Only five party members?

[marelooke]

I always feel like that sixth spot allows you to bring along that character you like but doesn't really help your party composition that much. It's like when I'm playing a rogue and I don't really need the devil of caroc, but I want to feel like she was a part of my adventure. Like how many of us feel about our younger siblings who just want to hang out with our cool friends...who probably weren't that cool anyway.

 

Why did you have to bring Imoen into this? ;-)

[Amentep]

This is one of those things where on paper it looks like a big deal but when you play, it doesn't make or break your game.

 

Five characters doesn't change the fundamentals of building a party, doing a crapload of build tailoring, synergising different characters, putting them in formation, having different roles, etc., etc.

I'll learn to live with the change, but I imagine that most of the people - like me - who are reacting negatively to the news, don't play a min-max game with their party composition, but pick parties of characters they think will be interesting for story purposes.

[Archaven]

I'm actually VERY unhappy about this too. I actually do not know about the existence of this thread and i made similar comments on a different one. Someone were commenting that the complexity and balancing are difficult for too many characters with multi-classing. Why BG2 does not have this issue? Why because it's a different ruleset? Possible. Then it probably means the current ruleset is actually much more simple and shallow?

 

The other reason i can think of is they probably wanted 4 characters just like Tyranny. 4 characters work well with you know controllers. Many party-based RPG goes with 4. But Wasteland2 has 6 too. So on 2nd thought, this probably may not be the reason.

 

But anyway.. although i may still back it but my hype went from 100% to 20%. Yeah i know some may think it doesn't make a difference but it does for me personally. So.. i guess i can have my own opinion.

[desel]

Didn't Sawyer mention that proper modding support is something they're looking into for Deadfire? During one of the POE developers commentary Twitch streams?

Maybe people could mod the sixth party member slot back in then?

 

Unless the game is tailored specifically for a group of 5 I don't see why they couldn't still allow for an optional sixth party member. 5 could be the default, recommended size BUT you would still have the option for a sixth companion.

 

The only advantage of 5 over 6 I can think of atm, would be the increase of difficulty on Hard, probably even more so on Path of the Damned.

[Infinitron]

The "balancing for multi-class" stuff is nonsense, they just want to make the combat less overwhelmingly chaotic (which is why they're also making the default speed slower)

Edited January 27, 2017 by Infinitron

[Archaven]

 

I just can't get over this. I'm so disappointed. I've been looking forward to this announcement ever since I started playing the first game and now this.. All my excitement just turned into sadness. Due to my chronic illness I don't get outside the house much and these games are one of the few things I can still enjoy. It is very important to me. I don't want a simplified version of PoE. I would just play Tyranny or Diablo 3 if I wanted that kind of combat. I just can not understand why they would change such a fundamental part of the game that has worked so well since Baldur's Gate almost 20 years ago.

 

Can anyone please rationalize this for me and help me live with this? Any good reason for doing this? I'm going to cry myself to sleep now, hopefully tomorrow morning there will be some explanations

Well, my guess at this point is smaller encounter sizes. Others have suggested spell effects and pathfinding.

 

We don't know much at this point, and I think it's jumping the gun to assume that a 5 member party=dumbed down action RPG. They'll release more news soon, so see then.

 

 

It is "dumbed down" IMO. If i say they reduce it to 3.. or 2... counter argument  still applies? Witcher 3 you are controlling 1 character too and it's not a "dumbed down" game at all. So with that logic.. are we to go with just 1 character party? Good fun.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

I always feel like that sixth spot allows you to bring along that character you like but doesn't really help your party composition that much. It's like when I'm playing a rogue and I don't really need the devil of caroc, but I want to feel like she was a part of my adventure. Like how many of us feel about our younger siblings who just want to hang out with our cool friends...who probably weren't that cool anyway.

 

Why did you have to bring Imoen into this? ;-)

 

Damn man!  You are so right there, and brought back a ton of memories, Imoen was always the 'fifth man' once I got her back.

 

I actually think I have worked out why I am wary of the reduction in party members.  In BG2 I would get a 'core' group of five characters (including my MC) that I would play through as, it would be the 'primary party', instead of using the full six, as it gave me enough characters to cover all the bases needed for a balanced party plus one to give the party a flavour or focus.  This sounds like I should be fine with five, right?  Except that the sixth slot had a very important job for me: it was the temp slot, for rotating characters in and out dependant on the quest.  Many of the quests in BG2 had companion NPCs that, while you didn't need to bring along, did add flavour to and lore if you did and felt wrong for not bringing along for no reason other than 'full party'.  I would bring Nalia when doing her stronghold quest, then dump her for Valygar when doing the Dimension Sphere quest who would get the boot when Mazzy came along...

