I'm not really sure where you're going with the talk of playing the game solo, so I won't address that for the moment. As for your other concerns here, it sounds like you're afraid that those of us advocating for full party control want the AI to be totally removed and the player forced to do everything manually, and I don't think that's the case. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I just want full party control to be an option, so that if I want to decide how my companions level up, tell them who to attack, control their spellcasting, and so on, I can do that. Meanwhile, people who don't want to do that can leave them on AI control, and others can use some combination, where maybe they let the AI handle things most of the time but take direct control for precise tactical decisions.

But NWN1's AI makes them act like they have 5 INT. They do, in fact, require someone to give them obvious orders.

Because a party has characters, not just combat drones. Part of the fun of RPGs is interacting and adventuring with interesting characters. At least it is for me. Given how much you talk about playing RPGs solo, maybe you don't care about that, but I'd wager there are many who do. I don't just care about maximizing combat effectiveness; I also want a good story and characters.

But NWN1 is NOT a party based RPG.

Every game does not have to fit that mold, there are many Party based RPGs if that is what you want.

Yes it is. You could argue that the original campaign isn't, but by the time of Hordes of the Underdark, it was. It uses the D&D ruleset, and D&D is absolutely a party-based system. The major intention of the game was for groups of people to play it together, just as if they were playing tabletop D&D. The game was absolutely intended as a party-based RPG, but they made the mistake of trying to sell it as a purely multiplayer party-based RPG. The game's history has shown that the fans want to have a single-player party-based experience as well, and that's not unreasonable, considering that NWN1 is an aberration among D&D games in that regard. If they really wanted us to give up on the idea of NWN1 ever offering a good single-player, party-based RPG, they shouldn't have added to the party-based aspect more and more with each expansion. They gave us companion inventory control in Shadows of Undrentide and let us have two companions at once in Hordes of the Underdark. I just want them to finish the job.

Beamdog has the source code. They can implement it if they want. If they really want to "enhance" the game and not just make a cash grab, they should do more than just upgrade the graphics.

None of them have modding tools on par with NWN. None of them. I've looked. Even all these years after its release, NWN1 is still the best RPG out there for creating your own adventures, and it could easily support full party-based gameplay. The vast majority of single-player modules don't follow the "hero and henchman" model. The game would be greatly improved - one might even say "enhanced" - if they were to implement a feature that would open up many new possibilities for user-made content. So no, you can't just tell me "play some other game", because NWN is unique. I really can't get what I'm looking for elsewhere. And I could just as easily tell you that there are other "hero and henchman" RPGs, like Skyrim.

Here's how I see it: I'm not trying to take anything away from you. I'm not saying Beamdog should remove the AI from companions and force people like you to play the way I want to play. I'm not saying they should issue a decree that henceforth, all NWN content must be designed with no party AI and require you to micromanage a full party of four or five. The original NWN campaigns, and the modules that only give you one follower, will still be there. All I'm asking is that they take this opportunity to add something to the game for people like me. I'd quite happily buy the Enhanced Edition for that feature alone, and I doubt I'm alone in that. I don't want to take anything away from you, so why are you so against the inclusion of a feature that I and many others in the community have been wanting for years? We just want the option to make NWN party-based. Isn't having more options a good thing?

I don't want it "changed to have party-based RPG features". I want them to complete the set of party-based RPG features that they've already implemented. And it is party-based. They just wanted to sell it as multiplayer party-based. That was a mistake, and I think they should fix it. You didn't address that point.

It's also a horrible, buggy, cumbersome mess of a game. And it actually doesn't have the same capabilities, because its toolset is nowhere near as accessible. Accessibility is a major reason for the success of NWN1's toolset. That's why NWN1 has a ton of really good modules and NWN2 only has a few.

No. I'm arguing to add a new option to it. Again, I'm not trying to take something away from you. You could still have your preferred style of gameplay. There are modules designed for that. The only difference is that I'd be able to have my preferred gameplay as well. What's the problem with that? And can you honestly say that you've never had any moments playing NWN1 where you really, really wished you could tell your henchman exactly what to do, even for just a single action? And hell, it's not like the game hardcodes a one-follower limit in the first place. The game is already designed to allow full-sized parties. I want them to improve on that.

Did you read Lilura's write-up? She proposes that full party control could be implemented as an option for module builders and be used on a case-by-case basis. I think that could work quite well, although I'd prefer if it were a global option you could switch on and apply to everything you play.

What makes nwn partybased is dependents on other classes. Most notibly - dependence on rogue for opening locks and disarming trap. Actual solo games(like TESS, Gothic or VtMB) is build in such a way that every class has exactly the same ways to tackle game.while in nwn1 if you are a fighter and you don't take rogue level - you still can't disable all traps, At it's core and is made in such a way as to encourage not just playing together, but playing together as a team

Again, for single player mods, I am sorry to say, I have found nothing that works except fighter and multi class varieties of it. That's why they have so many mods on the vault that are primarily made for melee classes. Sorry, but Exclusively AI controlled henches do not cut it, hence you are limited in which classes you can use unless the mod is made specifically for caster or rogues. Hypothetically, you could roll wizard for any mod, but in most cases it won't work.

