Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Delterius]

so you're telling me the difficulty levels won't be fully tested by release

Why would they do that? This is not an online pvp game so not everything has to be 100% balanced.
They have internal testers who will do most of the work.
About 2/3 of the game will also not be released until premiere.

I would expect that there will be no new big patch until release.

If the base game is easy as people say that it is then I want an option with extra enemies in each encounter. It's not really about being hyper challenged, just to calibrate that fun factor of using my abilities and stuff. Now, I'd rather higher difficulties not be exaggerated, or, worse, that higher difficulty means the goblins now have dragon stats. That the game has been in early access since the Crimean War and doesn't have other difficulty levels still makes me worry for the latter.

Every feature has to be balanced and tweaked for release. This applies to all genres. There is this really weird discourse on the codex as if Gamemasters aren't supposed 'balance' their encounters and, frankly, it betrays a lot more about the poster than you'd think.

 

[Rhobar121]

For that to make any real sense, they'd have to release the rest of the game first. Otherwise we would end up with balanced act1. Rest of the game would have to be based on internal testing anyway.

 

[Shrimp]

If D:OS 2 is to be any indication the early access build is more or less just the equivalent of the normal difficulty setting while the game launched with easy/normal/hard/hard-but-in-ironman-mode options under different names. I think the enhanced edition they released later on added a difficulty setting below easy but I never played that version DOS2 so I don't know how big of a difference it makes.
From my memory DOS2's hard mode (called Tactician) primarily just had increased stats on enemies whereas DOS1's tactician mode had slight stat increases to enemies but instead reworked a fair share of the encounters to have more enemies and/or enemies with additional abilities and spells.

If tweaking with the numbers is too big a can of worms to open it'd seem preferable to just overhaul the encounters depending on the chosen difficulty setting, but I don't know if they'd be willing to go that far. I remember some controversies about BG3 using different stats for goblin enemies, so Larian has already demonstrated they aren't adverse to modifying health and AC values of enemies.

 

[AwesomeButton]

For that to make any real sense, they'd have to release the rest of the game first. Otherwise we would end up with balanced act1. Rest of the game would have to be based on internal testing anyway.

As I've been saying would happen. And as has been the tendency with D:OS 1 and 2. The first couple of chapters are the main part of the game, the rest is filler unfinished content.

 

[Fedora Master]

If D:OS 2 is to be any indication

The game will fall off a cliff past the Early Access content.

 

[ferratilis]

And this time, it's coming out on console day 1, which means everything past act 1 will be even worse than it was in DOS2.

 

[Desiderius]

For that to make any real sense, they'd have to release the rest of the game first. Otherwise we would end up with balanced act1. Rest of the game would have to be based on internal testing anyway.

As I've been saying would happen. And as has been the tendency with D:OS 1 and 2. The first couple of chapters are the main part of the game, the rest is filler unfinished content.

In DOS games they don't even bother giving you any new skills past midgame.

 

[Gargaune]

The game will fall off a cliff past the Early Access content.

Ah, so that's why Swen insists on the shit controls. You can't leave a bad review about post-EA content if you strangle yourself with your own mouse cable first.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

hows the overall encounter design/difficulty?

The game has been getting significantly easier and streamlined since the release of the earliest versions. Rolls are practically clic to win now (on top of the many bonuses you can have) and combat seems way more lenient. Enemies seem dumber and they aren't as aggressive as they were/should be. Interactivity, outside of combat at least, has been improved, so there's that.

Edit: I haven't played every Patch, but I haven't rolled 1s since at least patch 6. And when I my roll fails, I get a chance to roll again for some reason?

 

[Tyranicon]

hows the overall encounter design/difficulty?

The game has been getting significantly easier and streamlined since the release of the earliest versions. Rolls are practically clic to win now (on top of the many bonuses you can have) and combat seems way more lenient. Enemies seem dumber and they aren't as aggressive as they were/should be. Interactivity, outside of combat at least, has been improved, so there's that.

Edit: I haven't played every Patch, but I haven't rolled 1s since at least patch 6. And when I my roll fails, I get a chance to roll again for some reason?

