Hey, some people play solo, with no NPCs at all. They have the option of doing that and that's a different and fun gameplay experience. Why can we also have the option of 8 NPCs?
It would be super overpowered. It already is if you decide to take along with you Imoen, Nalia, Jan, Aerie and Edwin with a Mage PC. Just spam Abi dalzim's horrid wilting to victory!
Besides, in many cases the game is clearly designed for a party of at best 6 people. Think of all the narrow corridors in the game which make you go crazy, especially with the nice pathfinding the games had.
Really - it would be awesome to see an army of people following you, but it would be SUPER unbalanced. Poor dragons would be surrounded by guys and they wouldn't have a chance to retaliate >.<
@Cheesebelly well to be fair... usually it takes an army to kill a dragon, and half the time, THEY don't survive. To top that off... you speak as if there aren't any elements to the game that already make it overpowered. Sarevok, nuff said.
Edit: Ugh I sound like a troll, sorry if I sound like a troll lmao
I think having more party slots would take away some of the difficultly from the game. Not battle wise but the have to choice who to take with you was always one of the things i found hard to do and i really liked it. I think it also make replays better because you can have such different npc and if you can have them all at once it would take some of that away.
However i would quite like to here a army worth of banter, or a npc reaction to 15 people walking in to a bar at once, i don't think it would be good when coming across traps tho
btw, for those of you saying it will unbalance the game. who here has only played bg once? it could be something that opened up after you beat the game, such as you're limited to 6 players but for replay value, we'd give you 8 or 10.
for being hard coded, i understand, but for balance reasons, lol, solo'ing the game isn't balanced at all, but people do it. the level cap really unbalances a solo game, and you have to remember that xp is split, so having 10 people would keep the game balanced by the fact that you would level up verrrrrrrrrrrry slowly.
@luluscado really though? There are SO many NPCs that COME with the game, then there's mods (devs said it will be mod friendly) at the end, how many NPC choices are we looking at? Even if you increase the number by one or two, you're still making those choices.
20 slot!? Are you serious? I mean comon. It would be no more a RPG but a RTS customizatiable. Think about it. At the same time, change the name of the game because with those ideas we should completely change the game.
PS: I ain't mad.Sry I'm just surprised but I'm against that.
Having the option for a larger party is a great idea. Its contesters needn't apply really, since nobody would FORCE them to have a large party. But why prevent those from having a large party?
Personally sometimes I leave members on the map and explore with 2-4 characters. But I always pick 6.
The possibility of having an 8 man party would be epic. Anything larger than 8 would be weird, but I won't say not to add the feature.
Is 7 slots enough? 8? 10? If it's possible to make 7 slots it should be possible to make 20. I'm not saying that everyone has to have 20 NPCs - That's a player choice, like choosing to run solo.
It's also why I hope they would simply soft code it, without bothering to give it any more support in game (as in a slider/menu choice or something like that). The game is made for 6 characters, after all, so they shouldn't have to rebalance it for this sake. All I would wish for is the ability to mod the number of character slots.
I'm goin' to support the 'roleplay reason' stance in this. Again, when I did this in NWN2 the roleplay chain-reaction was amazing. Usually when you have some characters in the party, they'll chip in on your discussions or decisions. Sometimes, if you have the right combo, two or more characters will chip in, then bicker with each other, and so on.
Now imagine having 10~20 characters in your party. It was awesome. I made one decision and suddenly the debate was going around the line all over the place, people taking sides, telling each other to shut up, looking to me to support them, and thus making me need to choose carefully whose side I picked, 'lest I lose reputation with that person.
I dont see why 7 or 8 would harm the gameplay (less levels due to more shared xp), it would be a good optional thing, and like people have said you dont even have to have 6 you can solo the game, it all up to you, if they implement 7 or 8 slots you dont need to use them?
I have to agree with the OP. With due respect to the developers of this remake, nothing that they have as a feature is something I haven't seen via the modding community. Well, I suppose the hand-drawn art cutscenes, but I can do without those.
The one thing I've wanted, desperately, for more than a decade is to be able to play these games with a party twice the size. (Screw balance; this is a game I enjoy for the story, not for the challenge). I'd pay $50 for such a thing, frankly. Without it, I honestly don't have any incentive to purchase at all.
