Five man party ? idk... let's discuss

[Karkarov]

Rack up one more vote for, "Why don't we actually try playing the game before assuming it will fail?"

[Katarack21]

 

I'm *really* unhappy about the five man party. It just annoys me to limit my options and tell me it's for my own good 'cuz combat was to hard.

 

It's not even combat that annoys me about this, though. It's having to replay through a whole game again in order to get the storyline of one additional character I'm interested in.

 

... I am sure Deadfire will work as any other modern RPG and give you all the story, even if you barely use someone. 

 

I don't remember ever hearing Obsidian saying that combat was to hard and that is why they reduce the party size. If I remember well, they said that they found that your party forced them to put bigger pacts of enemies which made combat more busy than it needed to be. I find it to be a good reason. It doesn't make combat easier, or more shallow, just cleaner. Of course, we will be only able to judge it fully once we get our hands on it. 

 

You'll miss *that characters* storyline. That's what I meant by "in order to get the storyline of one additional character I'm interested in." In PoE, I can have five companions with me, so I get all five of their storylines--their character arcs, their comments, etc. In Deadfire, I'll get to take 4 with me. There's 8 companions, and five of them seem cool to me. So that's at least one second playthrough--and if I want that companions whole story line it'll have to be a complete play through (in the sense that I won't get to see what they have to say about something unless they are their, so their "whole storyline" is their commentary on every part of the game).

 

And I took the comments from Obsidian about reducing the party size because of player complaints regarding the "busy" nature of combat  to be effectively "making it easier". They're reducing overall complexity of combat by reducing the party size, is how I took it.

[injurai]

Can't you just swap companions out when doing their quests. Sure you'll miss out on some flavor text and chime in dialogue. But I don't think you'll miss that much.

[smjjames]

I think his point is to experience the whole game with that particular companion, especially now that inter-companion relationships will deveop.

 

Most of us are probably going to run with Eder, Pallegina, and Aloth for the first run while switching out the fourth companion as needed/desired, and then for the second run, do those other companions.

 

I suspect that wanting to play with the three returning companions each time is part of why some are complaining or don't like the lowered party size.

Edited July 8, 2017 by smjjames

[injurai]

Ahh, I keep forgetting about the expanded relationship mechanic. Yeah that will be interesting. With so few party members it kind of makes you wonder why side-kicks exist at all other than the woo the backers during the campaign.

[smjjames]

I suppose the sidekicks might be employable as crew members, or to help keep a healer safe. TBH, kind of hard to see the sidekicks having any real function, other than to attract the backers or appease those that want bigger parties.

 

We haven't seen or heard anything about the sidekicks since the last bit about Ydwin, so, it's possible that feature got cut? Things get cut all the time in game development for various reasons.

[Katarack21]

I think his point is to experience the whole game with that particular companion, especially now that inter-companion relationships will deveop.

 

Most of us are probably going to run with Eder, Pallegina, and Aloth for the first run while switching out the fourth companion as needed/desired, and then for the second run, do those other companions.

 

I suspect that wanting to play with the three returning companions each time is part of why some are complaining or don't like the lowered party size.

Exactly. I suspect that the relationship system will vastly reward more time spent with each companion, as opposed to switching them out as-needed for different quests, etc.

[JerekKruger]

Rack up one more vote for, "Why don't we actually try playing the game before assuming it will fail?"

 

And another.

 

I trust the Deadfire team to do a good job, and trust they didn't make the decision on a whim. I've enjoyed CRPGs with party sizes of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 in the past, so I can't see why I wouldn't enjoy 5.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I honestly don't mind it. Keeping track of all the teammates in Pillars was difficult, increasingly so on high levels. A lot of abilities sat unused just because I couldn't focus on that one party member. Cutting the size down to five should help with that.

[Wormerine]

I think his point is to experience the whole game with that particular companion, especially now that inter-companion relationships will deveop.

 

Most of us are probably going to run with Eder, Pallegina, and Aloth for the first run while switching out the fourth companion as needed/desired, and then for the second run, do those other companions.

 

I suspect that wanting to play with the three returning companions each time is part of why some are complaining or don't like the lowered party size.

That is a good point, though for me this kind of replayinility is a good thing. I do see though, how other people might prefer to experience more companions fully on each of their runs.

[tid242]

Rack up one more vote for, "Why don't we actually try playing the game before assuming it will fail?"

 

 

Couldn't agree more.  My only caveat being that it would be nice for party members left in the boat to "keep up" a little better experience-wise than they tended to be in PoE1..

 

It seems like pretty much all RPGs since I was a little kid was like this, old Sega games (Phantasy Star, Shining Force, etc) ended up with the 'strong' core party, and then the 'training wheels' side party that mostly just hung out and got drunk (I'm pretty sure this is all they had going on at home base).  Some of this was scaling where some chars just never amounted to anything (*cough* Chester, from Shining Force 2 *cough*), but a lot of it was that the alcoholics at home base just never got any XP... 

 

The scaling deficiencies should theoretically not be an issue in PoE2, but the XP deficiencies could def be closed..