It's not authentic to the PnP experience unless you roll 6 nat 1's in a row and chuck your dice in the trash.

 

[Spectacle]

I assume that the main difference will be dmg, hp and/or better AI (as in DoS2).

If they have any sense they will use additional enemies as the difficulty scaler. 5E in particular scales horribly with just increased stats (it basically breaks the entire system, like you say), whereas the action economy has more leeway and can easily be scaled by adding additional enemies (which is exactly why 5E balances solo enemies by giving them an improved action economy rather than just boosting their stats).

Agreed. But adding extra enemies to every encounter in the game is a lot more work than simply setting $DAMAGE = $DAMAGE_ROLL * $DIFFICULTY_MULTIPLIER. You need to place the extra monsters by hand in every scene, and also playtest each fight to make sure that there's at least room enough for all the monsters to move around.

Software development is all about how you prioritize your time budget. Is spending that time tweaking every fight more valuable than say, adding more reactivity and alternate solutions to a bunch of quests?

 

[Grunker]

and also playtest each fight

There's less of a need for this on higher difficulties where you can add a warning message before switching to it, because essentially you can handwave poor playtesting on the highest difficulties by saying "well, YOU picked this difficulty." It's why they're named 'Impossible' and shit like that, to tell players "devs take no responsibility for this shit." etc.

Is spending that time tweaking every fight more valuable than say, adding more reactivity and alternate solutions to a bunch of quests?

I'd say yes because I'm a combatfag, but that's not really my point. My point is that for the highest difficulty spergs, you can actually get away with not playtesting too much. Of course your game will be better if you do, but if it's between a hastily implemented encounter variety solution or a "safe" blanket stat buff solution, I'll pick the former every time - and that goes double for 5E, where stat bloat can easily break the system in half, while additional enemies is what the system is made for.

 

[Mortmal]

I assume that the main difference will be dmg, hp and/or better AI (as in DoS2).

If they have any sense they will use additional enemies as the difficulty scaler. 5E in particular scales horribly with just increased stats (it basically breaks the entire system, like you say), whereas the action economy has more leeway and can easily be scaled by adding additional enemies (which is exactly why 5E balances solo enemies by giving them an improved action economy rather than just boosting their stats).

Agreed. But adding extra enemies to every encounter in the game is a lot more work than simply setting $DAMAGE = $DAMAGE_ROLL * $DIFFICULTY_MULTIPLIER. You need to place the extra monsters by hand in every scene, and also playtest each fight to make sure that there's at least room enough for all the monsters to move around.

Software development is all about how you prioritize your time budget. Is spending that time tweaking every fight more valuable than say, adding more reactivity and alternate solutions to a bunch of quests?

As grunker said too, the system is made for adding enemies not bloating stats, thats the biggest flaw in solasta as well. The system works great like that and there's no need to even test the encounters. If you are not intending to follow this, why even pick 5E as a system. Reactivity and alternate solutions you can do that with everything else or no rulesets at all. At this point if everything gets too easy they may as well sell visual novels.

 

[Spectacle]

By playtesting I don't really mean testing for "balance", which I agree isn't that important at higher difficulties, but just testing to make sure that the extra monsters don't get stuck or otherwise spazz out because the area wasn't originally designed for that many creatures.

 

[Grunker]

By playtesting I don't really mean testing for "balance", which I agree isn't that important at higher difficulties, but just testing to make sure that the extra monsters don't get stuck or otherwise spazz out because the area wasn't originally designed for that many creatures.

Fair enough, but once again, on a difficulty setting 0,5% of your playerbase is gonna play let alone complete, you can probably get away with that stuff being a bit wonky on release.

 

[Desiderius]

There's less of a need for this on higher difficulties where you can add a warning message before switching to it, because essentially you can handwave poor playtesting on the highest difficulties by saying "well, YOU picked this difficulty." It's why they're named 'Impossible' and shit like that, to tell players "devs take no responsibility for this shit." etc.

Grunker weren't you the one complaining about a fight on the highest difficulty in Wrath trying to get it nerfed?

