Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Origin Characters vs Party Creation

Hey,

first of all sorry if there is a thread about this topic already, I've not seen one so far.


I have to admit I have an issue with Origin characters. To me these pregenerated characters are like those you find in your pen'n'paper rulebook as examples. Nice to check out, great as NPC companions, but absolutely no appeal to play as I want to play MY story, not someone else's. If there is an option to create my own character and you are not forced to play a Commander Shepard or Geralt I will do that. WIth Shepard and Geralt it's also very different, they are not meant to be NPCs, you experiencing their story because its their game, so its hard to compare it to Origin characters.

In DOS2 I played my own character. For me all others were NPCs or suggestions for those that didn't know what to play. I was surprised to hear that I missed out because my vanilia choice meant to lose content that your companions have. Still I would not go back and replay it as one of them because they are interesting to explore as companions, but this doesn't mean I want to play as them. Same will be with BG3. I simply won't play as an Origin character because that has no appeal to me in a game I can create my own, I'm more interest in my next own character's story then the story from their point of view.


Now why am I writing this? I don't have to use them, so no harm done. But I would actually prefer to see Larian not invest time in making adjustments for all companions that we have to make them work as starting choice and rather give us the option to create a full party or hire mercs like POE has. Yeah, I have enough creativity to fill up a full party for additional playthrough There are character builds I wouldn't enjoy playing as main character, but that I would like to have in the party none the less and the character generator is great at that


So my suggestion is:
Keep the origin characters mainly as companions (because they are great as that) and additionally give us the option to create a full party of own companions like Pillar's of Eternety had (I was surprised how well it worked there).

I agree that I don't care to play NPCs (that's how I think of the pre-generated characters).

That being said, I "play" one character; the rest I direct, but they aren't "My character".

But that's me.

Afaik it's already planned to give us both the option to create a custom party at the beginning and let us hire generic customizable mercenaries later on.

Thanks for the info You don't happen to remember where you read/heard it by any chance?

I tend to think its best to fully be able to create your own party from the start. Doing this means all the games interesting interactions are placed in the npcs you encounter, and so you have access to them.

The second best is what we currently have, where there are premade companions and thats it. Doing this you are full on on pre made companions and get the maximum possible interesting interactions.

The worst is what they plan on, where you have premade companions which have eaten up some of the interesting interactions, but also the option for custom companions. Now you are forced to pick between missing out on either the non combat or missing out on the combat potential offered by the game.

I would agree that I would like the option to create additional custom characters. Even if I had to pay to hire additional custom characters in Baldur's Gate via some mercenary guild, that would be totally fine. This is the method used in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and it worked well.

This is what I expected as well, but surprisingly enough I ended up playing PoE 1 and 2 with my character + one additional character that I created (+ 3 companions from the party depending on what I was doing). It actually turned out far better than expected as the second character was a rogue thus freeing me from being forced to use the rogues they offered or to play one myself. I made a couple more just for fun and giggles, but I also finished all companion quests. So except for a few situational dialogs (that you usally miss out if you don't have the right character in the right spot at the right time because you knew about it or were luck) there was nothing I skipped.

But at the end of the day, its really about being just an option. I by far prefer pre-made companions (NOT pre-made player characters) as they make the world feel alive. With a game that has so much replayability I would actually like the option to create additional companions in additional playthroughs. I doubt I would do it during my first.

The problem with the option argument is that nothing exists in a vacuum. So its not about adding or taking its about shifting around, and the more options you have, that just means the less you have by default. for the option to be created it had to be removed from the given. So interesting characters are now only able to be experienced if you take them, yet you are now incentivized to not take them. It also allows for premade companions to be even worse in combat since people will say 'just bring a mercenary' if you point out silly things like shadowhearts 9 dex. Choice is often invoked as an excuse to shift blame i find.

wasteland 3 has combination parties, two must be premade characters and 4 are player made. You will note that 4 can be premade, only two must be player made, yet nobody considers it this way because the combat power of player made characters are always better than companions since for some reason developers think its a good idea to intentionally make suboptimal companions. Another problematic factor. If premade companions were optimized there would be less pressure to make a fully custom party. One could simply take the companions that fit and experiencee them that way as the party configuration you desire comes up for your playthrough. But given how bad premade companions are you are almost always better off making corrected dopplegangers

I suppose that could be an argument for a fix to the issue. Take option 3, but also optimize premade companion stats so they are at least sensible for their builds. Then you can experience them when convenient - when their archetype has a place in your party configuration.

From the March AMA, so could be outdated, but I don't think anything changed in this matter:

I wasn't interested in playing as origin characters in DOS2 and I'm not interested in playing as them here. I wish they spent the time on other things.
It is nice to have them as companions but eventually I think I'll be using mercenaries.