molotov.

If we follow your logic... Why not 2?! In that way we will have even more choices and even more agony! Just perfect! Bad argument to defend this doomed idea.

"not only for all the above-mentioned traits"what traits? That she is a "down to earth"person and noble? Sorry, but that don't make any sense, those are not the qualities of a charismatic person. "but because she too is the designated huntress to carry out one of her people's most important traditions, and, depending on the ending you reach, may or may not become the village elder herself. That implies she has authority, and it also implies she is, despite following your lead in the game, a figure with presence and capacity of leadership herself."No... that implies she is wise, capable, with an incredibly knowlodge of the culture of her village and also how her village works - she explains to you everything about her village in the dialogues... well if you don't sleep whilst reading them-, but that don't implie that she is a charismatic person, there are leaders that don't have any charisma - Rick and Jon Snow are some good examples, some leaders are leaders because of their knowlodge, because they are wise and capable of doing their job, just like the traits that Sagani has, it seems that I know more about her character than you... odd. Like the DICTIONARY SAYS: charisma also means charm, magnetism, presence, she don't have any of those... Odema: S/he needs to find some springberries. Watch that s/he doesn't drop dead. Calisca: No promises. Odema: What kind of guide says something like that? Calisca: Kind you can afford. That is charisma!

"her role as a down-to-earth family and a quest that is arguably the most outwardly "noble" of all companions', there's no doubt she was designed to be charismatic all around."You know what the noun "charisma" means? Better than you it seems. But then again, I can't "argue with madness" either, so I believe we're done here. Nah, you don't get to choose when I'm done. Charisma: 1. Theology. a divinely conferred gift or power. 2.a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influenceor authority over large numbers of people. 3.the special virtue of an office, function, position, etc., that confers or isthought to confer on the person holding it an unusual ability for leadership, worthiness of veneration, or the like. Synonyms: 2. charm, magnetism, presence. Sagani don't have any, charm, magnetism, presence, nor does she has any unusual ability for leadership, worthiness or veneration, basically the opposite of Edér, in his first dialogue he shows, magnetism, presence and charm - depending on your mood. Maybe she has some good qualities - Itumaak - but charisma is not one. It's not that hard to understand, mate... "her role as a down-to-earth family and a quest that is arguably the most outwardly "noble" of all companions', there's no doubt she was designed to be charismatic all around."Oh, wait... you thought that nobility and being a "down-to-earth" character means charisma? I don't even know why I'm arguing with you, you are clearly living in your own little mind. Sagani was so bad that people only remember her because of Edér's dialogue "I'm gonna pet 'im!"

"her role as a down-to-earth family and a quest that is arguably the most outwardly "noble" of all companions', there's no doubt she was designed to be charismatic all around."You know what the noun "charisma" means? "she's one of the best companions in any RPG I've thus far played." I can't argue with madness. Thanks god she will not be reintroduced in PoE2! Uh... to think that she was so bad that Josh and the rest of Obsidian didn't even bother to reintroduce her... Nah, it's just her story is done. If Josh's hints are anything to go by,I'm sure we'll see here in the expansion as an important NPC (but not playable). That is one of the reasons I've given to prove that she wasn't a explorer like the other guy likes to believe, she would not enjoy your party because she likes her family and tribe more than exploring, she just do some exploration because she is a hunter for her tribe, simple. I really think that she being boring was one of the factors, Maneha could have been reintroduced as well, but she was also boring, so they choose Pallegina a somewhat interesting character, mainly because of her retina peculiar movements, it was delightful to read about them. If I stop to think about it, reading about Pallegina's eyes were more interesting than reading all Sagani's dialogues.

"her role as a down-to-earth family and a quest that is arguably the most outwardly "noble" of all companions', there's no doubt she was designed to be charismatic all around."You know what the noun "charisma" means? "she's one of the best companions in any RPG I've thus far played." I can't argue with madness. Thanks god she will not be reintroduced in PoE2! Uh... to think that she was so bad that Josh and the rest of Obsidian didn't even bother to reintroduce her...