 

[Grunker]

There's less of a need for this on higher difficulties where you can add a warning message before switching to it, because essentially you can handwave poor playtesting on the highest difficulties by saying "well, YOU picked this difficulty." It's why they're named 'Impossible' and shit like that, to tell players "devs take no responsibility for this shit." etc.

Grunker weren't you the one complaining about a fight on the highest difficulty in Wrath trying to get it nerfed?

No, but then you'd know that if you had read anything I wrote in that discussion instead of being your usual sperg self, which is oddly poignant to this discussion as we're talking about stat-tuning vs. adding enemies. Hidden abode was a much harder fight for me than Nocti and probably my favourite fight (on Unfair with x2 damage) in the game.

I did think Nocti would be "harder" when I first encountered it due to the binary nature of the design, but there's actually an item in the game that trivializes the first part of the fight completely, which further highlights the poor design of that first part. The second part of the fight is much more interesting and its difficulty is granular based on the choices you've made before the fight (and the choices you make within it).

 

[Desiderius]

There's less of a need for this on higher difficulties where you can add a warning message before switching to it, because essentially you can handwave poor playtesting on the highest difficulties by saying "well, YOU picked this difficulty." It's why they're named 'Impossible' and shit like that, to tell players "devs take no responsibility for this shit." etc.

Grunker weren't you the one complaining about a fight on the highest difficulty in Wrath trying to get it nerfed?

No, but then you'd know that if you had read anything I wrote in that discussion instead of being your usual sperg self, which is oddly poignant to this discussion as we're talking about stat-tuning vs. adding enemies. Hidden abode was a much harder fight for me than Nocti and probably my favourite fight (on Unfair with x2 damage) in the game

Yeah, you thought a condition that breaks on damage is unbeatable, and when hold heh you picked that difficulty threw a fit. It may be 0.5% but it's an influential 0.5% and they don't always stop to think about what they're saying.

 

[Grunker]

If you're trying to prove that you're incapable of having a two-way discussion by increasing the cap of how many strawmen you can fit into one line of text, you really don't have to. I'm sure most 'dexers realize that by now.

 

[Turn_BASED]

I can confidently say that I will never really enjoy this game after playing KotC and KotC2. Combat in this feels like soft kitten playtime compared to the assrape nightmare that KotC2 was on release.

 

[Reinhardt]

but kotc2 on release is soft kitten playtime compared to what it was before.

 

[Mortmal]

Kotc2 was borderline unplayable and still is for the majority of players, while those 5E games are leaning toward very easy in an already not so challenging system compare to more oldschool rulesets. There's really no middle ground.
The worse is i am pretty sure if i ask them to add new fancy haircuts, they will listen and do it , while asking for better encounters will be completely ignored.

 

[Tyranicon]

I can confidently say that I will never really enjoy this game after playing KotC and KotC2. Combat in this feels like soft kitten playtime compared to the assrape nightmare that KotC2 was on release.

Note: Codex demands non-stop assrape.

Note 2: Above refers to turn-based combat.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I can confidently say that I will never really enjoy this game after playing KotC and KotC2. Combat in this feels like soft kitten playtime compared to the assrape nightmare that KotC2 was on release.

Note: Codex demands non-stop assrape.

Note 2: Above refers to turn-based combat.

Note 3: Except when it doesn't. User history is important.

 

[rojay]

By playtesting I don't really mean testing for "balance", which I agree isn't that important at higher difficulties, but just testing to make sure that the extra monsters don't get stuck or otherwise spazz out because the area wasn't originally designed for that many creatures.

Fair enough, but once again, on a difficulty setting 0,5% of your playerbase is gonna play let alone complete, you can probably get away with that stuff being a bit wonky on release.

I started thinking about how to regulate difficulty in these sort of games and I thought I'd ask people here a question:

What are the base elements of difficulty in these games that can be adjusted on an encounter by encounter basis? Number of enemies; substituting enemies; enemies stats and abilities (hit points, immunities, spells available, etc.); their AI behavior; changing environmental conditions; placement of enemies... what else?

I ask because I was trying to figure out how difficult it would be for the developers to adjust that sort of stuff on a per-encounter basis at different difficulty settings.