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My write-up:
http://lilura1.blogspot.com/2017/12/Full-Party-Control-with-Marquee-Selection-is-Where-Its-At.html

Ideally, it would be full party control with marquee selection and strategy cam along with formation-based positioning/movement and companion building and inventory control.
Post edited December 25, 2017 by Lilura
Nay.

IMO, there are plenty of party games if that is what you want.

NWN1 isn't really a party game. It focuses on the main character, and that is one of the reasons it one of my favorite all time RPG games.

Trying to shoehorn in full party control retroactively would alter the focus and further reduce the game difficulty.

IMO it really shouldn't be done.
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PeterScott: Nay.

IMO, there are plenty of party games if that is what you want.

NWN1 isn't really a party game. It focuses on the main character, and that is one of the reasons it one of my favorite all time RPG games.(...)
Well said. Also, in nwn1 you can have the main character + one familiar + one summon + 2 hench(hotu) also you can use unlimited summons ( https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/unlimited-summons ), so if you like a party, you can really play with a big party. and can speak and talk to party member, but not take fully control.

I personally like the idea of role playing a character instead of micro managing an party of many different characters, like an RTS.
Of course Yea!

I never understand how full party control can be detrimental to roleplay.You still play your character in dialogs, in a way you build it, in a way you resolve problems. Full party control does not means that your characters are interchangeable numbers. It means that you can actually play as a team, mages do not waste spells for nothing, there no OMG SMALL RAAAAT! DESINTEGRATION! ONLY DESINTEGRATION CAN SAVE US! Full party control is actually the closest thing you can have to an actual team in single player game. Even simple "pause every round and switch control with automatic following for companion would be significantly superior to retardfest we have in game

Not to mention even in the official game there are moment where inability to take control of companion outright makes game harder where you can die stupidly easy and inability of your cohorts to save you from the pinch means you can stuck in respawn hell *cough* basilisk pit *cough*
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Valkinaz: Of course Yea!

I never understand how full party control can be detrimental to roleplay.You still play your character in dialogs, in a way you build it, in a way you resolve problems. Full party control does not means that your characters are interchangeable numbers. It means that you can actually play as a team, mages do not waste spells for nothing, there no OMG SMALL RAAAAT! DESINTEGRATION! ONLY DESINTEGRATION CAN SAVE US! Full party control is actually the closest thing you can have to an actual team in single player game. Even simple "pause every round and switch control with automatic following for companion would be significantly superior to retardfest we have in game

Not to mention even in the official game there are moment where inability to take control of companion outright makes game harder where you can die stupidly easy and inability of your cohorts to save you from the pinch means you can stuck in respawn hell *cough* basilisk pit *cough*
Imagine that you hire a mercenary If DM control his mercenary, you can`t sacrifice him to retreat, but if you control his, you can do whatever you want. You can force NPCs to do things that they will never do. The closest thing to PnP is a team of people controlling one character and playing online with a DM managing and balancing encounters and history.

@topic. IMHO the easiest way to play nwn1 with full party control is simple implement the OC/HOTU campaign in nwn2 "engine".
Team is a team. Even if you play with DM mercenary you play as actual team. You can be relatively sure that mercenary would play with you. You can scream to DM mercenary "Goblins coming from cave! We need to breaks bars holding it!" and he most likely will comply and wont run around from one goblin to another collecting AoOs all around. You can talk to dm wizard and talk with him what spells to prepare. And if you are explane good enough he'll even listen! Thats clearly NOT companion from nwn1. He outright ruins that feel, instead making you want to be strong enough to just drop this useless rubbish which collect every trap, every AoO and ignore mages, running after summoned rats
2 games that have amazing party control IMHO :

1 - Dragon`s Dogma
2 - Dragon Age : Origins

DD is possible to play solo, but DA:O not. So, what makes DA:O good in therms of party control? You can put a lot of "tactical" things to your party members, aka : use potion when live is under X%, use spell X in situation Y, let your Templar focus in enemy sorcerer, put a healer in rear. If i configure correctly, i can spend all day role playing only the MC(except in rare occasions). In NWN2, i need to do "micromanagement" all time and some times they simple stop following my orders

Party RPGs can have a lot of cool interactions, but this will not be present if you simple adapt a "single" RPG into a party RPG. You will need to write tons of texts to "simulate" a romance between the MC and a NPC for example. This is why IMHO make a custom campaign in nwn2 will be easier.

Other problem is the permadie. Party members can permanently die in nwn1. So, you will need to give a resurrection rod to PC and if the PC dies, is game over.
Post edited December 26, 2017 by darthvictorbr
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Valkinaz: Of course Yea!

I never understand how full party control can be detrimental to roleplay.You still play your character in dialogs, in a way you build it, in a way you resolve problems.
I used to play PnP AD&D in the 1980's, and if someone didn't show up, but wanted others to play his character, absolutely no one ever wanted to do that.

