I mean, the game is amazing, has amazing dialogues, atmosphere and all that, but damn… the combat is surely a downer. Feels like theres no “real” tactic to the game other than just keep on (mindlessly) trying until the battle is won. And yes, I’ve done all quests, sidequests, with a “non-meme” party on the balanced difficulty and I’m -still- having lots of “please don’t use (x) skill or else my whole run is done for” moments.
/shurg Can’t say I’ve found it this way, but I’m pretty used both to DnD mechanics generally, and Larian’s approach to encounter design in specific. (I’ve so far had exactly one combat game over, because I was dumb and let Ragzlin get into the rafters and chuck javelins at me for like 20 damage a pop.)
Positioning matters, your environment is something to be used to your advantage, abilities that boost your accuracy are very powerful, and different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses. /shurg Hard to give much specific advice, because different encounters and party compositions demand different tactics and threat assessment.
I’m not a huge fan of D&D 5E, and I think the Divinity combat mechanics foundation lent itself better to both this kind of game and to Larians encounter design (which is natural since they invented the Divinity mechanics).
In general I felt like I had more and better tools in D:OS2, with more interactions and synergies and in general more fun in combat.
Still, I like everything else better in BG3, and it’s not like the combat is awful. And it might improve on higher levels.
You’re playing it wrong.
BG3 is a role playing game. You gotta play it like real life. In real life, if things don’t go your way, you drink strong alcohol. I highly recommend tequila or whisky.
Charisma too low? Tequila. Dexterity too low? Whisky. Enemy with 1HP dodges 3 attacks in a row? Tequila.
The game is easy as pie.
Ah, the Disco Elysium style of rpg
I think we should just deal with the consequences. Make a plan, go for it, and deal with whatever happens. The only time you reload is when you die. Or when something REALLY bad happens.
Save scumming kinda spoils the fun and removes a lot of the tension.
And if poor rolls meant I had to murder La’Zael at the start of the game so be it. She was obviously meant to die like all those poor innocent deep gnomes.
I reloaded there because I was expecting more dialog options along the line that didn’t result in my Paladin breaking his oath. Oh and non-lethal damage seemingly still broke my oath?!
I can’t think of any other moments Ive had to reload due to braindead conversation options but I have been frustrated a few times.
As a vengeance paladin seemingly nothing breaks my oath.
I haven’t found it that way. I’m generally D&D has a lot of “save or suck” abilities. Generally this applies to spells where either you make your saving throw and nothing happens, or you fail and something catastrophic happens. It feels very swingy - one turn you’re ahead, the next turn your barbarian is paralyzed and your wizard is blinded.
It also applies to attacks and other abilities, though. Try to stack buffs that give you bonuses to attack roles and saves. Bardic inspiration, guidance, enlarge/reduce, etc. help to minimize the suck for you and maximize the suck for them.
Good luck!
This guy just did a whole combat video. I learn some great info here.
Beginners guide to combatI’m not really a “party rpg” player, and “tactics” is a foreign word to me, so I have just downgraded to the Explorer difficulty after wasting a couple of hours on the defend the grove quest.
I’m sure I’m missing a lot of things but the RNG does sometimes feel quite annoying. When I lucked out on enemies positioning themselves near explody barrels the pesky spiders crit-hit me to death, other times the suicide bombers just ran past the barrels or were to spread out to get them all.
Maybe I’ll turn it back up later, or in a second playthrough, but for now I’m having more fun with the easier option. And I would recommend that to everyone who feels frustrated. The game is definitely worth it, even if it’s not my usual cup of tea
Are you immediately running into battles or are you taking the time to examine the environment and enemies before initiating battles? Obviously it’s not always possible, but I usually spend a few minutes to plan some things before starting a fight.
I look at the environment to see if there are any items I can use to my advantage (barrels, chasms, etc.) or any optimal places to position my people (e.g., up high and out of sight for my rogue).
I also examine the enemies before hand to look at their strengths and weaknesses, and I change out my prepared spells accordingly.
In a game with dice rolls, it’s inevitable that some things will come down to luck. But I do think there’s still a lot of “tactical” planning to be had both during the battles but even before the fight starts as well.
I’m on Act II in balanced difficulty and haven’t suffered a total party wipe yet. I also don’t use any of the cheese bombs, arrows or poisons but I have no issue with those being an option in the game.
If you’re not using Bless or gaining advantage in combat you’ll have a harder time.
That certainly hasn’t been my experience, though perhaps my rolls have been more fortuitous. I’ve been finding the combat challenging, but not overly unforgiving. I do sometimes have to try an engagement more than once to try out different strategies, but most of the time I don’t have to do that. I do have a fair amount of experience with this type of game though, and that makes a big difference.
I catch myself getting frustrated with bad luck more in BG3 than I did in D: OS2. Hit chances seem lower and many abilities are once per rest (and I’m trying to minimise long rests for immersion), so a miss ends up feeling more punishing.
I’m also playing as an Assassin, so basically centered around a high impact surprise round from stealth, and I swear I’m missing more 80%+ sneak attacks than I’m hitting. I guess frustration is part and parcel on a build that gambles everything on one big attack, though.
I wanted to try playing “pure” first, but maybe I need to turn on Karmic Dice. Missing a 94% chance to hit Sneak Attack twice in a row did not feel good. I guess I am too unlucky to just trust the dice.
As someone who is notoriously the worst roller at the table, having your well-built character flub a crucial move they’ve carefully planned feels SO very authentic.
Also spells and cantrips that grant advantage or add dice to the attack roll have felt more impactful in the game than they have at the table.
It’s good to meet a fellow lowroller.
