Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Party Size Discussion

The only opinion I represented was my own.

I asked what percentage of the people that have purchased EA have posted their desire for a party of 6 and factually stated it was a very small percentage.
That tells me the issue is only important to a small number of people, it says nothing about what the folks that didn't post would prefer.
I then stated my personal opinion -- I never claimed to speak for anyone but myself.




Larian's "echo chamber" is the only one that matters. It's their company that's on the line, their financial risk. They listen to feedback more than most companies but In the end they need to make games they are passionate about making and hope that there is an audience that likes the games they make.

I don't know why this is such a thing. Four seems fine in my book, and I mean, to get to 6 players wouldn't they have to retool the difficulty on everything. Make a choice, you don't have to play all the classes at once.

Look, aside for the fact that if your main counter-argument is whining and bitching that other people are arrogant, maybe you don't have such a strong position to defend, you also seem to lack basic reading comprehension, since at not point during that post I was talking about *me* specifically, just addressing the usual, trite and frankly quite idiotic argument "niche opinions don't matter" in terms of "dedicated fanbase" against "casual audience".


Here you are, again, bitching without making a proper point.
What did you expect, exactly? That I would feel bad? Guilty?


Well, if worst comes to worst, at very least it can't be more wrong than your attempt to understand it.
But you can keep beating the strawman instead of having a proper discussion about it.


Man, fine, Let's concede I'm arrogant. So fucking what? At some point you'll have to stop crying about it and make a proper point.


Aside for the fact that I positively don't give a shit about what Bioware did (as if they weren't already been topped at their own game in other areas) you may have missed the fact that Throne of Bhaal was set in a confined pocket dimension where demigods went along doing a slugfest every three steps.
If you didn't miss it, you are at very least overlooking it.

Not exactly the most demanding of all settings, in terms of internal coherence and immersion.



The 6-men party can ALREADY be modded into the game right now with a trivial savefile edit. Which is irrelevant, anyway, because we are asking Larian for proper official support instead.
If you aren't interested feel free to stick to 4 or play even solo, as long as you won't wave around this pretense that everyone should be happy about an annoying design limitation just because you are.

For the hundredth time, concerns about "keeping the balance" in an early alpha where no encounter can be considered finalized and set in stone are laughable.

What's worse, these probably come from the same people who think that there's absolutely no problem with asking for four different difficulty levels in the final game, but god forbid if there's a group (a fairly big one) that wants to control a larger party.
I mean, the dedicated thread is just the most popular in the entire feedback subforum by a landslide, after all, dwarfing everything else.

And that's without taking into account the dozen of clone-threads talking precisely about the same topic, such this one.

appreciate the response fam! i think we both can agree that we want bg3 to succeed, so my please dont take critics too personal and sorry for any misrepresentation of your initial post, but i still disagree with your conclusions - which is fine, its what ea is all about - i just hope that when/if larian sees these posts they lean more towards my side than yours

my apologies again for any misrepresentation, but i still am having issues getting to the same conclusions? yes, it is likely that a very small percentage of current players are posting this specific feedback (4v6 - although i would be interested if we have had a poll here on the forums to see what the consensus is? - i may have missed it), but i have a hard time inferring that this small, and specific type of consumer (ea access and forum posting) creating threads and commenting about a 6slot preference now in ea means that it will remain important to only a small number (or percentage) of the eventual overall player base - we simply cant draw those conclusions at this point - you even say 'it says nothing about what the folks that didnt post would prefer' and it works both ways. id likely have to search through the forums, and who knows how reliable such data would be, but overall my impression in the forums here is that a larger percentage of ea players prefer 6slots/more player choice than limited to only 4slots - but i could be wrong (which gets back to itd be a nice nod to the community if larian included some related comments in future updates, even if brief)

your second response i just flat out disagree with, lol. im of the opinion that 'the customer is always right' - and sure there are some outlandish and unreasonable requests by fans, but i dont think a 6slot party falls into that category. a video game developer that makes games with the strategy of being successful built on the 'hope that there is an audience that likes the games they make' is great and all, but that doesnt sound like you are giving yourself much room for error, arent giving alot of credit or agency to your player base, and i would also argue doesnt work to build much rapport or engagement with your player base either.

as the game stands now, i enjoy it, but regarding this specific game design it just is not the game i was expecting (or hoping for years we'd ever possibly get). granted i may not be as familiar with larians history as some others may be, but does the studio have a history of listening to and incorporating community driven feedback in advance of full game launches or do they usually go with their own vision? and there is more than just larian's financial risk on the line here, wotc's investment/branding for one, as well as general investors/supporters of larians.

lastly, the whole 'echo chamber' is mentality is bad imo - like in life. idk how you can grow as a game developer (or person) if you only always listen to your own opinion/perspectives that align with your own without any critique or introspective.

