Originally Posted by odesseiron81
Greetings all. I was reading through the EA FAQ again and I noticed the last question from Jess from Larian.

Quote
Is your party permanent or can you change members out throughout the adventure?
Recruited companions will be at camp when not in the adventuring party, and can be swapped in and out at camp. After the first act however you are going to have to commit, also just like in real life.

I'm not sure how everyone else feels about this or even noticed it. Things move at a breakneck speed in these forums. I'm not sure I like this. At all. Now this is all baseless speculation at this point, so I don't want to be overly negative.

[..]
Based on the wording from Larian, it leads me to believe that anyone who isn't with you at the end of Act 1 is going to die or otherwise become unavailable. We're then "forced" to complete the rest of the game with one party. Who knows. Maybe at the end of Act 1, you get some kind of delay for the tadpole removal in the Towers. Any members not with you will turn into Illithid. Yes, that's a very big assumption on my end. It's just a guess.

It also leads me to believe that there will not be all that many companions (if any) after Act 1. In BGI/II you met people everywhere. Meeting everyone in the same Act seems a bit too convenient.

If that happens, our ability to diversify our party based on needs will go out the window. Paired with the fact there are only 4 party members. I'm not saying you need 6, but 5 would be a nice happy median. You have that extra utility slot. But this post isn't about that. My concern is that it will get very stale dealing with the same party for another 60-80 hours, versus being able to keep things fresh with adding and removing party members at will.

For all I know though, this will fit in with the story they are weaving. I could also be entirely off base though. I just figured it would be worth bringing up. At the end of the day this is their game they are crafting and not ours and I 100% respect that, but some of that BG feel goes out the window if we have a set party locked. You can't please everyone. I'm happy either way in knowing I'll more than likely be getting a great game.


I read the post by Larian differently than the interpretation I see in this and another, similar thread: 'During act 1 you can switch companions out without consequences. After act 1 you will have to commit to the character(s) you want to romance, just like in real life.

After all, in real life, there is only one person you normally commit to, right? Your significant other. Or significant others, if you are polyamorous.

This interpretation of the quote has a strong analogy with BG2, where most of the romances would be broken off if you kicked a character with an active romance out of the party.


It is quite possible that the other interpretations suggested in this and the other thread are correct - such as the risk of your non-party companions being lever-transformed into mind flayers, but I would have expected Larian to word the reply differently, if that were the case. If the party limit were to be enforced by the companions no longer being available, I'd not have worded that as ' you have to commit' but as 'your options may be limited at some point', for instance.