I respect the effort that goes into this, and understand that it would be difficult to do. However, the fact that it is difficult to do is why it would be worth paying money for.
I think Final Fantasy 3 (the actual FF3, not the one with Cecil) had a special 5th slot for special npcs. The npc would follow the party around and occasionally participate in combat.
A special 7th slot in BG would be cool. You couldn't directly control them but they would always remain within a certain distance of whoever the party leader was (not protagonist). They would follow their own AI for battle and dungeon crawling and wouldn't follow you to certain locations if you went there. Safana wouldn't follow you out of the map unless you were going into the golem cave, and Eldoth would meet you in Baldur's Gate in the appropriate district and not leave that district without first rescuing his girlfriend? This method would not apply to party members who need to be with you for an extended period of time (like Minsc joining you to rescue Dyanheir, Khalid and Jaheira joining you to investigate the mines, and so on). A simple rule of thumb: if you need to explore more than 1 adjacent area (but any number within the same map you find them in like caves or houses) to complete their quest then they cannot qualify for this.
Unfortunately, I do not see this being worked into the game for two reasons: 1) The party member limit IS hard-coded and 2) This would requiring altering older NPC dialogues. That one clause, not allowing the developers to alter preexisting NPC dialogue, really does limit how much Overhaul can do and that's a shame.
I have to agree with the OP. With due respect to the developers of this remake, nothing that they have as a feature is something I haven't seen via the modding community. Well, I suppose the hand-drawn art cutscenes, but I can do without those.
The one thing I've wanted, desperately, for more than a decade is to be able to play these games with a party twice the size. (Screw balance; this is a game I enjoy for the story, not for the challenge). I'd pay $50 for such a thing, frankly. Without it, I honestly don't have any incentive to purchase at all.
I respect the effort that goes into this, and understand that it would be difficult to do. However, the fact that it is difficult to do is why it would be worth paying money for.
To be honest I intend on purchasing the PC version regardless of the introduction of increased party sizes, it's the one mod I would hope to see the most.
I ask that the beamdog community gives it additional consideration.
If at all possible of course. Yes it's hard coded, but adding it in wouldn't be impossible (if they are contractually allowed to do so). as @rudy said, everything, for the most part that we know of, that has been promised so far IS added with mods, and also added pretty well, I saw the things that the devs aren't allowed to change, and honestly the contract makes little sense for the amount of money that this game is going for at the moment.
I'm going to buy it regardless, I just hope that the new game that comes out lives up to what everyone is really waiting for.
I totally, totally understand why some people want this feature.
Please, please try to believe me when I say that as much fun as this would be for many people, it's not worth the trouble.
This is not a matter of just changing a byte somewhere from "LIMIT = 6" to "LIMIT = 255" and then everybody who wants a bigger party can have it and those who don't, don't have to play that way.
The Infinity Engine's script language is *not prepared* to deal with a party of arbitrary size. It is super-duper-set-in-its-ways on expecting six characters, and in fact has no way to perform useful actions on a party of arbitrary size. All of the in-game scripting is similarly wired to expect six characters. Hundreds of scripts in every game are already written for a hardcoded six-player party. First the engine would have to be changed, then these hundreds of scripts would need to be changed. Never mind the balance/XP/performance/etc questions--it would be a substantial task just making sure all of the code was changed, and changed correctly, so the game doesn't get hung up in a cutscene, so party members don't fail to make area transitions, and so forth.
There is a term for a software project manager who lets developers tinker with hundreds of scripts in a shipped product which *already work just fine*, when a mistake in *any one of them* could break the product. That term is "very bad at their job."
Anyone against that? Baldur's Gate was made to be played with 1 TO 6 characters. We will not start to change everything only because we have the chance of getting a Enhanced version. Alright, get a mod or something but we cannot more slots just because people need some few more priest or wizards. I can't believe that 6 slots are not enough! 2 fighters/1priest/1thief/2wizards is perfect. Even with 20 fighters, each pause would need 30minutes to set your team! And believe me, 6 players+ some summons its getting too much. This ain't warcraft. Don't say its not possible. Just say we will not do that to Baldur's Gate...
