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

88 pages of back and forth.

I think people want party of 6. I don't understand the resistance.

Here's the solution I've been trying to present/suggest:

Difficulty setting

Option 1. Based on party of 4 with current EA settings. If you don't want party of 6. Great. Play Party of 4 with this Option 1 difficulty setting. It's built for Party of 4. The description could say, "Built for Party of 4 with Larian homebrew.

Option 2. Based on party of 6 with proper D&D 5e settings and rules. Intellect Devourers actually devour intellect and have resistance. Imps have resistance and can sting. Description reads, "Built for Party of 6 with D&D 5e ruleset and few Larian homebrew rules. Warning: This setting recommends that you create a Party of 4 Custom Characters to start. Most encounters assume you will have at least a party of 4 or more."

Basically, what I'm saying is, if they were to release the game right now, it is balanced for Party of 4. If they gave the option for Party of 6, it would be too easy as is currently. I'd still like that, mind you, as I don't particularly like gruelling RPGs that make me save scum, but the point is that it would be way too easy for many people who want a party of 6.

Besides that, many people want a better D&D 5e experience with closer to RAW rules. If they didn't change any of the encounters at all (meaning they changed nothing in regards to how many monsters or the types of monsters), if they implemented 5e rules more closely, that in and of itself would make the game impossible for a party of 4. You'd die right away in the prologue or on the beach. Fighting 3 imps with 2 level 1 characters is suicide and fighting intellect devourers with 2 level 1 or 2 characters is also suicide. However, if you increase it to party of 4 to start with the ability to go to party of 6, 3 imps aren't impossible, and are challenging but not deadly. 3 intellect devourers is still pretty deadly, but if you know not to run up to them and fight them at close range - something Shadowheart warns you about - then you should be able to beat them with a party of 5 (including Shadowheart).

So, that's why I'm saying, if they DON'T give us Party of 6, a lot of people are going to be upset about it - 88 pages worth of back and forth. If they give us party of 6, and balance it with 5e rules as a difficulty, then if you don't want to have a party of 6, but a party of 4 or 5, you're fine. Play it however you like. Refuse to let more people in your party than 4 or 5. Play it on the difficulty that is more designed for that party size. Shoot, like someone said, they could even set a slider so that if you REALLY can't limit yourself in the game itself, you can limit yourself via a slider in the options menu.

But think of it from the other perspective. If they don't give us the option of Party of 6, we're stuck - especially if you want to play it with 4 actual players. We can't play party of 6 unless we want to download some questionable download from some random website we don't trust and cause the game to potentially crash on us constantly because it doesn't work quite right with the game because Larian won't just give us the option to go to 6. And if you play with 4 actual players, even if you do the modder party of 6 download thing, you still can't do party of 6 because the game still forces you to drop someone, add them back, and then you can add more than 4. Since you can't drop player characters, you can only play up to 3 players if you want to use the party of 6 mod. You can't even play 4 players and party of 6.

But, if they do it in reverse and let people create a max party size of 6, EVERYONE can be happy because those who just want 4 can still have 4 all day long simply by limiting themselves to 4.

YOU be the one to say, "Sorry Lae'zel. We're full up. Can you just go to my camp and wait for me there?"

Then let me say, "Yes, Lae'zel. Four is definitely not full up. Please. Join me. I'd love to have five party members. If I could have six or eight I would. The more the merrier because DANG, we're going up against some pretty serious monsters. Imps and devourers, and we just got started. Who KNOWS what's coming?"

You are just making up additional developer work here, which is exactly what I said in point 2: exaggerating things to create a strawman that can then be opposed.

What @mrfuji3 said and this is exactly what the vast majority of those of us seeking the option have said from Day 1. But the people who want the game to cater only to them and no one else, knowing that this option description above undermines their entire opposition, ignore what we say here and instead create the strawman of our request creating all kinds of huge changes to the game that they keep pushing again and again. It's a deliberate strategy to deny something to other people even though what those other people want does not affect them in any way.

Right. To be clear, we want the ability to play party of 6 without having to use a mod. Even if they don't create difficulty settings or implement 5e rules and monster stats, we want them to give us the ability to change a number from 4 to 6 so we can do what the mod does without needing to mod the game.

Party of 6 is tremendously rewarding to me, when the game didn't crash. I enjoyed having ALL the origin characters in the party at one time. They interacted more. I felt like everyone was useful - no lazy bums sitting at camp idling away the hours. Battles were more manageable. I didn't have to save scum. I didn't have to long rest scum. I spread weapons and equipment out better so that not even everyone had all the best gear by the end of EA.

It was glorious!

Except for the game crashing because it didn't like being modded. It happened a lot, and saves would also crash, not letting me reload. I had to learn to save multiple times each time just in case.

Oh, and I really want to create 4 custom characters and still have 2 origin in the party. I'd love to see how that experience differs.

But I can't because they won't give us the simple ability to change a number.

Actualy ...
I have noticed in my last game that when you have all companions they often overwrite each other reactions ...