Controlling more than one character is an unwanted distraction to me. NWN was made more along the lines of Hero + sidekick, with you in the role of hero and that is exactly the way I like it.

Better AI would be nice, modules that script actions for the sidekick are nice. Prophet has your sidekicks scripted to do independent actions at different parts of the game, and that is enriching brings more life to your sidekick. Fully controlling your sidekick does not.

To me an independent sidekick is much more immersive. I only want to control my character.
One of the biggest turn off regarding the initial game was the inability to control henchmen and being reduced to one character, basically. For me, back in 2002, it looked more like an action rpg game akin to Diablo then what I used to see in BG. Really great disappointment. The only henchmen classes viable were rogue and fighter. Casters? Well, using inappropriate (to put it mildly) spells on various opponents, they are basically hazard to have around. Not to mention that AI never worked satisfactory even for fighter henchmen. In 2002 I got the impression that Bioware considers their players to be too retarded to be given the full command of the party or that the main point is multiplayer game, so lets make SP so cumbersome that people do not want to play it.

I do not care about my PCs in SP mods. They will participate with the story. But you can use story as a toilet paper if the combat (assuming the mod requires you to fight, as most do), is cumbersome or outright impossible due to henchmen being, well, AI. That does not even scratch the option to make the henches look like a real characters, as the companions in BG were.

NWN2 with full party control got the idea right.
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blatob: One of the biggest turn off regarding the initial game was the inability to control henchmen and being reduced to one character, basically. For me, back in 2002, it looked more like an action rpg game akin to Diablo then what I used to see in BG. (...)
I disagree that "non party based" rpgs are diablo like action rpgs.Vampire: Masquerade - Bloodlines is pretty close to pnp and isn`t "party based", Arcanum can be played solo and bg1 too.(no reload solo playthrough here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrJG6e87kcQ&list=PL2WPFAeW-5u7ZmnUifMiF4LSjuOTpSIh1 )

I personally don`t like "micro management", if you wanna implement full party control in nwn1, you can, but will have some problems like for example the XP penalty. With 4 guys in your party, you will receive only 57% of XP. So if from begging to end of a module, you will get 100k xp, playing solo gives 100k xp. Playing in a 4 guys party will give 57k( http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Party_size_penalty ), in other words, you will be at level 11 while solo players will be at lv 14, almost in lv 15 ( http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Level_progression )

Is hard to "port" nwn1 OC and HOTU campaign to nwn2 engine?
Post edited December 27, 2017 by darthvictorbr
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PeterScott: Prophet has your sidekicks scripted to do independent actions at different parts of the game, and that is enriching brings more life to your sidekick. Fully controlling your sidekick does not.
Fully controlled sidecick can still do different prescripted stuff, just look at games like Kotor 2/Dragon age origin. Hell even original nwn2 has a lot of scenes where your sidekicks do their own stuff or argue with other party members. What full party control gives is a feeling that this screw up was yours and you can no longer blame it on stupid companion

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darthvictorbr: I personally don`t like "micro management", if you wanna implement full party control in nwn1, you can, but will have some problems like for example the XP penalty. With 4 guys in your party, you will receive only 57% of XP.
That's just stupid. Full party control does not means big party. All it means - is ability to command every character in your party. Kotor 2 has three character party. Two character party for nwn1 is entirely possible and it won't be a micromanagement hell. Especially if it would be implemented with party follow and pause every turn and switch mechanics. So companion automatically run after you in normal gameplay, but automatically pause every round so you can give your character command and by pressing space it automatically choose companion.
I agree that nwn1 should improve the relations with party members. For example, if you are a bowman and have a cleric in your party and managed to find a good armor to improve his AC, you can`t give it to him. And can`t ask for "buffs" in middle battle, but never understood the logic "any rpg that doesn`t gives fully party control is an diablo like arpg" and have read this a lot of time in many forums, Mount and Blade is very tactical and you can only control the MC, only one game of troika games (one of the most famous RPG producers) have fully party control (ToEE), VtMB doesn`t even have a party and Arcanum is pretty similar to nwn1 but on a fantasy industrial revolution setting. Arcanum and nwn1 are much more close to Baldurs Gate than to diablo.

IMHO the best solution is like DA:O. You can take control of your party if you like, but can also only put some "rules" like "use potion when hp is lower than X" and if you set correctly orders, you can only control the MC
Post edited December 27, 2017 by darthvictorbr
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Lilura: My write-up:
http://lilura1.blogspot.com/2017/12/Full-Party-Control-with-Marquee-Selection-is-Where-Its-At.html

Ideally, it would be full party control with marquee selection and strategy cam along with formation-based positioning/movement and companion building and inventory control.
Yea, definitely. The lack of full party control is my biggest disappointment with NWN1, and it's the thing that keeps it from being a near-perfect RPG. I agree with pretty much everything in your write-up, and I especially find Trent Oster's response to be very poor reasoning for not implementing party control. Like you said, even if NWN1 was intended as a primarily multiplayer experience back in 2002, that's definitely not how it turned out, and if they really want to re-release it, they should take that into account. The only thing I disagree with you on is that I'm not at all interested in the so-called "Enhanced Edition". To me, it looks like nothing more than a cash grab.

