Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Suggestion: Don't lock the party after Act 1

I was fine when they mentioned that you would lock your companions in after act 1, and I kind of still am, but after playing I definitely see good reasons to scrap that idea and let us keep them all at our camp. Not only is it quite obvious it'll be easy to drive them away with the wrong dialogue choices, but having those extra companions I can switch out is actually incredibly beneficial. I don't know if it's a story-driven decision to lock you into those companions or what but if it's not too late this is something that should be reconsidered.

Well so that's enough reason for additional origin characters or party members in itself. That will result in even fewer options.

I do not mind locking your party as long as there is a story reason to do this.
Does nobody trust the development team? When they said you had to commit after act 1, I assumed this is due to something big happening.
That said, I would strongly be against locking the party just for the sake of it.

+1 - some possible ea spoilers and sorry for the rambling

having your available origin companions 'lock' after a certain point in of itself i dont necessarily think is a bad thing, i just dont think the way larian is planning on implementing it is the best approach ie. locking in the party at the end of Act 1

(as an aside - i also dont think im a fan of 'act maps' - i would like being able to travel back to the druid grove or ruins after i have progressed the story a bit if i missed somethings initially, in the og bg among the seven chapters you could explore the world as you wanted [solo, or with any number of party slots filled, including 4/6 or 6/6] with some time sensitive plot points true, but overall you could make and take the story at your own pace, further cementing it as a story about your pc. having act maps seems just another odd system design limiting character choice and agency - unless there is a strong story/plot element, which frankly, im not really getting with the ea play so far as (spoilers) it seems you either decimate the druids or goblins and go from there but i may be mistaken. while i think the tadpole plot is a interesting dynamic to explore, i dont necessarily feel all that special if all my recruitable act 1 companions and multiple other npcs also have the tadpoles and makes me see the pc currently just as just another guy. furthermore, and maybe i may just not have run into this yet in ea, but if we are so concerned about this tadpole eating our brain why are we able to cheese long rests?...just some tangential rambling)

if they still want to lock the companions i actually think larian would be better served implementing a party lock later on during the story as the first act seems too soon in the narrative in that we wont be able to really explore these origin characters larian spent so much time/resources to create to make an informed decision as to what we want our party to be like for the remaining acts, especially when it sounds like the origin stories really wont be explored until we get to BG. Personally, i think for inspiration larian should look more towards how character choice impacted the party and gameplay as it was done in ME/ME2 or some other rpgs (currently locking after Act1 feels very dos2 - hesitant to say that, bc while i enjoyed dos2 i felt that feature was one of the weaker points).

idk if this is taboo to talk about, but specifically for ME/ME2, you were given the chance to learn and work more with your companions (while also recruiting a good number of them over the course of the whole game) to build that rapport that would give more weight/impact to tough decisions you made more towards the ends of the game. also, i think its just another odd game decision to lock your origin companions so early when larian expounds on how much effort/resources are put into creating these characters only for us to essentially lock us out part of the story early on - idk, seems like not the best use of resources, but thats just my interpretation. and while i understand some ppl may say its for replayability, i just dont see that connection as you could still choose to hold off on any origin character content you didnt want to experience until future playthroughs with out mandating that players have to essentially opt out of certain gameplay. and frankly if i want to do another playthrough id say is more bc i want to fire up a new player character and that trying new origin companion content should just be supplemental to a new player character play through at that point, but i also think that the concept of an origin character in of itself doesnt really mesh well with a bg game where the player created character is supposed to shine as the star. to add to that, i dont necessarily feel all that connected to these origin characters when they just sit back and let a mind flayer eat my brain, but thats another topical discussion (and for those of you who say that you didnt have a pc in ME you had shep, while true, it was also your own shep whose backstory, gender, look, and decisions you decided on during the game. added benefit that shep had their own VO also makes me wish this was a feature implemented in bg3 - kinda a let down to almost never hear the pc's actually voice selection during dialogue)

tbh, the more i play the more i scratch my head on how the systems in this bg game seem to limit player agency/choice more than give us options (ie limiting the party after act1/no optional party size, limitations in character creation options - ex. full customization options regardless & y no alignment? [unless your a cleric?? and i cant be an evil elven cleric of the archeart that pulls some Altmer elder scrolls inspiration?], no current choice to roll for stats or selecting standard array/point buy. optional first level feat, the option to just leave or attack for every dialogue encounter, choosing starting equipment - all these would increase player choice, and i get some of these will likely be covered by mods, but i think letting larian know there is a demand/market for such functions will only work to improve the game)

just my thoughts - thx!