This is pure speculation. Whether it would have been a bad idea depends on what else was changed (mechanically) between the IE releases, what they wanted to achieve in terms of encounter design, whether they cared enough to actually look into how a potential smaller party would affect the gameplay, etc. etc. Yes, the 6 character party is a staple of the IE games -- that doesn't mean it's the only answer for all party-based (or even D&D based / inspired) CRPG's, ever. This makes no sense. There is no "rebalancing the game for 5". Deadfire is a new game and for it they are designing what will essentially be the 2nd Edition of the PoE rules system, and the game will be build around that. Are you saying they should just leave the system as is? Because there has been a ton of player feedback about it over the past few years -- some of which was addressed in patches and TWM -- and they themselves have been very open about what they felt worked and didn't work. It was bound to be changed for the sequel. This is, IMO, one of the bigger misconceptions -- or at least something that the proponents of the party of 6 are overlooking too easily -- PoE and its system was designed around a party of 6 (largely for nostalgic reasons), Deadfire and its system will be designed around a party of 5 because OE feels that it will provide better, more tactical combat. There's your argument. That is what they are trying to achieve with this change and the new and improved system. And neither of us will know whether they've succeeded until the game is out. You might not like the idea of it but you can't know whether it actually is a bad idea until you play the game. They obviously didn't make the decision lightly. Some might say 5 = your choices re. party composition and character development have more weight and, as a result, are more interesting. Why not 7, 8, etc? Because it would dilute those choices, and make party / character building less interesting as you'd end up with a party that has an easy answer for nearly every situation. Also, micro-management... PoE was already heavy on this and it was a point of critique for a number of players. A larger party would make it worse. And I don't think anyone is saying that the game can't have 6 because of multi-classing being introduced. What they mean is you'll have more flexibility when developing your characters, so you might not miss that 6th character as much as you think you will. But I don't think that is what it's about for many of you party of 6 proponents... After 5 pages you are the first person on this entire thread that made a good argument defeding the 5 members, thank you. "This makes no sense. There is no "rebalancing the game for 5". Deadfire is a new game and for it they are designing what will essentially be the 2nd Edition of the PoE rules system, and the game will be build around that. Are you saying they should just leave the system as is? Because there has been a ton of player feedback about it over the past few years -- some of which was addressed in patches and TWM -- and they themselves have been very open about what they felt worked and didn't work. It was bound to be changed for the sequel." So you think that remaking an entire combat system is better and less time consuming than adjust and fix the old one?

Who cares? Maybe the 205 fans that voted for a 6 member party? I voted for a 6-member party, and the reason I did is because more party members allows me to see more of their banter in a single play-through. It does not affect my opinion or expectations of the game whatsoever, though. Just saying, not all people who voted like you did necessarily did for the same reason, or invariably agree with you. So? I don't see your point. You are pointing out something that is quite obvious. My comment was quite general "205 people cares about the game having 6 members instead of 5" that is what I meant, and you clearly care about it... I really don't see your point... The point is that *I* am one of those 205 people who votes for having 6 members, and *I don't care* about whether we get 5 or 6. You can't assumed that people care just because they voted on a random forum poll. "I voted for a 6-member party, and the reason I did is because more party members allows me to see more of their banter in a single play-through." You said that... so you don't care if we have 6 but you voted for 6 and gave a reason for that... but at the same time you don't care... so... why did you voted?

That is just a matter of statistics, governments, technological institutes, colleges and etc, don't ask 100% of the population to know the general opnion, they just need to interview a portion of the total number - this said number can vary depending on the research or the popullation. Again, quite a weak and shallow "argument." Your argument is so bad that, following your logic, I could say this: "there are 33k backers that didn't care enough to hop on the forums. They obviously don't care about the game." If you want another example: "there are 33k backers that didn't care enough to hop on the forums. They obviously don't care about the combat system." See? Such a mediocre argument.

Nah, she was the best of the bunch. And it was a strong bunch too. You know, it occurs to me that Calisca and Heodan are like the "sidekicks" for PoE1. Which just goes to prove that sidekicks can be popular. Yes, with a couple of comments Calisca showed more charisma than Sagani in 271 hours of gameplay. However, this realization will surely come with despair... I can already see the comments, such as: "why this awesome side kick is not a full companion? Instead I have this boring door accompanying me!" "Oh! But Sagani wasn't supposed to be a charismatic companion!" So what? Heodan made me sympahtize with his cause more than Sagani in 271 hours of gameplay, I would help that fella with his merchant's errands any day, such a swell guy!

Who cares? Maybe the 205 fans that voted for a 6 member party? I voted for a 6-member party, and the reason I did is because more party members allows me to see more of their banter in a single play-through. It does not affect my opinion or expectations of the game whatsoever, though. Just saying, not all people who voted like you did necessarily did for the same reason, or invariably agree with you. So? I don't see your point. You are pointing out something that is quite obvious. My comment was quite general "205 people cares about the game having 6 members instead of 5" that is what I meant, and you clearly care about it... I really don't see your point...

Who cares? Maybe the 205 fans that voted for a 6 member party? It's quite clear that a downgrade was never introduced in the genre because it was a bad idea... Why rebalance the game for 5? Why waste time and resources for this? You clearly didn't read any of my comments, I said that I wanted an explanation to why the downgrade - imo - which you, and everyone else who are trying to defend this, failed miserable to explain. 5 members = less options, or that is not right? "So why not 7, 8, 9 or 10?" Because the game was already prepared to 6 and people liked 6, simple. "But we will have multi-class" so what? The game can't have 6 because of that? BG and IWD had multi-class... people defending this have bad and shallow arguments like the ones I mentioned and made a simply response.

