Act 3 Wastes so much EXP

[SpaceWombat]

Why does act 3 have so many sources of EXP that end up being wasted since you reach max level so soon?

Everything in Act 3 should really be 2-3 levels higher than they currently are and the cap shouldn't be at 12 for the player. It feels like nobody was paying attention to the balance of this part of the game which is staggering because it was perfect in act 1 and 2.

If it had to stay this way I'd at least prefer that exp past level 12 actually went towards something useful like increasing your inspiration cap...

[ShockedHearts]

Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:

Originally posted by ShockedHearts:

aside if i missed something or possible my original point still stands. I was very very vigilent and still didnt do everything. i doubt most players will and those who do deserve to be max level a tad early

You won't make max-level early. You'll reach it, at the most, at the very end or very beginning of act 3, and the transition between them is just a few cutscenes and maybe a bit of exploring the outskirts of the Act 3 area. You might hit it around there, if you're under-leveled. Also, if you still need XP, did you go to the Githyanki Creche? Its technically part of act 1, and has more XP for you. I missed it on my first run, and I don't remember if anyone asked if you'd found it.

yeah (for the 3rd time) I did everything.

the only thing I missed in act 1 on my good boi run was the mushroom people spot in the underdark. I did everything else. and made an active effort to back track and explore every area before heading into act 2.

mostly because I was told ahead of time going to the next act progresses a lot of things and its easy to miss stuff.

despite that still missed the 1 thing sadly but hardly any player is gonna do everything in their first playthrough.

[Kriss Hietala]

If you play with lvl 20 cap you can use the extra exp

[Picklefather Nurgle]

Originally posted by L:D:

The most powerful items come from act 3, especially the later fights. In fact, you get those items so late in the game that is sad you can't use them more often because there's nothing much more to do. People invented mods to either get those item way earlier so can people enjoy be powerful at the start/middle of the game.

If you play difficult games and then played BG3 and didn't realized that BG3 is supposed to be a fun game, that accommodate more casual players as well, it's more your problem than the game.

You mentioned Ansur and Sarevok in other post, and it's weird. I killed Sarevok in one turn and Ansur in two, couldn't even see his special move in the first time i played the game (and keep in mind my main character was a shadow monk), there's absolutely no "challenge" at the end as you speak.

I agree with the first part. They really wait too long to give you the good stuff. Especially if you're like me and only do the real big, flashy quests where you get the best loot only and hour or so before the final boss..... sadge.

As for the second part, the Tactician difficulty is pretty well balanced. I actually find this game a lot harder than Divinty 2. Not sure if I'm high or if that's really the case, but I put so much time into Divinity and clicked so well with the combat system that I don't think its anywhere near as hard as this one. Could just be my friends are right, and that I just played DoS 2 so much that I broke it and now am struggling learning something that's similar but slightly different. That being said, the fights were pretty good from a balance perspective.

When it comes to difficult, some bosses I annihilated in one turn, others were a slog. Not every player builds their character and allies the same way. Me, personally, for the Sarevok fight, I had Gale, Minsc and Jaheira. Had about 9 summons in the fight, bunch of quasits, elementals, myrmidons, ghouls, a dryad and her own summoned wood woad, etc. Sarevok hit hard, but the main issue I had was killing his annoying little buffers in time. Had to do a long rest after the fight due to how much I burned just on killing the adds alone. Sarevok himself died like a bish due to a combo of Hold Person and good old fashioned slippery ice.

Ansur was ridiculous. Apparently, AFTER I killed him and finished the game, they fixed the "bug" of his lightning blast hitting the whole arena and not being blocked by the walls of crystal. I kept getting merc'ed whenever he did that, so eventually I just said "F#ck it" and resorted to barrelmancy. Got him down to 100 hp in one turn, then finished him off with Lae'zel. Was a good bit of payback after the two hours of hell he put me through.

Just because you didn't find a challenge doesn't mean others won't, and for a multitude of reasons. Making a blank statement like that about an RPG is disingenuous and doesn't account for people having an even slightly different experience.

[GolfLover420]

Yeah I'm usually level 10 by the time I get to act 3. So there is no leveling left after Rivington.

[Picklefather Nurgle]

Originally posted by ShockedHearts:

yeah (for the 3rd time) I did everything.

the only thing I missed in act 1 on my good boi run was the mushroom people spot in the underdark. I did everything else. and made an active effort to back track and explore every area before heading into act 2.

mostly because I was told ahead of time going to the next act progresses a lot of things and its easy to miss stuff.

despite that still missed the 1 thing sadly but hardly any player is gonna do everything in their first playthrough.

