The 5 person party and remedial cases.

[MortyTheGobbo]

The designers had a very clear problem in front of them - Pillars' combat involved too much micromanagment with six characters, and Deadfire was going to add more fiddly bits to some classes. So they opted to reduce the number. I see a lot of complaining about how it's a "cheap" solution, but precious few alternatives.

Edited April 19, 2018 by MortyTheGobbo

[Gilthas]

*shrug* One alternative was to just keep 6 party members and have the extra abilities. I'm not convinced that it was such a huge problem. The development team decided that it was a problem, so people cling to that to support the argument. But there have certainly been examples of players disagreeing with other things implemented in the game, so they can certainly be wrong on this issue too.

 

Another alternative was to implement a programmable automated AI system similar to the gambit system of FFXII. Let players program the "boring" stuff to be done autmatically, and leave the "fun" stuff for manual control.

 

Or another alternative: just remove the "boring" stuff from combat. Either get rid of it altogether, or have equipment already carry the "boring" stuff.

 

I think there were clearly other paths to explore, and this is just stuff that I'm typing after having dinner and before I go wash the dishes.

 

Regardless, I don't believe that the developers took the cheap way out, they just didn't like how the game played with 6 party members and the rest is history.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Gilthas

[molotov.]

The designers had a very clear problem in front of them - Pillars' combat involved too much micromanagment with six characters, and Deadfire was going to add more fiddly bits to some classes. So they opted to reduce the number. I see a lot of complaining about how it's a "cheap" solution, but precious few alternatives.

Well... what about people that liked the micromanagment? **** them?

[Boeroer]

Another alternative was to implement a programmable automated AI system similar to the gambit system of FFXII. Let players program the "boring" stuff to be done autmatically, and leave the "fun" stuff for manual control.

Eh? We already have that.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah, and the AI editor is already a mighty impressive and powerful tool. Trust me! I've been enjoying it immensely during the beta.

[daven]

5 seems a really good party size. Probably because i'm used to playing WoW...

 

6 is good because of the classics AND Suikoden.

 

4 in FF9/Dragon Age's

 

3 in FF7/8/10

 

I think 4-5 is a good spot. Uh what was the topic creator asking again?

[prototype00]

5 seems a really good party size. Probably because i'm used to playing WoW...

 

6 is good because of the classics AND Suikoden.

 

4 in FF9/Dragon Age's

 

3 in FF7/8/10

 

I think 4-5 is a good spot. Uh what was the topic creator asking again?

Something about the waning attention span of Obsidian forum

goers, probably.

[Artaios]

5 seems a really good party size. Probably because i'm used to playing WoW...

 

6 is good because of the classics AND Suikoden.

 

4 in FF9/Dragon Age's

 

3 in FF7/8/10

 

I think 4-5 is a good spot. Uh what was the topic creator asking again?

I only played FF8 of the FF games but 3 party members seems so mall now. I had to google to verify that you had 3 because I could not believe it.