Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General RIP the patch every 2 weeks

that's what I figured it was, so i guess I'm confused then. I just don't see the point of playing as one of them then. Is it more for casual players who don't want to actually set up a character? Or is it because they look more unique than a custom PC can? What's the draw? It's not like you're getting a different view of who they are, because you get to choose who they are. Shadowheart can suddenly become super polite, etc. Or maybe THAT's the draw? Making the origin characters dance like puppets? I just don't get it.

Yeah honestly I much prefer the "origin system" of Dragon Age, where you still make your own character but they have unique BACKGROUNDS that you play out and that kind of "tags" you in different ways. Then you can still play YOUR characters, but they have various background things "imposed on them" like life usually does. =)

From what I've heard, playing as Fane can open up one or two more significantly different options, but by the time I heard this I was already done with the game.

Good questions. Up til now I haven't quite understood this myself. To me it is obvious that there's next to no benefit to this. Could it be something to do with multiplayer - because I've never done any multiplayer and missed it? I want to believe Larian meant to do something a lot more creative and original with the whole "origin characters" thing, but for whatever reason failed to do it. Otherwise, if the way DOS2 origin characters plays out was exactly what they intended to do, then that's woefully disappointing. It feels like a massive waste of development resources. And if this is what they're intending to do again with BG3... Helm, give me strength.

One of the main point of the origins characters is creating interactions between the players I think. Usually you will always be playing in a way where you always agree on the " common goal" cause there's no incentive( in multiplayer) to act against each other. And in DOS2 they tried to change it.

The origin character system is exactly one of the tools they gave you to justify going against the will of other players because you have your own reasons. Your own quest to fullfil.
(If one of you plays red prince and the other plays Sebille I think you can't complete both quests or at least there are some complications).

And it allows for each player to have his own " quest" to follow despite not being " the pc". Each player has " His companion".

In comparison BG2 MP looks really bad. You're literally looking at your friend playing while you are in spectator mode story wise.

So yeah it's totally about multiplayer. But idk, although I have to agree they definitely know how to make a multiplayer RPG game work well I don't see why they gave up on the part where you interact with your companions a bit more ( In BG3, in DOS2 it was fairly ok in the end. Even if i still prefered the way it played out in BG2)^^'' I think they simply could blend in both approaches. Make up to X origin characters + simpler non - player characters as companions. No reason for it to be a choice of one or ther other.

You're forgetting that's the game has coop, and if you're playing coop with 3 friends, you would be forced out of any companions' stories without Origins. So first of all Origins are allowing you to experience that content in coop. Plus in single-player there are certain moments in companions' stories which you're not allowed to see, but when that's your Origin you get all the details.
And after all there are players who would prefer to play a character with more ties to the world above a character with more player agency for the backstory and tags.

feedback on the practicality (not characterization/writing) of origin characters should honestly be its own mega-thread given the amount of discussion and posts that have been made since EA first started last fall. admittedly i havent been a fan of this system being in a baldurs gate game since it was first announced, and would think that those resources spent fleshing out larian's player characters would be better served elsewhere, but i dont see the studio changing from this position at this stage in development. as others have posted, origin backgrounds similar to DA:O may be a better approach and actually encourage replayability, but as it currently stands i dont really see the appeal of picking/roleplaying an origin character over a player-made character even if it does seem like larian is developing more game content around their origin characters v player-made.

tbh, other than larian essentially going dark since the last update (altho idk if community engagement was ever 'great'), im most concerned about the limited number of companions larian seems to be intending for bg3. the game overall still needs development, but i really think that at a minimum one companion/class should be planned and id really lean more towards ~2/class (~24 possible companions, could probly get by w/20 tho) for good v evil playthrus. initially the origin characters at launch were supposed to all be evil (although larian has waffled on that since) so im anxious to see what good/neutral companions are scheduled beyond what is speculated via datamining.

huh, i guess i'm different. If I was going to play a D&D game with buddies, for sure we would all be rolling our own characters. It would feel so disconnected to be playing a premade character. I'd be curious what Larian's famous statistics say about how many people played as origin characters vs custom made characters and multiplayer origin vs custom players.

Interested to see the playerbase percentage breakdown of single player vs co-op.

Yeah that's true. Would be cool to see. Personally regarless of everything that can be said about BG3 I'm so happy it's larian that got the rights for it precisely because coop done by Larian is good coop (:

I used to like the idea of origins in BG3, but my mind has been changed. It boils down to two main problems:
- opportunity cost (afaik, origins are A LOT of work, and if that work could be directed to having 3 times the amount of (fleshed out) companions... yeah, not a good exchange)
- story structure (BG1&2 were about a single character with the story revolving around it; with origins you need to account for each of them being the main character - or none of them - and the writing is likely to suffer)

Still, I don't hate the idea; I'd like to see the approach of "fixed-custom protagonist spectrum" used in some future cRPG series, just not in BG. Of course, only if it would be very well executed and wouldn't be a detriment to other aspects of the game, so it's... idealistic, to say the least. I don't expect any studio to pull it off anytime soon.

Regarding the co-op reason for origins: I really, really don't like it when multiplayer tacked on to a game hurts the single-player experience. Larian wants to make both work and subsequently hurts both. Solasta would be a better fit for MP, having neither developed companions nor major story focus.

