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I doubt it would require that much effort from Larian to adjust the game engine to handle 6 character groups. If a modder with no access to the source code can enable it for D:OS2 then I'm sure Larian can manage it for BG3 as well.
Not sure what they have planned for the story though and how having a 6 character party would affect that. But hopefully we will get some clarification from them soon. This is a popular topic after all.

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Originally Posted by Tuco


I meant more the internal panels (inventory, equipment and so on) rather than the basic UI, but still, thanks for the screen.

from reddit

https://imgur.com/a/PLaS50O#PSmcfxK

little late, but. its scales pretty fine, so not problem here for larian i think


Last edited by arion; 22/10/20 06:06 PM.
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I thik we should at last try it ...
Especialy when the world is still young and adaptable.


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
I thik we should at last try it ...
Especialy when the world is still young and adaptable.


I agree with that.
It would be complicated to try it later.


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Originally Posted by Black_Elk
Baldur's gate is the most replayed D&D CRPG of all time

It had 25 recruitable companions and a full party of 6 members.

In terms of the possible party combinations, the "25 recruitable companions" is the more important part of the equation than the 6 member party cap, but they are both relevant.

As pointed out earlier in this thread there are many more combinations available with the cap at 6 than there are with the cap at just 4, provided we have a decent number of total companions available. The number of combinations practically doubles when going from 4 to 6 if the total number of companions is raised to say 10 rather than just the 5 currently available. This increases even more dramatically again if we go from a possible 10 companions to say 15 or 20 companions in the roster.

Right now initial impressions are being based on the 5 recruit-able companions currently available in EA, and a full party of 4 members. But there's no way it could end up just being 5 companions or just one or two beyond that thrown in later as some have suggested. That would be a crazy hard fail from the team holding the crown right now. They'd need like a dozen companions just for it to even hold a torch to the epic glory of BG1. So I fully expect them to double or triple the number of companions by the time this thing goes live just to do it justice by the BG standard. I mean they got what, a dozen writers on it? Seems about right.

It makes sense for Larian to tease them in smaller numbers like this too, so that their EA can focus on the party interactions/compositions they feel need the most feedback, and probably more importantly to give us a reason to keep tuning in when they drop their larger patches to expand the content. But there are bound to be a lot more companions, and if that's the case, a full party of 6 is going to give a huge amount of variety in party composition over just 4... even accounting for a few companion pairings that might not be compatible long term without things coming to blows inside the camp.

There are plenty of amazing ways to make an awesome 4 person game by design, or to make a game with only 2 characters when the goal is a Kurvitz style masterpiece. But we're not taking about just any game. This is the heavy weight title we're talking about! This is Baldur's Gate III

It really should be trying to distill the essence of what made the other two preceding titles so rad, and part of that was the variety of possible party compositions. I just can't see the logic that says giving us fewer characters in our group somehow gives us more choices, or better or more interesting choices. it just doesn't pencil for me. Closes off more doors than it opens and diminishes the replay in the long run. Creating a party building vibe that's concordant with the previous titles in the franchise, and building it out with those kinds of limits in mind is what I'd dig.

I really think the party of 4 is going to become more problematic later on, when the encounters scale to epic territory. This is why a lot of us are hearing the internal alarm bells sounding, and trying to argue for a fix now, while there is time to fix it. I mean we definitely expect a game with a Dragon combat or two eventually right? That's going to be a lot harder to pull off in style with just 4, while still maintaining a classically epic sensibility. I mean unless the plan is just to toss us a bunch of non controllable friendlies? This seems to be the go-to approach in many of these EA battles right now, and maybe it works alright when there are narrative reasons (like "the Blade of Frontiers!" sounding his horn, or NPCs that are part of the story) but as a player I feel less invested in the encounter when this is overused. I'd rather have a party of 6 that I can fully control and really work to defeat the opposing crew, than half a dozen random friendlies appearing in every other encounter, just to serve as fodder so that the combats can be balanced by teams/sides.

Just like a good DM, a good difficulty setting in the options should allow everything in these encounters to scale, whether the player elects to cruise with 6 people or just 4.

But still, if you really want it to hit the nostalgia button and go for broke, I'm chanting 6 6 6! Even though I know I said I'd tap out, the gravitational pull of this thread just seems inexorable for me lol







well said, I'm expecting at least 12 origin characters at launch, one for each class and if there aren't more people able to be recruited in later chapters I will be extremely disappointed.

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Originally Posted by nizanegusa
i am obviously in the minority here but i actually like smaller parties more.
my sweet spot is probably 3.
just wanted to add my opinion.

