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

This was allready suggested few dozen times.
Usualy as counterargument when someone claim that 6member party would require reballance whole game.

I also think this would be win-win for everyone. +1


I may have another: Responsibility

As someone who is using said mod quite often ... i have noticed several bugs ... to name 3 bigest:
1) Clipping issues
(my party members often stands inside each other) ... especially during conversations and curscenes.

2) Suden death
(game kills extra party members sometimes) ... my personal theory is that this happens when you dont have spawning points

3) Dialogue overwriting
(clmpanions who are on 5th or 6th slot didnt respond to my actions at all) ... for example when you rescue Sazza, Gale dont talk to you
This one gets super anoying ... but i was told (by Tuco i believe) that source of this problem can be something else ... sadly i dont remember what.

Same goes for custom party tho ... if you have 2 or more custom Tavs, they debate every event in game between each other ... effectively blocking out allmost all and every companion dialogue outside the camp.
Your followers dont even get get yellow ! and if you purposefully try to talk to then rather than other Tav, they instead start regular "you want something?" dialogue.

And of course it is possibke that it cause sone crashes aswell ... but in this stage its hard to tell.

Anyway:
If Larian would implement this option officialy this (and possibly other) isues would become their responsibility.
Their game would be without a debate broken ...
But as long as we are using mod, its our fault ...

Is that lazy?
Well ... i gues from certain point of view it can be seen that way.
But you cant argue it have some sense ... why would they invest time and resources to stabilize something they didnt even inted to exist in the first place.

No it is not. For me, having to mod my game is an extremely high and aggravating roadblock.

Agreed.

There is a mod for DOS 2 that allows Party of 6 or greater. I was tempted to do it, but there are comments about how it only works up until a certain point. Then things get weird.

Besides this kind of glitch stuff with mods, I don't like them because I don't trust them. Anyone can create viruses and Trojans and slip them into a mod.

No thanks. I've done it only a few times and it makes me too nervous every time. I'd like full support from the dev please.

What if the reason is as simple as quality?

There wil be a total of...what, 7 companions? Fully voiced, animated companions. There has to be a limit to those, I get that.

And it would not be fun to get the same ones on every run. Nor it would be okay for us to run around with mute mercenaries adding absolutely nothing to the story.

Seems like a design choice made quite consciously and does not ruin anything as many here imply? The game is balanced around a group of 4 and adding more would not do the game any good mechanic-wise. Adding an option with a visible alert that it most probably brake the game seems fine, but then again no designer wants to listen to people whinine "but the option was there and it broke my game!" every day after launch, no matter how many times you ask if the player is sure he wants it.

🙄

I see no conection ...
You presumed there will be 7 Origin characters ... okey, lets put questions about that number aside, and work with that.

So you created 7 Origin characters ...
And then allow to people only take 3 of them at once ...
Instead of 5 of them at once ...

How exactly does that affect quality? O_o

I dont ... explain please.
I would even dare to say there is no need for limit at all.

Says who?

I mean, yeah im aware that people are often getting sick of our curent 5 companions ...
But keep in mind that we are talking here about cases where people have often thousand hours, out of 20h content.

Also, please keep in mind that as stated countless times before, nobody forces anyone to expand party limit to 6 ...
Meaning if you wish to play with your 3 companions, while everyone else is sitting in camp poking fire with a stick and thinking about cloud shapes ... you can.

And yet that is something we have promised as far as i know. :P

Can you provide some examples? :P

I have missed this.

You are here for last two years, so i dare to presume you noticed that countless people countless times allready mentioned that, they dont give a shit about ballance, and would be perfectly okey with game being unchanged ... since that is kinda exactly what the mod gives us.
So, we allready tryed it ... most of us at least ... and gues what? We love it! :P

In other words: Adding more go the game some good ... its fun.
Dont damn it till you try. :P

Thats cute ...
As if some designer theese days would even presume that there is some "nobody is whining" option present.

Nah, we both know (or at least i sure do, and i totally believe that designers do aswell, especialy after 2years of EA) that you can only decide who will be whining and what about ... but its existence is inevidable. :P
Either you will have idiots whining about their own ignorance of clearly stated warning ...
Or you will have other people whining about missing most desired and demanded option since EA start ...

Choose wisely.

The more companions you add the less quality they will have. There is a budget and time limit to everything. I prefer to have 7 fleshed out companions than 20 that are carbon copies of themselves. Even BG2 with all it's great companions had just stupid filler ones with absolutely no substance - just to fill out the need to have 5 or more good/neutral/evil aligned companions because of the 6-man parties. I would prefer BG3 not go this way.


