Poll on preferred party size

[Lasweetlife]

I think people need to have a bit more faith in Obsidian here. If the choice is between 5 party members and better combat vs. 6 party members and less better combat, I'll take 5 part members every time (and make no mistake, these, at least in Obsidian's opinion, are the two options. In choosing 6 party members, you are "choosing" a combat system that Obsidian believe is worse than the best they can do given the current constraints).

[Sedrefilos]

All the change to 5 members is doing is creating a situation where people that would prefer to play the game in the traditional IE fashion (with 6 members) WON'T HAVE THAT OPTION.

 

I knew all that fuss about sticking to 6 no matter what had to do with this.

[LordCrash]

I think people need to have a bit more faith in Obsidian here. If the choice is between 5 party members and better combat vs. 6 party members and less better combat, I'll take 5 part members every time (and make no mistake, these, at least in Obsidian's opinion, are the two options. In choosing 6 party members, you are "choosing" a combat system that Obsidian believe is worse than the best they can do given the current constraints).

Well, they also thought they could create a better combat system than D&D back in the Infinity Engine days...

 

And well, look at how that turned out... 

[Eurhetemec]

 

This is a truly pointless poll. You can vote for six all your like, but all it does is remind the devs why they shouldn't bother to post here. Too many people aren't interested in hearing their opinions or reasoning, and think that they know better.

 

It's not pointless. Devs are not always right on the decision they made. Sure they may not care, but if said majority of its fans are unhappy they'll reconsider their stance.

 

 

It's entirely pointless.

 

You're asking them to rebalance the entire game, top-to-bottom, and reverse a design decision which affects the design of virtually every ability in the game, essentially to please your whims.

 

No-one has provided any kind of sound reason why 6 is necessary. We only have "Omg its traditional!" and "But I want more characters! :("

 

Whilst I sympathize with the latter - and would prefer six myself, oddly enough, I'm not silly enough to think I know better than Obsidian and I certainly don't want them to end up taking months extra on the game design solely to allow another character. Anyway, they won't do it, thankfully.

[Eurhetemec]

 

I think people need to have a bit more faith in Obsidian here. If the choice is between 5 party members and better combat vs. 6 party members and less better combat, I'll take 5 part members every time (and make no mistake, these, at least in Obsidian's opinion, are the two options. In choosing 6 party members, you are "choosing" a combat system that Obsidian believe is worse than the best they can do given the current constraints).

Well, they also thought they could create a better combat system than D&D back in the Infinity Engine days...

 

And well, look at how that turned out... 

 

 

Successfully?

 

Pillars' system is insanely better-balanced, more tactical and better rounded than AD&D 1/2E, D&D 3E, or D&D 5E. You could argue 4E is equally well-balanced and maybe even more tactical, though, I admit.

[LordCrash]

No-one has provided any kind of sound reason why 6 is necessary. We only have "Omg its traditional!" and "But I want more characters! :("

Actually it's the other way round: Nobody has provided any kind of sound reason why the party must be capped at 5...  

 

 

What we have though is a range of very similar games from both the far and recent past that worked quite well with a party size of 6 rr less, if people wanted. So there is sound empirical evidence FOR capping at 6 while there is completely NO evidence or reason of any kind why capping at 5 would serioulsy improve this type of game...

Edited January 29, 2017 by LordCrash

[draego]

 

No-one has provided any kind of sound reason why 6 is necessary. We only have "Omg its traditional!" and "But I want more characters! :("

Actually it's the other way round: Nobody has provided any kind of sound reason why the party must be capped at 5...  

 

 

What we have though is a range of very similar games from both the far and recent past that worked quite well with a party size of 6 rr less, if people wanted. So there is sound empirical evidence FOR capping at 6 while there is completely NO evidence or reason of any kind why capping at 5 would serioulsy improve this type of game...

 

 

I think this is the point that their is no other justification than this is game and its about fun. So if 5 party members turns out to be fun than its fine.

Edited January 29, 2017 by jnb0364

[Eurhetemec]

 

No-one has provided any kind of sound reason why 6 is necessary. We only have "Omg its traditional!" and "But I want more characters! :("

Actually it's the other way round: Nobody has provided any kind of sound reason why the party must be capped at 5...  

