I am very disappointed to hear the party will be reduced to five.

[Gregorovitch]

The two main reasons I am very, very dissapointed about this party size reduction are:

Firstly It will weaken the ability of the party to control the battlefield by making it that much more difficult to prevent enemies infiltrating your lines. Not as much a Tyranny but obviously in that direction, and the factors that made Tyranny's combat lacklustre in comparisson to PoE will therfore adversly affect Deadfire.

If you cannot control the battle field (or mostly, even often, can't) then each character must per force be able to survive in direct contact with the enemy. This is Tyranny's "Stand & Deliver" problem: in the end every character must be built to withstand damage and simply dish out damage faster than they take it. You just stand where you can attack the most enemies at once and deliver as much damage as you can. There is little tactical interst and finesse in this. It gets boring and repetative quickly.

You also have the "Lantry problem". In Tyranny, certainly on PotD, in the early game when you recruit him enemies relentlessly target Lantry and he dies quickly and often. There is no reliable way to protect him tacticaly so the answer is give him the heaviest armour you can lay your hands on. It slows his casting but heavy armour makes him harder to kill and reduces his priority for the enemy AI. It works but it is boring and is not how I expect my RPGs to work.

Secondly it will severely limit options in party makeup. For me there are four mandatory positions in a party: Two melee specialists, a priest and a wizard. I know some people play replacing a priest with a druid and palladin, make tanky wizards and chanters, use cipher plus druid to cover wizard role etc, but I'm a boring conservative when it comes to this and I like to play traditional roles. I am not interested in multi-classing for example (although I know a lot of people are). I play PotD so two specialist melee (fighter/monk/palladic/barbarian) is a bare minimum and I always play with three in practice becasue I don't build tanky/melee casters.

In PoE this left two slots available for two of ranger, druid, chanter, rogue and cipher. Two out of five is not too bad. In Deadfire this is threatened to be reduced to one. I am very unhappy I will only be able to play one of those classes per playthrough (yes, I always take the same party through a game, I don't swap characters around).

What makes this worse is that my party has already been fixed in stone for my first Deafire game. We have Eder, Pallegina and Aloth comming with us and I have always played with them in my party anyway so they are mandatory picks. I am just finshing up my WM2 PotD run whichh will probably be my finakl Deafire save and I am a druid this time (thank God, otherwise unless I was a priest one of the main companions would have to go) so the only question is who is Durance's replacement is in Deadfire? That's literally all I have to look forward to in terms of new characters.

So why? With all these downsides to it and probably a lot more besides, what on earth are the upsides? I can't think of single upside, not one.
 

[Thundercat710]

You'll be ok.

[Archaven]

I am and many others as well were very disappointed. Let's hope some good folks out there who care to make a mod for us. I knew the real goal of this reduction which to make it playable on controllers despite many white-knights here will attack you for stating the obvious. I'm just giving it a try. If this turns out bad and not really what i like, then they'll not get my money for PoE3. It's just that simple.

[molotov.]

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?

Edited March 11, 2017 by molotov.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I was disappointed at first but the argument is that it will

 

1) allow for deeper character writing -- i.e., we'll get more depth to each of the remaining characters

 

2) they're going to be designing the maps for five rather than for six, so some of the tactics should adjust, and you won't necessarily have to design every character to "stand and deliver" (though you will to an extent, yeah, but that's an issue in PoE 1 also, especially with the updated AI in later patches and on PotD)

 

3) multi-classing will open up party makeup a bit so that the limitations aren't as big of an issue. I.e., you won't have to choose between a rogue and a cipher because you can have a rogue/cipher.

 

4) With only five characters, you have a lot less firepower, so they have more space to design more challenging encounters -- it's harder for the PC's party to spam abilities, basically.

 

I'm stil leery of the change and I don't necessarily disagree with you but at this point I'm very cautiously optimistic, or at least willing to see how it plays out in the beta.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Tigranes]

When the game's released, five won't be the reason it'll be crap, and five won't be the reason it'll be great. 

 

It's one of those things people get really concerned about on paper, but is going to have a pretty minor effect on tactical complexity (as opposed to, say, improving encounter design, the massive changes to the basic system features like health).

