Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Let's make a strong case for a SIX-SLOTS party.

Well, the title is self explanatory and while I know there have been fragments of discussions about this, I do think it's relevant enough to deserve an entirely dedicated thread.

I would also beg people to stick to proper arguments and spare everyone unnecessary whine or "doom & gloom".
In this thread we don't bitch, we [try to] convince the developers we have a strong case for it and the downsides aren't as bad as they are making them.

So. I've been playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker for the last week or so. I've owned P:K since release, I tried to get into it multiple times. it never clicked with me.
What changed recently? That I've been trying the wonderful mod to implement a turn-based mode.

And this got me thinking... To be honest at this point in time I was basically resigned to Larian's rationalization that they are doing 4 slots for "reasons" (namely, it's easier for multiplayer co-op, etc). but the more I'm playing PK, the more I realize:

- that even with some of their most "busy" and questionably designed areas (I'm looking at you, underground level filled with centipedes every two meters) I've been enjoying the general flow of playing with a party of six a lot.
- that six slots already feels almost a restriction with all the companions you are forced to cut out of the party (by the way I love how PK keeps all of them useful/relevant to an extent even when not in your party during battles).
- that with a four men party once you assign each one of the typical party role (warrior/tank, healer, damage-oriented caster, rogue you are already OUT OF ROOM to be creative with your team composition.


Now, the counter points usually are "But Larian is focusing on a multiplayer mode with four players, six slot won't fly with them".
Well, here's a thing: I don't think their design goals for a 4 players multi are necessarily at odds with leaving six slots for single. How?

- Some EXP rebalance for a FOUR (or hell, even TWO) players mode could solve a lot without even needing to scale/redesign the single encounters.
- They have already in place a mode to let players control more than one character, anyway.
- IF they could also give up on (or make optional) that awkward and ineffective "chain/unchain autofollow system" in favor of a more traditional "click and drag system" (as used in BG1 , 2, IWD 1 and 2, PoE 1 and 2, Kingmaker, etc) they would immediately make EASIER to control a large group.

To elaborate on the last point, let's look closely to what we are talking about.


To move six different characters in six different spots in these games I need to:
1) click on each character
2) click where I want it to go. DONE.
3) To go back to full party? One click and drag or one Hotkey press will make me select all of them again and the party is reunited. BAM. DONE. AGAIN.


- Now, to achieve the same result (in solo) in D:OS 1 and 2 I need to:
1) Select any character I want to move.
2) Drag each character's portrait with a swipe horzantal movement to "unchain" them so they can stop moving automatically following each other.
3) click where I want that character to go.
4) Repeat this process for each one. By the end of the third unchaining and fourth click I'll be finally done with the fine positioning.
5) ....now to move them back I have to still select each one, drag their portrait again over one other, if I want them to follow.
6) God forbid they may be too distant for this to work at first try, so I'll have to manually move them closer to each other.

...Yeah, no wonder managing a six slot party may look almost daunting under these conditions.


So Larian, please, stop creating the very problems you are then struggling to solve (like with your loot/ steep progression system in the past).
Keep the chaining thing for console/controllers where it may work to some extent. STILL, maybe adding a single HOTKEY that can toggle the chain(unchain for the entire party on a single button.

To be honest I am really not bothered if the party is six or four but I do remember in 3.5e you could up your party slots is there something like that in 5e?

As I said, I thought I was over the issue as well.
But then the more I played that other game, the more I realized how much this would be lacking in comparison (well, I mean on this particular aspect).
And the thing is: it doesn't have to. Even Larian people said it isn't exactly set in stone yet, which is why I'm making a last attempt to have a dialogue (mot likely indirect) with them.

At very least they should try to be a bit more convincing about how this is "for the better", especially considered how since the reveal they really haven't been throwing to the "old Baldur's gate purists" a single bone to clutch on.
Maybe a six slots party and a point&click system that doesn't blow is something that can still be achieved.

This probably my opinion. 4 because it's easier and simpler to play on other platforms with controllers it handhelds, tablets?

the idea is to make the game simple and fun and ultimately appeal to casuals? 6 is an overkill number for casuals. 4 is the right number. as you can see most RPGS even AAA go with 4.

too complicated and too many things to handle is difficult for casuals. hence turn-based also indirectly give casuals a slower pace to think and act

A party of 4 is not simply a party of 4. You have to count all the summons and pets and all other adds each possible party member can bring to the table. Which can extend the party size to over 8 (if one caster can have both summons and familiar at the same time for example). So the more party members you add to party composition, the more it gets chaotic and lengthly to play battles, because it's turn based and everyone has to play a round.

In that sense, I think a party of 4 is way better than 6, especially as mentioned above for casuals and new players to the genre.

I for one would rather have myself and maybe one other. I've always liked it streamlined like that, no fussing about with all the other NPC and there gear ... combat blah.

Four party members is more than I would like in a video game, PnP give me a full crew. ( And no Im am not trying to derail your tread by making this a TB or real time combat ) but honestly Im curious how long it will take with 4 party member and say 5 or 6 enemy monsters let alone 6 party members to just finish a round. No keep it at 4 or give us the option to opt out of playing with Npc I could go for that.

Not sure if you played DOS2. The time will be roughly the same as DOS2. Unless you play custom mercenaries, I doubt you going to have 5 or 6 monsters. Also those summons won't last long. Possibly just a few turns and they are lackluster in level scaling.

You have to keep resummon in DOS2. If there's limited number of casts then you can't resummon.

I like this thread so lets start with my first and personal reason.

1). My "gamer group" consists of 5 people. This means that 1 person will have to sit out. Awkward and not ideal. Not sure how we'll solve this honestly. But perhaps we wont have to solve anything because there will be a mod in place at launch. One of the pros with EA I guess. Unless there wouldnt be support for it but I cant imagine why there would be some hardcoded block.