Sagani was so boring that if you make a pool of PoE1 prefered companions I bet that Calisca would be higher.

Which games introduced a smaller party size compared to it's predecessors? He suggested that the IE games, which PoE1 was based from, were balanced towards 6, you are just ignoring this and preteding that it don't have any logic, on the other hand "What if you started calling healing potions wunderbenders, and made skeletons high level enemies instead of low level fodder? Is that suddenly going to kill the game because it changed stuff? "this don't have any logic, you are suggesting just a replace, 5 members is not a replace to 6 members, it's less members. "But the game will be balanced towards it!" Why bother rebalancing the game towards 5 members? People liked 6 members. Where are the explanations? Everyone here who are defending this don't have any solid explanations or reasons, they are just giving excuses, or saying "nah it's not a big deal, but what I think is a big deal!"

Yes, and 6 members won. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91294-poll-on-preferred-party-size/

A game that have done well, both in sale and critic wise, just because of it's nostalgia factor, will remove one part of the nostalgia. Good luck with that. I find so funny that people are saying "you can choose any party in PoE1!!! There is no such thing as a tank or healler!!!!!!!! ", you can solo the game (every IE game can be soloed) but if you want to make a good party you will always want to have some sort of roles to play "but I played without a tank and a healer on PotD and won! You are just mad because you are bad!" sure... you want to know what you actually did? You just replaced the priest and fighter with some scrolls and potions, same damn thing.

Just perfect! Send this to Josh... or better don't show this to Josh, he hates fun.

Here we go. I- Better encounter design II- Better stealth III- Better melee animations IV- Better guns V- Companions that are not boring - I'm looking at you Sagani and GV. I- Dark Souls has showed me that a game can be good with only scripted and well designed encounters, every single enemy in that game is designed and placed with an intention behind it, wheter it's because of lore or just a smart trap, they all have some design and story behing them. On the other hand, IWD - which I'm still playing - showed me that a game can be good with only trash mobs, you feel so powerfull, you can test so much stuff, you can win the encounter on any way you like it. So, I think that finding a balance is the better choice here. There are only two battles in PoE1 that I remember because of the design, the one with the xaurips shooting arrows at you from the other side of the bridge and the one in the elevator at WM II, PoE2 can use this type of encounters more, but sometimes throwing some xaurips at us just to boost some moral. II- The stealth was mediocre, a completely rework is in desperately need. III- Now... this one is a MUST, fighters, monks, rogues, barbarians they were all boring to look at, whilst your wizard was throwing fireballs and your druid hadouken - or kamehameha - your fighter was swing his sword without any emotion or weight behing the blow. IV- Guns need more attention, in PoE1 guns were simply trash after level 10, well... sometimes it could be put to a good use with a special ranger build, but in general they were just dispensable after level 10. V- From the exception of Kana and maybe Edér, the rest of the companions were boring, reading their dialogue was a chore. Don't get me wrong, everything was interesting, but interesting don't make it fun, they were shallow I did'nt felt like a friend to them, they were just people walking with me... WM II really showed me that I didn't care, they all gave me goodbye and I was like "farewell Kana my friend! bye dwarf lady and Itumaak... bye... ghost lady? And who are you? Dur something right?"

I completely agree with you, I bought Tyranny just to help Obsidian, after I saw a party of 4 members and a talent tree I lost my interest in the game. PoE was already balanced towards a party of 6 members, I really can't understand why the downgrade and Josh didn't make clear his motivation to that, all I wanted was an explanation, because I don't see ANY logic in this, "hey we have this Pillars of Eternity game, this game is our number one game in the metacritic list, people seem to have loved it, how about we change the CORE of the game? It seems like a good idea!". I've never played the old CRPGs, a party of 6 members was such a new thing for me... I feel in love with this system, I had so much more options and freedom and now they will just remove it without any type of explanation... why? Not to mention that, with less members the player will have an easier time with micro, thus making the game simplier... we already have quite a lot of simplier rpgs we don't need another one... Something that I saw in the trailers, Xoti is the only healer that you can get as a companion, in all of the gameplay trailers the PC was always a priest... quaint don't you think? Maybe Obsidian saw this balance error and thought about making a new companion to fill this role... so now, OP and everyone that want to play with all of the reintroduced companions, you don't have much of a choice, you will have to play with Edér, Aloth, Pallegina and Xoti or main a priest and chose between Xoti, Maia and Seraphen. Sure you can circle throught members, just be carefull to not mess with any quest line - Durance... Aloth... GV - I just don't know who will use those side kicks if you can use a full fledged companion that has a quest, banters and a relationship system... I really think that side kicks stretch goal was a waste of time and money... but hey... I think that the forum asked for it... or not?

