Hmm, that's a good point. I am really beginning to wonder if Larian overextended themselves with wanting to create a single player game VS a multiplayer game. A lot of the current combat mechanics would be kinda fun in a multiplayer setting, but it clashes with the single player experience. While developing more companions is basically wasted effort for the multiplayer crowd too.
Maybe the greatest twist of irony is that Solasta and BG3 may have had mismatched priorities that would work better in the other game. As in, Solasta's character creation has you make your entire party from scratch with tags defining their personality and backgrounds, but it's a pure singleplayer game at the moment, when that concept would lend itself much better to a multiplayer setup. While BG3 has full fledged companions and still has a tag system, but the companions won't be appreciated in multiplayer, and multiplayer is the main thing that caused Larian's games to take off compared to all the other cRPG developers.
Perhaps that's why we have so few companions. With this train of thought, what's the point to writing more and voice acting them all when the game's longevity ultimately won't rely on them at all?
It's basically a different kind of argument to the base 5E VS Larian homebrew crowd. They want to have their cake and eat it too - as in, Larian wants to break out of their 'lol cheesy/slapstick humor' reputation among the wider gaming community with BG3's tone in regards to its single player-focused writing, but the multiplayer gameplay-focused crowd ultimately won't care.
Exactly. There is an overlap on certain priorities though. Speaking for the people in Multiplayer Nation we would be happier with Larian sticking closer to the core 5E rules and also removing barrlemancy. The ability to throw already incorporates bombs and flasks it doesn't need to include throwing monsters around (maybe Goblins, but with a check of some sort).
If you have not tried multiplayer I would encourage you to give it a shot with a good group.
And I also thought Solasta not having multiplayer was unfortunate as hell. I get why, but it still stings. Maybe Solasta 2.
And honestly, I always felt the Origin characters were more problem than they are worth. I get having them as companions, but I still think it makes more sense to not play one as an origin. You end up feeling serious FOMO when presented with the choice of an Origin character with all this extra backstory or your own character that is walking their own path.
