Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Having all companions as "origins" is a poor idea

That's not as much as a clever advice as you seem to think it is.
I guess you are supposed to pick your starting character blindly without browsing your options, or something.

Nah, it's all good

Having companions being playable only add to the game, it doesn't subtract anything at all.

So the game will probably have 6-7 companions. If we are super lucky, perhaps 8? I highly doubt they are making more than that playable origin stories. I find that a bit disappointing number. I'd love to have 10 minimum. We'll also probalby also get all the companions from the first 5 hours of gameplay, since they all have tadpoles in their head and all start from same illithid ship. I'd love to get more variation than this.

They were 25 companions in BG1...It's really really bad if we only have 6 to 8 here...
Nearly no value to replay with a totally other team...

I really really hope we'l have more choices, even if all those aren't part of an "origin" story.

Custom characters are the default choice, so you can look through your options without viewing origin characters if you wish to.

Gonna throw my hat in on the disappointment train too since this AMA. I had the feeling this would be the case given DOS2, but it doesn't make the situation any better.

I have real doubts they will add more than 8 origin characters and none of the characters shown thus far interest me all that much (aesthetically at least). It also kinda stinks that all of our companions will be mind flayer in the makings (made for a meh ending with DOS2).

Give me variety! lol

I prefer quality over quantity.

What a rubbish advice. It's just not a decision to implement origin characters like they do. I really don't see any benefit having them in the game. So instead of "just ignore them" the developers should think about what makes sense for the game.

Who's arguing against quality, here?

While my view on companions is that the option to be able to play them is only adding to the game, I can only agree with the point of variety. That should be a thing we simply just expect. I do feel the Origin characters in DOS2 had variety, even if some where really predictable and dull. From what we have seen so far, the characters in BG3 seems to have very different personalities.

The way the characters look could go many ways. Could be the game is in pre-alpha or that they are all wearing basic equipment. Not sure what you meant there to be honest. Do you not like the art style in general?

The last point about hopes for how everything ends up is a concern for me as well. DOS2 had some decent writing at points, but I felt that a lot was rather forced. I am hoping our choices and interactions with our companions will have a greater variety and effect in this game.

I don't think you are catching what's the issue at hand actually is.
It's not like having a companion playable as an origin story detracts from him.
It detracts from the pool of companions they can realistically implement for a game because making a companion also a "playable origin story" means making that companion several times more expensive to create, both in terms of budget and human resources.

Frankly if put in front of the choice of having, say, 16-20 *good* companions in the game and having 6-8 "playable origin" companions of the same quality I know perfectly well which option I would pick.

Perhaps a mix of both might work. Instead of 8 (for example) fully fleshed out playable Origin characters, perhaps 5 of them and 5-7 "companions" that can be encountered across the game (going on the idea that the latter will only take about half the work to create and implement as the former). Seems like that would solve the problem of knowing every NPC from the beginning, having no surprises to look forward to, and having too little variety for later play-throughs.

I "grasped" it just fine. I just made a choice to make a short comment indicating my thoughts and preferences.

I do not feel 20 companions are better than 8 by default and I feel there are very obvious arguments for why, so I will not insult your intelligence by going through these.

I also feel like cost is a very abstract thing to use as an argument, because cost is not always equal.
Great games have been made with very low cost and bad games have been made with budgets that are almost obscene.

And your argument about having to pick between 20 good companions vs 8 playable companions is not equal in my eyes.
If it is an argument, then I would say I prefer 8 good playable companions over 20 bad companions. Or I prefer 20 playable good companions over 20 good companions.
One doesn't rule out the other.

This is stated very precisely.

Which si precisely what the thread is advocating for, in the end.
No one is asking to remove the origin stories from the game, if that was someone's guess.

@Cirolle: in other words ""Budget: how does it work?"
And NO ONE is asking you to chose between "good" and "bad" companions. What ridiculous loaded argument to make.

Yes, I agree, which was why I used it as an example, because I feel that your argument is on the same line when you said "Frankly if put in front of the choice of having, say, 16-20 *good* companions in the game and having 6-8 "playable origin" companions of the same quality I know perfectly well which option I would pick."
I used it as an equivalence to your statement, so I would hope it was ridiculous.

Yes, but again: it's not BG1&2 - it's not a game design with single player experience in mind, or roleplaying or immersion, or overall, a narrative experience.

You (and hopefully your buddies) jump into the game and pick your avatars. Ones you don't choose will appear as "companions". That's it, that's all. Whenever it makes for a good narrative experience is a lesser concern, I would imagine.

Except that's not the same at all. I'm honestly baffled you are failing so bad to notice the differences between the two arguments.

Me "For five dollars you can either have the giant pizza or a small one with prime quality ingredients"
You "Here's my five dollars. I actually want both. In fact I want two giant pizzas with prime quality ingredients".

Well, too bad, because you fucking can't.
Which is why you are never getting "20 origin stories companions" no matter how much you like them.

I feel I covered this earlier. Actual cost does not equal quality.

While using basic examples like that seems reasonable, because it is something we can relate to, it really have no relation to the cost or quality of making a good playable character.

I actually suspect that the cost of creating any playable companion with the kind of depth Larian claim they are going for, is a lesser issue.
I think that the story they want to tell have a greater impact.
It becomes increasingly harder to tell a good story if you keep adding things to it.

Let me add the exponential growth of possibilities in which the story/the world/the outcomes/the relationships between our fellow travelers [...] evolve, as an example for this increase.
Obviously this somewhere ends in things getting out of hand, unless there's a quality trade-off, in terms of impact on the adventure and therefore the depth of characters, in favor of quantity.


It's more like going to a sushi restaurant with good reputation and order Omakase (instead of a conveyor belt sushi place).