Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
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+1

I too believe that the party size is limiting in the combination of potential characters. I have yet to use either Wyll or Astarious as I am using a custom Rogue and need the talents of a cleric, a wizard and a fighter.

It is surprising that you can add Scratch to your camp but can't get him as an animal companion, obviously I haven't created a Ranger so I'm not sure if you go down the beast master route tou can add him into the party.

Hopefully as other classes are added the party size will be increased. This is the first Larian game I've played and visually it is great but the party size constraints are a real detriment...

Last edited by Sollace; 10/10/20 05:30 PM. Reason: Forgot the +1
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I'm guessing that it's why Larian are giving such heavy emphasis on the fact that this is early access. Hopefully the interaction between customers and Larian will live up to the hype and they'll take on this comment and work an acceptable solution into the game, this will hopefully help to redress the imbalance in encounters in the early stages of the game... Let's not forget that the AI seems to be expert in maxing the abilities of any foes in combat whereas some of us players are trying to get to grips with the combat mechanics of the game especially when the foes are generally outnumbering the player party and in some cases have more HP too.

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+1

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Playing two player right now.
Me: A fighter
Player 2: A Ranger

we pick up Cleric and Mage companions and then run into the Rogue aaaaannnddd.... we would have to kick out the mage or cleric to get the rogue. I felt a lot more dejected about this than maybe I should have, but not having a rogue, cleric and mage in the party seems like a fail party and yet we can't have all three unless we made our char as one of them. It just feels way too limited.

So yeah, give us at least the option for 6 in a party. If as OP says, you balance the game around 4, thats fine, assuming you put in more than 1 difficulty setting, people with 6 can just crank it up to make up for it.

Also pointing out that there is pretty much no reason not to just add 6 in as a feature (if not the default) because obviously modders are going to make it a priority to get 6 in if Larian doesn't; so if you know it is what a significant number of people want, then just let us have it.

Last edited by Matey; 10/10/20 10:14 PM.
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-1

Adding a dissenting voice here. You do not "need" a mage / cleric / any one role in a game based on the 5e system. The difference between a party of 4 and party of 5 is massive and will trivialize most encounters in a way that cannot be fixed by simply adding more HP. A party of 6 in this game would be preposterous.

You can heal by eating food (let alone by resting essentially at any time for free), and the game is much more combat focused than a traditional session of D&D where skills and utility spells are not nearly as significant. There is much less need here for a balanced party that covers all possible bases than there is in D&D 5e, which is already very forgiving in terms of party composition needs.

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Originally Posted by PumatsHole
-1

Adding a dissenting voice here. You do not "need" a mage / cleric / any one role in a game based on the 5e system. The difference between a party of 4 and party of 5 is massive and will trivialize most encounters in a way that cannot be fixed by simply adding more HP. A party of 6 in this game would be preposterous.

You can heal by eating food (let alone by resting essentially at any time for free), and the game is much more combat focused than a traditional session of D&D where skills and utility spells are not nearly as significant. There is much less need here for a balanced party that covers all possible bases than there is in D&D 5e, which is already very forgiving in terms of party composition needs.


Literally none of the objections you are posting is actually related to the mechanic of having six party members.
With the only possible exception of "needing to rebalance encounters" which as already said at least a dozen times is a bogus complaint since most of them are not finalized anyway and it will take a lot of rebalancing in any case.
.


Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
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I would just like to add another voice in the pro for the option of more companions. I think now would be the time to implement that so things can be rebalanced around it. It would then be even more of a challenge for the die hards that really like playing the game as a solo act, and people could still do 4 if they wanted, but having at least 5 would give more options in combat without having to try to make due without a rogue/mage/cleric. Or we could just have everyone be bards so all things are possible! wink


Reality is Merely and Illusion, Albeit a very persistant one - Albert Einstein
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I was surprised too at only 4

This was the main reason none of the various "spiritual successors" to BG ever really lived up. In NWN you just had henchmen and that blew. In Dragon Age you only had 4, but it didn't matter cause it wasn't really D&D anyway and they only had a few core classes there. Skyrim back to henchmen concept. Pillars, sure, but again not D&D. Everyone always drops the ball on this one.

