JerekKruger

Who said it was? Given that you have now said: and I really don't think it is. Your argument throughout has been that more characters means more character development means more fun for you, and the logical extension of that is that you'd have the most fun with a twelve person party (the Watcher, the seven companions and the four sidekicks). If there's some reason why, in fact, the extra fun ceases at six then feel free to share it, but at this point my argument is in no way a straw man.

You could have a mix. Some staves being suited for casters and some for melee. This needn't be limited to staves of course, other weapon types should be included too.

Kanisatha's welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, but I am fairly certain they meant developing their characters in the sense of levelling up. At least that's how I interpreted the line "By the time my party reaches a high level I start losing interest in the game because there's no more character development left to be done". I agree with your post pretty much. In a way I'd prefer a smaller core of well developed companions and then a number of non-companion NPCs who are well developed.

The big mistake you're making is assuming that by giving combat as an example that's all I care about. Character development and companion interactions are both important to me, but I don't buy the more is better argument. So you actually want a twelve person party right? I mean there are going to be twelve companions/sidekicks in Deadfire so, by definition, having a party of only six means having half as much fun as having a party of twelve. As Fardragon says it's a false comparison. Character development looks to be significantly deeper in Deadfire as compared to Pillars such that I'll probably spend more time making choices in it than I did in Pillars.

I'm the same. If Josh had come to me and asked "how big should the party in Deadfire be" with no other information I'd have said "six... why do you ask?" Six is what I'm used to and when I first heard it was being reduced to five I admit my reaction was "wait, why?" But then I thought about it for a while (well, a few minutes at least) and came to the conclusion that the only reason five felt wrong was because six was what I was used to/expecting, and that if Obsidian felt that five was a better number then I was happy to see how it turned out. Now I can think of arguments in favour of five over six, most notably the fact that combat was often hectic in Pillars due to much fewer passive character classes than the old IE games and the fact that this would likely get worse with the increased availability of combat abilities in Deadfire; but as Sedrefilos says none of us really know whether it'll be better or worse until the game is released.

That's a great idea!

Nope, it's still in game although I've never taken in. I don't really know whether it's good or not, I just don't personally like the concept.

How do you balance the game when some players are wandering around with a ten person party and others have six, or four, or whatever?

I wouldn't necessarily say an improvement, though I agree that the arguments in favour of six haven't been compelling so I don't see any reason it would be any worse.

Fan of Jim Sterling by any chance?

I voted for meaty expansions, preferably after the end of the game. To be clear, I thought the two White March expansions were of a good size and quality, and my only complaint was the impact they had on the difficulty curve of the game by having them happen mid game rather than after the main plot finished.

I was thinking the same thing. Throw in the increased power for their favoured school of magic and they probably don't lag far behind a single class non-specialist wizard when it comes to those spells.

This is something that Obsidian have acknowledged wasn't great about Pillars so hopefully it'll be less of a problem in Deadfire.

Yeah, my feeling is its side effects are reminiscent of opium addiction, although the active effects including hallucinations makes it quite different. As you say it doesn't have a perfect real world analogue.

I thought that was a beer, or does he offer both?

Obligatory "I don't know, but whatever it is give me some." Sorry

Yeah my bad, I thought it applied to Defences as well but perhaps it was only Accuracy.

If anything I think it's going the opposite way. I believe all classes will start with the same base Accuracy and Deflection (as well as other Defences). The differences between classes will come from abilities and talents.

Same. You join up with them whilst working on the same quest but when that's done they leave to carry on with their lives rather than immediately dropping everything to join you. I understand why this wouldn't be popular in this sort of game, but I'd quite like it.

Can I have the thread about how the final act feels rushed and less interesting that the earlier acts?

Nope, Dexterity works differently to other action speed modifiers. Here's a rough explanation: Every action consists of three (sometimes four) parts: delay, action and recovery (and sometimes reload). The delay is about five frames (1/6th of a second) long and can't be sped up by anything. The action can only be sped up by your Dexterity modifier, for example if an attack animation takes 1s with Dexterity 10 then with Dexterity 15 (+15% Action Speed) it will take 1/1.15 = 0.87s Recovery is affected both by the various Action Speed bonuses/penalties and by Dexterity. The way you calculate it is complicated (see this thread) but basically you start with your base recovery, apply all Action Speed bonuses/penalties, then apply the Dexterity bonus afterwards. The important thing to notice is that if your recovery reaches zero (doable with quite a few classes) then Dexterity only speeds up the Action Speed, whereas if your recovery is nonzero then Dexterity reduces it as well. The ease with which Wizards can reach zero recovery is the reason that, typically, Wizard builds tend to have fairly low Dexterity, whereas Priests (who don't have the pleasure of DAoM and have fewer fast casting spells) are often built with maxed Dexterity.

≠ isn't a transitive relation so it's not clear from that whether, for example, shapeshift ≠ spiritshift

I don't know whether it has been said specifically, but I would be surprised if you couldn't. The ship is basically your stronghold and all companions in PoE lived at Caed Nua once you'd acquired it.

More Dexterity always increases action speed so there is no true max action speed. That said, if you reach zero recovery (fairly easy to do as a Wizard with Deleterious Alacrity of Motion) then the extra speed from increased Dexterity becomes fairly minor. Personally I'd keep Dexterity at 10 for any Wizard: many of your spells as Fast casting and, once you get it, DAoM should always be the first thing you cast in combat (and you should almost always pick if for your level four spell mastery).

This. And barbutes!