Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Multiplayer Discussion Why is multiplayer so bad?

Why is multiplayer in this game so amazingly terrible? So many other games have gotten this right, how can Larian have gotten it so WRONG after all the fine examples? Quests, Storylines, mixed states of characters... all those problems have been freaking solved! Even a real D&D game can have characters come and go most of the time. Just let characters be removed from the party/save, and when they join again, create a new one at that save point, or better yet, have the option to assign an NPC for friends. There are *sooo* many ways to solve this problem, the fact that Larian chose none of them will probably mean even though this game had an amazing start, it won't have any staying power. People who want to group are going to get frustrated and just bail.

I agree. This game needs MULTIPLAYER changes immediately, or this game will quickly be passed over. Its almost too late already.

"Just let characters be removed from the party/save, and when they join again, create a new one at that save point, or better yet, have the option to assign an NPC for friends."

Bares REPEATING.

The solution MUST allow PARTY LEADER to make decisions, including this one above.

I definitely made some assumptions about how CO-OP works, and I'll admit I have a modicum of experience with CRPGs. I would love for someone at Larian to see this and they make an adjustment to how co-op/multiplayer is handled. If I start a solo game and play, everything is cool. I'm rocking along. I still have the setting on that says "Friends Only." Friend 1 joins into my game. I think (naively) that I could just assign an Origin character to them for that session but I cannot. Friend 1 must make a custom character, or another "Tav." Okay, no problem. They make a custom character and maybe I can give them an Origin character to control later.

I can give them control of another Origin character once they've joined and we can split up who controls what. Great!

We're done for the evening and about to log off, but we can't remove Friend 1's clown-ass-looking-hastily-made-so-we-can-just-spend-a-little-time-together-playing-a-fun-game-bard named Bardtholomew from the party. We can't leave them at camp. Bardtholomew is now permanently part of that branch of the save file. To continue with my group of Tav + 3 Origin Characters I have to reload a previous save file and rerun what Tav and Bardtholomew did. If Friend 1 and I want to play again, I can't just let them pick back up in my save without running into the same problem.

This is a glaring omission for what seems to be a CO-OP encouraging game.

I would like to see a few things:

1. When my friend joins, give me, as host, the option to let them create a character or take an Origin character currently in my party.
2. If my character does create a Tav, please let me leave them at camp like the other Origin characters when they log off.
2a. Worried about where they'll be when not in the party and waiting at camp? Make an outhouse that acts as a stable. You click on the outhouse and the options for which characters are available as Tav's come out when selected and become part of the party. When they're dismissed, they go back in the loo.

Very smart suggestion.

Party lead should ALWAYS have the option to ADD or REMOVE party members.

@Skallenia I was both surprised and disappointed when I discovered that it didn't already work exactly as you suggested.

The thing that baffles me is that DOS1 and DOS2 had pretty well designed drop-in/drop-out coop. Hop in, assign a character(s) to the player, play, they log out, you get control back. Not sure why they didn't do the same thing here.

I'm curious, what exactly is "so bad" about the multiplayer experience aside from the fact that other players can't be removed from the party?

My husband and I are playing a 4-custom game (we each have two custom characters) and are finding the experience thoroughly enjoyable. Of course, we went into it knowing that our party makeup would remain so permanently, and we'd miss out on some NPC stuff. We're both fine with this. I'll experience the NPC stuff on my solo campaign. The only "negative" experience I have is waiting on my husband to decide what to do during combat. He agonizes over his options much more than I do.

Is there something actually bad about the multiplayer experience, or is 100% of the vitriol coming from players being locked in the party?

For my part I dislike the multiplayer experience for the same reason that I disliked it in DOS and DOS2 - the story is fractured by it. If one player goes and talks to an NPC, even in a conversation that advances the story, then other players might miss out entirely on the conversation and never see it. They have to actively join it.

Unfortunately, the group I normally play with includes two people who very much enjoy going rogue and doing things on their own without telling the other players, so when we tried to play BG3 the rest of us were constantly missing out on things and having to try and wheedle information out the rogue players, which is very dissatisfying since we could never get the details, and we always missed the excellent voice acting in the game. (Also the facial animation in this game is superb and we missed that too.)

After two sessions me and another player were so frustrated that we quit and the people in the group each went to play the game solo instead.

I much prefer the way Solasta handles non-vendor conversations where if one player starts talking to an NPC, all the other players' characters are moved to that location and join in the conversation automatically. That makes for a much smoother experience when you are dealing with players who just can't or won't be disciplined enough to involve the rest of the group in important things.

because it wasn't tested

The single player multi-origin experience is also immersion breaking - your MC chats to an NPC, get's whole story. Then another origin party member chats to them and gets he *same* whole story, even though they were standing right there. That is very jarring to me. I assumed that was done for multiplayer? But guess not. If you're all chained and you chat , they really should bring everyone into the conversation and make sure they flag that they have all heard it.

It would also be nice if the person starting the conversation could tag-in other nearby PCs who are better-suited to handling negotiations. i.e. If the rogue scouting for traps, or the burly barbarian braving the front lines stumbles into a conversation, they should have the option to say, "Uh... hey <bard character>, someone wants to talk with you." (This goes for in single-player too.)

Similarly, when our charming but none-too-smart paladin MC is presented with questions regarding Arcana or Nature, it would be nice to get input from other characters who are actually educated in such matters so that the full party is engaged. Why would they NOT consult with Gale or Halsin on such matters if they are standing right there?

Lastly, the notification that a conversation is taking place is needs to be far more visible. For those who game on extra-wide monitors for increased immersion, HUD elements at the periphery of the screen is less noticeable. In the two MP games I'm in, I have yet to be able to spot the dialog indicator without specifically looking over there. An audible tone, a pulsating animation, or a pop-up towards the middle of the screen is really needed so we don't miss out on story content simply because we're unaware it's taking place.

It seems like there should be a toggle option to auto-join any conversation.

In our case we duo, have two monitors and what we do is stream to each other our screens in Discord and have their volume level set a bit lower. So when they start up a conversation I can just look at the other monitor and watch, no ear clicking/missing. It works well.

So what I heard was not that multiplayer itself is bad, but rather, that you're playing with a couple of jerks who are making your play experience bad. That's not the game's fault. I've had tabletop D&D games ruined by people who enjoy annoying other players and ruining their fun. When I was the DM I would try to wrangle that in, and eventually you sometimes just have to eject a player from the campaign if they refuse to play nice with others. It is supposed to be a Co-Op game, after all.



How does that make it bad, exactly?



I admit this would be a great change to the game! On the other hand, my husband and I make frequent use of Quick Save, and just reload and send someone else into the area first if we want to swap who is doing the talking. An inelegant solation to be sure.

For a 2-player game where you're both in the same house that's not a bad approach actually. Unfortunately in my situation (4-player internet games), I could see that quickly becoming time-consuming and contentious.