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

Nah im not ... you just need to read whole post rather than pick single word an focusing solely on it, ignoring everything else.
In this context there are two things in our set ...wanting them both = wanting everything in said set ...

But you know what? Whatever ... both ... happy?
Just replace the word, everything else stays the same ... the point, the argument, hells even rest of sentences remains unchanged.

I wouldnt say so ...
There was strong request to make this game at least optional RTWP ... lately there was this one topic where someone demanded to make this game open world action RPG.
No matter how strongly they woukd want it, no matter how many people would want it ... none of this is going to happen.

I know what some people would think when they read this tho "but Rag those are so much bigger changes" ... and it may seem like true.

The problem is we dont really know how much work would be behind raising our party limit ...
Sure, there is mod that allows it, and in that mod its just question of changing single value ... but then there are bugs, your extra companions die out of nowhere, they are concidered absent during dialogues, there are cliping issues ... and much more.
Mod have that luxury that people who are using it usualy count (or they should at least) with problems, bcs they essentialy are breaking the game ... if Larian would make it official, they would need to adress theese issues.

I mean ...
Larian keep talking about amount of permutations they have in dialogues ...
Problem with permutations is: They grow exponencially!
When you have 4 conpanions and they all can return value true/false ... you have 2 options on 4 positions ... that is if i remember corectly 2^4 ... wich would be if i count corectly ... 16 outcomes ...
Adding another party member qould then make it 2^5 ... 32 ... thats no small addition is it? Ofc not, its double.
Adding another party member would make it 2^6 ... 64 ... quadruple possible outcomes.

Now hold your horses people ... im fully aware that in our case (in pc game) most of those outcomes would lead to exactly same result ... so its not *that* crazy ...
And yes, im also aware that this dont really add anythin else, bcs you need to have that outcome included if said follower is present in different party of 4 ...
The point here is to visualize in sinple math example that adding single vlmalue can potentialy mean A LOT of additional work.


On that we agree.

So then the game is objectively perfectly balanced right now? LOL. What happens to that perfect balance when a player chooses to play with only a party of two? Are the devs balancing the game for that option? No, they are most certainly not. Does this then make the game "flawed"? No, it doesn't. So then what's the difference between a person playing an unbalanced game with a party of two versus a person playing an unbalanced game with a party of six? Absolutey zero difference. Well, except for that the option to play an unbalanced game with a party of two is available, whereas the option to play an unbalanced game with a party of six is denied.

I suppose we can agree to disagree.

I said some pressure. Not that they are required in any way to make any changes, merely that they are going to listen to what is being said and make decisions based on how much impact that will have on their developments. RTWP was never (to my understanding) any part of the core design. And implementing is likely to be a HUGE departure. I can totally see them not making that big a change, particularly once development and the core engine was established. Even early on, that would have been a huge ask.

But again, not gonna argue with you. We can agree to disagree.

You can disagree all the way you want ...
Since first paragraph was intepretation of my words, i have no reason to disagree with anything, i know what i said.

The only time you have a party of two is after the nautiloid for a grand total of 10 minutes. You can choose to continue with a party of 2, but why would you when the game has been designed around 4? I understand that this case is a self imposed challenge that only a few person make conscientiously, and therefore it doesn't represent what BG3 is.

That's the point. Currently, you can choose to continue with a party of 2 (or 1, or 3), resulting in an unbalanced experience / self-imposed challenge. Why not 6?

It would be a similarly unbalanced experience, but this time with a self-imposed *easier difficulty* compared to a party of 2. While the benefit of using a party of 2 is less micromanagement/annoying companions, the benefit of a party of 6 is being able to watch all 6 party members banter/interact/trigger plot threads.

How would you warn players that anything past 4 is uncharted territory then? You gain companions very easily in this game so unlocking 6 man parties by default would be a recipe for disaster since it would become the new norm for every players.

Yup. Exactly. But apparently logic is not @snowram's thing.

If people can CHOOSE to play with a smaller party than intended, why not also be able to choose to play with a larger party than intended? It is EXACTLY the same thing. Anyone who cannot understand and appreciate this very simple point is clearly incapable of following basic logic.

You seem to be on the left side of the Dunning Kruger curve. You don't want to understand why increasing the default maximum value would naturally make everyone pick a 6 man party, in a game balanced for 4 players.

Because they would be warned that it is not the default mode and that it will affect the balancing of the game if they do choose 6 party member mode.

Sure, I'm fine with it being hidden deep into the lobby screen or behind an obscure flag in a config file.

Yeah you wouldn't want to make it convenient for people to find an option that they might like to try out. I'd say we should hide all options in the game in different config files. Kids nowadays have it way to easy anyway!

Eeeh... There are still quite a lot of recent games where you have to tinker with their config files for a lot of options, Skyrim and Cyberpunk come to mind. Heck, I even had to tweak some files to change my FoV and subtitle languages in Hogwarts Legacy!

Yeah that is a start, but we need to make it even more inconvenient. Hide everything i say, hide the whole executable for the game when you are at it.

>
Isnt that sufficient?

Hoooold your horses ...
Nobody said anything about "by default"!

All we ask is toggle option in setting. O_o
That is the whole point of leting rest of the game exactly as it is!

Yet another instance of creating a strawman argument to try and knock down those of us who simply want an option. As always, when someone just keeps going to strawman arguments, it's a sure sign they don't have a real argument to offer.

You could say the same about people who always tend to bring ad hominem arguments to the table, even if it is not necessary or helpful the slightest.

I cannot foresee the marketing problems for Larian caused by an undecided product with such fundamental party member options or the angry forum posts with conspiracy theories that the balance is bad because Larian had, despite denials, actually a party of 6 in mind when designing fight x. I would appreciate if they take the risks and include the bigger party option, I would probably play with 6 and usually have 4 and sometimes 5 in my party, at a higher difficulty option than planned. That's however only possible because I did not plan to play at the highest difficulty option. Maybe I would feel tricked if I would like the hardest difficulty, and cannot with a party of 6?

There is really not much else to say.

//Edit:
I mean come on, what kind of argument is this?
Do you blame fire to burn you, if you stick your hand in it?

Probably does.

I would think the option to enable a 6 person party in the settings would be best, keeping the default max at 4. I say this because I prefer playing with a smaller party personally. My fiancé and I play 2 characters each. That seems perfect for role playing our own Tav and having a side character to role play as they should be playing based on their character background.

However, when playing DOS / DOSII, we never went the Lone Wolf route. Even though we talked about it many time, every playthrough we ended up deciding to pick up a companion.

Similarly, I'm playing through BG and BG2 right now and guess what...I'm playing alone with a party of 6. Why? Because it's the default and I feel like that's the intended party size for the game, and that I'll miss out if I leave empty slots.

With BG3 though, we play to play through numerous times. The ONLY things that will keep us playing after the first time through is playing a new class Tav, and having different companions.

We've already run through all of the existing companions, multiple times. Even now, just changing Tav to a new class is pretty damn boring because since there are no random encounters, every playthrough is exactly the same, with the exception of new companion experiences.

I personally would rather play through multiple times with new, different companions than one or two times with 4+ each time.