Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General companions

And what about when you would like to change party members in later game?
Lets say I have full party and I met another recruitable character.
I guess I have an option to remove one of current party members, but after I do that, am I able to recruit again?
And if in starting ACT 1 I guess I can find them in the place I met them for first time or maybe tavern, will I be able to regroup my party in later game (for example ACT 2)?

In DOS companions had their own opinions and personality. If "companion" you mean 2nd created chracter you can give them AI personality in the chracter creation from couple options. I don't remember how many or what they called but there were definetly ai personalities.

It's familiar to mass effect. For example in my last walkthrough I didn't recruit red prience(but talked him on the rock) but he appeared at lady vengeance and talked about a person and i should take him when we go that place. So I assume you don't need to use them actively to do their missions or they gone for forever.

The companions have their own story arcs and they will proceed with their story whether you take them into your group or not... this means you can run into them later and add them to your group later... however it was mentioned that some of them may be enemies with you if they are not in your group early on... and lohse storyline eventually leads to some horrible event that the gods themselves warn you about and tell you to kill her...

so they will have their own story arcs (which will be different if you play as them as your main character since you will be able to choose actions/responses that are different from their default choice)

I cannot understand why a game is seen as "dumbed down" if there is no main hero and party leader. The "hero" and "exceptional sole saviour guy" subject is such a one-sided, boring and overstretched thing that I would be glad for a game without it. I usually don't want to become the leader of this and that. In the EA you already see where it is going in DOS2 and I'm not sure I'm glad about it. Let's wait and see.

In DOS2 the companions are quite strong chars, so there is hope. In the EA in at least two situations some companions can act in a way that totally changes the flow of the events/dialogs I expected. I was very surprised and a bit shocked. It's a good design.

As Inquisition was mentioned elsewhere just now, I'm reminded that a couple of NPCs got a lot of flak mostly because you couldn't brow-beat them into following your point of view, which I found a little surprising. Although I may inevitably play the main character as little more than an avatar of myself, one is enough: I don't need an entire party of me, that would be dull.

I'm also reminded of someone proposing elsewhere that it should be possible to talk around even a character's core personality traits with enough persuasion (I mean obvious stuff that wouldn't ever work) and I couldn't really understand why anyone would really see that as a desirable thing to have.

I think you misunderstood concept.
Main character do not have to be a "hero".

It's just a sticker for a character that is at the heart of the story and makes all the crucial decisions. You do not have to be the chosen one, the secret son of the King or man with amnesia.

Try to compare the books with games.
Have you ever tried to read the novel without the main character? It's nothing great, practically just a chronicle. The same problem is with RPGs that do not have the main character.

Players want create character with whom they can identify. They want to feel that they are at the heart of the story and that they are the ones who make the decision. This is the very foundation of RPG games.

As I wrote earlier, there were a couple of attempts to create an RPG without a main character. Some of these games were very solid tactical combat games, but none of them were really successful because none of them had a good story. It is practically impossible to make a good story without main character.

BUT

It's MORE easier and cheaper to do the game without the main character. That's why a lot of people think that these games are "dumbed down".

One of my main interests is history, and so I'm used to a bunch of actors in a very complicated net of actions. As the great Steven Runciman ecplicitly wrote in the introduction of his book about the Sicilian Vesper, if you cannot deal with a lot of persons, stay away and read a novel (but not necessarily War and Peace perhaps).

A lot of games (and books, but in books you have a lot more chances to add interesting psychological stuff) have boringly similar stories. Because it is so easy to create a story with a main character in focus. Who becomes the leader of x, y and most important z. Because he/she is so special. Oh my.

So, it's maybe easier to make a game without any important character, but it's more complicated to make a game with a bunch of decisive characters than with one main character.

I don't blame the developers of games really for this. There are many limits for the devs because of certain restrictions, rules and needs to be considered. And then the poor devs face a lot of personal bias in addition. I don't like predefined characters for example. I don't want a main character with a strong story. I want to make and play my own character (one of the reasons I don't like The Witcher), but I want to deal with strong NPC characters.

I dunno man, a bunch of books don't actually have a main character, but a cast of characters and they are still entertaining. A Song of Ice and Fire comes to mind, as well as the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Reasonable view.
But if there is no difference between yours character and NPC characters, do you really have your own character? It seems to me that pre-created characters are more "main characters" then your custom made character. They have a detailed story and quests, you have nothing. This is main problem in Original Sin 2.



Only a few authors are able to write a book without the main character (Asimov Isaac was able to do that) and I expected someone to mention A Song of Ice and Fire. But do not mistake the very detailed side characters with main characters. A Song of Ice and Fire has three main characters (John, Daenerys and Night king) and whole story is based on these three characters.

Anyway, it's quite clear why it's like that.
Whole single player experience was (again) "dumbed down" because off multiplayer experience.

It is not possible to create good story with single main protagonist if is game multiplayer oriented.
I wonder how many percentage of players actually play this game online that it paid off destroy the single player experience...

*sigh*

They could make at least a small concession.
Would be really that hard to create something like a button "Redirect all conversations to this character" ?

P.S.
I really, REALLY hope that the companions will have own AI during dialogues related to theirs their Q. If I will have to once AGAIN (biggest bullshit in Original Sin 1) choose dialogue answers for BOTH SIDES then I definitely will not buy the game.