 

What we have though is a range of very similar games from both the far and recent past that worked quite well with a party size of 6 rr less, if people wanted. So there is sound empirical evidence FOR capping at 6 while there is completely NO evidence or reason of any kind why capping at 5 would serioulsy improve this type of game...

 

 

I don't think you understand what "empirical evidence" really means or it's role in logic, here.

 

Obviously one cannot have a priori knowledge of a thing that has not happened yet. You might as well prance around in the early 1930 insisting jet engines are a bloody stupid idea and propellers are obviously better, because, yes the empirical evidence would support that obviously wrong and silly opinion! Essentially your "empirical evidence" here is tradition.

 

Like this: 

 

I mean, we all love Fiddler, right, but that song is showing very well how tradition has it's ups and downs.

 

What  we do have are some very serious developers who are unusually and atypically good at balance and system design (like it or not, they are better than any other CRPG devs I can think of), who are telling us they changed it to five for a good reason, and have, contrary to your claims, explained that reason, just not in extreme detail.

 

Would I love a detailed explanation? Sure. Do I prefer six naturally? Yes, but I've got faith in Obsidian to not make a weird change like this without a very good reason.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Eurhetemec

[LordCrash]

Yes, but I've got faith in Obsidian to not make a weird change like this without a very good reason.

Well, you might understand that not everybody is guided by blind faith...

 

 

I think this is the point that their is no other justification than this is game and its about fun. So if 5 party members turns out to be fun than its fine.

Problem with that is: "Fun" (while being essential for making good video games) is quite a subjective term. What is fun to you isn't necessarily fun to me. The concept of choice usually helps to make it possible for us both to have fun. Therefore reducing choice (like limiting the amount of people you can have in your party) should be backed up with one hell of a good reason.

 

You know, if you have fun with 5 companions, nobody says you need to have 6. But if I think it would be more fun with 6, I can still only use 5. One choice less...

Edited January 29, 2017 by LordCrash

[Sedrefilos]

Whoever can't understand that we cannot have a real conversation about party cap size untill we know how calsses work, explained by devs and shown in a video or play a demo, is just being purist and nostalgia zombie. I can't axplaint it any other way.

[LordCrash]

Whoever can't understand that we cannot have a real conversation about party cap size untill we know how calsses work, explained by devs and shown in a video or play a demo, is just being purist and nostalgia zombie. I can't axplaint it any other way.

Blame Josh. He blew the information without backing it up with reason... 

[Lanyon]

Whoever can't understand that we cannot have a real conversation about party cap size untill we know how calsses work, explained by devs and shown in a video or play a demo, is just being purist and nostalgia zombie. I can't axplaint it any other way.

You do realize that the entire campaign for PoE was based on appealing to Infinity Engine "purists" and "nostalgia zombies", right?

 

I could be totally off here, but I was under the impression that PoE was created to scratch that IE CRPG itch a lot of people have had for over a decade. The point was to provide us with more of that same style of game, not to break entirely new ground and change up the formulae.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Lanyon

[IndiraLightfoot]

They've already made up their minds, but if you'd twist my arm, I'd definitely prefer 6 over 5, 'cause I get to do much more party-making that way. Freedom, options, fun...

[Quillon]

The original IE games had six character parties typically featuring a mix of character classes that had a wide spectrum of active use. For the most part, weapon-oriented classes were low-maintenance and casters were high maintenance. A typical party would have 2-3 casters with the balance being low-maintenance characters. Even with all of the pathfinding improvements we (Black Isle) and BioWare made in the IE games, pathfinding was still never great and it was often exacerbated in larger fights.

 

In Pillars, almost every weapon-oriented class had more active abilities. You could build them otherwise, but most parties had a full roster with each character using active abilities. This meant that general party maintenance generally increased. As in the IE games, pathfinding in Pillars still left a lot to be improved. We were still using small character selection circles and relatively cramped melee weapon ranges. This contributed (along with visual effects) to combat being harder to follow.

