"Help" action is moronic

[Space Dog]

This is a good example why I can't play BG3 anymore and have to wait for a D&D Core Rules edition.

Honour mode. Owlbear fight. First one down.

Owlbear Mate downs Shadowheart. Tav "Helps" Shadowheart. Lae'zel attacks Owlbear.

Owlbear Mate downs Shadowheart. Tav "Helps" Shadowheart. Lae'zel attacks Owlbear.

Owlbear Mate downs Shadowheart. Tav "Helps" Shadowheart. Lae'zel attacks Owlbear.

Times 15 more. Until the enemy that has zero chance to win against this nonsense eventually dies.

Raphael even almost beat me when I fought fair, but then turns out I have the all-powerful Help action and a regenerating Helm with auto-revive, which he was completely helpless against. Talk about an anti-climax for a boss fight.

To all the people who plan to respond with "If you don't like it, don't use it". Don't. It's a core feature of combat. It has to be a part of the system in a sensible way. And letting your party members die is stupid from a tactical and narrative point of view.

How does stuff like this get through playtesting? Why does Larian add cheese like this to a system that didn't have it, and doesn't need it?

[Mike Garrison]

I tend to agree that "help" should just stabilize a player, not get them back on their feet. However, it is beyond ridiculous to play the victim here and say that you are helpless to choose not to use it, just because it's in the game.

You want Larian to make this choice for everyone because you don't have the willpower to make it for yourself.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

However, it is beyond ridiculous to play the victim here and say that you are helpless to choose not to use it, just because it's in the game.

You want Larian to make this choice for everyone because you don't have the willpower to make it for yourself.

This is such a lame excuse for bad game design.

[McGoodGreen]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

I tend to agree that "help" should just stabilize a player, not get them back on their feet. However, it is beyond ridiculous to play the victim here and say that you are helpless to choose not to use it, just because it's in the game.

You want Larian to make this choice for everyone because you don't have the willpower to make it for yourself.

Death conditions and how to have your enemies achieve their goal of murder is actually the choice of the developers, and the way they chose it eliminates the fear of the death condition.

This is very much game design error, not a lack or abundance of will power. No one is cheesing the AI on purpose here. This is an example of the game playing itself, because of the aforementioned poor design.

When this is the worst case scenario, it doesn't matter how well or smart you play, there was never any chance of failure so you cannot even be proud of putting your DnD or game knowledge to use.

[Space Dog]

Originally posted by Feli:

If you ask me, this is less of a problem with Help and more of a problem with the encounter and difficulty.

Once one Owlbear is dead, the other, as a low level boss, lacks the damage output and second attack to do anything more than down a single character at a time.

No, it's most definitely a problem with the Help action itself.

It pertains to all situations where the party outnumbers the enemy, where an enemy can't output enough damage to outright kill the PC. And if they did, the whole "dying" state as a safety network would lose it's purpose. Situations like that happen constantly throughout the level range.

So mostly at lower levels against stronger, fewer enemies, but to a degree at high levels too. I had a fight against Raphael at max level where they beat me, but then couldn't keep anyone down and I slowly won because of that after like 15 minutes of whac-a-mole. It felt like the most miserable victory ever.

[Space Dog]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

I tend to agree that "help" should just stabilize a player, not get them back on their feet. However, it is beyond ridiculous to play the victim here and say that you are helpless to choose not to use it, just because it's in the game.

You want Larian to make this choice for everyone because you don't have the willpower to make it for yourself.

Instead, can we agree that you can play on Balanced and have this extra fail-safe built into combat, and can I play on Tactical or Custom where all game breaking safety networks are disabled?

Outside of choosing their difficulty mode, players aren't responsible for the rules of a video game. Devs are.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

I mean, sure you could wait for them to implement it yourself or and hear me out here... don't use it if it's that important to you lol
I get that self moderation can suck sometimes, but if it's what stands in your way of enjoyment then why not?

[McGoodGreen]

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

I mean, sure you could wait for them to implement it yourself or and hear me out here... don't use it if it's that important to you lol
I get that self moderation can suck sometimes, but if it's what stands in your way of enjoyment then why not?

Ah yes, more of the "plug your ears and pretend there is no problem" approach.

Hows about we stop pretending like asking for a little bit of balance is such a sin?

The OP has gotten to a Raphael fight, its not like they just dropped the game because they couldn't get far enough. Once you play around enough in the game and see all of the holes, how can you feel good about playing well?

If all it takes to get through a battle is hiding behind a corpse shield you get to keep "helping" up how can you possibly even say your build is brilliant? It hollows out victories. It shows that through the cracks of it all...the AI doesn't really ~try~. Did you play well? Or did the computer just fail to assess the situation and raise up from the barrel of water it was in to fellatio your shotgun barrel?

It is akin to claiming to be an elite pro at Esports when all you really do is stack bot kills in custom matches. Where is the point?

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by McGoodGreen:

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

I mean, sure you could wait for them to implement it yourself or and hear me out here... don't use it if it's that important to you lol
I get that self moderation can suck sometimes, but if it's what stands in your way of enjoyment then why not?