Limit to the number of companions we get. See explanation above.


Roleplayers? I dunno, some companions won't mix well with all main characters I assume. Why would I drag an obviously evil character along when I play as a lawful good character?


And yet you would want to limit the replayability even further by not wanting to have to mix it up?


No, because of game balance. If a game is designed for a party of 6 the encounters will become too hard with a party of 2-3.


Didn't hear that, no idea why anyone would want to play a RP game with silent companions - unless they are undead minions. It's kind of like playing a shooter game with only one gun.

Of what? The design choice? Play the game, it's right there.
Of people being overly dramatic? Won't go through this topic again, got enough whiplash for now, thanks.


Missed what? The gameplay?


Sure, adding more is fine but not if there is not much more to add. Unless you have 5 friends to play with there is little to no way to fill that whole place up with 'matching' companions right now.


Don't fix what ain't broken.

Cute ...
Now where exactly is anyone except you talking about "more companions" ?

You know ... 3 out of 7 and 5 out of 7 ...
Are both working with exactly same amount of 7 companions.

And as i said, that amount of 7 companions, was your theory. :P

I think we can say quite confidently, that Larian is doing things their way and dont look too much into "what was in BG2, or BG1" ...
Not exactly the best decision (acording to some people) ... true ... but at least we can presume that they will not repeat misstakes from the past.

There is as much reasons as there are players/characters who does that.
Redemption, lack of anything better, personal sympaties beyond their alignment ... pick yours, or create new one ... any reason is as valid as any other.

But you are corect, they dont mix well ...
But the statement was:
And i disagree ...

Every story can potentialy be fun, even with same companions, especialy if you replay it ...
Bcs you allready know one version of it ... so every other run, you will likely change things, to keep it fresh.

Sure, you can say: "I allready had Lae'zel with me last run, lets pick Bert this time!" ... thats perfectly fine.
OR!
You can aswell say: "I allready had Lae'zel in party with Evil character last run, lets make Good one this time!" ... and maybe it surprise you, but it can be fun aswell, even tho you "get the same ones on every run."

Remember that this is not topic about "total amount of existing companions" ...
But about "amount of companions i can have with me in the field".

There is no limitation ...

There would be limitation, if the game would be completely reworked for 6 member party, with no way back ... BUT! ... That is not what people were asking for.

Its true that if you have 7 non-repetitive variables and are picking 3 of them, you can potentialy create MUCH more permutations, than if you are picking 5 of them ... thats base math.
Question is tho, if you can still make enough of them ... my answer is: Yes, you certainly can.
And as mentioned abowe ... if your answer is no ... well, all you need to do is simply not turn this alternation on.

So ... sory, but i dont see any limitation.
Only possibilities, and only for those who want them.

First of all ... i said 3 companions ... your character + 3 companions = party of 4 ... aka curent state.

Second ... yes, if a game is designed ... wich it isnt, and as i said, nobody requested it to be designed that way, on the contrary people keep ensuring other people that they dont want any redesign, reballance, or any simmilar stuff ... so why are we even talking about it?
There is one quote i remember, dunno where i readed it tho:
"If there is problem in alternative universe, its theirs ... not ours."

Dont know, dont care ... not my problem why peple do what people do.

Swen specificaly said that BG-3 WILL include mercenary companions system, thats all i can say ...
Cant link you to original ... i mean i could, if i would really want to search for it ... but i dont, so its up to you i gues. It was in one of early interviews tho.

Personaly i dont see problem in that ...
You want it > here it is.
You dont want it > just dont use it.
You can notice this phylosophy a lot in my posts.

Good example, thank you.

This ... "argument" ... for lack of better therm.
Long time no see.

There is no adding discuised in this particular topic ...
As stated several times before, this is just a matter of selecting a larger sample from allready existing group.

Once again you are talking about something entirely different. O_o

First of all 6 member party =/= 6 players party ... on mechanical level that is WHOLE different problem, wich was discarted long time ago in this topic as beautifull, but completely unrealistic dream ... especialy since Larian specificaly promised splitscreen gameplay.

Second dont get upset (or do, if you concider that adequate reaction) but since there are no companions beyond our curent band officialy anounced ... except Swens promise that "there will be more" ... you cant know this.
(Yes, i know there is datamined evidence ... but as everyone who ever present anything datamined should notice ... and to my knowledge they do ... NOTHING datamined should ever be taken as confrimmed, until developers say so.)