 

Here are things we have done in Deadfire to help with a bunch of these issues:

 

* Re-wrote a lot of pathfinding code and introduced new features that will be invisible to players but translate to "characters do fewer idiotic things".

* Slightly increase selection circle sizes. If you mash everyone together in a grand melee, their models are a little farther apart in Deadfire to give everyone more space.

* Slightly increase melee weapon ranges. Even if the characters aren't mashed together, they will tend to be a little more spread out because their base-to-base spacing is a bit larger.

* Changed how visual effects render so they are much less likely to blow out the scene.

* Whenever possible, tried to make visual effects have a shorter duration. *~ Snappier ~*. Literally tightening up the graphics on (spell) level 3.

* Characters now have a combat idle for "no queued action", where they more or less stand upright with their weapons at their sides, looking from side to side like they don't know what they're supposed to be doing (because they don't).

* Reduced the party size from 6 to 5. It's easier to maintain every member of the party in combat, encounter ratios can stay the same while overall number of combatants comes down, meaning pathing and general combat legibility improves.

 

I don't have exact figures in front of me for how much we increased the selection circle sizes or weapon ranges, but you can see what we did in the trailer. All of the combat gameplay is happening using those values. I believe combat is much easier to follow in Deadfire and it almost never feels like I'm forgetting to use someone to the best of their abilities.

 

 

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3807509&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=26#post468858619

[kanisatha]

I strongly support 6, but I agree with those here saying this is a done deal. We're stuck with 5 whether you like it or not because changing it back to 6 would require way too much new work to replace work already done on the game.

 

But what confuses me is that there are some people who like and support the reduction in party size yet who also keep insisting we need 8+ companions in the game because "that's how many there were in the first game." Seems inconsistent. If the party size is now smaller, I don't see any point whatsoever for anything more than 7 companions, and even that is a wastefully high number for me. Many people who've played through PoE1 are naturally going to gravitate towards taking along the 3 companions returning from the first game. So, for many, they're only going to have one party slot available for any and all new companions.

[LordCrash]

Who's "rope kid"? Josh? Why doesn't he explain the stuff here in Obsidian's own forum but on a forum like Somethingsaweful??? That's kind of weird...

 

Apart from that, the maintenance explanation for the reduction of party cap is bollocks especially if we reach the 2M stretch goal. I mean, you don't like micromanagement? Fine, just give your guys advanced AI scripts and you don't need to micromanage them all the time. Easy solution, no reduced party cap needed.

 

But I see why they did it. It's not because it's more fun that way but because they were no able to really improve the pathfinding.

 

With this reasoning they could bring the whole party down to one player, the PC. That way pathfinding wouldn't be an issue anymore for sure... 

 

 

 

I believe combat is much easier to follow in Deadfire and it almost never feels like I'm forgetting to use someone to the best of their abilities.

Josh, really, I don't f***king care whether everybody in my team is min-maxed. That's not everything these games are all about for everybody...

Edited January 29, 2017 by LordCrash

[eisenschwein]

I imagine that at least an option for the sixth party member slot would be totally doable.

This as a stretch goal = easy moneyz.

 

^ This

[Quillon]

Who's "rope kid"? Josh? Why doesn't he explain the stuff here in Obsidian's own forum but on a forum like Somethingsaweful??? That's kind of weird...

 

Cos there are bajillion threads/posts on the forums atm, even I'm scared to come in nowadays

 

Tho I don't know the real reason. I think someone said devs covering other communuties, some dev posts here, some other on codex and some Josh on somethingawful...

[Sedrefilos]

They don't explain here 'cause updates regarding that matter are coming up next week. Why should devs come and explain here before they've shown how their design works? Not everybody thinks as some in here.

[Ganrich]

I strongly support 6, but I agree with those here saying this is a done deal. We're stuck with 5 whether you like it or not because changing it back to 6 would require way too much new work to replace work already done on the game.

 

But what confuses me is that there are some people who like and support the reduction in party size yet who also keep insisting we need 8+ companions in the game because "that's how many there were in the first game." Seems inconsistent. If the party size is now smaller, I don't see any point whatsoever for anything more than 7 companions, and even that is a wastefully high number for me. Many people who've played through PoE1 are naturally going to gravitate towards taking along the 3 companions returning from the first game. So, for many, they're only going to have one party slot available for any and all new companions.

