Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Baldurs Gate 3 is ridiculously hard

@JDCrenton

I guess you just have to uninstall the game and move on with your life. Let us play it instead. Thanks.

This is why no one takes you blind fanboys seriously. You're not entitled to tell ppl what they should do either. A conformist never did anything worthy ever. Learn History.

Both of you: quit the personal stuff. If you have problems with what another poster has said, report it.

I'm not a fanboy. I have played BG1 but not BG2. Never have I played anything other D&D related. I think the game is fun to play the way it is. Larian should do the game for the larger mass of people not for just some small circle of super nerd D&D players.

It's interesting that they should make a game for ppl like you that don't care about having a functional, balanced and serviceable game. I thought a developer was interested in making a good game but i guess i was wrong.

Larian has pretty smart people, so I trust that they know how to best implement everything in this game and what ever they decide I'm willing to learn to live with.

And because the majority have "assumptions" and/or a low level of expectations, constructive criticism are only made by what becomes the "vocal minority".

Thanks for being a part of this EA mate, the game is probably going to be better at release if you "trust that they know everything"

Consider this a final warning. Lay off the personal attacks or lay off the forum.


For the rest of you. Discuss the game and your reactions and opinions, but do not start insulting or making assumptions about other posters. This is pretty basic forum etiquette and we expect people to act as civilised adults. If you cannot make your point without resorting to abuse or snarky little attacks, then this is not the place for you.

Rogues have sneak attack. Nobody else has sneak attack.

And like the other martial classes, flame dip, oil of sharpness, wyvern's potion to add another ~15-21 damage to your attacks, and dual wielding classes attack twice to boot to trigger the effects of burn dipping and poison coating. Plus surprise attacks from stealth provide a guaranteed crit.

The problem with casters is their hit rates on their spells are worse no matter what, and most importantly the consumables and weapon coating effects that break melee don't affect caster spells at all.

In fact, I'd say what really drives this huge gap is consumables.

In every solo cheese video you've seen, fire dipping, poison coating, invis pots, oil of sharpness, potion of speed, and wyvern or basic potion are used to completely trivialize encounters just as much as stealth cheese and pushing creatures off walls.

I agree consumables are a big part of the situation.

WOW, so the biggest problem people have with this game is that you have so many options to make yourself powerful and do all sorts of stuff. I guess you would be happy if we couldn't do anything but standard attack face to face and shooting spells, that's it.

Personally, I would like for the classes to feel impactful as they do in D&D. Using spells should be fun and attacking face to face should be fun.

Universal buffed abilities like jump/disengage, shove, dip, etc. combined with the plethora of consumables isn't exciting or interesting. For example, two Minotaurs against a part of four (at level four) is considered deadly when using exp tables to balance encounters. Same as what has been brought up in this thread. It's just anti-fun to have a deadly encounter > use infinite long rest > go to next deadly encounter. The player is supplemented with consumables to attempt to balance it out, but it's boring.

Why choose a class when consumables make more impact? Why not buff the classes if Larian wants deadly encounters throughout the game?
If I choose to play paladin I want the game to feel impactful for choosing that class. Not that I coated a weapon in wyvern poison.

No one is forcing you to use consumables. I have played the EA through with three different classes and I have used just one speed potion in spider boss fight because I would have died without it, that's all, no other consumables, not a single one. I don't understand what's the problem, you don't like to use consumables then don't, but if you do, you have the option to do so.

The problem is the game would be more fun if combat was balanced around the idea of limited rest and other principles from D&D 5e. Ramping up difficulty and adding in cheese doesn't make combat fun.

I've played through the game several times without consumables. In patch 3 and 4 combat has been stale and there are many threads on the topic for why it is stale. for example. Some more,and another.

When a very limited number of mechanics are OP and necessary to enjoy the game, it's not an option anymore.
If we only stick to the basics BG3's combats only rely on highground and backstab : the game is designed for us to use those 2 mechanics in every combats.

You should probably read the mega-thread about it to understand why those 2 mechanics reduced A LOT our possibilities if you compare to what D&D has to offer.

