Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Losing companions after act1 is a deal breaker!

You might want to rephrase it a little. Because it's kind of going overboard to call a game considered one of the best CRPGs ever made as full of limitations and failures. Many developers would love their failures to sell so well.

[quote=Nyanko][quote=tsundokugames]I find it problematic how Larian doesn't want people comparing this to DOS2, and yet all they show us are the same limitations and failures that DOS2 brought. [/quote]

You might want to rephrase it a little. Because it's kind of going overboard to call a game considered one of the best CRPGs ever made as full of limitations and failures. Many developers would love their failures to sell so well. [/quote]

You're asking me to change my opinion because of peer pressure?

lol. no. It's on the game to change my mind. I am not a sheep.

DOS and DOS2 being regarded as "one of the best" is kind of meaningless to me because they were released in the age of hype based reviews. You can see it in the way certain posters here are completely rejecting any sort of rational discussions. Those types of players will rate the game 10/10 regardless of any flaws. You can see it in the way that reviewers fawn over things in pre-release reviews and interviews. Those kinds of reviews are biased and meaningless.

Despite popular opinion, there are numerous flaws in both games, and I consider the restricted parties and act based maps to be among those failures.

Carrying those specific mechanical limitations over to BG3 is just another indication that this game isn't going to be one I enjoy.

But, I have to play the game first to finalize that opinion.

Pretty sure they were just implying that you're exaggerating for effect because you're in a niche minority of people who didn't see the entire game overall as a resounding success.
And the things that you're considering to be glaring flaws are generally viewed by the overwhelming majority as strengths.
Buy the game, play it for about two hours. Refund it if it's not your thing, or keep playing if it is.

You're being dramatic and hypercritical of a game that single-handedly revived a dead genre and thrust it into the mainstream.
Hell, you wouldn't even be able to make this argument right now if it wasn't for that "failure" that you're condemning, because Baldur's Gate III wouldn't even exist without the success of Divinity: Original Sin 2.
If being objective and reasonable makes me a conformist sheep, then baaaa I guess.

Hehe. Talk about exaggeration.

The D:OS games did none of these things. The PoE1 kickstarter is what revived the genre. And there is no way for you or anyone to talk about "the majority" and "the minority" because you would need to know what the whole population is of fans of games in this genre. You want to talk about the 2 million people who bought D:OS2 as "the majority." But I can just as easily say ONLY 2 million people bought the game whereas tens of millions of other fans of RPGs did not. Bottom line: classic, old-school cRPGs like D:OS2 or BG3 are all part of a VERY SMALL niche genre within video games.

*Possible Spoiler*

Then please use spoiler tags; I have added them.

I knew it!!! I mean I hoped so... Man, this will be great. Just one night more.

Oh tomorrow never, never comes
Oh tomorrow never comes
Now you tell me that you love me, oh
But tomorrow never comes

Many weeks now have I waited
Oh many long nights have I cried
But just to see that happy morning, happy morning
When I have you right by my side

(read it with the voice of Elvis)

You need “speculation” tags.

Speaking of wild speculation:

OK, the Origin characters are your core party, all in the same boat and all of roughly equal importance (because multiplayer presumably).

We also have mercenaries we can use to fill gaps in our party, but who don’t really have any personality or story associated with them. Then we have the camp followers who are specific characters, with their own personalities and possibly side quests.

So is it not possible that some of these camp followers could also be up for exploration and combat duty? They would be somewhere between fully developed origin characters and mercenary, ie not unlike companions in many other RPGs.

That could be a way to increase the party roster significantly without having to write every single line needed for a tadpole character, and allow us to swap out a member or two of the main gang for different missions.

I’d say it’s a near-certainty that some of the camp followers will be able to participate in combat, whether in a full sense or as cohorts and ersatz “animal companions.” During the Panel from Hell, Sven referenced having to program other characters’ reactions to seeing an intellect devourer (Us) “following you around,” and while owlbears aren’t much good for petting, they’re much better at murder.