And really, I think the solution to the multiplayer problem would just be to not arbitrarily limit companions (as in kill off all not in the active party at some point). So you could still have companion quests with 4 custom characters in a party.

I can't agree with multiplayer hurting the single player experience - how does it do that?
Granted, I have only used the multiplayer capability with my husband - if I'm stuck in a tough fight, he jumps on and helps by controlling 2 of my companions to help me out. We've also played a run with 2 OCs and 2 companions. Other people play a full custom multiplayer run or a run where each person controls a companion, or something like that. How is the ability to do this hurting single player in any way?



Now this I can agree with - I HATE the idea of companions that aren't with you, getting killed off at some predetermined point.

Origins companions exist cause mp == we have less companions cause they take more time to make an origin companion than a non - playable companion == less companions is worse for SP.

It's not even a matter of agreeing or not, it's pretty an much objective statement that keeping that door open for multiplayer capabilities is limiting/affecting the design in plenty of ways even for people who aren't interested in it.

Aside for the good old and universal "Allocation of resources" you have the developers themselves admitting that the current "lack of passing time" and absence of a day/night cycle were decided according to the idea by the idea that it "would get messy in multiplayer". Now, in all fairness in this case it's mostly Larian designers lacking imagination and ambition, because if they really tried the workaround around this issue was absolutely possible, but still... "Word of god", as they say in these cases.

The fact that characters need to have their distinct inventory window, despise the fact that items can be used by everyone regardless of which inventory they are occupying in single player? A byproduct of multiplayer.
The fact that the game refuses to default dialogue to a single leader? A multiplayer byproduct, too.
The way multiple characters are written to be "main character" concurrently? Another multiplayer byproduct.


And to be clear, you may love multiplayer and think that this is absolutely a feature worth all the downsides. It would be a perfectly legitimate opinion, as far as I'm concerned.
But you simply can't deny that co-op being a focus in design is affecting the game even for people who don't plan to make any use any of it.

I wonder why people so hard stick to this idea ...
It was never told it is suppose to happen, its just comunity-made speculation ... and i believe that people around here (and DoS part of the forum aswell) expressed themself clearly enough, so Larian have to know that this is not cool way.

It was a major thing in DOS2 and I think I remember reading something about how at some point "We must commit to our party members."
We focus on that to make it very clear Larian knows our opinion and so it doesn't become an issue, if it does I and others likely will get super vocal.

Edit, literally in the FAQ:


And we have gotten no confirmation Larian will change their mind.

I know that ...
My point was that commitment, dont mean that everyone else will have to die. O_o

At least as i understand it, it seemed to me more like:
"After the first act, you shall pick one Origin character, and will follow him, or her ... on their quest."
I mean, yeah we will "loose" the others Origin chracters, wich will probably turn at that point from Followers, to NPCs ... hopefuly alive NPCs ( ) ...
But i dont think its necesarily bad idea. O_o Especialy if we will meet them somewhere in the future.

//edit:
I dunno what Interview it was, but i remember Swen talking about making companions allways in pairs ... wich could easily mean that the companion you pick, also determine your later-on enemy ... since every companion will have at least one another companion to overcome in their quest.
The most obvious pair in this idea would be Lae'zel and Shadowheart ...

Honestly i kinda liked the simmilar story in DA:I...
...wich was determined by your own decision. :3

I would really love to see more of such consequences. :3

With DOS2 that more reads anyone who isn't "Active", as in anyone not under current control or anyone at the camp will die or be no longer able to be a companion. That is not good for BG3. It wasn't fun in DOS2 and it won't be fun for me now. And that DA:I example is very different because it is the consequence of a story choice, not the game giving you a selection of characters and then nuking the ones you just don't happen to have equipped at the time. DOS2 legitimately did that and it was frustrating.

edit: Story consequences are fine. Companions should totally have the possibility of dying. But a blanket wiping of who you don't have is practically antithetical to the series. In BG1 and 2 you could always switch people out and mess around with your team composition. And companions could fight and die, it was up to you to manage them, and you totally could end the game with no companion deaths. That is what BG3 should be like.

I guess it will be more something like "if you choose to embrace the tadpole's power", some companions will stay with you. If you don't they will leave.

And maybe we'll see them as opponent later in the game. Hunt them or being hunted or something... I don't know. I think the idea could be interresting...

But it would require A LOT of companions... If we only have 12- and have to choose
1) those that approve our decisions +
2) those that want to react the same with the tadpole +
3) those that have a class that match with our PC... I guess the party of 4 will je determined by the game more than by the players... Add personnal preferences and you won't have a lot of choices anymore...

right now I think the only advocate for using the tadpole's powers is Astarion so I doubt that is the main decision.

Yes, it was in DOS2, but I don't understand why you think it will be in BG3. There are quite a lot of differences in these games and this may be one of them. Perhaps the companions will leave you quickly enough because of some decisions, as happened with Wyll, but this is not the same as death.

And Astarion? You can give him to the hunter, but even in this case, Astarion does not die. To be honest, I don't think that BG3 will be like it was in DOS2.