2). Pathfinder: Kingmaker was elevated to my GOAT list with the turn-based mod. The mod also allows for switching between RTwP and TB and the only time I turned it off was when there are too many clusters of more or less harmless enemies. The mod screws with the balance though, as some fights become too easy when you can line up Grease and other CC with milimeter precision. But that aside, I never felt as having 6 players (as opposed to 4) was jarring in anyway, I enjoyed every moment of every fight.

3). We wont convince Larian of anything if 4 player is their vision of the game. Its like with the Turn-Based Absolutists, they just have to accept that BG3 will be turn-based and thats that. But if its not, the ideal solution would simply be to scale EL with party size (just like in PnP!). I wonder how many extra hours of fine-tuning and balancing comes with that though.

4). Larger party size means more variety. I'll give an example from Spiderweb games: The old "Exile" games had 6 players and the new "Avernum" HD remakes you can only have 4. And if you want the Tank, Archer, Healer, Wizard, Rogue and the archetype "Swings a Huge Sword" you cant. Maybe this was the thought behind the 6-man party back in the day? I know there were games with 4 members too (or more) but it 6 seems to have been the standard. This always feel like I'm missing something, like OK I guess I'll make the rogue the archer and the sword-and-board guy will have to heal. But it just not great, you know? Another byproduct of this is loot: you'll vendor so much shiny treasure and thats just sad.

One could argue it's exactly why a 4 members party is better, because it's more challenging. Not having the holy 6 present in your party goes for more strategic thinking as to which skills are more important than others for the next fight, making it more interesting during camp sessions for players like me who enjoyed a party of 2 in a DOS2 hardcore difficulty campaign.

Being challenging or not is all about how you balance your encounters. It has hardly anything to do with the number of "mobile parts" involved.

Anyway, the point of this thread is not to discuss if a four men party could work. We know it could. In fact ANY number could work with appropriate tuning. Not sure how many here remember that you could play BG2 (a "six-slots party" game) with any number of characters in your party, even in SOLO, because the exp gain scaling would automatically make up for any gap.
This thread about what makes it better (for me and I guess other people): the far greater variety of party composition it allows. These two extra slots are precisely what would make any party really unique.

Oh there is no doubt about that. My arguement was mainly about the enjoyment of having all bases covered, so to speak. Another type of gameplay is soloing, which I also enjoy, but thats purely for the challange and "breaking the game".

Stating that 6 slots allows to have all the main different skills from classes and then saying it makes it unique is a complete nonsense. Because it makes every single 6 slots group the same. And so you will always bring the same party no matter the encounter.

You create diversity by forbidding to have all the skills, not by allowing them all. But whatever, as apparently I am off topic.

I have no idea what are you even trying to say at this point. It seems like you are arguing for the sake of arguing, honestly.

The unarguable fact I'm pointing is: when you have six slots to decide your party composition, that gives you A LOT more freedom to decide how to compose a group, because you can cover basic roles and still have room to decide what these extra two slots may be filled with (one more caster of a different school? A two tanks frontline setup? An archer? A bard? etc, etc).

What you are arguing for on the other hand is... Beat me, I have no idea what you are arguing for, actually. Aside for being antagonistic for the sake of it, I mean.
It sounds like you are claiming that more slots make all parties similar, but that would be completely nonsense.

No it's exactly the opposite. The more party members you have, the easier you will find a comfort zone and in the end you will always bring the same party on your adventure, no matter the encounter. The more slots you have, the least diverse the game becomes. It becomes just a boring rinse and repeat.

That's quite the short sighted take. Especially since there are WAY more classes and subclasses in D&D that any party would ever allow to fit in one go.

Also, opinions matter only to a certain extent in the face of facts, and a fact is that the possible number of combinations between six variables is exponentially greater that the number of combinations between four.
It's basic math, not semantics.

Of course, unless the game only had six companions/characters to begin with, which would be entirely disappointing on its own, regardless of the party size limits.

It continues to amaze me how self-centered so many people can be. An option for increasing party size is exactly that: an option. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. All the talk of "challenge" is nonsense. Not everyone sees challenge in the same things. Far from making the game more challenging, a smaller party size only serves to take away a HUGE amount of enjoyment from the game for me. Going from 6 to 4 literally means a 33% reduction of fun and enjoyment for me.

I have usually disagreed with the OP, but on this issue I agree 100%.

You... did?
About what? Because I can't really remember interacting with you and it's not like I talked about too many topics on this forum, to begin with.
Unless you are a big fan of randomized loot. In that case you are as good as DEAD to me.

fuck casuals and fuck tablets

BG 1 and 2 had a 6 slot party

Let's move on from this particular rationale. Nothing good ever comes of blaming Teh Casuals, it always generates more heat than light.

I agree that 4 slots leaves pretty much no room for customization. You need a melee warrior, a lockpicker or trap-finder, an offensive caster and a healer. There's not enough room.

Multiclassing to fix holes is also insufficient because the level cap of 10 means that there can be little development of the additional class. It takes three levels for a class to get its specialization.



I'm going to disagree with this. Summons - by design - are weak and not the equivalent of full party members. Creating any summoned creatures costs a spell slot, which you can't replenish in combat. It's not like DoS 2 where you could summon freely thanks to the replenishing AP and cooldowns (and additional memory slots).



That's completely and totally backwards. There simply isn't enough variety available with just four slots in the party. This isn't DoS 2 where everyone can spec freely between classes, you are restricted in what you can do.



Again, this is nonsense and completely backwards. It's not having 6 slots available which will make every single group the same: only having 4 slots available will make every single group the same.