This is not about balance and having the perfect combinations of fighters/spellcasters/healers/whatevers. It's about the opportunity to experience all the the amazing NPCs that have been coded by the past and present developers.
I totally, totally understand why some people want this feature.
Please, please try to believe me when I say that as much fun as this would be for many people, it's not worth the trouble.
If this is, in fact, the case, then it sadly remains the case that there is no motivation for me to buy this product. Larger party is, again, the only thing I wanted from this game that hasn't been delivered before. I'm not angry at the development team if they can't do it, simply stating a fact that I won't be buying the game in that case.
I'll hold out hope that, for BG2:EE, they look into making the necessary alterations.
Six is already great, but personally, I would agree for a maximum of eight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but enemies and monsters in the original game are ALREADY balanced according to your party (or was it a mod?). If you have a party of 6 (thus leaving 2 slots free), the game won't be any different from the original BG. Also, I know there are some people playing solo.
Also, I (would like to) believe @AndreaColombo's "BG1 party in BG2" topic and this thread's ideas are strictly connected. Or, at least I hope there would be a sort of connection between the two that might make the game more interesting if done well. Yes, I understand this might seem a bit far-fetched, but let me try...
Take a look at this image:
You should make out the amount of cages in Chateau Irenicus, and you know there are already two more cages a bit north (where Minsc and Jaheira are canonically locked up). There should be one more cage down south, right? I can't remember as I don't have BG2 installed right now. So there should be, like, 7-8 cages there.
IIRC, these cages were used for co-op game whenever you prefer to make a custom party, but I can't see a reason why not add a couple more slots and make this soft-coded to anybody's desire. Again, more than 8 is too much to me, but if they include a NWN2-style cheat that allows you to set your party limit to X amount. I didn't experience any balance issues in that game, actually. I think this would please everybody.
Anyone against that? Baldur's Gate was made to be played with 1 TO 6 characters. We will not start to change everything only because we have the chance of getting a Enhanced version. Alright, get a mod or something but we cannot more slots just because people need some few more priest or wizards. I can't believe that 6 slots are not enough! 2 fighters/1priest/1thief/2wizards is perfect. Even with 20 fighters, each pause would need 30minutes to set your team! And believe me, 6 players+ some summons its getting too much. This ain't warcraft. Don't say its not possible. Just say we will not do that to Baldur's Gate...
It is not the case that there is a "correct" way to play any given game. Your way is not the best way, and if I want to play the game with the idea of the Bhaalspawn putting together a larger band of whomever is willing to aid him or her, then that's not "wrong" just because it doesn't fit your idea of the correct party size.
Also note that mods would be unable to alter party size. If they could, they would have already done it.
I'll hold out hope that, for BG2:EE, they look into making the necessary alterations.
My essay still applies to BG2, but moreso--from a scripting standpoint, BG2 is a bigger and more complicated game. The number of instances where the six-player party is assumed in scripts approaches 1,000.
This has been stated constantly that the larger party size is wanted for roleplay reasons. Even if there are people who want it to make the kill everything party which "unbalances the game," then it wouldn't matter anyways, because any good player has already broken the game with overpowered classes and such. Not to mention the difficulty level changer thingie. @jcompton IS right though, as in twitter, Oster DID say that the amount of times he saw it hardcoded into the game WAS staggering. I doubt that it will be released with the initial release, which sucks, but I'm hoping that something could be changed in a later patch. I happen to agree with @rudy on the point for which he refuses to buy the game. I know it's not boycotting, it's just that this game becomes useless if mods did everything already. Why spend 20 dollars PLUS a whole added extra amount of money for DLC that you don't really have to spend when you can pretty much have the same product with mods? And @jcompton haven't I seen that name somewhere before?
I'm hoping that something could be changed in a later patch.
See, that's the thing. This is not something that can be fixed with a "patch." This is a major, major, requires-lots-of-playtesting overhaul proposal. The entire formation movement system. (You think you don't like pathfinding conflicts now with your six-player party trying to navigate narrow hallways? Watch what happens when you have 15!) New script commands, and hundreds of script changes to accommodate it. And more and more and more.
I get it. I do. Many were the times I wished I could disband my BG2 PC and have a sixth joinable NPC just to get more party interaction. But it would be a crazy-huge undertaking with lots and lots of ways to *break stuff which already works*.