I think AC is higher across the board in BG3. Bless is great, but concentration is a bigger issue here than PNP I feel like - lots of ranged attackers and grenades. I also am forced to take on many encounters without spell slots since I’m trying to lean into the roleplay and so only Long Rest when I’m absolutely forced to.
I just started using Karlach as a Wolf Heart Barbarian recently and that has been great for easy advantage. I might need to respec some NPCs to short-rest classes, too, if I keep getting frustrated. Maybe intended behaviour (on this supposedly time sensitive quest) is to Long Rest every other encounter, and I’m just being stubborn for finding that immersion breaking.
I think it’s meant to vary by encounter, sometimes I’ll do 4-5 encounters before needing to rest, using only a couple spell slots/LR abilities each time, sometimes I get absolutely savaged and need to rest after only one or two. /shurg It does get easier as you level, and long rest casters in particular get more resources. Worth noting too, the time-sensitivity of the quest becomes… much less so, shortly. :P Still urgent, but not “you have one week, then you die, and the Absolute probably takes over the world” urgent.
I suspect the game is balanced around the idea you’ll probably do 2-4 encounters per long rest though, purely given the ratio of short to long rests.
I haven’t experienced that on balanced difficulty; what party members are you using?
Some general considerations:
—Some optional fights are very challenging when first encountered, you can skip them and come back later.
—The Sword Coast is absolutely swimming in consumables. Drink those potions, read those scrolls, and shoot those magic arrows; your enemies certainly will.
—Someone should probably always be concentrating on Bless. If you aren’t a cleric, I hope you like Shadowheart!
—The story wants you to rush, but don’t trust it; take a long rest between large fights, even if it seems silly. You need those spell slots.
—Focus on taking small enemies out of the fight before concentrating on the large ones.
—Enemy archers (and mages that use attack roll spells) can’t shoot you very well if your melee characters are threatening them.
—Bringing more than one “squishy” party member (like Gale) makes the game a lot harder. Make sure anyone who can learn Shield knows (and prepares!) it.
Hmm I don’t agree… I felt like that before I completely understood how combat works but now I actually wish there were more “random” encounters because I’m really enjoying combat: when you manage to master the combat system and the tactics involved the game really shines. What I suggest is this: if you fail a fight don’t just do whatever you did the first time: approach it from a different perspective, analyze the battlefield and your strengths/weaknesses, and those of your enemy. Also, being rested and having all the tools of your characters at your disposal is extremely important for the more challenging encounters. Also, advantage is very important for a lot of classes: my avatar is a rogue and this made me appreciate how important the concept of advantage is: without it a rogue can’t use sneak attacks and this taught me how to exploit the concept is. This is also why I love characters like Karlach (barbarian) and that attack that gives you advantage.
get gud scrub.
That’s why I don’t like Larian games. It’s the same bullshit shtick that they used for both Divinity games. There’s no nuance to the battles, it’s just fighting against a vindictive DM that knows all of your weaknesses…and exploits the absolute fuck out of them. I hated it so much in Divinity OS2 that I couldn’t even finish the game. It was painful having to slog through some of if the fights to the point that I just began dreading them.
Honestly mate? Chuck the difficulty down if you’re struggling. It’s a single player game, there’s no reason to slog through on a higher difficulty than what you find fun.
That said, if you’re just bashing your head against a wall, it’s likely you’re making some pretty big errors in the combat. The game is designed to be challenging, but not strictly cruel. Always ensure you’re taking time to reposition your party and take advantage of your environment. Astarion and his sneak attacks from the shadows carried my party through some really challenging fights, not to mention the massive benefits that chokepoints bring.
To put it another way, if everywhere you go smells of shit, you might wanna check your boot.
I’m not struggling. We never even really got stuck anywhere. I just hated the mechanics of the game. The enemy AI didn’t play contextually to the situation and took advantage of things that it shouldn’t known about.
Also the fact that every enemy in the game had access to magic grenades and magic arrows didn’t help…it just didn’t make sense in some cases. It almost felt cheesy - if every single enemy has access to the same grenades and arrows, the fights no longer feel unique. It just becomes Level 2.2 in this weird magic chess game. Same enemies, just slightly harder…etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Lastly, the other thing that bugs me…is there is pretty much no difference between any of their strategy games. It’s the same BS system that’s been rebranded and reflavored for the next story. We beat Divinity OS1, and I was really hoping for a better AI and better fight dynamics when they released OS2…boy was I let down when I discovered that it was exactly the same in pretty much every way that mattered.
Don’t they have an story mode for people that don’t like the strategy part of the strategy RPG?
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good strategy RPG. Loved the first Baldurs Gate games. Love Tactics Ogre games, played the original XCOM games, loved the Front Mission Franchise. The enemies made logical moves in that game, which is fine.
Larian Games play more like someone whose playing chess. The actions of the individual units don’t matter to that individual, but to the whole. It’s like all of the immersion is broken by every fight because enemy units will do illogical things for that enemy character. Oh, your healing my disguised, undead character on your first turn? Oh yeah, that’s logical. No one in this village knew my guy was undead, but because we get into a fight, you just immediately know?
The enemy AI knows all of your weaknesses and exploits them. This isn’t about difficulty of the game, it’s about the bullshit mechanics of the game. Larian Studios gets lauded for making an amazing strategy RPG, and I agree that the RPG part is great…I just don’t think that the Strategy portion of the equation is all that it’s cracked out to be.
If I just want a story, I’ll go read a book. The strategy portion of this strategy RPG is just rough and it’s all due to the AI. The game has ita moments, but the AI plays exactly like a vindictive DM that is willing to exploit every one of your weaknesses. I want a challenge, but I want it to be contextually accurate, not this weird chess-like sidepiece.