Your opinion is totally valid and I champion the choice to play the way you want. In most CRPGs be it Dragon Age, D&D, Pathfinder or D:OS anyone who likes to play with a more compact and refined party as all the tools at their disposal to do so and that is great, I just wish that developers would consider giving people who like a bigger party an option to play how they want as well.
Originally Posted by Black_Elk
Its been brought up before but just to highlight that when there is a party of 6 players you also get more opportunities to play different equipment or spell loadouts. I think it'd be particularly nice for spells and arcane casters esp since it makes preparing utility spells more viable. Right now they really need to focus on dmg but if you have like another wizard or bard in the group you can have one dude wrecking fire balls and another with like abjuration or going illusion style.

With 6 there is more room to redupilcate class but with a different focus, after the core 4 the fifth and sixth slot is where the party variety comes into play.

The prob with everyone can do everything, is that you have to long rest and change loadouts constantly if you want to try something off key. So instead you just go with whatever is most OP for that archetype.

In BG1 by the time you got to the Friendly Arm inn you had Charname, plus Imoen and Montaron/Xzar pairing. The Khalid and Jaheira pairing came soon as you got to the Inn. These were cool because they were already grouped together. So you had the Harpers or Zhents choice pretty early and a reason sometimes to see one chunked with amusing one liners from the other companion.

There was just way more gameplay nuance involved in selecting a party composition and who to ditch or switch. In the Beregost area you could pick up a Bard or another Fighter. There was a Ranger or Cleric just outside town. By the time you reached the mines you had already encountered like a dozen possible companions. That's the vibe that's missing right now for me with only 4.



+1 This is why I'm hoping for more recruitable companions in later chapters, it was always so much fun to build your team over the course of the game.

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Originally Posted by Sir Sparhawk

+1 This is why I'm hoping for more recruitable companions in later chapters, it was always so much fun to build your team over the course of the game.



I truly hope so. If Larian have us pick our 3 companions during chapter 1 and then lock us to those 3 companions for the rest of the game , then the 4 character party limit will feel even worse.

Last edited by Peranor; 23/10/20 05:06 PM.
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I really do hope that if they increase the party limit size we could get some better party controls and group jump.

Because currently the party managing thing, lock/unlock stuff from DOSII is just annoying.

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I'd love party size to be increased to 5 (or 6, though that really is quite a bit for a game like this). I believe that Wizards of the Coast has said that the typical D&D party is 1 DM and 5 players, on average. For that reason I'd like to see a bigger party (because that is what I see at my tables).

That said - in 5e you don't "need" certain classes in the same you did in the last 2 editions. In 5e, you even have multiple options for a "healer" character - cleric, druid, bard, paladin and even Sorcerer and Warlock (if you use options from Xanathar's Guide like the Celestial warlock patron). A "tank" role can be filled by lots of classes, including some Clerics and Monks. Most classes are capable of high damage.

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5 would be perfect: tank/healer/rogue/wizard/whatever you wanna be


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Originally Posted by Peranor
Originally Posted by Sir Sparhawk

+1 This is why I'm hoping for more recruitable companions in later chapters, it was always so much fun to build your team over the course of the game.



I truly hope so. If Larian have us pick our 3 companions during chapter 1 and then lock us to those 3 companions for the rest of the game , then the 4 character party limit will feel even worse.


Sorry, I missunderstood smile

Last edited by Maximuuus; 23/10/20 08:23 PM.

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+1 - but 5 it's ok.
(look like PoE-II)

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+1

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TBH the amount of different characters you can choose from matters but the max amount of companions within the party straight up doesn't matter after me. Yes, storywise it helps since you can have more interactions in there and between the characters.

But on the mid-maxing side of things it makes it harder. I made 1 run with 6 characters in BG 1&2 , ended up with a 4 man party very quick ^^. Mostly because BG1&2 had a very silly solution for exping in the game lol.

Originally Posted by Aeridyne
Originally Posted by Seraphael
Finally, a smaller party makes the party selection/character build decisions matter more. Larian has got this.



Baldurs Gate I & II had a ton of different party members you could pick up which
And again one more time, just because you CAN get by with a 4 person party you can make the same argument for even smaller parties too until you are only playing the main character and your other party members if any are just uncontrollable NPCs. But would that game be BG? Not really. Would a 4 member party game be BG? Not really. Would a game that doesn't have a plethora of party members to choose from like the previous ones be BG? Not really. But would a game with a 6 character party and lots of different characters to choose from be BG? Well yes it would! Ding ding ding, we have a winner.




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Originally Posted by virion
TBH the amount of different characters you can choose from matters but the max amount of companions within the party straight up doesn't matter after me. Yes, storywise it helps since you can have more interactions in there and between the characters.

But on the mid-maxing side of things it makes it harder. I made 1 run with 6 characters in BG 1&2 , ended up with a 4 man party very quick ^^. Mostly because BG1&2 had a very silly solution for exping in the game lol.


You mean that the official D&D "exping" system is bad ?
BG allow you to play from 1 to 6 character with this "silly" mecanics wink

Last edited by Maximuuus; 24/10/20 09:39 PM.

