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

[Varana]

I seriously do not understand why some people seem to have set upon a certain style of play and specific tactics for a game that they have absolutely no experience with, successor or not.

Yes, you probably won't be able to copy the tactics you employed in PoE1 for PoE1's encounters, PoE1's abilities, PoE1's characters, and PoE1's story one-to-one.

Why would you want to, though? Why should you even be able to? It's a different game. It has different encounters, abilities, characters, and story.

 

You will be fine. You will be able to finish the game. This is not a convoluted conspiracy crippling clueless gamers into giving up the game halfway through because they absolutely can't manage the difficulty unless they had access to exactly and only one more guy in their party (funnily enough, for everyone a different guy). Does not compute.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Varana

[Gfted1]

Eh, people quit games for lots of reasons. Less than half of Steam players even finished Act 1 and only 10% finished PoE.

[MountainTiger]

The important question is: who are those people who actually use traps?

[Gfted1]

The Resting and Pacifism results made me lol. "Resting is for baddies" and "I don't want to be FORCED to become a murderhobo" were two pillars of conversation around here during PoE 1 development and here we have 0.2 and 0.1 completion percentages respectively. Weird.

[JerekKruger]

The Resting and Pacifism results made me lol. "Resting is for baddies" and "I don't want to be FORCED to become a murderhobo" were two pillars of conversation around here during PoE 1 development and here we have 0.2 and 0.1 completion percentages respectively. Weird.

 

Well people want the option; they won't choose that option, but the sure as hell want it and the game will be literally unplayable if that option isn't there

[illathid]

The Resting and Pacifism results made me lol. "Resting is for baddies" and "I don't want to be FORCED to become a murderhobo" were two pillars of conversation around here during PoE 1 development and here we have 0.2 and 0.1 completion percentages respectively. Weird.

 

well the pacifism achievement isn't a good tracker there IMHO. The achievement is about killing as little as possible, while the murder hobo argument was more about not having to killing everything to be optimal.

[Silent Winter]

The important question is: who are those people who actually use traps?

I do ... they don't always help very much but I enjoy getting one to actually go off and affect an enemy (much easier in later patches).  (I'm not on steam though so if there are any stats about such, I'm not one of them).

 

I was one who voted for 6 party members.  Not for any tactical reasons, but just because it would mean more party interaction in fewer playthroughs.  If I have to leave Eder at home, I won't get his dialogue with Sagani.  If I drop Kana from the team, he won't hit on Maneha.  Etc.

But I'm not that worried - I'll probably get a few playthroughs anyway, and I might even be encouraged to swap the team up within a single playthrough (something I don't usually do as I get the team I want and stick with it).

 

Provided Obs stick with the 'no forced party members' (beyond Cilant Lis) and don't pull any NWN2 shenanigans, I'll be fine.

[MountainTiger]

I'm just too impatient to prepare a battlefield 

[eselle28]

It's interesting the way the mechanics arguments intersect with the story arguments. I'm more sympathetic to the mechanics ones, or at least the ones that focus primarily on complexity. There will be fewer combinations possible with five characters, and whether that is fun or not remains to be seen. I'm less sympathetic but still somewhat to mechanics ones that make strong assumptions about what classes are necessary to play the game at certain levels. It will be a new game built around five rather than six characters, but I can understand people wanting to use the game in front of them as a reference. I understand arguments about more party banter being better too.

 

I'm not terribly sympathetic to arguments based on wanting to have certain characters for story reasons without losing any optimization or making any play adjustments. Sagani was in every party I've ever made in the game. I'm going to have to do without her from a story point of view because she's not going to be around, and I doubt Maia will play exactly like her mechanically. If your three favorite characters are the ones who are in the sequel, you're lucky, not cursed. Hell, you're lucky if your three favorite characters are ones who are mechanically compatible with each other. I'm sure there's some bizarre person out there whose favorites were Aloth, Kana, Grieving Mother, Sagani, and Devil of Caroc and who didn't want to play a melee class. That person presumably needed to make many adjustments to get through the game, or to split those characters into multiple playthroughs.

 

I also think that it's presumptuous to assume that just because a character is in both POE and the sequel that they will be story linchpins in Deadfire. Eder, Aloth, and Pallegina all have reasons to be in the story, but there will also be reasons for the new characters to be there. Unless the writing gets very sloppy, at least a couple of them should have very key roles in the story. I actually suspect that, as any given player could be going into Deadfire without any of the three carryover companions, their stories might focus primarily on their quests and on events related to their interests, while the main plot of Deadfire will hinge more on characters who are available to everyone like Xoti and Serafen. It's not exactly an accident that Eder, Aloth, and Durance were basically impossible to miss, while less plot-central Hiravias is in a location where a careless first time player could miss him.