And last but certainly not least ... 'matching' is relative ... and certainly not universaly required. :P

This isnt matter of fixing either ...
More like upgrading. :P

And being broken in this particular context, is relative at best. :P

4 forces you to pick all archetypes of characters and less experiment

What archetypes? Do you mean something like, melee, ranged, tank and support?

More like melee / physical utility / support / magic. The "classic" party is fighter / rogue / cleric / wizard.
- Fighter for the frontline sturdiness, protecting the backline.
- Rogue for both single-target dps and for dealing with all the scouting/traps/lockpicking/sneaking.
- Cleric for support: healing, buffing, removing curses/etc.
- Wizard for ranged magic during combat (battlefield control and both single-target and AoE damage) as well as out-of-combat magical utility.

That said, 5e is pretty flexible with party compositions; most parties can work.
- Healing is basically useless in 5e, and WotC has done away with most permanent negative status effects, so the "need" for a cleric is much lessened. As long as you have Healing Word, you're fine.
- Certain backgrounds give proficiency in thieves tools and perception, enabling any class to do okay as a rogue-replacement.
- Skill bonuses and check DCs are lower in 5e, so it's not as important to have characters that uber-specialize in a few skills.
- Due to the Concentration restriction on so many powerful spells, casters---namely stacking pre-buffs for encounters---are weakened so you don't need a full caster.

Like, you probably don't want to go 4 barbarians, but 3 frontline fighter-types and a backline magic user would work perfectly fine in 5e.

Fair. As you said, I think the 4 party limit still allows a fair amount of variety in that regard. Those different roles can be filled by quite a varied amount of classes, for exemple the wizard "archetype" can be filled by both the wizard, the sorcerer, the warlock or even the druid with the right build. At the same time, you can play the same druid as a defensive fighter if you want to. Builds can be flexible enough to not having to be limited to one cookie cutter composition every time.

But you cant really argue that with additional party slot (or two of them) your options would be MUCH wider.
Can you?

I can't, but I would also argue that the size of the party isn't mandatory in adding variety to a CRPG. Heck, some people are very happy doing lone wolf builds on DoS2. Since there is no best in slot classes for each archetype, you are still able to mix an match the various classes within the party. I didn't have a moment where I told to myself "I feel limited by the interactions between my party members" since the canvas of different builds/specialization/classes is the perfect size to me.

Sure, I agree with all of that.

Imo, a bigger problem is that a 4-player party restricts you to 3 companions. Given that BG3 is expected to be a 80+ (100+? 120+?) hour game, many people probably won't want, or don't have the time, to replay it. These players will miss out on a ton of content - party banter, companion quests, companion character development, etc. Assuming 10 total companions, and that some players will refuse to play with ~2-3 companions because of personal dislike, a party of 6 means that these players can experience almost all the companions they'd want to in a single playthrough.
Edit: this is an especially important argument if Larian kills off non-party companions after Act 1, rather then allowing them to chill in camp and be swapped throughout the campaign.

Also, there's the whole argument that larger parties allow for a wider range of combat tactics and character synergies, enabling cool combos.

I can't remember if I previously commented in this thread. But I'd argue for four character parties because:

1. I don't want to manage six characters gear, skills, etc. It can already get pretty tedious with just four party members.
2. Combat can already be way too slow with just a four character party given that the game is turn based.
3. I actually like the idea of playing through the game multiple times with a new party, but admit that this is a personal preference and may not be best for the game.
4. If they make certain encounters dramatically different depending what party members are with you - it will be cool to experience the unique interactions, combat encounters, etc. (Example: Lohse from D:OS2)

To mrfuji3's point though - unless you play the game several times, there is definitely a fair amount of content you will be missing out on.

I wholly agree with the edit, adding a point of no return this early in the game is a dubious move at best considering the state of the game.

Well, obviously I strongly disagree. A party of four is extremely limiting for:
Having a well-balanced party where party roles (yes, those still exist and matter in 5e) are properly filled out
Having more intra-party interactions and banter
The joy and fun of managing two additional companions in terms of their character development and equipment
Make combat more interesting because I will have more to do during combat

For all these reasons, I will never play BG3 without a mod that increases party size to six. And I will even consider such a mod to be a required default for the game, so if the mod causes any problems or incompatibilities in the game I will blame Larian for them and consider any such issues to be Larian's fault and responsibility.

It is highly doubtful that we will get party of 6. Even watching the new trailer, every time they show a party, it's 4. There is 0 indication that they have the option in their overall plan.

I agree, much like I agree that none of the things people in this forum have been passionate about revising in BG3 will ever even be discussed publicly by Larian let alone actually addressed.