Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why is Larian sticking to the origin system?

Hi,

in my opinion baldurs gate was always about playing your own character. Now it seems like Larian wants to stick to their previous divinity origin system, which let's you play also as one of the starter companions.

While I don't like the current companions, because they're all over the top special and not a single one is acting like anything bad happend before or even like normal people, I also think that the origin system is not fitting to the universe, the game or baldurs gate.

Why should Larian waste resources on that?

I mean, a dirty peasant, a bartender and a merchant wouldn't survive a day of BG3's exposition sequence. Thats why I think it makes sense that all origin characters are rather special to begin with, some more than other. Survival of the fittest, no?
Can't answer your main question though. I can really see how introducing companions as possible main characters can waste a lot of resources for no huge benefit, because we'd know their story regardless. I guess one might say it was done for those who don't like to bother creating their characters or struggle with the process, but seems like a weaker argument to me. So, dunno

Because it was well received is D:OS2? Coop has been THE feature for Larian games, just like open world is for Bethesda, or reactive branching dialogue for Obsidian.

Making origins playable not only means that player can pick an origin, instead of making his own character, but that others can drop in and inhabit other players companions. It IS rather clever way of doing multiple things at once - it is a Jack of al trades, choosing versatility over excellence.

Doesn’t the 5e player handbook come with premade characters? Character creation can feel like homework to new players, I can’t fault designers for addressing the issue.

Even if I’m not personally interested in pregens, I remember the feeling of starting a new game in Diablo. With just 3 premade options, jumping into Diablo is easy and smooth.

Lastly, though we may have some idea of the cost of origin characters, I don’t think we’re in any position to evaluate the benefit. Swen Vincke stated that the audience for Larian’s RPGs doesn’t have much overlap with traditional CRPGs. The origin system might be a reason why Larian have attracted new players to the genre.

Let’s give Larian a little credit. They have plenty of data on DoS2’s origin system. Had it been a complete failure, it wouldn’t have stayed in subsequent efforts.

Lastly lastly, the ship has sailed on origin characters. Production costs have been paid. Removing them now would only deprive Larian of their benefits.

Edit: Lastly lastly lastly, Wormerine makes a good point about drop-in drop-out multiplayer. It is a clever system.

It's just a gimmick, that they are hoping will stick. It's a pretty novel idea, because usually you have a fixed protagonist like "The Witcher Geralt" or a semi fixed protagonist with some customisation like "Commander Shepard" or a Blank slate with a title like "The Bhaalspawn".
But just because it's a somewhat original idea doesn't make it a good one.
They should have left the origin companions in Dos and just made some pregens for the people that can't be arsed with character creation.
That would have freed up a lot of resources into making several more companions, that way it would be a lot easier finding a party compostition with characters you can tolerate.

Just because a character isnt a Hero of the frontier, the lover of a god or a Daywalking Vampire doesn't mean that they have to be a peasant or bartender, they can be low level adventurers, town guards or knights, Skillful Rogues, Apprentice mages. Etc... To reflect the fact that we actually are only level 1, instead of making it convoluted with, "uhm i was like the best at everything, but then i forgot all my skills because of a brain worm".

These points have been discussed many times during EA. I think the issue with Origins companions is firstly that they have never been a part of previous BG games; so while there were always regenerated characters to use, we got to decide the personality and background of these characters. They were a blank slate in many respects. That is not the case with the Origins companions who have very defined personalities. I always found it a strange concept that you will be able to take someone like Astarion and role-play him as a 'good' character when that seems to go counter to his very being.

The other main issue is that the custom characters experience is lacking in comparison to using an Origins character, as was apparently the case with DOS2. Larian have promised to rectify this but then they promised some other things too which have not been forthcoming.

My gues? Bcs they want to.
And that is all reason they ever need.

But i wonder ...
How many resources you presume this "wasted"?
And what "better" use you would have for it?
Just out of curiosity.