And yeah, I'd like to have options like consummables and why not some kind of more immersive dipping... But I don't want to trade the fun VS a bit more options.
Barellmancy and surfaces exploit are a pure choices for fun. Dipping,consummables, shockwave, etc... should be tactical choices but at the moment, using them is kind of a god mode.
Troubles with the matriarch ? Take a speed potion and use shockwave once or twice if necessary. Congratz, you just OS one of the harder boss.

Should we really as players choose not to use so many mechanics to have fun ?
When you're playing a FPS are you planning not to use grenades or medipacks ? When you're playing XCOM are you planning not to use the psionic powers ? Do you consider using the force in KOTOR as a cheesy mechanics ?
No... Because things in games are balanced...

When time has come to play at a higher difficulty level you're trying because you are better. Your strategies are better, you know the synergies between companions, you know the strenght and weaknesses of ennemies...
It's not working like this in BG3. The difficulty only rely on the mechanics you choose to use or not.

We're not talking about a difficulty that is a bit more or less easy/hard.
We're talking about a game that is extremely frustrating if you don't use the basics cheese and extremeley easy if you use everything.

The game is not balanced at all and that's the only problem.
Nearly no one asked to remove anything... But many of us asked for a real balance between the tons of mechanics created by Larian and those that comes from D&D.

I think there ought to be a happy medium between Bulette or Githyanki Patrol or Redcaps one shotting 2-3 of your party members on the first turn through a flurry of multi-actions and dice roll garbage, or completely trivializing and not doing anything for 2 turns and dying in 2 action sequences because you used a martial class with stealth and a speed pot or wyvern potion or a void bulb into caustic brine+explosion.

It's really demoralizing when a limited use spell slot iconic to your wizard or warlock or landing a charm spell is a low RNG, low impact headache while throwing two items gained at lv1 from some starting scenario and restocked by a vendor every long rest completely dwarfs the impact of your native class kit.

You really can't take seriously a person who's trying to justify invis and haste pot abuse, or the fact rogues/fighters/martial playstyles are solo killing Bulette/Spectator/Ethel in 2 turns because the game mechanics are not well balanced.

Surprise from Stealth doesn't give critical hits. That's a mechanic only the Assassin Rogue Subclass gets (currently not in game).




Agree that consumables definitely benefit weapon users more. Although I'm not sure if the overall picture for spell casting is as bleak as your statement. Especially if we try to look beyond the EA level cap.

Casters also have "implementation changes" that benefit them:
1. Unlimited resting - means they can always unload their best spells, every fight
2. No bonus action spell casting restrictions - this is a HUGE buff compared to table top

With 5E RAW, it's normally not possible to cast 2 leveled spells using your bonus action + action (i.e. Misty Step and then Thunderwave in the same turn). This restriction has been removed in BG3 and it'll have HUGE implications once the sorcerer is implemented (hello Quicken Spell) and casters get higher level spells.

Overall, martials (especially Paladins and Fighters) will likely continue to be the master of all-in single target damage. That is mostly true in 5E table top, and nothing in BG3 currently indicate that will be different (maybe if they really mess up Smite). Casters tend to be superb battle field controllers and the best source of AOE damage source.


In regards to caster accuracy - they definitely suffer relative to a weapon user (who gets consumables and advantage) - since only a few spells (usually weaker ones) uses the spell-attack mechanic. However, there is a stealth buff to caster accuracy that BG3 lets you take advantage of - we get perfect information in this game. Unlike Table Top, where monster stats are typically hidden from you - in BG3, you have access to almost every stat it has - which means as a caster, you can pick-and-choose weakness to exploit - like a weak saving throws to target.

Even in table top, casters have always given up raw-single-target accuracy (since they don't get weapon enhancements or fighting styles) for more versatility in attack methods and AOE capabilities. Martials will always need to target a monsters AC to land a hit - whereas with the right spells, a caster can target any of the 6 saving throws, AC, HP (i.e. Sleep, Power-Words), or sometimes just straight up say f-u and hit you in a way that you cannot defend against (i.e. Force Cage, Maze, Magic Missile).

