level Cap and party size in PoE II

[rafalallenstein]

I've got completed Pillars of Eternity and now I'm playing Tyranny. Four character party is much more mnagable than six. In first PoE

I've hit level cap with six charcter party long before fight with Thanos. After reaching max lexel game was still fun, but doing quest feti pointless. It was like doing a job and not getting paid. I feleled like I was wasting XP's Of course I was earning gold and recieving items but I had plenty of gold already and earning more had no meaning. With four characters in party I would reach level cap even faster. You should adjust that. It's best if players can choose how many characters they want in party.  In PoE if you have 4 characters in yours party you have to fight Thaos with four 12 level characters (of course in White March cap is higher but you still hit it too fast). If you have six characters you fight him with six 12 level characters. I don't like it. Difficulty level should be the same regardless of size of your party. If I would like to have higher difficulty level I would change it in settings. Of course I can play with four characters party and set difficulty level to easy but playing on easy is for wimps.

You can adjust rewards for quests to prevent characters from being too strong.  Please don't use level scaling. It makes doing sidequest pointless. (

Markers on minimap in Tyranny is great idea. You should definitely include them in PoE II

In PoE i was using game guide because I was afraid to miss something. In Tyranny I see clearly where every chest and every important NPC's are.

It's very helpful.

 

 

[jaganntha]

I think 5 is the team size in deadfire

[Skaddix]

Max Level is 20, Max Party Size in 5.

 

And as for maxing level or overleveling hopefully they tighten up the higher levels and make them more useful. They kinda have to make single class compete with mutliclass cause if PoE II is like PoE I, well everyone should mutlticlass cause past level 12 or so the options werent great

[snphillips0@gmail.com]

So, not 100% sure what you're getting at. Is it that you'd like Deadfire to make having fewer party members level faster (or vice versa)? Or something else?

 

Hopefully some of these things will help:

In POE1, you do already get bonus XP for having a small party. It is, an additional 10% per missing member, to each member remaining. I believe there are folks around here who think that is too low, maybe you agree. I don't know if it will be the same in Deadfire, but there will almost certainly be something similar.

 

Deadfire will have 5 person parties, with encounters and progression designed around that. So, should be easier to manage, like you found Tyranny to be, but it won't directly change how easy or difficult the game will be.

 

I believe it is a known issue in POE1 that completionists are likely to always be massively overleveled compared to people who only do a handful of sidequests or mainline the critical path. There's no good solution to this anyone has been able to think of beyond level scaling enemies, since sidequests need to be rewarding.

 

As such, in hopes of fixing the above issue, Deadfire will have scaling. But, it will have the following options, since a lot of people don't like scaling: scale everything; scale only the main quest; or no scaling at all. It will also always be within a bounded range, meaning you will still be able to outlevel thing as well as run into things stronger than you.

 

Finally (I think), the level cap will be twenty, which should lead to it taking longer to cap out, so you will hopefully spend a lot less time maxed out than you did in POE1.

 

Sorry for how long this was! Hopefully there's something helpful here.

[Skaddix]

To be fair PoE does mean you have to work harder to get Over leveled. Since the monsters don't respawn you cant just stand in the same field.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Skaddix

[Katarack21]

"Difficulty level should be the same regardless of size of your party."

Strongly disagree. If you *choose* to handicap yourself, the game becomes more difficult. That's just how it works. The game is balanced around a particular party size; a different party size is your choice, and there's a whole group of players that like doing that *just* for the additional challenge.

[rjshae]

Yet another party size thread... YAPST.

[Bill Gates' Son]

Yet another party size thread... YAPST.

 

Not sure why you're complaining.  It's not the typical party size topic that complains about not having 6 party members.

[Messier-31]

Everytime someone starts a thread about the Deadfire party size a kitten dies.

[Sedrefilos]

I'd the size of my party to be customizable. Like I can click on them and a dotted frame appears. Then I click and hold on the lower corner and drag the mouse to the liking of my party size.

[Katarack21]

There *is* an argument to be made for balancing around a party size smaller than what is actually allowed, so that the player can either make it more difficult with a smaller party or *easier* with a larger party, thus allowing the player to have more control over their exact experience playing.

[Karkarov]

There *is* an argument to be made for balancing around a party size smaller than what is actually allowed, so that the player can either make it more difficult with a smaller party or *easier* with a larger party, thus allowing the player to have more control over their exact experience playing.

That would be a very bad choice because it is counter intuitive design. 

 

You bring a guy into a room with five boxes and tell him this is designed for him to only take four boxes, but he can take all five if he wants.  He asks is there an advantage in not taking all five?  Not really, you just get less stuff, and it is really designed around you taking four, even though you can have all five.

 

Guess how many boxes the guy takes?

 

The point is people will normally take what they are allowed unless there is a clear advantage to not doing so.  There is no clear advantage to not taking five party members when the game lets you have five.  The people who take less are doing it for some epeen challenge nonsense, which is good for them, but the vast majority of players will take as many people as they can.  If people want an easier challenge that be done with difficulty settings, without being counter intuitive at the same time.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Karkarov

[Guest 4ward]

There *is* an argument to be made for balancing around a party size smaller than what is actually allowed, so that the player can either make it more difficult with a smaller party or *easier* with a larger party, thus allowing the player to have more control over their exact experience playing.

 

true, in BG2 afaik enemy parties mostly come in 5, off the top of my head Drizzt and his guys, then Mencar and his party, and i believe also the guys in guarded compound in temple district were 5 and very likely also the guys in the sewers in temple district. Yet, i always take 6 in my party since it‘s easier and also to experience their quests.

[Katarack21]

 

There *is* an argument to be made for balancing around a party size smaller than what is actually allowed, so that the player can either make it more difficult with a smaller party or *easier* with a larger party, thus allowing the player to have more control over their exact experience playing.

That would be a very bad choice because it is counter intuitive design. 

 

You bring a guy into a room with five boxes and tell him this is designed for him to only take four boxes, but he can take all five if he wants.  He asks is there an advantage in not taking all five?  Not really, you just get less stuff, and it is really designed around you taking four, even though you can have all five.

 

Guess how many boxes the guy takes?

 

The point is people will normally take what they are allowed unless there is a clear advantage to not doing so.  There is no clear advantage to not taking five party members when the game lets you have five.  The people who take less are doing it for some epeen challenge nonsense, which is good for them, but the vast majority of players will take as many people as they can.  If people want an easier challenge that be done with difficulty settings, without being counter intuitive at the same time.

 

That's not really how party acquisition in RPG games happens, though. It's more like your on a tour of the facility, and over the course of the tour they *give* you five boxes, but there's more boxes lying around just out of sight and they tell you that you can take another if you wish. Most people just take what's given to them and go on with the tour; only a portion seek out the additional box because they can.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Katarack21