Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback How to make Multiplayer not ruin your experience

Hi Larian,

I just want to say, I really like BG3 and all the innovative changes to mechanics you all have put in.

I have a new issue though between me and my friends, who all want to play together but also want to explore the NPC companion's stories. So we're ending up playing our own single player time while avoiding multiplayer with custom characters - yet there is no point in multiplayer once you've moved past a certain point in story and spoilered everything right?


So we have a suggestion, allow custom Multiplayer characters to be in your party WITH the NPC companions still being around (one NPC assigned to each online player). So there will be 7 people running around in the game.

However:

IN COMBAT:

-Allow only multiplayer custom characters to act in battle.

-The NPCs like Gale etc, will all disappear once combat starts. Their dialogue in combat will be played above the assigned custom character's heads (aka, if I was assigned Gale's slot, my weird half orc character will have crucial Gale's dialogue pop up over his head with a portrait of Gale beside it if the combat has special interactions that interact with Gale. Indicating it was the Waterdeep Prodigy that said it.)

-So it's like they are still there.




IN CONVERSATION:= and OUT OF COMBAT:

-Have the NPCs assigned to each player be the talkers and just like the single player game, be in the scene.

-The multiplayer custom characters will be in the background somewhere.

-You cannot control the NPC companions and they will follow closely whoever they are assigned to but won't take damage and have no health bar etc. Just initiating dialogue with the custom character will initiate dialogue with the assigned NPC instead.

-Skills, abilities and such will all be the custom character's one's own. I know certain NPCs have special skills used in special missions, like a certain magical detonation ...but usually most missions don't require special skills, even in tactician mode. The few ones that do, well, ask your friend to step aside for a minute and play the original character then. It's well foreshadowed.




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I'd like this because we'd like to play together and explore the game together. But don't neccessarily want to play the NPCs, I mean, that's the whole point of multiplayer - right?

I totally agree with you, it's a shame to miss cool NPC lines and certain scenes requiring the NPC to be in your party when you are multiplaying or even during your solo playthrough.
A solution that comes to mind with as much roleplay and immersion to remain intact and avoid magic disappearances would be this:

- Your fighting crew is alway composed of 1 to 4 controlled characters
- Your camp can have infinite characters within, no restriction there
- You can be followed by up to 3 non controlled characters

Non controlled characters act on their own as regular allies in battle with some differences from the normal AI:

- They can't turn hostile on you because of AOE spells and the like but remains affected by confusion or other ally shifting effects
- They act dumb using only regular attacks or cantrips and avoid melee as long as they have a range option
- They never use any consumable, limited number of use abilities or spell slots as long as they are not controlled by the ennemy
- They always provide aid prior to attacking

This way, they have limited impact in the good way but could end up being a trouble to compensate the advantage of sheer number.
With this you can RP while multiplaying AND solo playthrough