You also mentioned that you were interested in making a module yourself, but only if party control were implemented, and I can identify with that as well. I've been curious about making a module for a while, but haven't really done much, for the same reason. For one thing, I'd like to make at least one of the companions a pure spellcaster, and pure spellcaster companions are pretty much useless in NWN1 for anything but pre-combat buffs.
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darthvictorbr: Party RPGs can have a lot of cool interactions, but this will not be present if you simple adapt a "single" RPG into a party RPG. You will need to write tons of texts to "simulate" a romance between the MC and a NPC for example. This is why IMHO make a custom campaign in nwn2 will be easier.
I don't know why you think being able to control your companions in battle will suddenly preclude PC/NPC interaction. Perhaps you're assuming that controlling everyone in combat means that your PC will no longer be the main character, and that you won't really get to roleplay as your PC? I don't see that happening. It didn't happen in Baldur's Gate or any of the other games with full party control. Controlling your whole party doesn't mean the game suddenly turns into an RTS or TBS where you're just ordering around a bunch of generic, anonymous units.
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darthvictorbr: Other problem is the permadie. Party members can permanently die in nwn1. So, you will need to give a resurrection rod to PC and if the PC dies, is game over.
How is that any different from what we already have? The way NWN1 is now, PC death is automatic game over, even if they're carrying a resurrection rod or scroll that their companions should be able to pick up and use, or if the companions themselves are carrying such rods or scrolls. If we could control our whole party, we could give resurrection scrolls to each of our companions and have them use one on our PC if they die.
Post edited December 27, 2017 by Praetorian815
Seriously, how control of actions of 1 or 2 henchmen could affect my XP? I am not assuming here, mind you, that the system would be backward compatible with old mods. Even so, they could level up with the main PC. Point is that you can control them, not leave them to the AI, especially casters that are utterly useless.

Yes, I am aware that you can finish Arcanum or BG alone, without party, only with main PC. However, how many people really did that, compared to playing with whole party? Analogue would be Jagged Alliance2... Yeah, you could do it without saving the game during the fight that could last 2 or 3 hours, using stealth PC armed with VAL and people did that. Maybe 4 or 5 of them in whole 18 year history of that game, but most of the players didn't. Point is, all these games could be done, with or without party (depending on one's masochistic tendencies). NWN, instead, is shackled by quite useless henchmen system (compared with full party control), which also limits the class you pick for your PC. Hm, so should I get a wizard? Nah... Melee henchman will probably got stuck in the corner and, anyway, I am moving ahead not him, so baddies see me first. And they then lock on me. Oh and enemy archers... Ok, fighter, again...

As for getting killed, well, saving the game beforehand works quite well. But sure, with controllable henchmen you could drag your PC to be resurrected. Or resurrect them yourself if said hench is priest.
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Praetorian815: (...)
I don't know why you think being able to control your companions in battle will suddenly preclude PC/NPC interaction. Perhaps you're assuming that controlling everyone in combat means that your PC will no longer be the main character, and that you won't really get to roleplay as your PC? I don't see that happening. It didn't happen in Baldur's Gate or any of the other games with full party control. Controlling your whole party doesn't mean the game suddenly turns into an RTS or TBS where you're just ordering around a bunch of generic, anonymous units. (...)
Again. You can play BG1 solo if you like. About RTS, i mean in micromanagement aspect. DA:O is probably the unique party based RPG that can't be played solo and doesn't require micromanaging IF you set the "tactics" correctly.

I don't like the idea of be forced to give obvious orders to a wizard with 20 INT in a world who the average person have 10 INT.

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blatob: Seriously, how control of actions of 1 or 2 henchmen could affect my XP? I am not assuming here, mind you, that the system would be backward compatible with old mods. Even so, they could level up with the main PC. Point is that you can control them, not leave them to the AI, especially casters that are utterly useless.

Yes, I am aware that you can finish Arcanum or BG alone, without party, only with main PC. However, how many people really did that, compared to playing with whole party? (...)
Not controlling then, only having a big party affects your XP http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Party_size_penalty

About Arcanum and BG1, i have finished both solo(if you doesn't count summons), and Arcanum doesn't give fully party control. Why have a party if you can have an army of summoned creatures like Mordekainen's sword? Imagine an army, each one with a +4 sword and each one able to do 5d4 damage per hit ( http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Mordenkainen%27s_Sword )

about summon limit
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/6858/limitation-to-number-of-controlled-summons