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A party of six would be the best choice for a number of reasons:

It offers a much greater tactical variety to gameplay though composition.
It offers a much greater social variety to gameplay, also because you can get more different people to hang out so to speak.
The PC (Player Character) will be much less pigeon-holed into certain builds due to what characters you can recruit/have in party.
It will alleviate much of the "miss-frustration" when you have two more potential hits.

I do not believe the added management will be detrimental in the slightest - just look at Wasteland 3! Brand new game with six people to handle and it's smooth and doesn't bog down the game in any way when comparing to DOS1 and 2.

5e adventures normally state four as a minimum number. Anyone who has played or DM'd a group of three for whatever reason can easily testify that it's borderline impossible without seriously re-balancing many things. With four, it can be pretty tight and you really need to tailor the party to a much larger extent, so much so that some players may end up not really playing what they want to play. The sweetspot is really around five to six players which allows rather diverse skillsets, maybe some doubles (which isn't at all bad, double dipping some skills in the party is Very useful).

Having the extremely low number of four with DnD ruleset is mostly a pain which cuts right into fun-time. Larian says it's easy to mod into six? Maybe they should mod it to six themselves, then? I'm very OK with waiting if it takes longer to implement.
Because Larian is used to doing four character parties should not be a reason to go with four. Saying it's because of the nature of how fleshed out the characters are shouldn't be a reason either - and it IS fine if some characters are less fleshed out than others. Not every character will have a massively interesting background or super intricate plotline designed to them.
For some characters, this adventure COULD be their interesting background. "Yeah, back in my younger days, I joined up with the hero who fought the Mindflayers. What a time. What a time..." *sips ale*. This offers at least one character/position of being quite fresh out the factory, so to speak, and will potentially instead be formed much more from what they experience through the game. This, to me, sounds like a very interesting take.

As a closing statement I'd say that I'll even take five character party, although I feel it's not optimal for fun purposes. Just not four. Four is simply too few.

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While I understand the reasons for preferring a larger party, I can't say I think it would be an improvement in BG3.

EA seems to play OK with a party of four; if you expand the party size, I can see 2 problems related to the turn-based combat being used.

- the number of enemies in encounters would also increase, leading to even longer encounter resolution, when some of them are pretty turgid already. This could, perhaps, be alleviated by using fewer, but more powerful enemies.

- increased party size would exacerbate problems with party characters blocking each other, which you can't resolve because of the limitations of turn-based movement. This is less easy to alleviate, as it would mean re-working the game world to have less choke points, many of which are related to the significantly vertical nature of the game world.

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Originally Posted by etonbears
While I understand the reasons for preferring a larger party, I can't say I think it would be an improvement in BG3.

EA seems to play OK with a party of four; if you expand the party size, I can see 2 problems related to the turn-based combat being used.

- the number of enemies in encounters would also increase, leading to even longer encounter resolution, when some of them are pretty turgid already. This could, perhaps, be alleviated by using fewer, but more powerful enemies.

- increased party size would exacerbate problems with party characters blocking each other, which you can't resolve because of the limitations of turn-based movement. This is less easy to alleviate, as it would mean re-working the game world to have less choke points, many of which are related to the significantly vertical nature of the game world.
i am pro having 6 open slots for your party, which then allows the players to decide themselves if they want to roll 4, 6, or even solo. i agree with the two most significant issues that you cited (which you also go on to provide solutions for), as these are also other common critiques that ppl have cited in other places in the forums without even considering the party size - ie. rebalance combat related encounters (id argue using more 5e based rules would help alot here) and the limitations and frustrations that the current combat movement (and overall party movement control using the dos2 'chaining' system) controls present (not considering how the current camera controls can also compound this problem). im not sure how much feedback we can expect larian to take from these forum posts (idk when the last time we heard from larian was) but i do hope that the concerns and suggestions that you posted are relayed to the devs as alot of folks agree with the points you made (outside of the party of 4 choice wink )

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I played with a 6 party mod and it worked great right up until the point it failed to launch the grove party. The game is already set up to accommodate 6 party members.

There were some things that would need to fixed

-- party management. A couple of times my toons did a little dance trying to find where to stand
- the default party formation was the bowling pin one
- party inventory, with six people the items got so small I had a hard time seeing them
- minor graphic glitch during conversations where the extra two party members merge into another NPC

But I got what I wanted, more banters / conversations and it felt a bit more like Baldur's Gate.


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I agree that adding one or two party members would make the game more fun. As a four person party I often have to choose which class functionality to leave behind to bring one of the NPCs for their quest. example, in my current play-through I'm a wizard, so my main party is me, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion. So when either Gale or Wyll need a quest done, (like Wyll wanting to kill the goblin leaders) I basicaly have to pick between Lae'zel or Astarion to leave behind...because ya'know... healer.
A 5 person party would fix this completely and wouldn't require much difficulty tweaking at all.

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