Edited March 18, 2017 by eselle28

[algroth]

I suspect the old companions will play a role that is present but not essential to the main story, most of all because if we are to respect the choices made in the first game then we have to assume the old characters may not be alive for the second. Aloth, for one, has an ending that leads to him killing himself. Though it's not an impossibility, I doubt the makers would want to create an alternate main storyline just in case one or more of those three (or any other former companion that may appear as a NPC) would happen to have died in the previous game.

 

I would also not chalk it up to accident that some characters are easier to find than other, but wouldn't do so to a hierarchy of storyline relevance either - I think this decision was determined more by pacing, to ensure that every player wouldn't miss the chance to form a standard party early on in the game. Edér, Aloth and Durance, being the three more "conventional" characters in terms of mechanics (mage, fighter, cleric), could fill up the prime requisites for a party early on and ensure a new player wouldn't accidentally venture into party-balanced areas on his own. In terms of how relevant each character is to the main story, I don't think Hiravias is necessarily any less so than Aloth or Edér.

Edited March 18, 2017 by algroth

[Messier-31]

Year 2014

"I am very dissapointed to hear there will be no experience for killing mobs"

 

Year 2017

"I am very dissapointed to hear the party will be reduced to five"

 

Year 2020

"I am very dissapointed to hear that there is a third part of this game in development"

 

Year 2023

"I am very dissapointed to hear"

 

[JerekKruger]

Honestly, I'm just generally, and preemptively, disappointed.

[Tigranes]

 

The important question is: who are those people who actually use traps?

I do ... they don't always help very much but I enjoy getting one to actually go off and affect an enemy (much easier in later patches).  (I'm not on steam though so if there are any stats about such, I'm not one of them).

 

I was one who voted for 6 party members.  Not for any tactical reasons, but just because it would mean more party interaction in fewer playthroughs.  If I have to leave Eder at home, I won't get his dialogue with Sagani.  If I drop Kana from the team, he won't hit on Maneha.  Etc.

But I'm not that worried - I'll probably get a few playthroughs anyway, and I might even be encouraged to swap the team up within a single playthrough (something I don't usually do as I get the team I want and stick with it).

 

Provided Obs stick with the 'no forced party members' (beyond Cilant Lis) and don't pull any NWN2 shenanigans, I'll be fine.

 

 

I love traps, they're fantastic. Sadly, POE traps were a puddle of poo.

[Abel]

- My dog has no nose.

- How does he smell?

- Awful.

 

Just lol !

 

Well otherwise. I will agree that 5 party members is a let down. Over the years, i saw games, like DA: O limiting their party members to 4. I always hoped for a great RPG with 6 to come out again. I have a feeling Obs may have wanted to reduce the party to 4, like in Tyranny, but they felt the pill would be hard to swallow for the backers. If so, they would be damn right.

 

Many people seem to think that it's just a matter of balancing the game for 5. Well, combat and balance is not the most important thing for people who like to have 6 party members i guess. 6 just allows for more banters, more rich group interactions and group life than 5. Pillars 1 lacks the party relationships. They are introduced in Pillars 2. So, 5 is even more of a bummer now ^^.

 

Plus, if i consider how i use to play.... I will most certainly take Aloth, Eder AND Pallegina in the party, since i have them in my PoE 1 party. Exporting my save from the first game allow for a longer time spent with them. Years have passed you know. I can't imagine just dumping them right away to get some unknown people in the group. Plus, since i use to write the diary of my character, my priestess have somewhat developped a deeper relationship with them than the first game would suggest. I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one with this kind of fidelity-in-friendship approach while roleplaying my character.

 

Thus, this only allow 1 spot for a new companion. Here is the true bummer i daresay. I will have a real hard time discovering the banters between the new companions. I hope for a mod...

 

And heard they had revamped class and abilities. I hope the only goal was to make things more clear and varied. Not to dumb down the deepness of the gameplay. I tend to become a tad bit distrusful now. Just a tad bit though.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Abel

[Blades of Vanatar]

I'm just too impatient to prepare a battlefield

Croaker would be very disappointed in you.

[rjshae]

I think this change is going to further weaken the rogue class, but strengthen the barbarian.

• Opportunities for the rogue to flank opponents will be significantly reduced because there are now just four other party members available to double-up an opponent.
• In contrast, the likelihood of party members becoming isolated during combat will greatly increase, and the barbarian is the best class for handling that.

I suspect that will mean the classes may need to be rebalanced again.

[hilfazer]

I think this change is going to further weaken the rogue class, but strengthen the barbarian.

• Opportunities for the rogue to flank opponents will be significantly reduced because there are now just four other party members available to double-up an opponent.
• In contrast, the likelihood of party members becoming isolated during combat will greatly increase, and the barbarian is the best class for handling that.

