6th party character

[Archaven]

alright i admit is abit click-baity. now i got your attention. i just want to share my experience about combat clarity and path-finding. the sole reason why obsidian reduce 1 party character because they openly mention to address the above. during my 70 hours of gameplay, i would like to confirm that combat clarity and path-finding is a lie. i have occasions where my characters stucked on certain obstacles and also i play on potd. due to sheer amount of enemies on screen and visual effects, combat clarity isn't fixed. with mirror image, ground aoe, buffs, etc. i couldn't still find my character hidden amidst of it.

 

i just want to say that there are better methods like character highlights (when characters hidden behind buildings for example). not that i have a problem with this but i just want to highlight that their so call "fix" for combat clarity and path-finding are really unfounded. so now what you have here is you took a way player flexibility by forcing only 5 party characters (which i also find that it further limit the combat formations). bear in mind with 6 party characters, you have the options to go 5. on the contrary it's not possible to go 6 if you forced it with 5. certain spell effects and even sound effects (compare returning storm in first poe vs deadfire) are being gimped as well. so nothing was fixed or improved but my opinion the real reason is to simplify the game.

Edited May 27, 2018 by Archaven

[Artaios]

I don't think they claimed that one less character would be the panacea for combat overview but it is literally less things to keep track of.

[wih]

Another goal was to reduce micromanagement. Josh Sawyer explained that the decision to reduce party size had to be taken when the custom AI system didn't yet exist or wasn't developed enough.

 

Pathfinding for me is a practically solved problem but because of the engine changes, not because of the reduced party size. I mean this specific problem where a unit couldn't manage to get close enough to its target and started to run around all the combatants instead. This was especially annoying for me.

 

Picture clarity is still a problem. I hoped that visual effects would be toned down significantly more.

 

All in all, retrospectively, it seems that the party size reduction wasn't really necessary.

Edited May 27, 2018 by wih

[rjshae]

Try modifying these: Options -> Graphics -> VFX Pause Opacity / Occlusion Opacity