 

good discussion, even if it is a re-hash.  With multi-classing I'm a /lot/ less concerned about smaller party size anyway, TBH..

 

cheers,

[Archaven]

This has been discussed since the beginning of the fig crowd-funding. I don't like it at all . But there's nothing much we can do since Obsidian said it's final. IMO lesser characters are easier and manageable maybe on controllers. And they Feargus have hinted the game to be consoles during the Figstarter. So is really no brainer the idea is to make it consoles.

[Wormerine]

This has been discussed since the beginning of the fig crowd-funding. I don't like it at all . But there's nothing much we can do since Obsidian said it's final. IMO lesser characters are easier and manageable maybe on controllers. And they Feargus have hinted the game to be consoles during the Figstarter. So is really no brainer the idea is to make it consoles.

I really don't see why taking away one characters would make the game easier to play with a controler, especially as you will be able to have multiple animan companions and (possibly?) summons. Whatever thinking process behind it was, I am convinced it wasn't better controller support. So far UI looks as PC focused as it was before.

[Spiegel]

I'd prefer a well-rounded four person party actually. Mage/Rogue/ and two warriors.

[rjshae]

Reducing the party size in general makes it tactically less interesting. If you get attacked by a second force in the flank or rear now, you'll be fighting them with your glass cannon. Yawn. It'll be much more difficult for a rogue to get a flank attack benefit. Yawn. If the barbarian runs off to battle in an island, it'll leave the rest of your party barely able to protect your wizard. Yawn. I guess we'll see.

[DexGames]

Well, here is my take on this subject,

At the beginning , because one of the main complain on Pillars Of Eternity was : "Combat Readability".

They chose to reduce that "party members cap" from 6 to 5, to solve that problem.

 

But, after a while, and I think "very recently", Devs came up with that "VFX Opacity" Feature... which, pretty much solves Combat Readability issue on its own, I think they kinda "didn't see that coming". Moreover, now that the Game is fully scheduled down : (Scale wise, Character wise, Monster wise, XP/Level wise, etc...) 

I don't wanna say it's to late to change things back but you know what I mean. It probably is...

 

I'd rather want 6 aswell, I enjoyed Tyranny's 4 a lot, & I'm ok with 5 !

Let's just see how it feels when the Backer Bêta comes out.

 

 

[Katarack21]

I know they said at one point that they "aren't married" to the 5 person party and it could change if there was "significant fan opposition". I don't know if that ship has already sailed, though.

[smjjames]

The general consensus here on the forum (from what people have talked about anyway) seems to be "We have some concerns, but are willing to see how it goes." However, if the objections become 'significant opposition' during the beta, would it be too late?

 

I have no idea about the reddit community or elsewhere, but it might be a similar "lets wait and see until we get our hands on it" attitude.

[MariaDol]

I prefer to play solo on path of the damned...

[injurai]

I know they said at one point that they "aren't married" to the 5 person party and it could change if there was "significant fan opposition". I don't know if that ship has already sailed, though.

 

I think that sentiments now means "maybe for Pillars 3 after we've tightened up the gameplay."

Edited July 17, 2017 by injurai

[wolfstriked]

I prefer to play solo on path of the damned...

Pleasure in the game for me stems from trying to min max the whole 6 characters to work as a team as best as possible and with removing the workload for me as much as possible.Sadly I am not able to do that with the companions so I have started running around with mercenaries instead and just take one companion at a time to do their quests.No squishy characters for me so I bump up resolve to max for all as micromanaging dulls gameplay for me.

 

Last night I made a pair of elf brothers (Renfal and Renfak) who adapted to compliment each other in battles.One has high intellect causing long duration  of crippling effects wherein his brother is a high damage,quick firing critical hit build.Really fun to play them.

Edited July 17, 2017 by wolfstriked

[Sedrefilos]

I know they said at one point that they "aren't married" to the 5 person party and it could change if there was "significant fan opposition". I don't know if that ship has already sailed, though.

I think this was about the multiclass or the split health/stamina system. They said they were gonna stick with the 5 man party early on - even Feargus said it to am intervew. So I think we should not keep our hopes up for a change in that matter.

[MortyTheGobbo]

It's important to remember that at least five classes (fighters et al) will receive more active abilities than they had before. Everyone will also get the universal Empowerment resource, and modals will be available to everyone proficient in a weapon. So there's going to be notably more moving parts and complexity for every given party member.

[Quillon]

It's important to remember that at least five classes (fighters et al) will receive more active abilities than they had before.

 

When did they tell this?

[Labadal]

I'm still not happy about a 5 man party. I really like having my 6 party members. 5 isn't bad, but 6 characters worked with the first game. Pillars of Eternity had some issues that the guys at Obsidian want to iron out, but the number of combatants you controlled wasn't the problem.

 

They are already lowering the amount of encounters in the game (a good thing), which means that they have a bigger shot at doing more memorable encounters throughout the campaign. With that in mind, I don't see why they couldn't keep a 6 man party.