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

I know you think you are being sophisticated with your comparisons. But no, it's actually not.

There just hasn't been a personality that really clicked all that well from the intro we saw, though that can certainly change. For DOS2 I couldn't like any of the female companions. I only really cared for Ifan and the Red Prince and Fane at times. The latter two for comedic purposes more so than anything.

I liked the art style from DOS2 and thus far with BG3, though I'm certain it will improve since we've seen nothing of the game yet except placeholders and core gameplay.

By aesthetics I meant the actual appearances based on their race or backstory.

For me, even though Shadowheart is half-elf, she shouldn't be as broad as she appears and somewhat more slender. I also dislike her hairstyle as it appeared in gameplay (character select looked fine) and clothing.
Lae'zel should be slightly taller than the others, but otherwise is fine.
Astarion actually looks okay for his part, but he also looks too much like Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
Gale needs something to reflect his ambition, because it just doesn't match.
Wyll is probably the best looking origin character.

With romance being a thing, I would like some actually attractive characters as well (for me a slender female Moon Elf or High Elf). Though it'd be nice if we could instead just customize appearances for origin characters within their races/sex to fit our desire.

Can Lythari exist in this game? That'd be awesome as any type of character.

Ah. Well here personal taste will differ a lot.

I mean Red Prince and Ifan were the two I found the most boring, and Lohse and Sebille are my favorites in DOS2. I felt Fane was ok, but he felt added on somehow.

Shadowheart looks cool to me. I mean they are still working on all the characters I am certain, but I liked her attitude and even her hair.
I don't really have any comment on the attractiveness of elves or even women in games.

How many of those 25 companions can you remember? How many do most people remember? How many of those 25 companions had interesting and deep stories?

Thing is, you were always playing the same character in Baldur’s gate 1 and 2. All those options in character creation had 0 effect in the plot and not much more in gameplay. Sure, different classes played differently, but with a 6 char party and a dozen recruitable NPC’s the PC was not really that important in the big picture.

And yeah, BG2 was a bit better in this regard as you had strongholds (which ranged from awesome to pretty lame) and romances (which were just lame), but even then they had no checks for stats or race, just one in the beginning on what class you are or which gender you chose.

So yeah, not seeing origin characters as worse than the tabula rasa that was left mostly blank that we got in the old games.

Most of them were lame and even worse,useless.

Apparently we can recruit some sort of mercenaries that won’t have much in the way of dialogue. The origin characters apparently all have the tadpole, which is why we can start the game with them.

Well, companions in general didn't do much in BG aside for repeating their barks and leaving the party when some conditions were met.
It wasn't until BG2 that long questlines, personal interactions and romances were introduced and expanded significantly.

Quality vs Quantity

I prefer quantity if I had to chose when it comes to companions. I also think a highly fleshed out super-in-depth origin story for every single avaible companion in the game is a mistake because we'll get less of them. Edwin and Minsc are fine, I know who they are and they're extremly likeable. I dont need the Chronicles of Minsc and Dynaheir.

You can apparently choose not to use the origin characters at all and go with a custom PC and use mercenaries who should be more like the BG companions or even make the whole party at character creation yourself.

Well, it may seem contradictory but I want real companions, not zombies/robots that I've min/maxed from the start. My post was generally about the balance with having lots of possible companions, but with low depth vs fewer but with more backstory.

Well you’re in luck because the game will apparently have both. Take four origin characters if you want some soap opera in your Baldur’s gate or mercenary companions if you want a more classic Baldur’s gate experience of quantity over quality ( well, when I say quality I mean depth. I’m sure the quality will be as bad as any other computer game). And I’m honestly with you on this, origin characters or campsite heart to heart does not interest me in the slightest and I will likely play the game with the mercenaries and maybe the hot cleric on my team.

I think its a good idea and you are just being a bit to demanding.

Uh. maybe?
Who are you talking to, for a start?
Also, what's the "good idea" exactly and what's "too demanding" instead?
Because right now I have no idea of what you are even referring to. I'm going to guess not me, since I didn't make any "demand" at all. Let alone too many of them.

No I'm not in luck, as I said I dont want min/maxed robots in my party. Then I would much rather run with a OC even if its someone that annoys me and I doubt I'll ever use the mercenary mechanic.

I dont care remembering EVERYONE... I played DoS and DoS 2 and I really don't remember anyone...
Their story is not always very deep and what ? Is that a problem ?
25 is a huge number for choices, whatever you remember everyone or not...

Maybe we can talk about BG2 that added many things about companions ? They were 15... Which is still a good number I think...

Deep story is cool but it's really not the only reasons why player choose a companion or another...
Larian have to find a good rate between numbers of companions and how "deep" they are... And I think only Origin characters as companon is a very bad idea to have a good rate.

Origin characters demand many many ressources from Larian but I don't think it's because they are "sooo deep". It's also because they are all written as companons AND main characters... Which is something totally different (Voice acting, dialogue, story choices, camp "event",...)
I don't think this is really/only what players waited from a role play game.

We'll see how mercenaries works but I don't really think they'll have something to offer except classes/stats/races... personalisation.
Will we be able to give them a background, objectives and opinions ?
Will they be a part of the story for something else than money ? I really doubt.

They'll probably be the "0%" deep while origin characters are the "100%" deep. What can we imagine between 0 and 100% ?

On the quantity vs quality argument:
devils advocate: its only "QUality" becuse they have to be made playable.

Having companions be playable means the player has to have several options how to resolve their quests from their perspective.
HAving them as companions only, ofthen means the player only gets to aprove or disaprove of their actions, or at least have far less input

Precisely. Which is exactly WHY the former will most likely be significantly more expensive than the latter.

If all characters were on the same level of "depth" as Minsc, Jaheria, Imoen, Edwin and a couple of others, that would be perfectly good for me. I agree that many of them, especially in BG1, are very barebone.

I was surprised that the characters had all been revealed at the PAX demo. I figured they would come up with more recruitable companions based on your choices during a playthrough. As far as the current roster, they all have a dark complexion and hair save for the vampire dude.