6 is the magic number for this game
Full party combat
D&D setting Faerun

I'd hazard that's what everyone from my gen has wanted since Neverwinter, but somehow one of those planks hasn't made the final cut in any iteration since Icewind Dale. Its baffling


ps. when its built around 6 you have a simple way to scale up the difficulty quickly for players that want a more hardcore playthrough, since they could play with just a party of 3 or 4 and still get all the enjoyment of trying to strategize their way through combats with a smaller crew that way. I don't see how it lengthens combat with more companions or anything of that sort. Its just a matter of how they choose to scale the combat difficulty. If you build it for a party of 4, then going to 5 or 6 is a pain in the ass after the fact. If you build it for 6, then going down to 4 or 5 feels like monster mode and is fun. Nobody is ever going to grumble that its not a party of 7 hehe. It also makes replay more appealing too, if you want to try and solo and the like with a higher lvl character. Or try things out with a B team roster. All things that make me think of the BG model


pps. the 6 person party in BG was a call back to earlier games from the late 80s into the 90s like Might and Magic III and Xeen or Eye of the Beholder and Pools of Radiance, and that's one of the reasons it was so rad when BG dropped originally. There's just a feel to the full party of 6 that makes it all more Epic.

Like a legit legendary book of artifacts level campaign. You hit the big time when you need 6 to pull it off lol. That's all I'm saying. Don't settle for 5, go the for the Dragon's Orb!!!
6


Last edited by Black_Elk; 11/10/20 12:47 AM.
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+1

The party of 6 just feels right when adventuring. additionally i have a suggestion that comes from experience on Stellaris of all things: Give us the option to create characters that can be forced into the world (in a selection of early random spots maybe). Maybe you could create a collection of different characters that you like and have a randomised spawn for an extra bit of spice in re-playability. Perhaps a limit of two extra player created characters would be enough to still allow plenty of origin stories to be enjoyed along the way. It would mean very little in extra commitment from the devs on dialogue and origin backstories, while also allowing us to put together the group we imagine might be interesting to use. I'm a warlock lover, so i need as many character slots as possible to get my lock in play without feeling like i am missing out on the basics of good group structure.

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The tabletop recommends a party size of 4, and in the turn based system, trash encounters would become a slog if they were balanced for 6 players, since they would have to add more mobs in each encounter to compensate.

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As of now I'm finding most trash mobs a slog with a 4 character party because even at level 4 only my fighter is capable of consistently taking out a 10hp goblin with less than 2 hits. I'd say I'm dealing with a character getting downed in about 60% of combats and that makes things feel even worse because now I have to scramble to help them, hope they can heal before gettign downed again and then going back to attacking. Without changing anything else about the difficulty, a fifth party member would bring the experience down to being manageable, with trash mobs actually being trash mobs because as it stands my experience of a "trash mob" in this game has a decent chance of being a TPK if I'm not really stretching my strategic muscles. And a boss combat in this game? At this point I'm taking it as a given that I'll definitely die at least once.

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+1

I understand there are arguments for a 4 man party max, having to do with encounter length and people apparently having trouble keeping up with managing 6 characters and their abilities. At least some such arguments were being made when Pillars of Eternity wanted to cut down the party from 1 to 2. Also there is and argument for wanting to limit the tools a party has at their disposal to encourage creative solutions to problems and Larian seem to like that kind of thing. But the truth is this will lead to pretty much every party being the same utility based one with 1 healer 1 rogue and the other 2 switching depending on the PC class.

6 characters wont take away the utility party problem entirely. Even with Baldur's Gate 1&2 There is always high pressure to have at least the healer and rogue. But atleast 6 party members leaves some slack there to play with.

Now BG3 is obviously turn based which makes the encounter length problem more prominent than in the real time with pause titles. But I would rather leave this up to the player and perhaps inform the player that with a bigger party combats will likely take longer.

I disagree with the OP about just plonking in the option for 6 party members without any balance considerations. I'd actually prefer a tweakable difficulty with the option for the player to increase the amount of enemies in combat situations. Give the player some of the DM's balancing power so to speak. I recently played BG1 again and I was kinda sad that I could not simply increase enemy amounts and would have been forced to also give them more health. I wanted core rules but with a bit more enemies.