Agreed with OP.

Plus Larian have not said what happens post the lock right?!
I mean for all we know, there are further companions to be picked up later on, you know, ones without the tadpole perhaps? Could be that locking in the Act 1 characters are all about who survive and who go on to errr a different path!!

As always, we are just speculating on little information, that's ok, but we shouldn't get too wrapped up in either direction, i.e. no need to get too upset or overly fanciful, because right now we only have a snippet of info.

Very well put, OP. Those are most of the reasons why I think it's a terrible decision. Fully agree.

Totally agree with all of your points. I want to address few things in this thread. Some major spoilers for Divinity: Original Sin 2 and surprisingly for Mass Effect 2:

Arbitrarily locking your party Vs party members leaving because of your choices - the later is more than ok, it makes sense. If you did something that a certain party member was against so much he doesn't want to keep traveling with you, it's fine. It makes the party members more believable as characters and emphasize their personalities. And it is a real consequence, it is a direct result of your choices. But when you arbitrarily remove all but three of your companions there is no real choice or way to remedy it. You strip choice from the player, make the companions a stupid NPC's that has no control over their fate and break immersion.

Someone mentioned me2 and I think me2 is a GOOD example of how to do companions deaths. First of all it happens in the end of the game, and secondly it is based on your choices during the game and in the final mission.

Divinity Original Sin 2 and why I really don't trust Larian in this aspect of game design. I wrote about it briefly here on the forum but it deserves a more organized summary: divinity Original Sin 2 handling of companions was the worst I ever seen in an RPG video game, and it looks like the companions design actively sabotaged the narrative.
At the end of act 2, right before you enter the temple to fight over who ascend to divinity, you have to talk with all of your companions since all of them are potential rivals in this fight. If you treated them well throughout the game, they will side with you, but if you ignored them and didn't do their quests they will fight you for Divinity. Sounds awesome right? It is, except 3 of your potential companions died much earlier in the game in a very silly and senseless way. But Larian wanted to eat the cake and leave it whole, so they made the three dead companions into zombies and made them fight you anyway. This decision is one of the most stupid decisions I have ever seen in a narrative driven video game. I can't think of any explanation for aside from "Larian wanted you to commit" and I'm pretty sure this decision was done without involving the writing stuff until later into development. The only other possible explanation is that initially the companions were supposed to continue with until the end of act 2 but they changed it at the last moment. Otherwise I can't explain this terrible writing.

This is my problem with their insistence on "committing" to a party. They did it so poorly in dos2 that I have no reason to believe they will do it right this time. Just stupid

Agreed with OP. I don't want to lose their stories because I have to choose based on their class.

I agree with the OP. A locked party would be the kiss of death for an RPG series that has always been about experimentation and choice.

Is locking the party an actual thing? That would be lame.

It has been heavily hinted. the developers said that by the end of act 1 you "would have to commit" like its some kind of magic excues for stupid game design.

Again, speculation runs both ways.

It could "JUST" lock down which of the starting companions you keep and which ones you don't, but I seriously doubt that at the end of Act1 there will be an arbitrary lock which means no other potential companions worth meeting in the later acts!
Sorry, that seems far fetched.

Companions die, your decisions might cause current companions to leave... I do not see us being "stuck" with our choice of 3 companions for the rest of the game.

I could be wrong, but until more info / or the game itself comes out, we both simply don't know.

Personally, I enjoy doing as many of the companion's stories as I can, so I go back throughout the game and take different party members to see their stories and play through everything possible.

I prey to god I'm wrong but based on what happened in DOS2 I really think this is the direction. The good news is this was remedied in DOS2 with mods so it might be possible here as well.

I think it depends on how it's written. If it's just like "oh well we're going somewhere and you guys can't come," that'd be bad. If it's some well written dilemma that involves real choice, I think I'll be okay with it.

I wrote about it above but in short - don't hold your breath.

The characters who approve our actions the least could decide to go their own ways. This could be a problem for chaotic characters gathering approval randomly.

But why though?

It is Larians decisions. I was merely trying to think of a somewhat plausible explanation. Something that is a bit better than "Half of your group went missing for some reason. Now continue, nothing to see here"
Lae'zel would grow impatient at some time if she is not part of the group often. If Larian absolutely wants to fix the group at 4 after act1, there should be some party interaction to explain it.