Party size of 5 = PC + 4 Companions.

4 Companions x 2 = 8

2 Playthroughs with different party members before mixing them up for banter or building your own companions is necessary or desired. And them each having a two classes they could potentially play as makes mixing them more interesting too. Side note: Eder makes sense for rogue or fighter, but I'm having trouble figuring out what secondary class option Aloth and Pallegina might have.

 

If we only have 7 I won't complain, but 8 is better considering the new party size, imho. I'd prefer more in depth companions, and am willing to sacrifice raw numbers for that. So, I guesss I'm of a mixed mind on the subject.

[LordCrash]

They don't explain here 'cause updates regarding that matter are coming up next week. Why should devs come and explain here before they've shown how their design works? Not everybody thinks as some in here.

 

If that was the case devs shouldn't talk about that matter ANYWHERE before they come up with the update. It makes no sense just to be silent on your own place while spilling all the information somewhere else on the web. 

[Eurhetemec]

 

Whoever can't understand that we cannot have a real conversation about party cap size untill we know how calsses work, explained by devs and shown in a video or play a demo, is just being purist and nostalgia zombie. I can't axplaint it any other way.

You do realize that the entire campaign for PoE was based on appealing to Infinity Engine "purists" and "nostalgia zombies", right?

 

I could be totally off here, but I was under the impression that PoE was created to scratch that IE CRPG itch a lot of people have had for over a decade. The point was to provide us with more of that same style of game, not to break entirely new ground and change up the formulae.

 

 

How can one "realize" something that isn't true? Why should one?

 

That's a gross mischaracterization of the original Pillars campaign. They certainly said that they were adding to and changing elements of the formula, and more to the point, with Pillars 2's pitch, they explicitly said that they were changing stuff, for, in their opinions, the better.

[Eurhetemec]

Party size of 5 = PC + 4 Companions.

4 Companions x 2 = 8

2 Playthroughs with different party members before mixing them up for banter or building your own companions is necessary or desired. And them each having a two classes they could potentially play as makes mixing them more interesting too. Side note: Eder makes sense for rogue or fighter, but I'm having trouble figuring out what secondary class option Aloth and Pallegina might have.

 

If we only have 7 I won't complain, but 8 is better considering the new party size, imho. I'd prefer more in depth companions, and am willing to sacrifice raw numbers for that. So, I guesss I'm of a mixed mind on the subject.

 

Aloth doesn't have one - his first level is always in Wizard. I suspect Pallegina will be the same way with Paladin.

[Quillon]

Side note: Eder makes sense for rogue or fighter, but I'm having trouble figuring out what secondary class option Aloth and Pallegina might have.

I believe Eder's original design were rogue then they changed it to fighter cos players might need a tank early game.

 

It's said Aloth's original class will always be wiz, maybe you can mix it with cypher, he looks the type or whatever, your choice.

 

Pallegina, mix it with fighter for tankyness, or barb for some carnage or again whatever.

[Ganrich]

 

Party size of 5 = PC + 4 Companions.

4 Companions x 2 = 8

2 Playthroughs with different party members before mixing them up for banter or building your own companions is necessary or desired. And them each having a two classes they could potentially play as makes mixing them more interesting too. Side note: Eder makes sense for rogue or fighter, but I'm having trouble figuring out what secondary class option Aloth and Pallegina might have.

If we only have 7 I won't complain, but 8 is better considering the new party size, imho. I'd prefer more in depth companions, and am willing to sacrifice raw numbers for that. So, I guesss I'm of a mixed mind on the subject.

 

Aloth doesn't have one - his first level is always in Wizard. I suspect Pallegina will be the same way with Paladin.

This has been confirmed? It makes sense. Make no mistake. They can still be multiclassed/subclassed I assume. The other one that is probably a single class is the Ranger with the bird. I expect the bird is a part of her character like Sagani and Itumaak. Unless a Druid subclass sacrifices Spiritshift for an animal companion. Which is something that would be cool. Edited January 29, 2017 by Ganrich