We need bigger party size! Let BG3 be like BG1 and BG2!

[Lirk]

BG1 and BG2 give us the choice to pick party-members based on the mood of the party. A lawful part went with Imoen, Minsc and Dyna. Evil got a whole new ballgame with Viconia, Shar-teel etc. In BG3 we so far never get an option for any of the old chars to join us yet. And a 4-man part is kind of strict with class dynamics. We want to choose from members too so we get the feel that we make our own story.

I mean that there is gotta be a character for each class(sub classes even) to pick a team from. And in BG3 we can only have 3 plus us so its gonna be couple of play-through to get everyone in the driver seat.

And I like the part from Divinity were we get to choose the specs of a char to make us get the party we want to play with. Who's to heal and who to tank etc. But it limits the character dynamics. Its not gonna be much different from each game.


// Lirk

[Chillearth]

As the games get bigger (much, much bigger) and characters, monsters and maps have greatly enhanced detail, it gets increasingly difficult to make a bigger party plus background plus monsters, to work on older machines (and a LOT of gamers have older machines). Nowadays everything has a 'full-size' lifelike animation.

There doesn't have to be a character for each class (though that would be nice) so long as you can create your own character to be whatever you want (subject to what Larian has enabled so far). I would prefer the option for a second create-able character (without fiddling around with multiplayer, though I have done that). Beyond that, it's time to get used to smaller parties, to limit the enormous amount of work it takes to realise this kind of game.

TL:DR The small sprite days of old are disappearing fast. Nowadays it's smaller but better rendered parties in a 'full-sized' world. Maybe sometime in the future things will change again. Perhaps as computer programs get more sophisticated, they could simplify the creation process, or maybe processors get so fast that even the older ones can handle the extra load. For now, as the saying goes, it is what it is.

[Dragon Master]

So, since the game is going to be strictly TB with large encounters, you want a larger party size of companions who will make combat take longer just to have more party members?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

There's no reason they couldn't add an option to increase the party size, the engine already supports it.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

So, since the game is going to be strictly TB with large encounters, you want a larger party size of companions who will make combat take longer just to have more party members?

Combat would not take longer, it would actually get much shorter, as a larger party would more easily take out monsters, each one removed is one less turn to resolve a round of combat.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

There's no reason they couldn't add an option to increase the party size, the engine already supports it.

Not everything can or should be an option. Making 4 and 6 person party options would require the devs to waste effort re-balancing every encounter either by adding more enemies or further beefing up all enemies in the 6 person option. Any time the devs have to implement a new option, especially one that requires full encounter rebuilds is a delay to release and represents significant dev time for little reward. Either that or the 6 person option would be a cake walk with the encounters remaining as they are intended for 4 person parties.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

There's no reason they couldn't add an option to increase the party size, the engine already supports it.

Not everything can or should be an option. Making 4 and 6 person party options would require the devs to waste effort re-balancing every encounter either by adding more enemies or further beefing up all enemies in the 6 person option. Any time the devs have to implement a new option, especially one that requires full encounter rebuilds is a delay to release and represents significant dev time for little reward. Either that or the 6 person option would be a cake walk with the encounters remaining as they are intended for 4 person parties.

There's no need to rebalance anything. There are difficulty settings in the game. Anyone wanting to make it easier just has to lower the difficulty.

How is that any different from simply increasing the party size? It literally accomplishes the same thing.

I'm actually hoping for a granular, in-depth difficulty menu, like Pathfinder uses, and this could easily include the option to increase party size.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

So, since the game is going to be strictly TB with large encounters, you want a larger party size of companions who will make combat take longer just to have more party members?

Combat would not take longer, it would actually get much shorter, as a larger party would more easily take out monsters, each one removed is one less turn to resolve a round of combat.

It would take longer. Your supposition has been disproved a while ago.

Also, the option will likely be available through mods, but I wouldn't expect it to be available in the base game. The 4 character party limit is likely due to a few reasons:
1) Time constraints (to keep the battles under a specific duration)
2) To add replayability - so you can't run all companions in every game.
3) General balance reasons - to keep options viable and interesting for each character's abilities.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Combat would not take longer, it would actually get much shorter, as a larger party would more easily take out monsters, each one removed is one less turn to resolve a round of combat.

It would take longer. Your supposition has been disproved a while ago.

Also, the option will likely be available through mods, but I wouldn't expect it to be available in the base game.

No, it hasn't. Combat would go much faster because enemies would die faster.

The engine already supports larger parties, so there's no reason Larian couldn't add it as an option. It's just one among many difficulty settings possible.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

It would take longer. Your supposition has been disproved a while ago.

Also, the option will likely be available through mods, but I wouldn't expect it to be available in the base game.

No, it hasn't. Combat would go much faster because enemies would die faster.

The engine already supports larger parties, so there's no reason Larian couldn't add it as an option. It's just one among many difficulty settings possible.

Except this is entirely false. A game that starts out with more characters requires more processing by each NPC and requires more mental effort on the part of the player. You can test this with any game out there you'd like. More characters = longer battles. Typically, a turn based game, with 50% more characters involved in battle (4 to 6 on the player side) will result in a battle lasting about twice as long.