Ofcourse this also puts a bit more pressure for having more companions. BG1 had tons, and I'm still not sure I've ever met them all. BG1 companions were also super simple with just a few combat barks and no dialogue. So it is going to require way more resources from Larian to add a full fledged companion. Pros and cons.

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The thing with 4 characters is that you are kinda forced to take specific members. In my playthrough I feel forced to take Shadowheart, Astarion and Lae'zel because they add something I need like a frontliner and healer and a rogue that can lockpick and find traps. But I would really rather hang around with Wyll and Gale which are much more nice and friendly and interesting to me. But in a way I feel I can't because then combat and exploration will be really really hard.

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+1
I agree, 5/6 party size would be better because more characters to interact with, more diverse party composition and more freedom, flexibility and creativity when creating a balanced party.

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Originally Posted by tieboyx
The tabletop recommends a party size of 4, and in the turn based system, trash encounters would become a slog if they were balanced for 6 players, since they would have to add more mobs in each encounter to compensate.


"The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventureres... If the party contains six or more characters, use the next lowest multiplier on the table." - Page 83 D&D Dungeons Master's Guide

5e considers 4-5 to be standard while 6 or more being optional, totally up to the players and DM for party size. So Larian at the very least can give us max 5 party members if they're being picky with the rules. The reason why many players want the option (keyword option), is because it was an option in the original BG 1 and 2. This is a Baldur's Gate game, doesn't matter who's developing it. I also would like to mention that many official WofC D&D adventure modules of both current and past editions are geared for 4-5 and 4-6 players.

I don't know how much more literal I can get with actual sources. I don't understand the issue of not favoring max 6 party members as an option.

I understand it's going to take "resources" to balance and tweak the game but Larian has both the time and resources.

How and why is this a problem?

Last edited by MasterRoo09; 11/10/20 11:44 AM.
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I run as a rogue, although I would have preferred to play a ranger, but I knew of the 4 party limit, so I figured that a rogue will come in handier. I was not aware that you can have sort of hybrids that can act in other ways. This is cool. But we can face the obvious truth, only a small minority knows enough to exploit all or even most of the possibilities. Larian in BG3 is also particularly bad at communicating to the player what is possible, while also giving you the standard composition right from the start. So the vast majority will just choose the way of the least resistance and effectively be locked out of a large portion of the game.
This does include party banter and interaction, but also a lot of synergy and gameplay interactions. So your mage/ranger can unlock most doors? A bard can fill multiple roles, as spellcaster, supporter or damage dealer? You can have multiple actions in one turn or totally substitute certain primary roles with clever skilling and leveling or the heavy use of consumables and resources that are yet unclear and complicated to handle/refill? Cool, I had no idea and that is why I solely use my fighter, rogue, mage, cleric combo, because I do not know enough as I am not told and shown enough.

So, as a casual dude, I am pretty limited in my playstyle. Giving me another character to dabble with would allow me to discover more synergies by myself or play doubled roles differently.

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I agree please up the the Party size to like 5 or 6, My big issue is that having a healer, you are ether forced to take Shadowheart or become the one with the healing magic. and as such with only 4 slots to work with you have NO wiggle room to customize your party. As it is ( I have not finished the First act yet) but I am not a fan of the Character Shadowheart at least not if I am wanting to play the good hero, as she gets mad at me every time I am trying to help people.
With a party of 5 you can actually do something with it, having the ones you like plus the healer Shadowheart, Or having more companions to choose from. As it is two of them are kinda just angry and supper aggressive to the player character and what seems to be no real reason. I really like the game so far in how it plays ect. I would Just like to have more companions to choose from and PLEASE up the party size, 4 is just not enjoyable to me and makes playing what I would like to play really hard.

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+1

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There are some encounters with 10 or so enemies, including archers spamming bombs.

It doesn't seem like the combat is designed around 4 players. 4 vs 10. They aren't even one shot unless u wanna use big spells every turn like guiding bolt. And no I don't want every fight for me to be some cheese or me min maxing to get the most advantage and maybe resting every fight. The overall balance is kinda fucky atm.

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