I would think hirelings might be different from custom party by 2 things:
- no tadpole
- maybe exchangable in camp

Both are clearly just assumptions.


Yeah... I'm looking forward to play the game and I love how enthusastic the devs are - I know how they feel about their own project - at the same time I've yet not seen anything to regain confidence into the game. Mechanics and mood of the game are simply off for me. Yes, my group and I also have fun at the table and don't take everything seriously, but table tops also don't have the level of immersion of video games in that regard, so my expectations are different. Its not just me desparately trying to convey a whole cast of NPCs for my players, they have put so much effort into motion and voice capture but all the drama stands next to 'shove' and 'bear sex' or other silliness that constantly creeps up. For me I can't take anything seriously in the game, there is a very hard disconnect between the topics they bring up and the presentation. I honestly have not felt anything about any quest or character in the story so far, which is disappointing since in other games I rarely had such apathy towards these things.


I think the game has made a lot of progress in representation compared to most of the other games out there. The team is working very hard to include everyone. Yet there are again these Larian issues... you can create your own character, but why don't you try one of our own? Or at least this in-between-murderhobo? How shall we believe that the same effort was put into making Tav feel as full as an experience as those? In the end its personal preference, but I don't see myself even using the origin characters as companions at this point.


I really, really hope that once the game is out and experienced in full I will see its real strength that distracts me from the issues I have with it from early access. I would love for it to be as convincing as I thought it would be when I got it back then even though it might be very different from what I expected. Maybe there is a really good RPG game that overshadows all the issues people rightfully mentioned again in this thread. It would be fantastic if it was the case.