massive amounts of "min-maxing routes" to get all the "Secrets and goodies", and would ultimately end with mass complaints of "no content" because of significantly (and I express that with a serious tone) increasing player progressing rates.

I cannot express how bad this would be for the game. Like "it could kill it and the company, bad".

Breath of the Wild had the best and closest thing to a realistic 'feeling' of flight that I've seen in a Fantasy game. Even if it was gliding rather than true flight and required the massive interplay with elevation and environment and equipment (like pretty much everything else in that game.) They also did climbing and swimming and mounts in a much more compelling way than I've ever seen pulled off in a fantasy RPG. Everyone seemed to absolutely adore it, and those features basically made the whole game the next level thing that it was. I was pretty bummed that Swtor never really found a way to just make jumping off something really tall and not pancaking into the ground exploding into a thing (every Jedi should totally be able to do that from what I've seen) let alone just jumping a little higher than normal like a Mario 64 triple jump. The cinematic RPGs are kind of getting left in the dust with the environment interactivity showcased there several years ago now. It's too bad they couldn't make a D&D game that really had 3D terrain, instead of just platforming height tiers like we usually see. The first thing I tried to do in BG3 was see if I could get on top of the Nautiloid somehow by jumping, and again at the crash site, and trying to jump into the river beyond the shore, or trying to get on a roof. Or dying and then dying again jumping off trying to reach places I wasn't supposed to go. It teases a more complete environment than we can actually interact with in most places.

Also, the outdoors areas feel a lot more like wilderness mazes to me in BG3 than actual terrain. That's one area where BG3 actually does mirror BG1/2, but I'm not sure it carries off as well here as it did back then in Iso, just given how far 3d environments have come elsewhere. Zelda came out what, like 4 years ago already? Skyrim almost 10 years ago, Dragon age even longer ago? Nobody has really attempted a party based game with next gen environments to my satisfaction yet. Certainly not a large party.

I mean all the things I can imagine happening with ropes, watching a full party scale around actual mountain passes, scrambling up hills, but its kinda still just on the level of donkey kong or lode runner with a bunch of ladders and platforms.

Where have you ever been in your life to a place with so many ladders? Or if we need ladders so badly, why wouldn't our pack mule adventurers just bring one along? hehe. There's a colorful character concept for you right there - with a ladder bash button lol. Or a cantrip that let's em perfectly balance and climb their own ladder to nowhere off a cliff

Anyway, yeah, flight would be cool. They did it in Might and Magic back in the early 90s. An abstract terrain type thing could still work probably if they basically built out invisible platforms and ladders that only highlight while "flying" and then just have different animations for "walking" when you're there. Levitate look, crazy hands floating or whatever. And some flight attacks obviously. The camera would need to be able to look up

I'd also just kind of like some flare and ease of use to non combat party movement that isn't in the air. But sure. I'd fly all over friendly body blocks all day hehe

It doesn’t have to be game breaking. Like most things in 5e flight is typically a scant resource, at least until very high levels. I’m playing Descent into Avernus with a party of five level 12 PCs right now and the only one who can fly in our party is the artificer, with winged boots he used an infusion slot on – so he can fly four hours a day. Most of the fiends we’re fighting can fly so they have the advantage. The fly spell is third level and only lasts for ten minutes so it’s a big call if it gets used as slots are valuable and resting isn’t ridiculously easy like in BG3.

Sure, some playable races can fly… if you want to make a whole party of aarakocra then that’s on you (if BG3 will even add this race). My main point is that if there is no flight mechanic it shifts the whole premise of the game further away from D&D, no flying monsters (it’s dungeons and DRAGONS after all), no elevation on spells, a bunch of items won’t exist. And as others have pointed out, Solasta has pulled it off - albeit not perfectly but they have a studio of 17 devs IIRC.

Verticality and flight are two entirely different mechanics.

I can climb up on a roof. I can scale a mountain. I can climb a tree.

I cannot fly.

No CRPG, from the old school TSR Gold Box games, to date has managed true flight.

Even games such as Witcher 3 failed to manage flight - they had some flying monsters you could "ground" by shooting a crossbow at them, but then combat took place against a grounded creature.

Solasta is trying - but even their flight has a great many issues, and will not function properly over certain terrain features - nor can a flying character follow the non-flying characters across terrain.

I suspect due to the complexities and intricacies involved no CRPG will involve real flight and aerial combat in a satisfying manner without some form of advanced VR or Holographics.

CRPG's and D&D computer games have muddled through quite well without flight over the past 30 years - and can muddle through quite well without it for a bit longer.

There are plenty of other game mechanics they can advance with those resources.

Proper balancing of verticality, lighting, mobility, advantage/disadvantage, barrelmancy, movement, itemization, class features, spell/skill usage, map quality, U/I, the list is endless.

Failing to balance those features can kill a game. Failing to add flight and aerial combat are not going to do so.

Let me break a chair over someone's head in a bar fight, and knock them out instead of killing them - I can work with that.

Let me use some of the damn rope I keep finding to tie up the guy after said fight, and question him. I can work with that.

Let me use the rope to climb into a pit, instead of jumping around like a flea in a circus. I can work with that.

These are just as much a part of the premise of D & D, more viable from a mechanical and programming stance, and better use of resources.

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