ps. the more I poke around with it the more frustrated I am that Larian didn't adopt some of this stuff and incorporate it into the base game. For me just having the party of 6 makes for a superior D&D campaign in every single way. The pacing and gameflow just feels way better as a result. Every argument in EA about how adding more party members would somehow make the combats take longer, or that it would make the game too easy, or that it would be too much to manage, all instantly defeated by seeing how it actually plays with a larger party. Everything is just smoother, the economy feels tighter, the division of the kit, the sense of an actual party dynamic, all better with 6 characters. The only thing that undermines it is the arbitrary limit of 4 imposed on the long rest cutscenes, or those special area transitions that bork out if bringing more than 4. The mod prevents this by removing the "choose camp supplies" or transition options until characters have been dismissed back down to 4, but seems like that could easily have been a launch setting, along with split XP and other things that would be immediately familiar to returning BG players. The party comp advantage of having 5 or 6 characters over 4 is massive, even without increasing the total number of recruitable companions, although I'd love to have seen more of those too. The pathing and formations aren't great, but it sorta works. Like I care less if someone sets off a trap or whatever, when there are a couple more peeps in the group. Exploration is maybe slightly more tedious on account of that, but combat to me feels more enjoyable with the party up to bat more often. Having to dismiss companions to long rest, while also somewhat tedious, casually reinforces the idea of trying to push the long rest a bit. Similar to goodberries the sink is just sorta click tedium and delay of game, but it works without being too heavy handed. With 6 people in the party, it's just mechanically way easier to power through to the next encounter, as opposed to going in 4 all buffs and summons to the hilt with hella potions sleeping constantly, with 6 things are bit more spread out. Like obviously it should have been 6 right? BG game and all! hehe
Just the option to have a few more pets and such along for the ride is going a real long way for me right now. 'Twisting the knife' with that Alfira recruitment in the Dark Urge campaign seems pretty pointless though, like it's a complete tease. You get to bring her into the party and level her, but we can't leave camp and get into any trouble? I re-assigned all her skillpoints to max out "Survival" but to no avail lol. Just shatter my heart before we start why don't you! hehe
Shield riggings sometimes have a life of their own when worn on the back lol. Mostly it holds up pretty well, like I didn't notice too much. But the problem is that you don't get to see many shields models until pretty far along and some are just a bit large I think. I'm considering starting over to remove that one honestly. It's a little inconvenient in that it's one of those mods that can't be easily disabled once you start a new save, so I'd have to start over basically. Game really needs a mod to Hide Shield or Hide cape, or a toggle switch similar to the torch and then it'd probably be ok, but for now it just sorta obstructs too much of the avatar I think. Doesn't look too bad on the humans and elves, but on a Gnome not so much.
Ladders are still a chore same was with 4 really, but we usually go pretty light, with just a couple summons to explore. Maybe the Crow, instead of the whole animal army at once, and that helps a bit. Still has some issues on the jumps and the ladders, but overall fairly manageable with upside of more banter and smoother encounters. I prefer it this way for sure with 6 and the critters, feels faster and more exciting to me.
Anyhow, I just don't see why they wouldn't have leaned into it more with the extra companions. The vanilla hirelings system is so weak sauce. I'd have taken another Bard from the existing roster of characters any day of the week! Viconia and a couple Goblins to pad it out. Sign me up!
Also just the little cosmetic things like being able to choose outfit colors, or tweak our portraits - that stuff is so massive for me in a cRPG. Not that I would make Black on Black Dyes available immediately like this - I think it's too front loaded and removes the sense of aesthetic progression to have everything available right from the start. I probably would have restricted some of these cooler looking dyes to non-enchanted armors and then had the more expensive stuff come online later. Like they had everything in place for that, with the Facemakers in Act III, but that's the difference between leaving it for the Mods to kill and building the whole game around the idea. Still right now I'd say the FaerunColors Dyes are basically the same thing as Major/Minor colors in BG1, so I'll take it. But you know what I mean right? Like why not just do it that way from the getgo? Who could say I guess. Better late than never on some of this stuff, but even with a million people downloading mods over the weekend, it's hard to imagine the typical player going all ham with some of that stuff. At least not until they've played the regular game already for several hundred hours probably.
I think they could have gotten ahead of it a bit more, or starting the process a lot earlier, so the whole modding scene could have peaked a bit sooner. I'm pretty happy that it exists now, don't get me wrong, but I can just picture how it might really take off with more support. I guess I still just really want NWN 3 for some of this stuff. Go figure!