I agree this is how the so-called "camp followers" will function. But that only makes them NPCs that accompany you on certain quests because the quest requires it. I doubt we will be able to use them truly in the sense of a companion who you can freely add to your party whenever you want.

In any case, none of this helps me. I will only use fully fleshed-out companions as my party companions. Any others would be unacceptable to me.

Well, considering how few companions there are available, you'd only be losing two, and that is if you're playing a custom character. Simple enough for me.

Bye bye, Astarion, I might as well just kill him if I get the chance! Then I'll sacrifice whoever next is trying to be edgy. I have my eye set on Shadowheart but I'll give her a chance.

Killing off the puckish vampire spawn Rogue? I'm beside myself.

Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t think of a good reason why a camp follower shouldn’t be able to fill in a slot where you could put a mercenary. Then it’s just a case of how much dialogue to give them. Possibly you wouldn’t be able to take them for certain core missions?



I’m not sure anything will help you enjoy the game at this point going by your previous posts. But Larian might be able to help other players with a less broad range of concerns.

As I see it, the story has to be designed around a group of up to 4 “heroes“, not one hero with an entourage of friends to allow multiplayer to have the same story. It’s no coincidence that DOS had 2 main characters (2 player multiplayer), and DOS2 had 4 (4 player multiplayer). Similarly, BG3 needs a story for up to 4 main characters. While it might be possible to have one hero and a gang of followers for single player, there’s a good chance this might make the story less meaningful (we won’t know until next year).

But a core group of 4 heroes and bunch of other people might be more viable.

Having to make a choice of party members & having to stick with them through an entire adventure is a deal breaker - seriously??
I thought you were d&d fans - well a good number anyway - choose a character, join a party, go-adventuring & become godlike or die trying....that’s the way it works ain’t it?

On a more serious note - this game very much sounds like something you’ll want to experience multiple times - I should even try Kanisatha’s melee only war party at some point !

I actually have two custom “Kanisatha inspired parties” planned.

All melee and no magic is too much for me, so I’m splitting it between:

One will be almost no magic and mostly melee. Human fighter, human barbarian, high elf ranger (a tiny bit of magic there) and a halfling rogue. A simple, no frills, straight-forward group of bad ass normals.

The other party will be some magic (a cleric and a paladin) but all melee. A Drow raiding party with all 4 multiclassed into assassins and melee weapons only.

While I am definitely going to play through with one custom character and companions for my first playthrough, creating custom, thematic parties is what I’m most excited for.

If two friends play multiplayer, both with custom characters, does that mean only two companions will continue on? I hope not.

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The problem is that dynamic gets complicated in a video game. Firstly the typical video game standard is to have multiple characters you can swap in and out of a party at a time. Secondly and more importantly, the reason that that is the standard is because in a real life game the DM is able to account for party composition when it comes to what challenges are presented to the party and a video game can't do that. So arguing "that's just the way it works" fails to acconut for the strengths and limitations of each medium. When you have a choice between multiple companions with multiple classes and abilities, the ability to assemble a party that can't successfully deal with all the slings and arrows of the game world comes into play. So multiple party members that can be swapped in and out are presented to offset that. Furthermore, in a real life game the other party members are also real people, most likely your friends, and interacting with three or four real friends will always outweigh interacting with three or four fictional characters, no matter how well written those characters are. So having more party members in a game to bounce off of makes sense in that aspect.

So decrying people's issues with this choice because it's more like tabletop D&D is kind of missing a lot of the reasons this choice isn't standard in RPGs of this kind in the first place.

Maybe.

But we do not know what the "commit" means. The entire discussion is based on a line about friends and moving on in life and only keeping a few. It makes no mention of party. That's all speculation.


By the way, I wouldn't call them companions. It's a bunch of people thrown together after being kidnapped trying to survive their common circumstances. In single player, you might feel like the leader, but you aren't really. These characters have their own personal objectives that might clashes (we already know Lae'zel and Shadowheart can't stand each others for example).