[rjshae]

Well at least it isn't four.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

At this point we need a party size general thread stickied.

[john_boy]

Agree with op, it's (one) of the reasons why I didn't back this time around.

[Fenixp]

Validity of those concerns depends heavily on encounter design, not necessarily on amount of party members.

[john_boy]

Quests (can) also be problematic, if you're waiting to unlock dialogue from a companion - maybe they need a specific number of rests, or some specific event to happen, then that party slot is locked down for the duration.

[Heijoushin]

Not this again...

 

See previous 7 page thread:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91215-only-five-party-members/

[BeaRock]

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?

problem with tyranny would be if it had more companions (cluster**ck basically) it was focused on taking advantage of special combos with your companions, with bigger number it would be overopowered and let's be honest, tyranny and poe are two different products, would be boring and lame if they were the same, about poe 2... man, it's just one person less idk what's all the fuss about, it doesn't limit you in any way, playing you won't even see the difference while putting together your strategies, in poe you could beat the whole game on your own, no worries

[Messier-31]

- My dog has no nose.

- How does he smell?

- Awful.

[Gfted1]

^Careful youre not accidentally smelling the end with the tail.

 

Is there really only one healer in PoE2?

[Silent Winter]

^Careful youre not accidentally smelling the end with the tail.

 

Is there really only one healer in PoE2?

Well, there was only one priest in PoE1 - I usually made my own Adventurer's Hall NPC after the first run with Durance.  Pallegina can do healing too.

And anyone can be multi-classed to Priest (AFAIK - last I heard anyway)

[Bill Gates' Son]

^Careful youre not accidentally smelling the end with the tail.

 

Is there really only one healer in PoE2?

 

Pallegina, Tekēhu, and Xoti are your base healers, but anybody else can choose any other class as their second class.  Also, if scrolls are as OP as they were in PoE1, then I doubt you'll need main healing class anyway.  Besides, with unlimited respecs (I assume) you could temporarily turn somebody into a priest for healing.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Bill Gates' Son

[Sedrefilos]

If anyone needs an extra healer, I'm willing to join! I was born a healer.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[Sedrefilos]

- My dog has no nose.

- How does he smell?

- Awful.

Joke time huh? Ok how about this...

 

In the Soviet Past museum:

- This is the famous picture "Lenin in Belgrade".

* the other guy looks at it, sees a man and a woman having sex*

- What is this?

- Lenin's wife having sex with some guy.

- So where's Lenin??

- In Belgrade.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[George_Truman]

You plebs that want 6 need to get on my level; I wish we had 7!

[Pinsalinj]

I want to have all of the characters at the same time, so I can get all the party banter!

 

Seriously though, less party banter (and companion reactions) is the main reason why this party reduction saddens me. It was already hard to have only five companions

Edited March 11, 2017 by Pinsalinj

[Katarack21]

 

This is Tyranny's "Stand & Deliver" problem: in the end every character must be built to withstand damage and simply dish out damage faster than they take it.

No you don't? Lantry was literally wearing starting gear and armed with nothing but health and status effect spells (low damage but prone and other effects) when I killed the Voices of Nerat at end-game. He worked fine--great, in fact.

[Katarack21]

- My dog has no nose.

- How does he smell?

- Awful.

I'm anosmic, you ableist bastard!

[Sedrefilos]

Maybe we can ask Obsidian to drop companions to 4. That way we can have them all together and don't miss any chatty stuff.

[eselle28]

I want to have all of the characters at the same time, so I can get all the party banter!

 

Seriously though, less party banter (and companion reactions) is the main reason why this party reduction saddens me. It was already hard to have only five companions

 

I would prefer being able to take five companions to four, but I am hoping that with a smaller number of companions at each time, the developers will compensate by giving the smaller number of characters more lines apiece. I wouldn't have minded some more fleshing out of some of the POE characters, particularly in terms of their conversations with each other.

 

The rest of it seems to depend pretty heavily on encounter design. I'm assuming they'll scale and balance for five, and am crossing my fingers that priests aren't quite as emphasized as they were in POE, making a druid or a healing-focused paladin equally viable in that role. In a game with eleven classes, no one should feel like it's a must-have for certain encounters.