+1

I support this for others, but until party UI isn't fixed I wouldn't want 6 characters, 4 is too much already. Party UI makes me to solo most of the time anyway (just before a fight starts I move the rest). Seems like off-topic, but party without proper UI is a nightmare.

Default party can be any size. Game can be balanced for any, if stays 4 is no problem. And then allow as optional party 5 & 6.
Feels like a different game with a proper party composition.

Also adds another layer to difficulty options: easy with party of 4, hard with party of 6 and so on.

Friendly newbie here with a newbie perspective! (Obviously, in the end I speak for no one but myself, though c: )

I've read the entire discussion on this thread, and these are my thoughts:

A party of 6 makes sense in many scenarios. Personally, 6 would be too many for me - at least in my current state - but I really don't see why they wouldn't introduce the OPTION for 6 party members. Especially cause this allows you to both take the team setup into consideration (getting a front liner, healer/support, heavy damage, assassins, whatever more one would like) while still leaving room to bring along additional characters that one could want just cause of their personalities. I mean, imagine the following: you really enjoy the roleplaying of a cleric character. But at the same time, you really wanna bring Shadowheart along cause you enjoy her ... Personality. But having 2/4 party members in a group being clerics is... Well, ehm, maybe not optimal. Oooor if you want to play a wizard, but really wanna bring Wyll and/or Gale along cause of their ... Personalities. Having a party restricted to 4 members forces you to choose either functionality or from a roleplaying perspective, ALTERNATIVELY forces you to make your own character fill a specific slot to fit the party (which might not be ideal for many, I know it is not for me!). Obviously, if you wanna bring Wyll, Gale and your own wizard, you're free to do so - but that's not an ideal party setup either, especially not for the less experienced player (such as myself).

In a roleplaying game, I'd argue that, on the easier difficulties, roleplaying should be the first priority. Having a larger party size makes that possible, as you can fit both functionality AND personality-preferences. While also allowing players to properly appreciate the depth of more companion-characters - win-win!

If people are worried about balance (why would you go 4 if you can go 6 for those who prefer 4-man party ) then they could introduce the solution that MrFuji3 came up with:
* To have the exp split between party members, causing a party of 6 members to require more exp than a party of fewer members.
* Alternatively I thought that they could simply introduce a party buff that increases base stats depending on the number of party members. So, if you run solo = strong buff. If you run with 6 members = no buff / very, very weak buff.
* Oooor, they could use the Diablo system (entirely different game, I know - using it as an example) - making enemies just scale up in flat HP and power depending on the amount of party members (within reasonable parameters of course).

Personally (and this is probably not gonna be the meta-opinion here xD) - I prefered the DOS2 system where you could have pretty much any character doing pretty much any role. As in, you got to choose their role when they entered your party for the first time (and then you could change it around as you wished along the way). I get that this is not suitable for BG3 in particular though, and hence I would not even ask Larian to consider introducing this as it is simply not a part of this universe - but it made it much easier to focus on characters of interest without sacrificing the team composition. A bigger party size is an alternative way to handle this dilemma, while staying true to the BG3 universe. c:

I like smaller parties. But if they gave the option for a larger party, it wouldn't bother me.

There's this one too, and far more points about balance, etc are touched across it: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=679595&page=1

EDIT- And then there's this one as well, that starts with the exact opposite request ("six is too much, limit it") but sees most of the replies disagreeing with the OP (and rightfully so, I'd say): https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=690281#Post690281

After all one of these propositions leaves a door open for the alternate option, while the other doesn't.

I shall read this! Thank you!

+1 ! ^_^

So... after 22 pages of discussion, have we come to a consensus yet? Are we supposed to suck it up and accept only 4 characters, or will it get expanded to 6?

Yeah, I really think that one of the threads needs to get pinned. Even with 4 loooong threads I'm worried that "Jess Larian" or whoever reports on these things will miss them.

This is exact my idea. I am really consider my companions origin and actually this has an equal value with his/her class for me to picking which one of them. I am sure about that most of us have got confused when we had to pick a companion.
I want to pick Wyll because ı really like his backstory but also ı am a warlock. So what should ı do because game itself doen't allow me to gather 2 people in same class, 4 people is so narrow and ı need other classes for functionality.

This why ı want 6 or at least 5 character but I am not compulsive about the old games.

It feels like a huge limitation and this wasn't exist in Dos2. We can pick classes of our companions with origin backstory there and then 4 character didn't seem to a insufficient number because ı did not to think about the issues which ı wrote up here.

+1 for 6 party characters.

True Baldur's Gate is 6 party members.

+1 repost party

+1 for 6 members.

Worse. Larian has decided to throw the whole discussion out and just make the game an MMO.