Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Some advice for BG3 after finishing Solasta

Though I've not finished the game yet, I did notice that the AI's intelligence and aggressiveness can be controlled in the difficulty option settings... for those saying that it was very silly, what setting were your enemies on (I'm mostly curious because I'm only a little way into my fresh play through now that the game has released)?

To be fair, that goblin example can be justified as the Shamans considering their foot soldiers to be expendable. I've seen similar behavior with AoE attacks in DOS2 and BG3 too, so it's not far fetched. The double lightning bolts did result in a party wipe. I suspect enemies in BG3 that possess Fireball and Lightning Bolt will absolutely do the same thing. Considering I've already seen datamined BG3 Lightning Bolt and uh, Larian should think about dialing back its maximum attack range...


I can't say too much about difficulty options as I haven't fiddled with them personally, but I remember one of the most common complaints about the hardest difficulty of Solasta back in the EA phase was how enemies would hard focus on killing a downed party member, which let people cheese fights by playing ping pong with Healing Word. It's the same problem BG3 has, actually.

It's honestly not too much worse than enemies in BG3 always seemingly hard targeting the lowest AC character if they're within attack range, even if they expose themselves to extreme danger doing it.

Ironically, Pathfinder WotR probably has the most varied AI out of all three games right now. I've observed enemies switching targets if they miss too much, some will prioritize whoever did the most damage to them, some will just bang uselessly against your tank because they're too dumb to know any better, and some will begin fights prioritizing the main character because they recognize them as the party leader and had probably just insulted them in pre-battle dialogue. But you know it's deliberate because it's generally consistent among the different enemy types.

What you wrote is what you wrote.

I played on Scavenger Mode, which is a step above Authentic and enables the deadlier AI. I am currently doing Cataclysm mode but I don't see a big difference and honestly I kind of just got bored and stopped playing.

Even on just Authentic mode - without the 'deadlier ai'- the enemies should use AOE spells sometimes, or any spells really.

They are. Shaman (orc I guess) used lightning bolt close to every time I see them. And they walked to target more characters, avoiding their friends at the same time.

And ennemies often move in/out your firewall and your spirit guardian, which means that the AI is trying to avoid damages... but the creatures just does not have any tools to range attack.
Would it be a better AI if they were just staying away while you're killing them ? The AI is not the problem. Creatures lack of tools / ranged attack may be one...

What's doing the AI in BG3 when the creatures cannot attack you for any reason ? Slowly dying without moving. Is that because the AI is not smart enough ?
As an exemple, just think about the owlbear when you're going "higher"

On the other hand if every creatures had tools and were smart enough to avoid such spells... These spells would be useless whatever we're talking about Solasta or BG3.

Just like in BG3, the ennemies use the verticality at their advantage with more variation in Solasta, they push you but also prone you, they play with the light, try to kill your characters, try to engage your ranged, use bane, slow and other debuff, use thunderwave a lot (which is less spectacular and OP than in BG3), and so on,...

Here, let me explain this simply since you seem to either not understand, or want to intentional misconstrue what I wrote. They are not saying they want BG3 on those forums to be strict D&D, they are saying they are glad 2 d&d BASED (I am assuming you know the difference between BASED and Replicate) games are coming out. Two different type of games to play. They are not saying they want a RAW D&D simulator just like Solasta. Hopefully that explains it to you since you want to keep trying to push this misrepresentation of what I was saying. The majority of the commenters are on that forum has the basic complaints about UI, group linking etc. Like I mentioned above, but DO NOT want a copy of Solasta mechanics.

Not to mention, I love the irony of the fact, that on the Solasta forums, they are looking forwards to BG3 (with some modifications to UI, group chain and inventory), and posters here are trying to USE Solasta as a hammer to beat BG3 with. When someone tries to post negative over analyzation of BG3, Solasta posters are defending it).

Okay, this is a bit too much for me to ignore. I assume you are referring to this thread on the Solasta forums.

https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/baldurs-gate-3?page=3

The majority of the posts in that thread are from before BG3 EA even started. And the very last post in that thread was from 5 months ago.

A lot happened in 5 months. For instance, an entire patch happened. Community feedback has taken a sharp turn towards the systems needing an overhaul. And honestly, Solasta had little to do with that beyond how reactions are implemented. We've always had people arguing height advantage and backstabs were dumb before Solasta ever came into the equation (the megathread about height/backstab on these forums was started the same week that Solasta entered EA, but a quick skim of the thread actually yields absolutely no mentions of Solasta in there at all), and Tuco's 'toilet chain control system' crusade had nothing to do with Solasta specifically either (it's a lot more 'every other cRPG in existence').