 

With a maximum party size of five, I need to either ditch the "Quest-Whore" slot or not have the party defining "fifth man" slot.  Maybe it will still work, maybe there are completely valid reasons for why they can't do it, maybe I am worried about nothing, I dunno but I felt that I should explain why I feel wary of reducing the party size from six, especially if doing so gives someone an idea on how it could still work.

[Amentep]

There aren't a lot of RPGs with a party size of five (Final Fantasy 4?), so you could say the series is finding its own unique identity in that respect.

FF vi did have 5, but you also didn't control who was in your party - they came and went as part of the plot.

[Aotrs Commander]

usually the change between 4/5/6 parties is one of degrees and not a qualitative change - e.g. it's the difference of comfortably giving yourself two front-line fighters or having one go hybrid, or rethinking your personal quirk of always having two mages. When you get down below that, you start having major shifts - e.g. having one character death be really significant, have to deal with the environment in combat differently because of the lack of bodies. Also, when you play a game that's designed for 2 or 3-man parties, there's a clear cut difference in degree of tactical complexity.

 

I have been lucky enough to play tabletop over the last twenty five-years with a player big enough that six has been largely the size of the parties. We have run with as few as three, during one period, and at one stage, we had nine players.

 

These days, as DM, I tend to convert Paizo adventure paths, which are designed for four characters. But, it took us so long to get started on Rise of the Runelords and Shackled City that the player composition had changed, so I've had to make a couple of passes through my rebalancing.

 

What was clear was that you are correct in that it;s proportional change. Going from four to six necessitated a major jump-up, but going from six to eight (and from eight back down to seven for our current group) was much less of any issue.

 

Now, when we played with three or four characters (I was a player at the time) we REALLY felt the difference, since it made one character going down from a problem to a castatrophy. (If you think about it, it's just maths. One character out of seven goes down, and the party's fighting strength is reduced by 28% (2/7) as someone has to go get them back up. Do that with a three-person group, and youre down by 66%).

 

 

 

I would, I think, like most here, prefer six characters, but five is definitely better than four.

 

(I always find whatever the number of characters, there's never enough slots. NWN2 had issues with its ending, but the boss-fight prior remains one of my favourites of all time, not least because it involved ALL of my party, and I can't think of any other games where that's been true.)

 

 

 

I think FlintlockJazz is right though - thinking about it, the sixth slot in PoE I varied between Kana and GM, with all the other slots being "locked in." What we're losing by going from six to five is sort of a "nonessential bonus" slot.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Aotrs Commander

[Edrahil]

 

This is one of those things where on paper it looks like a big deal but when you play, it doesn't make or break your game.

 

Five characters doesn't change the fundamentals of building a party, doing a crapload of build tailoring, synergising different characters, putting them in formation, having different roles, etc., etc.

I'll learn to live with the change, but I imagine that most of the people - like me - who are reacting negatively to the news, don't play a min-max game with their party composition, but pick parties of characters they think will be interesting for story purposes.

 

 

This, it seems to limit the fun a freedom factor quite a bit, while at the same time I never noticed that the 6 man party setup would be bad in any way.

I wouldn't mind a poll for backers for this issue, although generally speaking I think that dev should be deciding things, not backers.

[Archaven]

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

[Sedrefilos]

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

PoE had 6 because nostalgia and IE purists.

Devs say encounters would be more tactical and combat of better pace this time around, hence the 5 party members. Unless we see actual gameplay we can't say much more I suppose.

[Amentep]

 

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

PoE had 6 because nostalgia and IE purists.

Devs say encounters would be more tactical and combat of better pace this time around, hence the 5 party members. Unless we see actual gameplay we can't say much more I suppose.

 

 

So no one has nostalgia for PoE's 6 member party?

[Boeroer]

I have.

 

But if 5 makes the game better (somehow) and the designers truly believe that then it's ok for me.

 

I guess it also lowers the complexity of the party banter scripting if you only have 4 companions instead of 5 - like who answers to whom and what reaktions can we see when X is in the party and also Y and Z - and so on.

[Archaven]

 

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

PoE had 6 because nostalgia and IE purists.

Devs say encounters would be more tactical and combat of better pace this time around, hence the 5 party members. Unless we see actual gameplay we can't say much more I suppose.

 

 

I don't buy that reason. It seems to say 6 party characters game cant have better pace and out of a sudden 6 character became less tactical?  . I would rather that dev be more frank rather than hiding something.

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

PoE had 6 because nostalgia and IE purists.

Devs say encounters would be more tactical and combat of better pace this time around, hence the 5 party members. Unless we see actual gameplay we can't say much more I suppose.

 

 

Nah, that's the just excuse they are using for a flat out lazy design decision. 

[Sedrefilos]

 

 

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

PoE had 6 because nostalgia and IE purists.