Ah, gotcha. Definitely sounds like a bug, and a nasty one at that. If you wanna, I'd say go over to the bug/feedback discussion, get in touch with a dev and possibly send them your save date. They might by able to figure out how you got stiffed on XP. Maybe they'll even do a "here, I fixed it" bit of dev-magic and give you what you should have. I've seen a few developers for multiple other games do that once in a blue moon. Otherwise it'll be restarting for thee, if you're not already disenfranchised with the game.

Edit - The Mushroom people actually give you one of the longer quest chains. It has two steps, and usually gives enough XP altogether for at least one more level. So even with that taken into account, you're missing one level even with the Myconids accounted for.

[ShockedHearts]

Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:

Originally posted by ShockedHearts:

yeah (for the 3rd time) I did everything.

the only thing I missed in act 1 on my good boi run was the mushroom people spot in the underdark. I did everything else. and made an active effort to back track and explore every area before heading into act 2.

mostly because I was told ahead of time going to the next act progresses a lot of things and its easy to miss stuff.

despite that still missed the 1 thing sadly but hardly any player is gonna do everything in their first playthrough.

Ah, gotcha. Definitely sounds like a bug, and a nasty one at that. If you wanna, I'd say go over to the bug/feedback discussion, get in touch with a dev and possibly send them your save date. They might by able to figure out how you got stiffed on XP. Maybe they'll even do a "here, I fixed it" bit of dev-magic and give you what you should have. I've seen a few developers for multiple other games do that once in a blue moon. Otherwise it'll be restarting for thee, if you're not already disenfranchised with the game.

nah im good I have no issue. and the balancing has been perfect. im at the start of act 3 and have more than enough time to reach max level. considering Im just about level 11 entering the lower city.

[L:D]

Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:

Originally posted by L:D:

The most powerful items come from act 3, especially the later fights. In fact, you get those items so late in the game that is sad you can't use them more often because there's nothing much more to do. People invented mods to either get those item way earlier so can people enjoy be powerful at the start/middle of the game.

If you play difficult games and then played BG3 and didn't realized that BG3 is supposed to be a fun game, that accommodate more casual players as well, it's more your problem than the game.

You mentioned Ansur and Sarevok in other post, and it's weird. I killed Sarevok in one turn and Ansur in two, couldn't even see his special move in the first time i played the game (and keep in mind my main character was a shadow monk), there's absolutely no "challenge" at the end as you speak.

Just because you didn't find a challenge doesn't mean others won't, and for a multitude of reasons. Making a blank statement like that about an RPG is disingenuous and doesn't account for people having an even slightly different experience.

Great, you resumed your complain in three line, because it goes both ways.
Just because you think act 3 was easy or/and not challenging, besides ansur and saverok, it doesn't mean it was easy for everyone. In fact, people have a lot of problem with Raphael fight because they don't understand dnd or the fight very well.
You don't set the difficult based on what you experienced, especially on a game that some part of your combat is decided by an dice rng.

You literally broke your statement about the game not being challenging just to protect the reason why you though Ansur and Saverok to be a difficult fight. Because if the challenging is so volatile as you say, anything said here doesn't really matter.

[Picklefather Nurgle]

Originally posted by L:D:

Great, you resumed your complain in three line, because it goes both ways.
Just because you think act 3 was easy or/and not challenging, besides ansur and saverok, it doesn't mean it was easy for everyone. In fact, people have a lot of problem with Raphael fight because they don't understand dnd or the fight very well.
You don't set the difficult based on what you experienced, especially on a game that some part of your combat is decided by an dice rng.

You literally broke your statement about the game not being challenging just to protect the reason why you though Ansur and Saverok to be a difficult fight. Because if the challenging is so volatile as you say, anything said here doesn't really matter.

I never said Act three was easy. I said the balance was good, but that I personally struggled with those two bosses for the reasons listed. I in fact said I find this game harder than DoS2, but the bulk of my comment was describing ways in which the bosses either broke or were challenging not for their actual difficulty, but because of the way I approached the fight. Both of those two examples were the basis for why I said some people experience Act 3 differently from you after you said there's "no challenge" to speak of in Act 3.

So, it in fact doesn't go both ways. Nothing in my comment implied I think the balance is volatile when everything is functioning correctly, and everything else you bring up in this response is just rambling. Its okay to be wrong, but save your finger-joints the stress of all this typing.

