Accessibility Question: Enjoying the story with Reflex Limitations?

[Sandsifter]

Hi Folks,

I'm really interested in trying out this game. The game world looks stunning, the premise is fascinating, and I love a good, deep RPG story – BG3 is one of my favorite games.

I've read that the combat system involves significant real-time elements though, especially timing-based parrying and dodging, which I’m sure many people enjoy. However, as someone with naturally slower reflexes (I’m an old guy), I know I often struggle with mechanics requiring very precise, split-second timing, even if I manage to understand the pattern. I suck at Souls-like games.

My main interest is to enjoy the narrative and explore the world, so I would start on the "Story" difficulty setting.

My question for those who have played, is about the overall experience: How much of the game's core enjoyment and satisfaction comes specifically from mastering the timing-based combat versus experiencing the story, exploration, and world-building? Is the narrative/atmospheric side of the game compelling enough to enjoy even if I just can’t manage to master the combat mechanics? I don’t want to start really getting into the game, only to rage quit after 3-4 hours when my carpal tunnel starts acting up.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Sandsifter

[Ratsplat]

If you want to be able to beat the game without worrying about a good dodge/parry rate, it is certainly possible on Story mode. Even if you only have a 5% success rate on them, it is always worth trying them. It is entirely free and has no downside. If you are big on making good builds, exploring, and even grinding if you really have to, then you definitely shouldn't have to parry even once outside of maybe the absolute biggest super boss in the game. You may have a harder time than most early on, but compared to so many other JRPGs, you shouldn't have to grind nearly as much as you did in those.

Now, if you are wondering if the act of parrying and such adds to the game outside of negating damage and counterattacking? Having played on Expert, I can confidently say that it has enhanced the experience immensely. Defeating a strong boss after parrying 5 turns in a row has no comparison to other games. It feels amazing.

But in the end, the game should not suffer much if you ignore parrying and such. Especially if you want to see the visuals, music, story, and everything else that the game has to offer.

[Sandsifter]

Thanks Ratsplat. It sounds like a two hour trial is warranted.

[ragnarok666]

There is a mod on nexus available to increase the time window for doge/parry - there are different variants from just a little (that I use in combination with Expert difficulty) to so big, that you will never get hit. Just try the different flavors, if you are struggling with doge/parry as it is out of the box.
I don't recommend story mode, as the game gets too easy to quickly there.

https://www.nexusmods.com/clairobscurexpedition33/mods/28

[Sandsifter]

Originally posted by ragnarok666:

There is a mod on nexus available to increase the time window for doge/parry - there are different variants from just a little (that I use in combination with Expert difficulty) to so big, that you will never get hit. Just try the different flavors, if you are struggling with doge/parry as it is out of the box.
I don't recommend story mode, as the game gets too easy to quickly there.

https://www.nexusmods.com/clairobscurexpedition33/mods/28

Wow. I didn't think of checking Nexus. Thanks a lot!

[Ratsplat]

Originally posted by Sandsifter:

Originally posted by ragnarok666:

There is a mod on nexus available to increase the time window for doge/parry - there are different variants from just a little (that I use in combination with Expert difficulty) to so big, that you will never get hit. Just try the different flavors, if you are struggling with doge/parry as it is out of the box.
I don't recommend story mode, as the game gets too easy to quickly there.

https://www.nexusmods.com/clairobscurexpedition33/mods/28

Wow. I didn't think of checking Nexus. Thanks a lot!

Yeah, may be worth taking the mod then playing Expedition on top of it. Experiment a bit. Can change difficulties in game at any time too. Can use story to grind endlessly then go up a bit when you want a boss to not just melt instantly.

[Agahnim01]

I'll copy what i wrote elsewhere, with some edits, because i'm a lazy ass:

The game is hard, especially at first, if you're not used to animation-based dodge windows mechanics... but they have mechanics in place to help you get better.

For example, the dodge window of opportunity is longer than the parry's, but the "Perfect dodge" is the same... so try your hand at only dodging at first, to memorize the patterns, then when you start getting only "Perfects" for an enemy, you can start trying to parry.

You also need to understand that character level isn't that important and putting all your attribute points in Vitality won't help you much passed the first few areas. The most important systems to keep an eye on are:

-Weapons: Make sure you level up your weapons, and make use of their passive skills. Also, weapons scale with specific stats... so it's useless to put all your points in "Might" if your weapon scales with Agility and Luck.

-Pictos: Pictos teach passive skills, but also offer stats boost, you can get very hefty stat boosts by equiping the right pictos after your done learning their Luminas.

-Luminas: Luminas are passive skills you can learn from pictos, and equipping the right ones will make the difference. Once they're learned, you can dismiss the picto and equip them as you want, as long as you have enough Lumina points... they range from simple, like making Health potions cure bad status ailments... to completely OP, like making you attack twice in a row, or do double base attack, or gain AP.

-Synergy: Make sure your party and loadout are properly synergized... for example, if Maelle has a skill equiped that swaps to virtuous stance when the enemy is burned, make sure at least one person in the party can inflict burn (this is a simple one, but as the game progresses, there will be much more complex synergies to think off to optimize efficiency in combat).

-Last but not least, if the game is too challenging for you at this point, there's no shame in using the story mode... my boyfriend played in story mode and still had a pretty big challenge, it's far from a "auto-win" mode. It can help you get a hang of the mechanics and systems, and then you can always change it back when you're more comfortable.

That's pretty much all i can think of right now... So, yes the game can be quite challenging to newcomers, but don't let yourself feel belittled by the boasting "Hardcore" souls-like players... the game has a lot of features in there to help you get through it and slowly ramp up.

[CinCina]

I tried story mode. Uninstalled the game after beating the first boss and then failing on 2 lower level creatures. To me (65+) easy isn't easy enough. I wish I could skip fights and simply explore the story.

[asdf]

For what it's worth, I've beaten the game on expert difficulty including the optional bosses (albeit not at the first opportunity you have to fight them) without dodging/parrying at all, and while there was some grinding I don't believe I did an excessive amount at any point (I think over the entire game I was only explicitly grinding for maybe 1-2 hours in total). That being said, this is coming from the perspective of someone that finds normal turn based strategy games *really* easy, so you can take my opinion with a bit of a grain of salt.. but if your concern is about whether it's actually impossible or not, the game is more or less entirely possible without relying on dodge/parry (except for a few gimmicks where it's explicitly impossible to complete a quest without dodging/parrying, ie. you literally have no way of damaging the enemy and have to dodge/parry to complete it).

Depending on your skill level it will likely seem completely unreasonable to play the game the way I did, and there are a few fights with gimmicks that make it especially unreasonable (in particular, there's an enemy with an attack that straight up removes a character from a fight and you can't even revive them which feels very very cheap without dodging/parrying), however, I did ultimately find a way to beat even those fights.

[Agahnim01]

Originally posted by CinCina:

I tried story mode. Uninstalled the game after beating the first boss and then failing on 2 lower level creatures. To me (65+) easy isn't easy enough. I wish I could skip fights and simply explore the story.

Well... first of all, about the age thing.... TheGamerGranni would like to have a word :P
https://www.youtube.com/live/m-o7OIRfbPk?si=urF9yfc0rR3Ay-A0

But yeah, i agree the game would benefit from having an easier mode... i don't think it should be fully playing itself of skipping gameplay altogether, because some fights are core to the story (Believe me, you want to experience the few final fights yourself),

but, like cutting in half the damage enemies do in the current story mode, and tripling the parry and dodge windows that would help... also they could add prompt for the dodge window to help learn them.

Al that would help them reach a larger audience and bring even more people into the hype bandwagon of AA games.