Devs say encounters would be more tactical and combat of better pace this time around, hence the 5 party members. Unless we see actual gameplay we can't say much more I suppose.

 

 

So no one has nostalgia for PoE's 6 member party?

 

Well, I do, but, t's not important

After all, sometimes you need to acknowledge that some things have to change in order to move forward.

[morhilane]

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

 

People actually complained (and still complains) that POE combat is unmanageable because there is too many abilities to use among the party and too many entities involved in combat. The combat is called Real-Time with Pause but it's plays more like Paused with some Real Time.

 

The Infinity games worked with a party of 6 because outside of spellcasters, the other classes relied on auto-attacks in combat which require a lot less micro-management than POE where you want to use those per-rest and per-encounter abilities.

[Monara]

 

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

People actually complained (and still complains) that POE combat is unmanageable because there is too many abilities to use among the party and too many entities involved in combat.

For those people there are the easier difficulties though. It gave everyone what they wanted. But now suddenly there is some imaginary problem with 6 and they are moving toward forcing the zero party management playstyle on everyone. What exactly was the issue with playing on normal/easy if you didn't enjoy the party management? Why take away the option to have challenging gameplay for the people that did enjoy it? To me it feels like it's just a change done out of laziness to ease the balancing. I'm not buying the "more tactical combat" excuse at all. Anyone that played Tyranny or has at least a tiny bit of common sense knows it's the exact opposite.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Monara

[Enoch]

It just occurred to me that this game might be the first one of its type that actually offers a credible in-world rationale for why you can't just take all your friends along.  Maybe the player's boat only fits 5 passengers! 

[Aotrs Commander]

I think it's also notable that PoE's "slow" combat speed is the new default. The more D&D 3.x/4E ish set-up of everyone having abilities or spells (and less reliance on just auto-attack) must perforce make everything more compliacted (not just from out end, but from the AI and party AI end). So that would suggest a tacit admission that there was more management than many people were expecting. (I ended up running the whole game on Slow because otherwise I had to have it pauses every second or two. At slow, I could run it more ar real-time.)

 

 

 

There may also be logic to the point that a smaller party size (and thus potentially less combatants overall because of scaled-down encounters) might mean they have spare performance capacity to run AI routines that would otherwise be performance detriment with six. Maybe? I mean, I'm a CAD designer, not a programmer, dammit Jim, but the sort of thing I've gleaned from topics posted on stuff like this in other games would suggest that might be a factor.

[morhilane]

 

 

I think the issue is not about why a game cant be great with 5 characters. Heck the game can be great even with 1 character! The issue for me was why the original PoE has 6 but PoE2 has lesser? If the first PoE do not have any problems, how come PoE2 out of a sudden 6 characters became an issue?

People actually complained (and still complains) that POE combat is unmanageable because there is too many abilities to use among the party and too many entities involved in combat.

For those people there are the easier difficulties though. It gave everyone what they wanted. But now suddenly there is some imaginary problem with 6 and they are moving toward forcing the zero party management playstyle on everyone. What exactly was the issue with playing on normal/easy if you didn't enjoy the party management? Why take away the option to have challenging gameplay for the people that did enjoy it? To me it feels like it's just a change done out of laziness to ease the balancing. I'm not buying the "more tactical combat" excuse at all. Anyone that played Tyranny or has at least a tiny bit of common sense knows it's the exact opposite.

 

Lower difficulty doesn't change how many abilities you have to manage on your party of 6 characters, it just means you can do more mistakes and not get wiped in 10 seconds. The difference between Easy and Normal is like one less enemies per encounter and Story Mode use Normal encounters composition with reduced stats, which means you kill stuff faster, but combat look as overcrowded as it does on Normal at the start.

[Messier-31]

Here's a thought:

 

Have a ranger in your party and BAM, animal companion is the 6th in the lineup.

 

Genius.

[Amentep]

It just occurred to me that this game might be the first one of its type that actually offers a credible in-world rationale for why you can't just take all your friends along.  Maybe the player's boat only fits 5 passengers!

 

[desel]

I think it's also notable that PoE's "slow" combat speed is the new default. The more D&D 3.x/4E ish set-up of everyone having abilities or spells (and less reliance on just auto-attack) must perforce make everything more compliacted (not just from out end, but from the AI and party AI end). So that would suggest a tacit admission that there was more management than many people were expecting. (I ended up running the whole game on Slow because otherwise I had to have it pauses every second or two. At slow, I could run it more ar real-time.)

 

So when entering combat and the game pauses it also slows down to "Slow", no matter the speed ("Normal" or "Fast") you had enabled prior to engagement?

Hope they give us the option to adjust that to our liking instead of having to manually speed up things EVERY TIME you enter combat.