Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback In future versions I think Wyll should be made easier to recruit.

Haha yeah. When I rp a character that would bypass a lot of areas/npcs, it just feels wrong to me as the player. I must find every hidden corner and open every container, so hard to not do this.

I would rather the companions be missable than have them pushed in your face. There are other threads about people upset companions join the party without their consent or feel that they overshadow their character.

Let the player character play how they want and make their own decisions.

And if Larian does go with the rumored . . party lock after chapter 1 . . . then you are going to need multiple playthroughs to see everyone's story anyway.

It's so easy to check the map where we have been. I guess laziness is the reason of complaints.

Party lock is a terrible idea.

Personally I'm surprised Wyll doesn't approach you as you walk by. Not that I really want him to, most times I ignore him. Gale as well unless I *really* need a spellcaster.

One thought to make things stand out a bit would be to put something on the mini-map that highlights an area of "psychic disturbance". If we all have tadpoles in our heads, you'd think you'd start getting a feeling that another one is close before you're right in each other's faces.

He died in my first playthrough too. My party killed him when he aggroed after the fight at the gate. At first I wasn't sure if he was a potential companion, so I went and took another look at the promo art... yep. Oops.

There's a trail of breadcrumbs from Zevlor to Kagha to Zevlor to Wyll that will point you in his direction if you're not the "talk to everyone, explore everywhere" type, but like all True and Authentic Gamers (TM) I gotta poke my character's nose into everyone's home and business.

Just seconding this at every possible opportunity where the comment seems remotely relevant.

Locking your party members and forcibly disallowing your players from experiencing large swathes of the story is a stupid, stupid idea that is only ever going to cause a bad taste.

It does not "Add to replay value" as some like to suggest - it's false replayability, because it's forcing you to replay 80% of the same elements over and over again, just to see that extra 20% that's different, and only the most die-hard will have the stomach for doing that.

Replay value comes form having a story that people WANT to experience over and over again... it does NOT come from arbitrarily cutting bits out of that story so that players are FORCED to replay it to see all the parts. This is not the same as having meaningful, story-changing decisions... those can be great, if done well. This kind of thing is just an arbitrary arc-lock, and it's a bad idea.

We ought to be able to choose our party, yes. We also ought to be able to chose to follow up with various characters as much or as little as we feel like we want to for a certain play through. We need to have the right to take them with us or not, and we need the right to at least try do our best for everyone without excluding others.

In other role-playing d&d games, companions have personal stories and relevance to the game, and if you pursue them, it's content to enjoy. if you don't, you don't, and generally pursuing someone's story in act one is necessary to continue pursuing it in act 2, etc., That's the proper way to handle it, because it leaves that choice with the player....

It would make some sense that you need to help the companion with something for them to remain with you. For example: Astarion needs to deal with Cazador and hunters. If you don't help him, he dies. But excluding that, all companions should be with you through all the game

That's not necessarily the case. Games are always offering us alternative ways of doing things. Making different choices leading to different events and dialogue is a staple of RPGs. Mutually exclusive options add excitement for replays. Choosing Mages or Templars in Dragon Age Origin or which path you take to Moonrise Towers in Baldur's Gate. Each will lead to a different quest area. I have very little interest in replaying a game if the entire experience is going to be identical each time.

I think Party Lock can range from terrible to excellent . . . depending on how its written into the story.

If you just get to the end of Act 1 and the game prompts you "who do you want to continue the story with" . . . well that is terrible.

But if Act 1 ends with . . . dramatic events at Moonrise Towers unfold where Companion X decides that siding with the Absolute is the best option, betrays you and becomes a main adversary for the next acts. Companion Y heroically dies saving the party during said dramatic events. And when you get to Act 2 you discover that there are two threats that have to be faced at the same time . . . so Companion Z leaves to take care of one of them (and perhaps shows up again at game end). Those events effectively thin out the party down to a 'lock' while adding greatly to the story narrative.

It all depends on how Larian handles it. (and no I'm not confident they would do a good job of it!)

Events like the Ashly/Kaidan choice in Mass Effect are some of the most memorable parts of RPGs.

I actually like the idea of getting my party thinned out to a core group eventually. Often in games I don't know what to do with all my companions and it feels wrong to just leave them sitting around at camp. I always wish there were background tasks I could assign them to or something. I usually do not recruit all companions for this reason and to fit in with roleplaying (for example I've played Dragon Age Inquisition 4 times but every one of my Inquisitors has refused to recruit at least two companions).

I have no problem with companions disappearing for legitimate story reasons.

In any case the devs have already said that Wyll was going to be easier to recruit and said so before the thread was started. So the OP will get their wish

Against the party lock. I want the BG2 chapter 2 experience -- chapter 2 was really the heart of the game.