The only thing Solasta really did was amplify the severity of these issues by providing a direct reference point that flies in the face of Larian's PR trying to convince everyone that they thought that the base rules wouldn't make for a compelling combat system, when it appears most are now in agreement that the changes they've made ended up having very bad long-term effects on the overall balance. I suspect half the people that posted in the height/backstab thread have yet to play Solasta and likely never will for a good number of reasons that no one should begrudge them for, nor did a good chunk of people in that recent poll from a couple weeks back that voted against the current combat design. And they came to the same conclusion anyway, for slightly different reasons.

The Solasta discord is generally lukewarm about any kind of comparison, but people generally don't talk about such things there because it turns out the BG3 subreddit has become a far better venue for doing so in recent times, now that people are no longer getting downvoted into censored territory for posting anything remotely considered negative anymore. Also, thanks to that thread, I just remembered that BG3 was originally going to have group initiative. That would have been a pretty big mess. Glad that was reversed before EA began, or else there would have probably been a lot of complaints about entire parties getting nuked before the player got a turn, and stealth cheese would have been outright mandatory.

(BG3 dialogue options were originally going to be done in vague third person speak too. That was also not very popular, and it's a good thing that also got changed before EA launched. Though I wonder how much of the script had to be redone because of that.)

Although, thanks for giving me an excuse to check all this. A quick stroll into the off-topic section of the Solasta discord yielded information about someone trying to remake all of BG2 within the engine of Neverwinter Nights. As I haven't played either game but have heard how NWN's engine is apparently legendary among programmers in general, I am curious to see how this turns out. (And for the curious, no one seems to be talking about BG3 there either, but there's a fair amount of people from a month ago that seem to be bewildered about the new Dark Alliance, ha.)

I'll entertain this for a bit.

"The irony of this is that if you go to the Solasta forums, where people try the reverse and try to start hate on BG3... the majority want and enjoy both games."
- People want both games and find ways to enjoy them, cool.

"The overall opinion is the more D&D the better, and they look forward to the differences (where here, they want a replica)."
- You didn't provide any evidence, I can't infer anything between "look forward to the differences" versus "where here, they want a replica". Without links I have to take the last two statements as a wash.

"Of course people have justifiable discussions about little things like inventory management, the ugly group chain, the UI but none of this Larian bashing or these "mechanic sux" attitude."
- Again without links or evidence it sounds like people agree on some things and disagree on others. I have to take it as a wash if you want me to buy into your anecdote. Especially since it doesn't make sense for anyone to criticize Larian on another developer's forum. Would you expect to see forum members bash EA here? Consistently?

"It is actually a pretty interesting comparison between communities."
- It's also interesting and worth discussing comparisons between Baldur's Gate 3 and Solasta (as videogames). To come full circle, it's okay to criticize Baldur's Gate 3 in early access if we get a better game on release.

Well, hotbar in BG3 is a mess only if you let it become a mess ...
There is strill space for improvements, that is true ... but it have its uses, and i honestly hope that Larian keeps it.

As you said, Solasta is ugly ...
And speaking for myself, their interface is best example of that sentence. :-/

I was kinda sad then i find out that nobody replyed on this topic about flying. :-/

But i would like to see spiderwalk. :3

This is the only thing i actualy like about Solasta ...
You have at least something to do, while enemies have their turns.

I believe this was allready mentioned on this forum ...
Probably as suggestion. It would be nice tho.

Serious question:
What bennefit woult then staying in stealth on start of the combat have?

I mean, yes unlimmited movement is OP as f*** ... especialy since you still can use all your actions and bonus actions, if you play them in corect order ...
But when your sneaking character would simply be forced into Turn-based timezone ... what exactly would you get from that sneaking, or to put it in different words, what reason would be there so sneak at all? O_o

I would be all in for all characters rolling initiative, when combat starts ... its pretty anoying when another character joins the fight and must skip whole round since he rolled good innitiative, but sadly the others was allready on their turn. :-/
But characters that was "not yet discovered" should at least be able to move faster (aka. more far) to the position. Otherwise i simply dont see any reason for using stealth in the first place. :-/

Im confused here ...
Are you complaining about using portals ... or about the fact that BG3 uses instant fast travel to nearest portal, so you can use it? O_o

Im still kinda sure that isue about the same camp could be easily resolved by using different "skins" for the very same camp ...
Outside > use beach texture ...
Underdark > use cave texture ... etc.
Its certainly lazy solution, but effective.