My main issue is, that you don't encounter any interesting personality.
The issue is not that they're not from bg2. But what are the companion from past games compared to the mediocre companions now? We had a mercenary dark, grim dwarf, an annoying elf without wings, a crazy Ranger etc. They were all just normal personalities fitting into the world. Now we have someone like iron man, that is even playable.
They're are special because they're like superheroes and have such an over the top backgroundstory. I posted a thread about that even at the beginning of EA, and alot of fans agreed but Larian copies alot from divinity unfortunately.
Also that you know from the very beginning who can join your group before playing one second is imo such bad design.

Its their signature. They won't (and shouldn't) change it.

This is all matter of perspective ...

What is so super about Astarion?
He after all is just pretty face (wich alone is quite ... eh, lets say questionable), who even tho its centuries old, spend all that time of his imortality just charming people with his look, and them lead them to his master.
He have no usefull skills, nor any super powers (maybe except his bite ... that is usefull), not even exceptional story ... he was just some guy of the past, who accidentaly meet Vampire, who made him his slave. Isnt that story you heared thousand times allready?
No? Oh, maybe its just me ... i spend too much time in World of Darkness social networks lately.

What is so super about Lae'zel?
She after all is just regular common soldier, with completely brainwashed head.
And that is basicaly all she is.
Yes, her race is quite rare and unusual ... but so would be our Tav, if we would be able to play Aasimar, Genasi, Tortle, Lizardfolk, or prehaps even Warforged.
She dont even have that bite and all her superspecial powers are Larian constantly trying and failing efforts to make impossible for players to steal her cool looking amor during tutorial.

What is so super about Shadowheart?
Just as Lae'zel she is brainwashed fanatic ... ok, maybe not as fanatical as Lae'zel, but still fanatical enough to be anoying, if you play Cleric of Selune.
Her special power is that she own a box. "OooooOOOOooooOOOOooo" xD

What is so super about Wyll?
Just some dude who god his ass kicked, while he was in the army (if Flaming Fist can even be called that) ... then he sign contract with a Fiend and went for revenge.
I can say with one hand on heart and another on Bible that i never, ever, EVER in all my 20y i play roleplay games heared more generic and boring origin story than this.
Yes, he is now known as a Folk Hero ... btw, exactly the background we can pick aswell ...
But what is especialy funny, and what i would like a lot if that happened to be true in the end ... we dont really know if he even actualy IS that hero!
Remember, all his fame and glory come after he signed his contract ... do we really know if he actualy slain all those creatures ... or did Mizora took shorter route and simply send some Bards to sing about "glorious and marvelous deeds of the Blade of Frontiers" ?
After all, his former captain (we meet her at Waukeens rest) calls him a fraud!

And finaly there is Gale ...
Okey, this one seems quite spectacular, no arguments here ...
He is still just 1/5 tho.

I do not mind pre generated characters but I dislike the origin system.

One point of RPGs is freedom. You select a character and you do whatever you want.
Then you have companions who have their own personality and goals. They may like or dislike what you (main character) do.

So Shadowheart is the cleric of an evil goddes but if you select her as main char I can play her as the nicest person in the world.
For me this is a problem.
If I select a char with a certain background and personality I want to play as if I were that char, but when I start playing I do not know what the char is like, how the devs intended this char.
Thats why I will select a custum char when I play for the first time and use the others as companions, just like in BG1+2.



Where did this origin stuff come from?
I liked dragon age origins.
But there the origin defined your social background, not your personality.
Yes, you are a human noble. But this does not say if you are good/evil/lawful/chaotic. This is fully the players choice.

Isn't that a self created problem? If you want to play a good cleric, you can, in fact, roll one up. If I were going to play as Shadowheart, it would be to play her as she is presented, and the same holds true for all of the companions. Regarding "wasted resources", I've touched on this a couple of times in the various iterations of this thread, but if they're going to be companions, w/out being able to play them as the main character, their backstories would have to be written anyway.