[Koro_Kokoro]

Originally posted by Kriss Hietala:

If you play with lvl 20 cap you can use the extra exp

anyone who actually knows modern D&D would say that once you start going above 12 you start to become like an unstoppable god to normal play and game balance would just go out the window

[Picklefather Nurgle]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

anyone who actually knows modern D&D would say that once you start going above 12 you start to become like an unstoppable god to normal play and game balance would just go out the window

That's not valid when you account for how a considerably less wealthy studio did it with a previous entry in the series, which itself was based on a much more complicated and bloated version of D&D. All this before I was even born.

Not trying to be an @sshole here, but if BioWare in a garage could do this 20+ years ago, Larian could have figured it out.

Of course now it sounds like I'm one of the people that overly hate the 12th level restriction, which I don't. Like anyone else I'd love having more levels and whacky things to do in the game with additional content, but since that's unlikely to happen I'm just pointing out that that particular argument isn't gonna hold water with those people. Just tell them "no, Larian doesn't wanna". It'll both shut them down faster and make them angrier, lol.

Edit - Also, the level cap (or XP cap, actually) only got raised up to where you could hit levels 8-11, then 11-20 in the expansions for game 1 and the proper sequel in BG2. I imagine Bioware had more experience since they'd already gotten a whole previous game under their belt by that point, so maybe if Larian ever does another D&D game they'll go with a higher level cap.

[IRMcG]

Not going through the whole discussion to see if the point's been made, but the obvious reason there's "extra" XP is that there's a ton of optional quests so you can miss out on large chunks of the game (entire Underdark for a start) and still hit the level cap before the end of the game.

So you don't need to do everything in every playthrough or do parts that don't make sense for your character just because you need the XP.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:

Originally posted by Doombringer:

anyone who actually knows modern D&D would say that once you start going above 12 you start to become like an unstoppable god to normal play and game balance would just go out the window

That's not valid when you account for how a considerably less wealthy studio did it with a previous entry in the series, which itself was based on a much more complicated and bloated version of D&D. All this before I was even born.

Not trying to be an @sshole here, but if BioWare in a garage could do this 20+ years ago, Larian could have figured it out.

To be fair, early Bioware or Owlcat games are pretty weak in the gameplay department. I didn't enjoy the gameplay of BG1 and 2 at all. They have really strong stories, but especially Owlcat games are a serious case of play because of the story and despite the gameplay.

[IRMcG]

Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:

That's not valid when you account for how a considerably less wealthy studio did it with a previous entry in the series, which itself was based on a much more complicated and bloated version of D&D. All this before I was even born.

Not trying to be an @sshole here, but if BioWare in a garage could do this 20+ years ago, Larian could have figured it out.

Different version of the rules, 5e has a level 20 cap and by then you're punching gods in the face :)

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by SpaceWombat:

Why does act 3 have so many sources of EXP that end up being wasted since you reach max level so soon?

The answer to that is "Too soon for who?"

cRPGs always have this problem, there are several reasons for it:

1. Inexperienced players may have missed lot of content therefore are under levelled and require an XP boost to finish the game.

2. Experienced players tend to squeeze the max out of all the content in the game and so reach level cap much earlier.

3. If XP is too tight players may only reach level cap right at the end and have no time to learn to use and enjoy their top spells and abilities

4. If XP is too plentiful players will cap their levels way before the end of the game

5. cRPGs have a lot of optional side content. But there has to be enough XP up for grabs to reach max level even if a player decides not to do a lot of side content. Which means of course completionists will cap out far too early.

6. Devs can't really tell in advance what the majority of players will and won't do in a big cRPG therefore they can't accurately predict exactly when players will hit certain levels. They tend to adjust this post release as Larian did in DOS2/Act 2 where they had to scale back certain XP farming opportunities.

7. All these variables accumulate during a playthrough and will reach maximum differential between players towards the end of the game which is unfortunately the point where ETA on level cap is most important.

8. The finale of any game must be balanced against a certain expected level. It doesn't matter what level that is, but it has to be decided upon in advance and stuck to to facilitate and balance end game encounter design. This requirement means devs must err on side of generosity in XP awards through the game since it is not acceptable for players to put 100+ hours into a game and find they are two levels short and unable to complete their game.

In short there are a lot of variables and unknowns here. The more linear a game is, the easier it is to predict progression correctly. The more optional content available and the more open world, the harder it is.

There are no easy answers to this. If players can over level it trivialises the game. If players can fail to reach expected levels they won't be able to complete the game. Players play differently and progress at varying rates.

On release devs have to make the best guess at what will get the slowest progressing players to max level in time for the finale. After release they can develop a NG+ difficulty to give their hard core experienced players a more serious challenge by buffing the monsters and giving more measly XP awards.

[ChuckyDontCare]

Capping at 12 before the city? Scum saves or what? Don't see that happening naturally; sorry you "ruined" your own experience.