And i still believe that ruin we have on our camp should contain that teleportation rune ...
At least to explain how are we getting back every evening, without loosing half day for "walking back". :-/
Then all you need is adding some consumable that will allow you to teleport ... and voila!

All problems with camp are gone. O_o

Advantage

That's how it works in Solasta : if your party is hidden (or some members) and a combat start because one of them is spotted, the other characters are in combats but they stay hidden.
The ennemy don't see them and don't attack them but you have an advantage on their attack roll.

The ennemy can see you if he's moving close to you (usually when he tries to reach the spotted characters)
When you attack someone with a hidden character a skill check is made to determine if you're spotted or not. If you are, every ennemies see you but if you're not, you keep your advantage for the next turn... until the next skill check or until an ennemy move close to you.

It works pretty well IMO and it's interresting because it's really rewardfull.
Of course the appeal of "advantage" through hide (or anything else) is really low in BG3 because of backstab and highground.

Well, again, BG3 isn't a finished game and some tweaking is still needed but I already demonstrated that the AI is much more sophisticated in Bg3 than it is in Solasta. The enemies for the most part also have a lot more tools to work with. But I think you nailed the point; the creatures in Solasta do not have enough tools to work with, being constrained is a blade that cuts both ways and it results in fights that are badly devised and not well-balanced, and too easy. So bad AI and no tools make for a game that is ridiculously easy.

You could say that in a way - Solasta is a perfect demonstration why Larian has worked so hard to try to balance encounters by doing homebrew mechanics for creatures. Making sure that the mobs have as many tools as possible to work with so they don't end up - for example - being a dumb flying creatures that's only move is to move in and out of range before/after it attacks - setting itself up for multiple opportunity attacks and allowing it to get hit with persistent aoe spells like Spirit Guardian.

It gets to the heart of the problem with video games - no human DM to allow for creative behavior/schemes/attacks. So you try to come up with other ways to express that behavior.

I hope Larian fixes all the exploits, 100% I do. I want BG3 to be even more challenging than it is and I don't want anyone to have an easy out unless they choose "story mode". Solasta may get the technical stuff right, but Larian does a much better job of making the encounters feel up to the appropriate challenge level of D&D.

I am actually in slight agreement here. BG3 can still be hard without needing to pigeonhole everyone into believing they need to cheese back harder, just because enemies have access to the same overpowered mechanics too and that encounters may be designed around the cheese existing. DOS2 already proved this somewhat, with that game's problems solely revolving around the armor system and the stat bloat it encouraged the further you got into the game, rather than anything mechanical. Sure, DOS2 had problems with late game bosses playing one-shot rocket tag with your party, but it's a very different problem and the distinction is quite important there. BG3 can absolutely do away with stealth, backstab and high ground shenanigans, and the main things that would result in is some high-ground heavy ranged fights being a lot less ridiculous.

And again, backstab advantage would have no reason to exist if shove gets the second half of its function implemented, the option to knock things prone so that all melee attacks against them get advantage until the target's turn. Granted, enemies can probably shove YOU prone too. But it'd be a lot more interesting than out of bounds instant kill shoves, because I gotta say, that Druegar fight where the boss shoved Gale off the ledge (and his decaying corpse subsequently killing Scratch back at camp) as the final fuck you towards the very end of a fight that took me about half an hour was really not what I'd consider legitimately hard or compelling. It left me upset enough the first time I played through that I just went into total no mercy mode after reloading and straight up stealthed and shoved off as much of the camp as I could, and had my Bard/Gale/Wyll spam Shatter nukes on all the remaining survivors, ignoring all the precious potential for dialogue from the boss and loot from everything I threw off. Pulling that off wasn't hard, and this wasn't some crazy unique mindblowing tactic or anything, it was just cheap. Doesn't compare to, say, using teleport to pick up those water barrels in the Blackpits and drop it at the top of the platform so that it becomes much harder for those void slimes to necrofire everyone's asses up there.

It is questionable that one of the most efficient ways to play the game is to avoid dialogue entirely and stealth/alpha strike everything, which is the antithesis of Larian putting so much effort into the writing and cinematics to begin with. Or send one party member to act as bait while the rest of the party sets up. Makes me feel extremely murderhobo-y, and I have enough problems with that in my tabletop group as of late. But really, if the game wants to play with cheap instant kill stuff in some fights instead of actually being legit hard, then it should be expected that some players may decide to play in a way that doesn't respect the narrative half of the game either. The part of the game that Larian is clearly putting the most effort into, and the part that no other cRPG can really touch in the visuals department.

