Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Compilation of community feedback and suggestion - How to Improve combats in Baldur's Gate 3

Hi,

Some of these are already addressed:

1. Press L to open the journal to read short summaries of events.

2. Good point.

3. Spell names are listed on the top of the screen when cast, but could use more obvious visuals.

4. Right click and examine. Hover the mouse over the chosen effect to read a description.

5. NPC's should have to pass a perception check to notice missing loot. Merchants aren't constantly aware of their entire inventory.

I really hope that the dice-throwing algorithms will be fixed by the release, otherwise it is not playable. Even worse than in one not unknown game about an alien invasion. Only in this game there are absurd mistakes not only by the player but also by the enemy, so that everyone is on equal terms, and in BG it is just a trash when the whole party misses in turn with a probability of hitting 70%. I only have 1 / 4-5 hits on the enemy. (No, I know the mechanics of the game, and NO, I made the maximum possible build to implement the damage), while the enemy only has a 1/4 miss .... I HAVE ARMOR CLASS 20-21 AND ON ME A GOBLIN (armor class 9) HITS WITH A STICK MORE MORE, THAN I ATTACK HIM COMBAT WEAPON

This situation comes up in tabletop as well and is frustrating there. That's the nature of RNG. Having the "hit percentages" visible just makes it more frustrating. I'd rather shoot stat-blind based on visual cues like armor, cover and magic protection. I agree that it does seem like there is something off when a 70% chance to hit fails to connect 80% of the time.

I like that scientific approach to the broken dice complaint.

I don't like that Larian mislabels flanking as backstab. When hosting a game with terms that mean very specific things, one reduces unnecessary confusion by using the proper terms.

When the camera follows an enemy moving around a 2nd floor (or on beams in the ceiling), the floor they're on is invisible, because the player character is downstairs and that floor is kept in focus the whole time. It seems quirky to see them running through the air, and my suggestion is that the game shows the floor relevant to whatever character the camera is focused on. A good example is when fighting DROR RAGZLIN and some enemies are moving up onto the ceiling beams, the beams remain invisible until you move up there yourself.

Just a quick thought from me ...

While playing I found it EXTREMELY frustrating that there were many times that the enemy got to hit me twice for every one time I hit it. I know there were reasons for that to happen, but it was pretty awful. They really need to get rid of that mechanic. I can see a lot of new players just getting so frustrated by that they they leave the game and never return.

Well... there are only three things that work in this game when you want to acheive anything: Shove, High Ground and Magic Missile. Anything else is pointless. Your Stats don't matter, your weapons don't matter, and most combat spells don't matter since they basically always miss and even in the rare chance when they hit, they deal not enough damage.

Utility spells like invisibility or jump do work, though. But the entire feeling of combat has not much to do with D&D.

I posted the findings in this thread. Ratio of Rolls


It became difficult to push for 500 rolls because advantage/disadvantage is everywhere. The fights in the Underdark are balanced to where you are either going to be level 5 or using backstab/high ground. So it became unfun rather fast trying to collect more data. By the time you're in the Underdark, if Gale isn't using Magic Missile or Shatter repeatedly he's usually missing.

As for loaded dice, psuedo RNG is an okay solution. A DM in real life might fudge rolls if the players are streaking with low rolls too much, and a computer DM won't have empathy for the players.

hi larian i just wanted to say if you would add sneak damage for the off hand for the rogue that would be cool that and disengagement as a free action for the rogue

Using actual DnD 5th edition rules, complete with correct stats for enemies and having the right abilities and such for classes/subclasses would massively improve combat. =)

Something that should be touched on, I think, is player characters/npcs and how they act out of combat.

Currently, once combat starts, everyone involved slows down to turn-by-turn limitations, but everyone else acts normally; this leads to some rather glaring exploits.

For one, you can have one person go and initiate combat and just sit there and never move their turn forward, while having the other three party members go around and do several rounds worth of preparations.

Secondly, warlocks can cast find familiar for free and the familiar can get into combat without dragging the warlock along with it. Flaming Sphere also has its own initiative. Using the Warlock's find familiar ability to summon an imp, and another party member summoning a flaming sphere, the warlock can sit back and spam find familiar; the imp's invisibility ensures that it enters combat only when the warlock wants it to.
Now imagine this: The Warlock summons an imp and gets it real close and has it initiate combat, then the wizard summons a flaming sphere and does the same with it... but does not end the flaming sphere's turn (effectively halting combat). Neither the wizard nor the warlock are in combat. The Warlock's imp runs out of actions, so the warlock summons a new one and rinses/repeats until all the enemies are dead; the enemies never get their own turns, because the warlock is not in combat and keeps adding a new combatant, and the wizard never finishes the flaming sphere's turn.

Even if the wizard did finish the flaming sphere's turn, and combat progressed normally, the warlock would not have to wait for the imp's turn. He could simply summon a new imp and attack.

A way to mitigate that would be to force turn-by-turn limitations globally, even those out of combat. As for how it would work with the initiative order, I'd say that party members out of combat would all act on the same turn as the one who started combat, until they roll initiative themselves, and non-party-non-combatants would act on the same turn as the person with the highest initiative (or would act on a predetermined, never changing, global base initiative like 10 or something).