Consider the Cleric's Command spell. You'll usually see a 60-65% hit chance max (target against WIS saves, which is often pretty low for many enemies). However, if you cast it at level 2 and target 2 enemies with it - you now have a 84-88% of at least affecting 1 enemy.

This kind of AOE accuracy improvement will become more and more of a factor as we progress pass level 4 - especially once we get some of the deadliest AOE spells at level 5 (Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Fireball). With those spells, you will be able to target up to 5-6 enemies with each cast, and potentially halving an enemy force with just 1 action.




While I have issues with many of Larian's mechanics, the approaches used in an expert, meta-gamed solo run isn't a good indicator of how mechanics should be balanced for the general population. I absolutely love what Sin Tee does, but we should keep in mind that the man has 519 hours in BG3 and is basically meta-gaming every encounter in the game down to the tee.

His videos tend to makes most games' mechanics look ridiculous. Consumable abuse is much easier when you know exactly where to find everything, when and how to stock up (i.e. rest and buy X 50 times before you progress Quest X). He knows what to expect and when a consumable needs to be used - i.e. pop an invisibility potion prior to the Bulette encounter (because otherwise you might get surprised), and has much of the game reduced down to a science.


Now onto this approach. Any system is always going to have 1 approach that simply does the most damage to a single target. In some games, it's spell casting. In PF:KM, it's a combination of massive sneak attack dies and tons of attacks. In DOS2, it's necromancy. In the current BG3 EA, it's currently two-weapon fighting with tons of damage "riders" (i.e. poison, fire dip, etc). Him choosing to overload on melee damage doesn't make it the be-all-end-all approach to this game. It's simply a tool chosen because it works with his specific strategy and circumstance.

In solo-mode, action economy becomes completely skewed towards the enemy (i.e. at best, the yours-to-enemy action ratio is 1:1. At worst, it can be 5:1 or more). Because of this, abusing the surprise round mechanic is almost a must, since it can double you efficiency up front (and isn't controlled by RNG). Speed-to-kill almost becomes one of the most viable strategy in most encounters because you simply lack the HP and resources to survive any form of retaliation and long term battle. However, just because maximum damage is potentially the only approach for solo play, doesn't mean it is for party play.

This skewing of the action economy severely affects the types of spells and tactics that are effective for solo characters.

To demonstrate, let's say the Command: Halt spell is now 100% accurate (no save, target simply loses their turn). Even with this change, Sin Tee will almost NEVER use that spell as a solo-er because of his scarcity of action economy. A 1-to-1 trade in action (1 action to cast spell. Enemy loses 1 action) means he basically burns a spell slot to delay everything by a turn even in the best circumstance.

However, for a party-based player, this 100% accurate CC spell will break tons of encounters. Can you imagine how much of a joke the Bulette fight would be if this spell existed? One character can simply keep it locked-down for 7 turns (total spell slots) while the 3 others slowly take their time to butcher it.


Lastly, even with Sin Tee, melee-poison-dipping alpha striking isn't the only approach. For example, in his Druid Playthrough - you see him rely on kiting with Moonbeam in the Red Cap encounter because the # of enemy actions and enemy damage is simply too much to overcome with alpha strike. Does this make Moonbeam and it's crazy damage efficiency (up to 40d10+ for a level 2 spell slot) is absolutely broken? No, it just makes it the best spell to use there given his circumstance.

What is an 'Appeal To Authority' logical fallacy ghost of Alex Trebek.

You are completely ignoring the fact that it's Larian's design choices that have made Sin Tee's solo runs possible. The fact that he is stacking all of them to accomplish the feat, has no bearing on the fact that it's Larian's decisions to deviate from the rules so sharply that his exploitations are even possible.

Sin Tee can't pull off what he does in those videos if Larian doesn't homebrew their own 5E rules and slap them on top of the DOS environmental/barrel/surface spam framework, and instead stays closer to 5E rules.