That said, your example about flying enemies only possessing melee attacks is a deliberate thing. They're there to provide value to ready actions and force melee characters to play defensively and predict. BG3's current systems generally promote heavy offense, because there's really no playing defensively to speak of, with the high frequency of AoE thrown items and field damage with no saving throws to avoid them, height advantage existing, and the kind of action economy that's present as is.

Even though I advocate for the addition of ready actions and dodge actions, it is also important to question how much the latter would actually matter in the context of how BG3's AI behaves. Maybe not as much as it does in Solasta, but more options are always better than less in the long term. At the very least, it means your melee can hold their ground to punish someone trying to climb up to reach your ranged on high ground, instead of hopping off to chase them and potentially expose themselves to retaliation from other enemies at the bottom, and the dodge action will at least allow any character that otherwise has no viable tactics to defend themselves by imposing disadvantage on everything making attack rolls against them until an opportunity presents itself.

I think smarter enemies could potentially ready action and dodge action against YOU as well within BG3. Wouldn't that be neat? I don't think Solasta's enemy AI actually does this... Plus we all know we're going to get fireball'd out the ass after Act 1 of BG3 since this is a Larian game we're talking about, so having proper reactions so we can actually control our counterspells is going to be pretty damn critical. Because it'd be such a shame to blow that counterspell on a cantrip only to end up letting that fireball go through, one that may force you to reload the game. Much bigger waste of time than any prompts asking you if you want to use a reaction.

WoW, this thread has turned out to be surprizingly civilized and productive.

some comments to things already said:
- Yes, the problem of both game is dumb enemy AI. Sometimes it is very easy for players to exploit dumb enemies.
While Larian tries to make enemies clever and sometimes it even works, it feels just wrong when enemies do nothing when you shoot from stealth or if they do not realize when you put lots of barrels around them.
Enemies should make a perception check when you shoot at them and they should also make a perception check when you place items around them. They have a vision cone, but they would look around in all directions if objects suddenly pop up around them or if someone shoots at them.
For BG3, if an enemy is attacked by someone they cannot see or reach, they should hide behind a massive object and ready an attack in case the player comes around the corner (which would require a proper ready action)
For Solasta, I agree that the stealth system is good, but for example enemies do not react if you damage them by shooting at stuff hanging from the ceiling.

And yes, the advantage of starting combat from stealth is having advantage because high ground or attacking from behind should not give advantage.
In Solasta its no problem to start combat when all chars are in stealth and in attack range of ranged or even melee attacks. This is more than enough advantage. No need to sneak freely between enemies or move to the battle area from miles away while everybody else is frozen in time.

more things:
- Both games try to use light properly. The result is the same: Use only chars with darkvision, elves rule, dwarves are OK and there is little reason to use humans or halflings. Wood elves are the best unless you really need other stats or profiencies. Sure, there are items or abilities that give darkvision, but why use an item or select an ability if you can have it automatically and use another item or ability. In both games the only problem with darkness is, when enemies are in range of your ranged attacks but outside your darkvision range. Since both games feel the same ragarding light, I think the system is OK. Its nice that you can use light effectively against vampires in Solasta. So far there were no vampires in BG3 except a very special one.

- Some players complained that the crown in BG3 that sets your int to 18 is OP. No, it is not. Solasta had such items for every stat and I never used them. Players will max out the primary stat of their class and other stats just give a bonus to some skills. But players will give profiencies to characters that have maxed out this stat, so the bonus for the group is very small unless you want to solo the game.
The crown can be useful if you want to play without a mage in your party (other classes do not really need int), but it only gives a bonus to knowledge skills.

I said it many times before and playing Solasta made the feeling even stronger: BG3 is a great game and it could become the best RPG in history. But Larians changes to the rules ruins some of the experiance.
Dear Larian people, please get action/bonus action/reaction and (dis)advantage right and the game will become much better.
The rest of the game is already very good, though there is still some room for improvement.

See I have been thinking as to how this should be handled and I think when you put a barrel next to a mob then it should go and just pick it up. "This shouldn't be here, I'll put it away later" and Bloop, its gone into their inventory.

Certain mobs can have the tag "Fastidious" - and those mobs are neat freaks.

So if you break a barrel full of oil or firewine, then they start immediately cleaning it up.

The alternative is they just attack and that is way more problematic.