Try it out with any turn based game you have that also allows you to customize the size of the groups (say XCom, or Battletech for example)


EDIT: To be clear, I mean that both sides get a unit count buff. Otherwise you're just talking about making the game easier, i.e. only the player gets extra units. Obviously an easier game takes less time if all else is the same.

[Hex]

Yes they are going to completely re-make the game because you want them to.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

No, it hasn't. Combat would go much faster because enemies would die faster.

The engine already supports larger parties, so there's no reason Larian couldn't add it as an option. It's just one among many difficulty settings possible.

Except this is entirely false. A game that starts out with more characters requires more processing by each NPC and requires more mental effort on the part of the player. You can test this with any game out there you'd like. More characters = longer battles. Typically, a turn based game, with 50% more characters involved in battle (4 to 6 on the player side) will result in a battle lasting about twice as long.

Try it out with any turn based game you have that also allows you to customize the size of the groups (say XCom, or Battletech for example)

Except that it's entirely true.

Enemy turns take a long time to process, but when you get the jump on them and quickly eliminate them (and with a larger party you get more turns and thus eliminate enemies faster) there are fewer turns for the computer to process.

You can test this right now. Start a game with a solo character. Go get into a fight, but save it beforehand. Then, do the same fight again, but with a companion. Keep doing this, adding an additional companion each time. Then, do it adding familiars. Try the same fight after adding Glut.

You'll find that the more your party grows, the faster you end combats because you have much higher alpha strike. Enemies lost turns, and thus lose the action economy and get cut down very quickly. If you optimize characters too, then this happens even faster. You can often one-shot several enemies before they even get a turn. I've ended combats without enemies even taking a turn by carefully pre-positioning my entire party.

The more party members you have, the easier this gets.

Tru fax.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Except this is entirely false. A game that starts out with more characters requires more processing by each NPC and requires more mental effort on the part of the player. You can test this with any game out there you'd like. More characters = longer battles. Typically, a turn based game, with 50% more characters involved in battle (4 to 6 on the player side) will result in a battle lasting about twice as long.

Try it out with any turn based game you have that also allows you to customize the size of the groups (say XCom, or Battletech for example)

Except that it's entirely true.

Enemy turns take a long time to process, but when you get the jump on them and quickly eliminate them (and with a larger party you get more turns and thus eliminate enemies faster) there are fewer turns for the computer to process.

You can test this right now. Start a game with a solo character. Go get into a fight, but save it beforehand. Then, do the same fight again, but with a companion. Keep doing this, adding an additional companion each time. Then, do it adding familiars. Try the same fight after adding Glut.

You'll find that the more your party grows, the faster you end combats because you have much higher alpha strike. Enemies lost turns, and thus lose the action economy and get cut down very quickly. If you optimize characters too, then this happens even faster. You can often one-shot several enemies before they even get a turn. I've ended combats without enemies even taking a turn by carefully pre-positioning my entire party.

The more party members you have, the easier this gets.

Tru fax.

Except it isn't. Again, try it out.

The focused fire argument is just plain backward.

First, let's look at 1 v 1. In this case, you are 100% forced to focus fire. Only one opponent. Therefore you get 100% focused fire efficiency.

Now, say 2v2. There will be some turns/times that you can't entirely focus fire using both units. Thus, focus fire efficiency is something less that 100%.

As you go up in units, focus fire efficiency actually drops, not increases.


Also, for 50% more units, the player will have to contemplate 50% more moves. This takes more time. Additionally the AI has to also contemplate 50% more moves, but now also has 50% more targets to contemplate as well. This is true for the player, but makes less of an impact (50% more targets).

Now the above is somewhat abstract, which is why I encourage you to actually try it. I have. In both of the mentioned games. Give it a shot if you have them. Play one skirmish, then bump up both teams by 50% and play another. You'll find that the games with more units take longer.

In your scenario, you have just made the game easier because you did not add additional opponents. Of course making a game easier, while changing nothing else, makes the game quicker. I don't think the OP is just asking, in a round about way, for the game to be made easier. (I mean, at that point, you might as well be saying "hey, if I decrease the opponents' hit points by 30% the game will go faster. Duh)

[Wubbinz]

I like the idea of having your party size be optional to however you feel but I hate the idea of that being linked to difficulty. If I wanted to play a 6 party playthrough I'd despise being relegated to easy mode.

As such It'd be way too much work to balance and I vote no, I'd rather they put their resources into other things.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by Paton:

I like the idea of having your party size be optional to however you feel but I hate the idea of that being linked to difficulty. If I wanted to play a 6 party playthrough I'd despise being relegated to easy mode.

As such It'd be way too much work to balance and I vote no, I'd rather they put their resources into other things.

^This. To do it right, the game would absolutely have to be completely rebalanced.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

There's no reason they couldn't add an option to increase the party size, the engine already supports it.

No, they would add more encounters or more monsters to existing encounters to make up for the combat balance.

It actually would be longer.