TL;DR: Global turn-by-turn limitations are needed in order to mitigate spamming of spells/summons, that can act on their own initiative, by out of combat wizards/warlocks.


PS: It is also weird to see the world around the limited characters move normally, while those in combat are all effectively frozen in time.

You may want to join this thread https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=760775#Post760775

Heh, well it looks like I was late in my suggestion :p

Tooltips for controllers is not good atm. When in combat you cant see what some spells and transformations do. Same goes for char creation. I play on stadia.

The following is a familiar story that many have experienced in some form or other. I was playing my Land Druid who was using Flame Blade and Lae'zel was standing next to her, with Tyr's Protection. Both of these spells are concentration spells. A goblin loosed an arrow at my Druid. He missed, but it was a Fire Arrow and both took damage from the fire. Both proceeded to roll badly in their saving throws and lost their concentration spells. From an arrow that missed. A common occurrence in Larian's obstinate fixation on their own homebrews and cheese tactics, you might say.

But losing the concentration spells this way was just so cheap that it was frustrating, so I redid that fight by cheesing harder, such that I took out the goblins before they even had a chance to use their cheesy moves on my party, by using stealth attacks. So I won and should be satisfied, right? But I wasn't. If I don't use cheesy tactics to combat the AI's cheesy tactics, the game gets frustrating. If I do use them, the combat is unrewarding.

I'm afraid that I don't have much in the way of suggestions on what could be done beyond Larian staying more true to DND's rules and only making changes sparingly, and Larian needing to eat humble pie and understanding that their homebrews aren't giving their players as much fun as they think. We don't all like explosions and gimmicks.

Larian needs to completely rethink how combat should be played out.

The word "miss!" should be removed entirely from attacks, except perhaps on a natural 1 to replace "critical miss!" that doesn't really mean anything anyway.

Instead, have the opponent "dodge!", "block!" and "deflect!". And create exciting animations for those.

Instead of the attackers failure, highlight the defenders success. Less feel bad moment for attacker and more feel good for defender.

Also, that would reflect what's actually happening in combat according to the D&D rules. High AC usually means heavily armoured or magically protected instead of attacker being totally incompetent and missing.

The elephant in the room (in my mind) is the glaring flaws with the cover system and the lack of reaction shots. I think this game could benefit a lot from some XCOM fundamentals. Overwatch, high, and low cover being the most obvious.

The worst part of combat in this game is being forced to move your squad members into the open simply because there's no other way to advance the fight.

Casters should have more "flushing" abilities that can force enemies into the open. If a ranger or rogue ends their turn with significant leftover action/movement points they should be able to elect "overwatch" mode and the opportunity to fire on an enemy leaving cover or entering their field of vision for the first time. Similarly I think their should be a way for melee characters not visible should be able to ambush enemies forced into the range of any left over movement points at turns end.

Maybe the perception stat could formulate the counter/ likelihood of success for the target of said ambush.

I think this would add tremendous opportunities in both gameplay and story. The latter would allow for the party to be ambushed/ forced or caught in the open just as the party could potentially do to enemies taken unawares. Some awesome cinematics could be made to add to the effect. Also it would add entirely new elements of strategy to what Lyrian has already been able to make from turn-based combat.

I think that making changes along these lines could add value to both the ranger and rogue classes with scouting and perhaps some type of "lure" ability. If either class could break with the main party and scout ahead for the enemy while remaining invisible until sighted than designers might allow an extra movement before the scout is forced into combat. This would allow the scout to return to the party with enemies in pursuit. Alternatively you might be able to "signal" the rest of your party and move them into strategic positions around the discovered foe.

Casters I feel, get all the love in these type of RPGs, this could give melee and ranged dps classes an added unique role that they lack in their presently undervalued state.

As you can tell I'm no D&D fanboy. I just like playing great games. The story and lore will always be better in the D&D universe but adding better stealth, cover, reaction shots, and the ability for casters to flush enemies into your waiting party would improve the RPG and combat experience.

I'm finding the lack of auto save really annoying. It's turned on but rarely triggers.
I'd like to have auto-save at least:
- when you sleep / short-rest
- when you fast-travel
- combat starts / ends
In other games I've seen a list of tick boxes to say which events should cause auto-save.
I often lose in the region of an hour of game play.
Lots of conversations with NPCs, particularly party members, I've done multiple times and I've no idea if I've done them in my live game.

I don't like the system where you have to pick the power of the spells, (e.g. magic missiles has the option of 3 or 4 orbs for a level 1 or 2 spell slot) I find that I forget this and end up using my bow by mistake.
Maybe have separate icons for each level of spell?
I've also attacked my own team mates more than once while I was trying to switch to them.

I'm confused by not being able to see a camera location on the mini-map.

Generally I'm really enjoying it. Good posse of characters and an interesting conflicting world.
I'm very much looking forward to getting to Baldur's gate

As this topic definitely is a part of the combat system (in a way), I just want to highlight it if you want to add it to the overall list

Link to OG Topic

Shadowheart disapproves whether you betray the tieflings or fight with them. There's no option where she doesn't disapprove.