Now Larian ultimately has an Ace up its sleeve on the AI issue because eventually we will be getting DM Mode, where a human player can take over for the enemy characters and get as brutally creative as any human can be. Hopefully I can be one of those DM's for people who crave a seriously nasty no-holds-barred fight to the death.

And yeah, I am glad we can finally have a civilized conversation about other games - like Solasta - without the acrimony. I think we had an issue here for a long time where certain people would show up to promote Solasta by insulting Larian. Not just to point out some things Solasta did right - but to accuse Larian of being lazy, or incompetent, or "not caring". It was really ugly behavior AND behavior the devs over at Solasta would not thank them for.

I agree, but most comparisons here I have seen are focused around combat mechanic, and translation of DnD systems into computer setting - and as both game use DnD 5e it is very much 1:1 comparison. It doesn't necessarily make Solasta a better game then BG3, but it's is as perfect comparison as one can get when it comes to combat.


That's hilarious. Tactical Adventures had to build on Unity to fit their needs as well. Larian isn't simply reusing Divinity engine - I remember it being mentioned in one interviews it is heavily modified. If Larian wanted to make Solasta-like systems they easily could. They a massive team, with big budget and their own engine, and seemingly unending budget. What they do/don't do is creative choice and design decision.


Or you can knock them down, use mentioned fly or spider walk. Verticality in Solasta is definitely clunky (I dislike not being able to precisely control my flying character unless there is platform he can stand on or enemy to attack) but it's cool. Not something Larian needs to adapt, but a cool system nonetheless.


I wish I shared your confidence. Larian already shipped two games with it's awful chaining-characters system and hotbar, and didn't feel the need to add functionality to it. Will it change for BG3? I hope so, as issues that were annoying in both D:OS games will be unbearable in a DnD game.

I actually think Solasta stroke gold with the concept - I would like a sequel with better writing, better character reactivity, more classes, subclasses and enemies, perhaps more choices and reactivity in the story, but linear balanced, custom voiced charactirized party creation tactical RPG is a wonderful nieche unoccupied by competition. I think it would be shame if they would get overambitious.

Search the forums for BG3 and read multiple forums. It is common thing going on there rather than trying to cherry pick one forum thread.

I respectfully disagree that the AI is smarter in BG3 than in Solasta but I agree that ennemies in BG3 have more tools... (And obviously that BG3 is in EA while Solasta is 1.0 )
Is having more tool always better ? I really don't think so.

You talked about guardian spirit and fire wall and I cannot disagree : it is overkill in Solasta.
But how to make those spells enjoyable /usefull if every creatures has a solution to range attack for the entire combats, a solution to insta break your concentration (surfaces flasks) and/or if they were "smart enough" not to come in the AoE ?

Just as you I'm 100% fine with a harder game than Solasta but the authentic mode is already challenging for new players. Challenging... but fair.
Just look at their discord or some forums talking about the game, a lot of new players are asking for advices.

Also, did you roll your abilities or played with point buy ? I tried both and this really increased the difficulty.
This is something we cannot try in BG3 but I guess it will also decrease the difficulty.

The problem with BG3's additional tools is that they're way too powerfull on both side.

- The game is extremely easy if you use them and it would be terrible if the AI was able to use them as much/as smart as us (diping, shove, backstab, avoid 100% of the AOO, and so on)

On the other hand, the tools they added to creatures and the combat design supposed to balance our "homebrewed tools" are also completely broken.

- A lot of creatures can litterally kill one or more of your characters during their first turn, concentration is broken way too easily, the harpy fight is a pain because they can fly, the combat outside the goblins camp is a pain because there are way too many ennemies, you miss more often because they increased some AC, they increased the goblins HP so you have 0 chance to OS one of them, lots of creatures makes better ST than they should because their dexterity has been increased, and so on...

The result is that combats are often unfair and frustrating (please, try to set your mind in the head of a new player that hasn't played hundreds of hours and/or that doesn't know DnD) and that your sucess rely on several custom and OP mechanics. The most challenging combats are limited to "smart moves to nuke your opponent before being nuked". This makes combats way less deep than they should and reduce A LOT our creativity and the usefullness of many tools that are included in DnD (and in BG3).

Solasta may be too easy but Solasta has fair combats and every spells and choices are valuable even if some are better than others depending the situation.
You can end the game without spirit guardian and fire wall even in scavenger or cataclysm mode because other level 3 and 4 spells are also powerfull. Will we be able to end BG3 at higher difficulty without using any "op larianisms" ? (from mechanics to consumables and so on...) I really doubt.