However, the lack of this feature being great minus for the original game (and people found few ways to, at least, give hench some equipment, rather early on, before the expansions), I think the original post was misunderstood. This could be implemented as an option for a builder/player. You already have scripts that control XP based on race, level and number of people in the party, on PWs. Builder would leave this as an option for the player. You can choose the party control or one man play, scripts would assign you correct amount of XP based on that. At lest scripts on our PW work like that, based on level/number of PCs.

Older mods would be without such option, unless maker modifies them, or there would be, again, options to choose so. In any way, don't henches level with main PC? So, basically, you choose whichever style you want, AI or player controlled party. In any way, we are discussing the personal game style preferences here.

Not only that, but it also limits the classes that module creators can use for party members. Pure spellcasters work horribly as companions in NWN1, because the AI simply isn't good enough to use spells properly. In fact, I think the current state of NWN can also produce the opposite of the problem you described. If you want your party to have a pure spellcaster who's actually effective, you need to play that spellcaster yourself.

In just about every module I've played, all of the available companions have either been pure martials, some kind of hybrid class like a cleric or a druid, or multiclassed in wizard/sorcerer and something else. This is because module creators are well aware of the problems with putting the AI in charge of managing and casting spells.

I don't understand this concern about XP, because I'm pretty sure that even single-player modules reduce XP gains appropriately depending on how many party members you have. You're correct that henchmen usually level up at about the same time the PC does, because they're getting the same amount of XP that you are.

I don't think experience points are really an issue, guys; it's configurable in the toolset.

As are Henchmen/companions. Their leveling can be set to static, ahead or behind of the PC, or scale in proportion to the PC whether they are in the party or not.

I think multiplayer-capable SP modules also innately scale enemy unit number to party size (not just party level). Other than just recruiting the six companions, you could possibly use something like OHS Henchman System to build six for full control in the original campaign, and I think it would be playable (though probably way too easy).

From top to bottom, the much-maligned OC is in need of an overhaul, anyway. It's actually quite interesting when you look into how it works. It was actually made primarily with multiplayer in mind; much of it's design points to that. I've criticized its SP flaws at length on my blog and talked about a possible overhaul with Balkoth at length there, too.

I think there would be a lot of people interested in overhauling OC, SoU, HotU and possibly other modules (permission required for some, but I've seen people upload separate patches before when they couldn't get in contact with the original builder) with full party control, if Beamdog employed it. I'd also bank on community coders coming along to make it happen if Beamdog at least unhardcoded the potential. They would be heroes of the community, imo.

I would like to think demand would increase for full party control when it appears on Steam and things pick up speed with the official release, but who knows these days? As I said in my write-up, I just felt the need to air this early because it's been on my mind for a long time now, and I know there are quite a lot of other people that feel the same (or at least, there were back in the day).

Multiplayer was not a mistake, it is part of what makes it great. You can play with real people instead of micro-managing a party. This is exactly what made real PnP DnD great. You can join persistent world servers, and play with a great many other people at the same time.

Multiplayer over micromanaging a party was a great choice.

I have read comments from authors that have done both and they didn't find it that much harder to work in NWN2. NWN2 might have been buggy in the beginning, but it was pretty much ironed out by the end.

NWN2 was later and less popular, so it has always had a smaller community and thus less community content. But if you want party based NWN, it is the way to go.

In fact one of the main reasons I don't like NWN2 that much is because it is party focused, where I prefer the Hero focused NWN1.

Not parties; Followers. None of the original campaigns allowed that many followers and even most third party module limited you to one or two.

The NWN1 engine is terrible a path finding, the more followers, the worse it gets.

NWN1 = Hero Focused.
NWN2 = Party Focused.

If you want a party focused game, play NWN2. I bet beamdog won't try to retrofit party focus onto a Hero focused game, because it would just turn into a quagmire of problems, and break much of the work community authors did on their unique NPC followers.

I bet they will want to avoid messing with the core mechanics as much as possible.

This is really just a pipe dream from people that think every RPG should be party based.

Fighters can bash chests/doors open, and survive walking through traps, and of course you can multi-class into into fighter-rogue-cleric and do it all in one character. Also Any single pure class can complete any of the original campaigns, because paths for each class is provided. Those dependencies are really non-existent in NWN1.

Dragon Age OTOH was designed to be played as a party with these kinds of dependencies, that you claim exist in NWN.

When people asked why they couldn't multi-class or bash chests in Dragon Age, the response was that it was a Party game, and you had other characters for those roles.

NWN OTOH is very much a Hero focused game, your one single character is the main focus for everything and you can do it all. You might have a sidekick, or two, but they are in an optional secondary role.

Hey Lilura, discovered your blog when Enhanced Edition was announced, love the stuff there.

Don't see Ars Magica mentioned very often, so thats a free bonus point in my book :)


The thing I most want for NWN:EE is spell indicators such as the ones in the sequel. Its one of the things I miss the most playing spellcasters in Infinity games. Webbing my partymembers always feels horrible.

Why are you so worked up about this proposed change, given that you've already vowed not to buy the EE?

Not worked up. Read my post that you quoted. I am correcting faulty claims.

You've got more posts in this thread than anyone else, so you certainly seem to care a lot about it.

To be fair, you do seem to be the kind of poster who likes to win arguments by sheer quantity of posting. :D