Well I don't want 15 people to have to look after. That's just ridiculous. To those who proposed it, I always thought they were joking, and if they're not... well... okay fine. 7 or 8 would be a great max in my opinion, and yes pathing in those hallways is a bit of a pain with 6 people. Would it be more of a pain with more? Probably. Doesn't really matter because it's a pain anyways. Narrow hallways aren't THAT bad in BG1 anyways, there's like, what, 3 places where it's an issue? Just one or two extra party slots is all I'd ask for. I do understand the point you're making @jcompton I really do. That doesn't change the fact that it's still doable.
I get it. I do. Many were the times I wished I could disband my BG2 PC and have a sixth joinable NPC just to get more party interaction. But it would be a crazy-huge undertaking with lots and lots of ways to *break stuff which already works*.
The point is understood, but the fact that the one thing I'd like from this game would be very difficult to do does not actually give me any incentive at all to buy the game without that thing. Again, I'm not *angry* at anyone; if it's not something that is ever done, then I'll be disappointed, but I won't be raging at the developers. But neither will they be receiving money from me. Other people may feel the same, and I feel it's a point worth making.
If there's someway to do this, perhaps through paypal, I don't know, I'm willing to right now *commit* to paying $50 if and only if the game removes the party cap. Or at least raises it much higher. Even if I had to wait for a later version. It might be worth looking into how many other players feel the same, before the possibility is totally discarded.
I get it. I do. Many were the times I wished I could disband my BG2 PC and have a sixth joinable NPC just to get more party interaction. But it would be a crazy-huge undertaking with lots and lots of ways to *break stuff which already works*.
The point is understood, but the fact that the one thing I'd like from this game would be very difficult to do does not actually give me any incentive at all to buy the game without that thing. Again, I'm not *angry* at anyone; if it's not something that is ever done, then I'll be disappointed, but I won't be raging at the developers. But neither will they be receiving money from me. Other people may feel the same, and I feel it's a point worth making.
If there's someway to do this, perhaps through paypal, I don't know, I'm willing to right now *commit* to paying $50 if and only if the game removes the party cap. Or at least raises it much higher. Even if I had to wait for a later version. It might be worth looking into how many other players feel the same, before the possibility is totally discarded.
Comments
L.
Besides, in many cases the game is clearly designed for a party of at best 6 people. Think of all the narrow corridors in the game which make you go crazy, especially with the nice pathfinding the games had.
Really - it would be awesome to see an army of people following you, but it would be SUPER unbalanced. Poor dragons would be surrounded by guys and they wouldn't have a chance to retaliate >.<
Edit: Ugh I sound like a troll, sorry if I sound like a troll lmao
However i would quite like to here a army worth of banter, or a npc reaction to 15 people walking in to a bar at once, i don't think it would be good when coming across traps tho
for being hard coded, i understand, but for balance reasons, lol, solo'ing the game isn't balanced at all, but people do it. the level cap really unbalances a solo game, and you have to remember that xp is split, so having 10 people would keep the game balanced by the fact that you would level up verrrrrrrrrrrry slowly.
PS: I ain't mad.Sry I'm just surprised but I'm against that.
Personally sometimes I leave members on the map and explore with 2-4 characters. But I always pick 6.
The possibility of having an 8 man party would be epic. Anything larger than 8 would be weird, but I won't say not to add the feature.
L.
Now imagine having 10~20 characters in your party. It was awesome. I made one decision and suddenly the debate was going around the line all over the place, people taking sides, telling each other to shut up, looking to me to support them, and thus making me need to choose carefully whose side I picked, 'lest I lose reputation with that person.
The one thing I've wanted, desperately, for more than a decade is to be able to play these games with a party twice the size. (Screw balance; this is a game I enjoy for the story, not for the challenge). I'd pay $50 for such a thing, frankly. Without it, I honestly don't have any incentive to purchase at all.
I respect the effort that goes into this, and understand that it would be difficult to do. However, the fact that it is difficult to do is why it would be worth paying money for.
