To the back and forth on the previous page... Alyssa_Fox' general point as I read it, was that she'd like the developer to prioritize the Campaign at the scale of a Party of 1-4, or more specifically of 1-2. If the DMG says that a "party of 3-5" is the default in 5e, that still leaves us with at least 3 at the low end. A campaign for 3-5 is a lot different than a campaign for 1-4. BG3 is not a campaign for 3-5, it's a campaign for 1-4.
The implicit point being that for any "special rules" and encounter balance zots, she'd rather have that dedicated not to the party of 4+, but rather for the party of fewer than 3. Citing sales and her own enjoyment with friends as the main motivator there, and some skepticism that any form of XP scaling could do the trick on its own, particularly at the low end. That's how I read the gist anyway, unless I was way off track. Was that the right read Alyssa_Fox? Is that your thought as well mrfuji3?
I understand the logic there, I just don't really agree with the priorities. I think Larian will probably damage their brand a bit if they stick it to their D&D fans overmuch, when the time comes for them to push out an expansion or sequel. They won't have the same kind of broad based good will and optimism from those quarters going into that next thing, if they just burn their D&D bridges along the way. Critical blowback could easily take the wind out of these sales, even if acclaim was strong initially. I know for my part I'll be pretty apprehensive if various things keep moving in a different direction than what I was expecting. At first I was like "hell yeah! please take my money BG3!!!" boiling over with enthusiasm at the prospect of a new Baldur's Gate game. Now my response would be decidedly more tepid and a lot more wait and see.
I want 6 in the EA. I don't necessarily need the encounters balanced for 6, but want native support for 6 in the UI and game settings. I don't want to download a mod and risk breaking my install to get something they should have built into this thing from the get-go. I can't speak for others, just for myself on that score. They will have a real hard time getting at my coin purse again if they try to pawn a BG off on me that only supports a party of 1-4, out of only 5-8 characters. That's just not the game I want at all, and they're already into me for the price of entry and all the time spent on these boards and such. So even if its a sunk cost thing at this point, I'll still repeat in the vain hopes...
6!
ps. I won't dispute that any of these Lone Wolf modifications being suggested might not help with sales or be advisable too. Only to say that if they can put in a whole gang of features and dedicate zots to the 1-2 experience -and can torch the DMG to make the Solo player happy - but remain entirely intransigent when it comes to their players who like the large party experience and just want a UI unlock that already exists, I will be hella blue. So blue. It will feel like such a rub.
I mean where is the 73 page Lone Wolf thread on these boards? Wasn't this the 6 character party thread? and now watch it all morph into the Solo player thread now. Alas
Maybe that does need a thread though. Like not this one, cause it will draw so much ire to go from talking about more than 4 to talking about fewer than 3, but there is a point to be made there too. I just think its hard to have the same party size discussion in both directions at the same time.
Or how about this? Instead of weighting the discussion in terms of what is more important or valuable to the game, how about just a pre-fix to clarify... So it's easier to follow along with the thinking.
>4 for "Party great than 4"
<3 for "Party fewer than 3"
Like an almost emoji to defuse tensions. Or an upvote even, like if you prefer to play with party at the high end or low end hehe
I think XP scaling works very well as a way to take the scale up from 4 to something >4. But I don't know how well it'd work in the other direction. I mean I'm only thinking about it in terms of how that worked in BG, to scale 1-6 and it seemed to work well, but I was almost always playing predominantly with a party of >4 for the duration there. And I plan to play BG3 almost exclusively at whatever maximum party size cap is allowed. I'm less experienced in what is required to run games for the soloist. I don't play much that way, except for during brief interludes perhaps for some story reason.