If Larian's will was to create more challenging combats (I don't think so, really), their answer was completely wrong according to me.
If their will was to add new custom mechanics and/or tools, I'm 100% fine with it but the answer was also wrong and created many huge issues everywhere that doesn't exist neither in DnD, neither in Solasta.

Just for you Dragonsnooz;

https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/played-the-demo-better-than-bg3
https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/why-do-i-like-solasta-so-much-more-than-bg3
https://forums.solasta-game.com/search?query=bg3
https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/baldurs-gate-3

This is a difficult conversation to have because the charge of 'elitist gamer' starts getting thrown around, so I will take this in a different direction. There are some gamers out there that are what some would describe as "high functioning" - and people who are high functioning are constantly trying to stave off boredom by finding greater and greater challenges and things to occupy their minds. If they get bored then they get self-destructive.

In the gaming world there have only ever been a handful of games that are designed to have the challenge level necessary to keep the attention of a high functioning individual. Invariably these games - over time - have been nerfed into oblivion to allow for greater mainstream appeal. The most famous example of this is of course World of Warcraft. In Vanilla it was an uncompromising and incredibly fun experience. You couldn't just run around soloing anything you wanted. The world, especially in pvp, did not make any attempt to be fair. Like all great Art it mirrored the unfairness of life. It rewarded cooperation, and punished those who were anti-social and avoidant. It was easy to learn but hard to master. Only 2-3% of players even managed to kill the final boss before the expansion was released (although this was party because Blizzard released the expansion too early. I think it would have been much higher if they gave people a few more months).

And people complained. "Too hard" they said. "Why should we be forced to get better? Make the game easier." And Blizzard listened, and they proceeded to nerf the game until it because not a game, but a simple interactive experience designed for innocent unremarkables. No accomplishments were celebrated because no accomplishments mattered. And once everyone was standing side by side wearing all the same Epic gear they realized how hollow unearned accolades are and they simply stopped playing. Subscriptions plummeted so much that by the third "expansion" they stopped tracking them out of embarrassment.

But then an interesting thing happened, someone figured out how to run a vanilla server based on the original game. And so private servers started to pop up, and people flocked to them by the thousands. And they would run them for 2 year cycles and then reset them and everyone would start over. People just wanted a taste of that original difficult and uncompromising experience. The game was so complex and well made that people were still figuring out new things to do 10 years after the game was released. It was genius.

The gaming world follows the general model of not creating games, but instead creating "Interactive Experiences". An Interactive Experience does not force the player to learn and adapt to move forward. An Interactive Experience is simply meant to be consumed, you are not expected to learn or grow.

IMHO In a real game if you are not losing then its not challenging enough and you need to move on. When I started BG3 I made all the mistakes and had to learn 5E rules to understand what I was doing wrong (a lot it turns out). I lost a lot of fights and loved every second of it. What is wrong with New players losing fights? Good for them. You're welcome!

I cannot comprehend the mentality of a person who expects to win all the time and is convinced they were created perfect straight from God's hands and no additional knowledge or growth is needed. However, I don't need to. There is a whole world of "games" for people that just want to constantly win with no expectation of improvement. Meanwhile the rest of us don't have a lot of options. Sometimes the hardest difficulty setting isn't enough. Witcher 3 on Blood and Broken Bones? yes please! Honor mode, heck yes!

Larian does a great job of trying to make games that require you to adapt and learn. If people are coming to Solasta/BG3 and having trouble but don't think they need to learn and adapt whose fault is that exactly?

No one is ever forced to use Exploits. I never use them and never will.

One other small point. It is rare to see a game that creates so many optional encounters as Larian does. I want them to create more of these. I want there to be areas of the game that if you start a fight then you are going to die and you have no hope of winning. That's proper D&D right there! So many people that complain about combat difficulty are complaining about optional encounters. Can you imagine a world where you can't win every single battle? Where running is the only thing you can do? or successful dialog, or being sneaky?

So this is my ask, let us have THIS game - I am sure there will be nerfed AI settings/easier combats for new players. Meanwhile I will have my crew on Tactician/Honor mode getting occasionally destroyed by the jerk AI and loving every second of it.

Enough, Pandemonica. If you don't want to participate in their discussion, then stay out of it. It's a perfectly productive and constructive discussion, and it's fine to have comparative discussions about what people enjoy in other games and how that may be worth considering for BG3. What ever other forums and discussions going on out there is irrelevant to this thread.