A special 7th slot in BG would be cool. You couldn't directly control them but they would always remain within a certain distance of whoever the party leader was (not protagonist). They would follow their own AI for battle and dungeon crawling and wouldn't follow you to certain locations if you went there. Safana wouldn't follow you out of the map unless you were going into the golem cave, and Eldoth would meet you in Baldur's Gate in the appropriate district and not leave that district without first rescuing his girlfriend? This method would not apply to party members who need to be with you for an extended period of time (like Minsc joining you to rescue Dyanheir, Khalid and Jaheira joining you to investigate the mines, and so on). A simple rule of thumb: if you need to explore more than 1 adjacent area (but any number within the same map you find them in like caves or houses) to complete their quest then they cannot qualify for this.
Unfortunately, I do not see this being worked into the game for two reasons: 1) The party member limit IS hard-coded and 2) This would requiring altering older NPC dialogues. That one clause, not allowing the developers to alter preexisting NPC dialogue, really does limit how much Overhaul can do and that's a shame.
I ask that the beamdog community gives it additional consideration.
I'm going to buy it regardless, I just hope that the new game that comes out lives up to what everyone is really waiting for.
Please, please try to believe me when I say that as much fun as this would be for many people, it's not worth the trouble.
This is not a matter of just changing a byte somewhere from "LIMIT = 6" to "LIMIT = 255" and then everybody who wants a bigger party can have it and those who don't, don't have to play that way.
The Infinity Engine's script language is *not prepared* to deal with a party of arbitrary size. It is super-duper-set-in-its-ways on expecting six characters, and in fact has no way to perform useful actions on a party of arbitrary size. All of the in-game scripting is similarly wired to expect six characters. Hundreds of scripts in every game are already written for a hardcoded six-player party. First the engine would have to be changed, then these hundreds of scripts would need to be changed. Never mind the balance/XP/performance/etc questions--it would be a substantial task just making sure all of the code was changed, and changed correctly, so the game doesn't get hung up in a cutscene, so party members don't fail to make area transitions, and so forth.
There is a term for a software project manager who lets developers tinker with hundreds of scripts in a shipped product which *already work just fine*, when a mistake in *any one of them* could break the product. That term is "very bad at their job."
L.
I'll hold out hope that, for BG2:EE, they look into making the necessary alterations.
Also, I (would like to) believe @AndreaColombo's "BG1 party in BG2" topic and this thread's ideas are strictly connected. Or, at least I hope there would be a sort of connection between the two that might make the game more interesting if done well. Yes, I understand this might seem a bit far-fetched, but let me try...
Take a look at this image:
You should make out the amount of cages in Chateau Irenicus, and you know there are already two more cages a bit north (where Minsc and Jaheira are canonically locked up). There should be one more cage down south, right? I can't remember as I don't have BG2 installed right now. So there should be, like, 7-8 cages there.
IIRC, these cages were used for co-op game whenever you prefer to make a custom party, but I can't see a reason why not add a couple more slots and make this soft-coded to anybody's desire. Again, more than 8 is too much to me, but if they include a NWN2-style cheat that allows you to set your party limit to X amount. I didn't experience any balance issues in that game, actually. I think this would please everybody.
Also note that mods would be unable to alter party size. If they could, they would have already done it.
@jcompton IS right though, as in twitter, Oster DID say that the amount of times he saw it hardcoded into the game WAS staggering. I doubt that it will be released with the initial release, which sucks, but I'm hoping that something could be changed in a later patch.
I happen to agree with @rudy on the point for which he refuses to buy the game. I know it's not boycotting, it's just that this game becomes useless if mods did everything already. Why spend 20 dollars PLUS a whole added extra amount of money for DLC that you don't really have to spend when you can pretty much have the same product with mods?
And @jcompton haven't I seen that name somewhere before?
I get it. I do. Many were the times I wished I could disband my BG2 PC and have a sixth joinable NPC just to get more party interaction. But it would be a crazy-huge undertaking with lots and lots of ways to *break stuff which already works*. Probably, I've been modding BG2 on-and-off for the past 11 years.
If there's someway to do this, perhaps through paypal, I don't know, I'm willing to right now *commit* to paying $50 if and only if the game removes the party cap. Or at least raises it much higher. Even if I had to wait for a later version. It might be worth looking into how many other players feel the same, before the possibility is totally discarded.
I too will offer a $50 bounty.