I like and enjoy the Origin system. That is all I will say on that.

>Why should Larian waste resources on that?

I think it's the same reason they do everything the way they do it. Because it is their "style/feature/flavor". They want their games to be recognizable as Larian's at first glance more than they want the game to be better. Probably a small indie studio becoming big and recognizable thing.
Imo this partucular feature is actually restrictivend and overall bad. But since DoS 2 was a success they'll copy as much as possibly from it.

I think that the origin system, because the companions are now a lot more fleshed out and have interactions with each other/the approval having a much bigger say in their reactions to you, is ultimately an atavism that would only work against the game in the end.

I think (hope, at least) that they've restricted the origin characters from being selected in the EA specifically to gauge as to whether or not it should stay in the first place, because, in my opinion, having a lot of options for custom characters to shape their own stories in a unique way over a bunch of tailor-made ones that work better if you are an observer/side participant is pretty much a win on all fronts. You could still have unique dialogue options/scenes if hot-swapping characters in conversations is implemented, similar to how NWN2: Storm of Zehir allowed you to use your NPC companions here and there and they had unique interactions. You could allow the player to see their illithid dreams by taking the option to probe their minds, and so on.

Since it's now confirmed that there are non-origin companions as well (Minsc & Jaheira for the "good" route, potentially Minthara for the "evil" one), the distinction becomes even more arbitrary. Just make everyone a companion and allow the player a greater range of interactions with them over restricting interactions to playing a specific character. As much as I absolutely love D:OS2, having to play it as either Lohse or Fane to get the fullest picture of the story is a big bummer, because they work really well as companions and losing out on those interactions in exchange for a more coherent storyline is not exactly a pleasant deal.

Full agreement to Brainer (except that I never finished DOS2 because I got bored along the way)

It would be really bad if not selecting certain origin chars as main chars would prevent you from understanding importent parts of the main story.
Unless maybe they did it in a way that each char (including a custom one) sees a different aspect of the full picture.
Just having them in your party should be enough though.
I don´t have the time to play such a huge game 10 times.
And I try to avoid story related spoilers until I finish the game at least once.

Put me down for not being a fan of the system in BGIII.

Look at Lae'zel as an example of why this is detrimental. Lae'zel is about as close to a 'blank slate' among the Origin characters as we get. She doesn't have an epic backstory, ambitions, relationships etc that sets her apart from Tav-Gith. She's basically as 'vanilla' as you can get as far as Githyanki in her position as you can get. SHe has a predetermined personality, but again- that's not really too distinguishable from what you might expect from any 'normal' gith in her position with her background. So in theory, whether you are playing her or as a custom Gith, there shouldn't really be any differences in the reactivity of npcs, your dialogue options, etc. Yet there seems to be a lot of content you just won't be able to experience as a TavGith that you get as Lae'zel. That goes into dataminined stuff, but it seems that Shadowheart for instance, will not have the same relationship with the player that she does with Lae'zel if you play one or the other, you don't get options to do any of the 'crazy Gith stuff' that Lae'zel gets to do, like pulling a knife on her companions that first night.

Basically, the TavGith experience already seems like it's set up to be a stripped-down experience of the Lae'zel experience, even though just with a few tweaks like pronoun changes Lae'zel's origin is pretty much set up already to be a great experience for custom characters.

That's the sort of 'cost' to having this Origin system we are seeing-not even getting into other stuff like the lower number of companions and the 'main character syndrome' most of the party members have with their elaborate, 'epic' backstories.

I would have rather for them to let the player pick one of the origins as a back ground for your created character, instead of having the player pick one of these premade characters to playthrough the origin.

this would be great

Well, so far we dont know what will be set in stone about origin characters ...
Maybe we will be able to make Gale as a Gnome for example.

Also ...
Im still quite convinced that Origin companions will work as our Guide to Act II.