I suspect that will mean the classes may need to be rebalanced again.

 

It will also weaken paladin's Behold The Martyr because loosing one person will be bigger of a deal.

[MountainTiger]

I think this change is going to further weaken the rogue class, but strengthen the barbarian.

• Opportunities for the rogue to flank opponents will be significantly reduced because there are now just four other party members available to double-up an opponent.
• In contrast, the likelihood of party members becoming isolated during combat will greatly increase, and the barbarian is the best class for handling that.

I suspect that will mean the classes may need to be rebalanced again.

 

The flip side of this is that a smaller party probably implies smaller numbers of enemies in encounters, which tends to strengthen single target abilities compared to AOE/multiple target abilities.

 

Overall, balance arguments based on one isolated component of the system are not very strong; we will have to see what the full system and encounter design look like.

[Archaven]

With lesser number of enemies in encounters, it also means inflated defense and HP on enemies. Look at Dragon Age Inquisition, you will find lesser enemies but each of them takes you like 10 fireballs to kill 1 simple monster. This is not the direction i would like to see Pillars heading towards.

[RoboticWater]

With lesser number of enemies in encounters, it also means inflated defense and HP on enemies. Look at Dragon Age Inquisition, you will find lesser enemies but each of them takes you like 10 fireballs to kill 1 simple monster. This is not the direction i would like to see Pillars heading towards.

You've taken this one step too far though. Having a smaller party means enemies will be in lesser numbers to compensate (or will have some aspect altered to lessen their overall potential damage and durability). They shouldn't get buffed for the sake of balance because presumably we've dialed them back for the sake of balance already.

 

Incidentally, Inquisition was only so bad because BioWare clearly didn't know how to make an open world game. Encounters designed for quests were fairly well paced, but BioWare evidently didn't do anything to translate these encounters into the open environment. They tried to maintain the same overall balance in the random encounters, and that just ended up being tiring.

 

Regardless, these arguments of balance aren't all that valid because any game can be properly balanced for just about anything, and the mechanical difference between 6 people and 5 is negligible at best. It's not like Obsidian are nixing companions entirely. Quite frankly, Pillars' encounters aren't anything to aspire to anyway. It's probably for the best that Obsidian shake things up.

[JerekKruger]

With lesser number of enemies in encounters, it also means inflated defense and HP on enemies.

 

How does it follow that encounters having fewer enemies necessitates enemies having more health?

[Abel]

As i said before, my grievance about having only 5 members in the party is not about balance, combat or anything like that, it's about banters, relationship complexity in the group and life of the party as a whole. But still...

 

I've read here and there some people arguing that, for the sake of combat and clarity of things, 5 is better than 6. That 6 may be too much. Some even argue that 4 may be best. I don't think it's necessary, but i will still write this as a reminder:

 

"Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale had 6 party members".

 

I don't feel like combat was a mess in these games. 6 Party members only allowed for more intense combats and more synergies between party members. In my opinion, the reasons why combat in Pillars 1 was messy and hard to handle was because the VFX prevented from being able to read what was going on on screen, and because tooltips being unclear, and mechanics being inconsistent made the player wonder how things actually worked: when the ruleset is poorly explained, it's no wonder the player is confused while using these rules. I don't feel things need to be simplified. They just need to be conveyed properly as they are, with less instrusive VFX. You may argue that fighters need more micro in Pillars that in Baldur's Gate. I would answer to that that Pillars has not the complex yet captivating system of protective spells versus piercing magic spells the IE games had (and i miss it). So, i would say that it's just that the micro is more balanced between every party member in Pillars than it was in BG.

 

So in the end, arguing that 5 is better for the sake of making things more clear may be a mistake in my opinion. It's a way to solve a problem without adressing the actual causes of said problem. Players are not dumbasses. Allow them to understand how things work, and to see on screen what is going on, and they will fare well enough with 6 party members.

 

That's what i thought. Am i wrong?

Edited March 23, 2017 by Abel

[SonicMage117]

1 healer/magic, 1 close range tanker and brutus, 1 far range that also specializes in stealth. Really all you need realistically.

[Abel]

1 healer/magic, 1 close range tanker and brutus, 1 far range that also specializes in stealth. Really all you need realistically.

 

I don't feel a game is all about things you "need". I don't even need to play in order to live to begin with.

[Katarack21]

1 healer/magic, 1 close range tanker and brutus, 1 far range that also specializes in stealth. Really all you need realistically.

I *much* prefer having two tanks over one. An off-tank to catch melee NPC's who would otherwise bypass the main tank (either due to sheer numbers or paralyze/stun/etc) isn't always needed, but is needed often enough and in those situations fights will often be much, much more difficult without.