For example in the Crypt after defeating all skeletons i could talk with Shadowheart or Astarion ...
But when i moded my last game Astarion lost all his comentary.

But now when i think about it ...
Im not sure on wich position he was. O_o

A minor tweak.

The point is, it's able to be modded by changing a number.

That said, I'm still hoping for a 5e difficulty setting so that a party of 5-6 characters COULD still have a difficulty that is more balanced for it.

^This is it. There's nothing else to what we are asking for. I'm really tired of certain people setting up their strawmen in the face of this being all that we're asking for, something so very minor and easy to do. It just goes to show how extremely cussed some people can be in trying to deny even the tiniest bit of happiness to other people, even when that comes at no cost to themselves. It is mind-boggling.

unfortunately for me.. if with 6 party characters, i like if someone who can make mods to rebalance the encounter. not sure if there's such thing like fast fast animation. with 6 party characters, it definitely needs a skip or fast animation. pathfinder wrath of the righteous has that for turn-based.

I wonder why ...
There is not much difference in combat between 4 and 6 members ...

Except you come to your turn more often, and it takes less rounds to finish the batte ... but beyond that? O_o

How is it ten times as much work? How did you come up with this number, why not let's say aproximately 1.008 as much work?

I hate mods. Tried it with party of 6. Constantly get "Your save file is corrupt" and the game crashes frequently.

For something SO simple, why? Just freaking let players have the ability to select how many they want in their party. If the player wants 6 or even up to 8, the game CAN do it... So just let us do it? That's all we're asking.

If all we have to do is change a dang number from 4 to 6 or 8 in some stupid mod, then Larian can easily let us change that number in an option screen OR just build it into the game that you can have up to 8 party members, and if you don't want to have a party of more than 4, don't party with more than 4.

You can ALWAYS choose to play with 4 if they make the max size 6 or 8. You can't EVER make the party size more than 4 if they limit the max size to 4.

And as far as game balance goes... That's a Difficulty settings issue. They can create a Difficulty setting more for party of 4 balance and one more for party of 6 or 8 or whatever.

Why? Im affraid, you said exactly the reason ...
If you mod something, and then clipping isues come, crashes come, corrup files come, graphical bugs come ... etc. ... its on you, since you moded.
But if this is allowed by creator, people would expect smooth gameplay without any issues, since its integral part of the game. :-/

So if change single value in files can make so incredibly HUGE MESS with the game ... one cant really blame Larian they dont want to go that road, unless they explicitly have to. :-/

???

Are you serious? If I hack a game and it crashes, it could be for a million reasons. One tiny piece of code is thrown out of whack and the whole thing freezes. The mod SEEMS to be only a number change, but is it? What did the modder have to do to create the tool used to mod it? Did he/she change part of a code that now causes more game crashes?

On the other hand, if Larian adjusts the code, they know what the frick they're doing. So, they can make sure it all lines up right and doesn't crash. In other words, they're not hacking their system. They are the architects. Therefore, unlike modders, they can easily change the number without hacking and potentially breaking the system.

Deadly serious.

True ...
But you didnt "hack" anything ... you simply opened a file and changed single value.

Yup ...
And that is bcs that rest of the thing is build on that single piece of code ...

Just an example ...
So our characters dont end stuck in each other, game can have some kind of colission detection, that will control personal space for every member of our party ...
Its set and prepared for 4 characters ... you changed single value, nothing else ... sudently the colission detection mechanism have 6 inputs to work with, but can still only work with 4, since that is what it was written for.
Result? > Crash.

Yes, it is.
(Actualy that may be the problem. )

I dont think so ...
In older games you can easily open their code in notepad and rewrite anything you want ... this is basicaly what we do here, its just a little more complex ...
And we get nice UI so we dont have to read it whole line after line.

Every experienced programator know what they are doing ...
Its not some magic box, where only creator can understand its content.

It would be easier for Larian to determine where colisions, causing Crashes can be tho ... i gues you wanted to say something like that.

And that is exactly that extra work i was talking about ...

Right now they have ... well, not perfectly, but adequately stable system that works ...
What would be their reason to invest money and resources to create another?

Oh whatever Rags.

I'm done.

From now on, I think I'm just gonna do this:

I want party of 6. I think it's better. No other reasons so Ragnarok can't argue and fight. Just I want it.

Let's take a poll.

Who else wants party of 6 max. Let's tally it up.

I'm 1.

Im 2.

3.

4.

This forum has poll functionality. It seems like it'd be vastly superior to do that instead of asking for individual comments in support of/against.

E.g., select all you'd be in favor of:
- Allow up to 6 with no additional changes
- Allow up to 6 but with changes (e.g., split exp, rebalancing encounters, default party size, etc)
- Allow more than 6
- Keep party limit at 4
- Reduce party size below 4

(If you do create a poll, it's probably worth iterating on these options a few times with other posters to create a somewhat "official/approved" poll)

You're assuming I know anything about polling on this forum.