Ah yes, more of the "plug your ears and pretend there is no problem" approach.

Hows about we stop pretending like asking for a little bit of balance is such a sin?

The OP has gotten to a Raphael fight, its not like they just dropped the game because they couldn't get far enough. Once you play around enough in the game and see all of the holes, how can you feel good about playing well?

If all it takes to get through a battle is hiding behind a corpse shield you get to keep "helping" up how can you possibly even say your build is brilliant? It hollows out victories. It shows that through the cracks of it all...the AI doesn't really ~try~. Did you play well? Or did the computer just fail to assess the situation and raise up from the barrel of water it was in to fellatio your shotgun barrel?

It is akin to claiming to be an elite pro at Esports when all you really do is stack bot kills in custom matches. Where is the point?

Who said it was a sin, I think you should ask, but at the same time why wait for them to implement it to have fun? What if you try it don't like it and realise maybe I shouldn't ask for that? Can't know unless you try right?

For example when I find a broken build trying out new classes and the game is getting boring, I just change classes and try something I haven't lol Rouge paladin next baby! Or maybe wizard monk! Rofl never know whatll be interesting

[Space Dog]

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

I mean, sure you could wait for them to implement it yourself or and hear me out here... don't use it if it's that important to you lol
I get that self moderation can suck sometimes, but if it's what stands in your way of enjoyment then why not?

But this requires self moderation on a level of a basic action. It's not like choosing not to use a broken Stealth build or being a Wet+Lightning gimmicker. It's about saving your characters from dying, which becomes more and more relevant when you play on harder modes.

It's like saying "if you find combat too easy you don't have to attack so much". Fun, right?

Funnily, they call it "honour" mode but the most efficient things you can do are cheesy exploits.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Space Dog:

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

I mean, sure you could wait for them to implement it yourself or and hear me out here... don't use it if it's that important to you lol
I get that self moderation can suck sometimes, but if it's what stands in your way of enjoyment then why not?

But this requires self moderation on a level of a basic action. It's not like choosing not to use a broken Stealth build or being a Wet+Lightning gimmicker. It's about saving your characters from dying, which becomes more and more relevant when you play on harder modes.

It's like saying "if you find combat too easy you don't have to attack so much". Fun, right?

Funnily, they call it "honour" mode but the most efficient things you can do are cheesy exploits.

I get it, but if the help action is so important then removing it would be bad, but at the same time this post suggest disabling it. So if you choose to attempt a run without using it you could get a better feel at the very least if it's possible or a good idea to remove it as an option.

I don't think it's a bad idea, I mean if they wanna make a difficulty called "meta" that's hars even for the most broken build, then have at it xD I don't have to play it rofl but I also wouldn't wait around for it cuz that means my fun is in their hands.

[sooshon]

the situation described in the original post is kind of irrelevant for most of the game. If any enemy alive has multiattack, multiple actions, etc. or any kind of AoE they can do more then damage the 1 HP party member back to downed state. And most enemies after a point have multiattack and more complex abilities than a simple attack . If you're down to a fight where you are up against a single enemy who just does a basic attack per turn you've kind of already won anyway, the owlbear is an early game with pretty simplistic mechanics compared to what you would see later; I don't see it as a big deal as if one of your party members is downed and another is spending their turn using a help action you're probably in a lot of trouble in many situations anyway.

[Space Dog]

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

Originally posted by Space Dog:

But this requires self moderation on a level of a basic action. It's not like choosing not to use a broken Stealth build or being a Wet+Lightning gimmicker. It's about saving your characters from dying, which becomes more and more relevant when you play on harder modes.

It's like saying "if you find combat too easy you don't have to attack so much". Fun, right?

Funnily, they call it "honour" mode but the most efficient things you can do are cheesy exploits.

I get it, but if the help action is so important then removing it would be bad, but at the same time this post suggest disabling it. So if you choose to attempt a run without using it you could get a better feel at the very least if it's possible or a good idea to remove it as an option.

I don't think it's a bad idea, I mean if they wanna make a difficulty called "meta" that's hars even for the most broken build, then have at it xD I don't have to play it rofl but I also wouldn't wait around for it cuz that means my fun is in their hands.

All they needed to do was to follow the actual rules of D&D 5th edition on this. Rules that make sense and aren't an exploitable loophole.

I don't mind changing the rules for the better in a video game. I don't play tabletop. But this is not one of those cases. Overall the WotC 5e developers had a much better grasp on balance, and balance is required on harder game modes to avoid gameplay slipping into repeating the same few op exploits.

[Erwin]

Wait till you find out about healing word. The problem you are pointing out and which is BG3's biggest hindrance is 5th edition DnD, which does not want you to die in order to prevent frustration.

[Space Dog]

Originally posted by Erwin:

Wait till you find out about healing word. The problem you are pointing out and which is BG3's biggest hindrance is 5th edition DnD, which does not want you to die in order to prevent frustration.

I addressed 5e above your post. In this case it's the answer to a problem Larian created for themselves by changing the rules.