Exactly, he also said that it is very similar to the Commandos series. Rogues will finally have a good mechanic to take advantage of.

My favourite aspect of PoE1 was the lore, I spent about 10 hours just reading all of the books I could find the entire bestiary and talking with Kana. The lore was impressive, Obsidian really created an astonishing world, quite a number of reviews pointed that out but they did point one negative aspect of the game in common. The lack of exploration of this lore, it was a missing opportunity, I can bet that some people that played throught the game would wanted to just drop the main quest and become a cipher agent and play as a detective or join some of the expeditions of the dozens. When I was doing the main quest it felt like I was exploring something boring compared to the rest of the world "oh... why I have to go to the bloody sewers? I like being a watcher, just let me clear some levels of Caed Nua already!". One of my favourite quests is "The Wailing Banshee", it was just amazing discovering all of the lore behind Ondra's gift, the banter with Kana, the legend behind the tower, the war... just impressive and the ending was so good, if your character had perception you could see the ink in the Banshee's fingers, ah! So good!

The monsters that Obsidian will introduce will be "special" monsters with some sort of story and quest involved, the Kraken has a big story of destroying ships and he is missing an eye, Polpovir are servants of a god, Helwater Crabs male and female will have different talents, so a more unique feel to them, and the Maiden of the Depths is the leader of a group of maidens which are based on mermaids.

The fact that you think Rogues and Fighters are bad (when they're clearly not) makes your whole argument meaningless to me, so I guess I'll stop talking here. Interesting... it seems that you are the one putting words in my mouth... Where did I said they were bad? Please quote where I said that specific. My PC and favourite class in the game is Fighter, but the abilities had little to no animations - Josh explained the reason for that in his latest Q&A-, so to give a proper animation for the skills they need more attention - logic! IMO fighters are the best tank in the game. Now, rogues, I never played with them until my last playthrought and I have to say that they are strong - my favourite was a semi tank build -, but why use a rogue if you can have a ranger or barbarian? What the rogue brings to the table that a ranger and barbarian don't? The rogue class lacked "personality", the stealth system wasn't robust enough to give the rogue any proper usage for it, that is why I think that the rogue need more attention, and that is why I said it was the weakest class. "so I guess I'll stop talking here."so... you are leaving before reading any proper argument of my part to feel like a victory? That is a bit silly. Funny that you didn't adressed my first comment, I don't know if you didn't read that or you just don't have a response...

The OP never said that. Stop putting words into people's mouths. Kind of weird to compare classes like Rogues and fighters to a class that is meant to have a variety of spells. =\ "The gameplay received a lot of attention towards class balance, even if it's exclusively a single-player experience. And so, the mage archetype was a lot simplified in my opinion and was restricted to a fireworks cannon. This time classes seem to be less restrictive and "locked". Well why not. But will mages have invocations? Transmutations ? Can they transform themselves into pink rabbits? Others? Will they be able to transform a pink rabbit into an angry internet forumer? A pink forumer into an internet rabbit, maybe? .... or is it just about spamming fire/ice/sparks/stinky balls?" Quote from the FIRST comment of the OP, he clearly stated that he wanted more spells. Spells that the other classes already have. =\ One more example of his desire for more spells: "You could invoke a dancing sword duelling with your enemies, make a door appear out of thin air that teleported you in another place, you could transform into a dragon! Invocations were not limited to elementals and shades, but Ogres, djinns and devils. You could call the haunting spirits of a place to demand informations about your surroundings. You could charm your oponents and then talk to them, you could even ****ing stop the time." Now, tell me, if the wizard can summon, buff, stop time, charm enemies, make a door appear, why would I need a chanter or a cipher? Geez... we need to explain every little detail... I'm not comparing the spells of each class, I'm comparing the attention that the designer have towards the classes, let me explain that to you: if the team decides to make a bunch of new spells for the wizard - like the OP wants - they will give a lot of attention and resources towards the wizard, but others classes like the fighter and rogue - which was arguably the weakest class in the game - need more of that attention and resources than the wizard, now... did you understand or I'll need to make a graph?

Spells outside of combat should be implemented for all classes, but I don't think that giving the wizard every single type of spell - like the OP is proposing - would make any sense, it would just turn all of the others characters obsolete. I find this obsession towards making the Wizard class the most powerful being in the game quaint. What about rogues and fighters? They desperately need more attention from the team, not this unbalanced, overpowered, silly, and illogical class that is the wizard.

IE nostalgia was a selling point for Pillars So PoE must do all of the mistakes that IE games did?