I came here to post a slightly modified version of this.
The ideal number is enough to to play with all the characters the player actually likes. If I've got 5 party members to pick out of 10 companions there better not be 6 characters that are actually interesting/useful.
I really sort of miss when characters would only hang around for a while and the part changes over the course of the game. It lets you keep a tighter focus on the plot and story arcs of everyone and while it can be a bummer if a character you like doesn't stick around it also makes that part of the game more meaningful. Which is something I think a lot of games now have lost. Make the moment to moment parts of the journey distinct.
That is preferable to "I'm sorry chosen one but I can't join you on your raid against the ancient evil's doom tower where you will face a hoard of his vile minions and re-fight every boss we've encountered thus far because you've already got 2 companions with you, I'd just get in the way, have fun!"
Characters in the party should have their own motives and story arcs. A lot of the times those ends where a character either a new responsibility or reason to stay where they are in the the plot because they have no real relationship with the later elements of the story and are just hovering around to pad the roster. Some characters will see everything through to the end because they have a reason but not everyone needs to and it's better than just hovering around not contributing.
This alone makes the original version of dragon quest 8 better then the remake. playing a game where I had the entire squad out at once was very liberating
This shit annoys me in BG3 >*Quest needs a specific companion to be in the active party* >There isn't just a party management window where you can make the swap in seconds >Have to go back to the camp >Run over talk to the person you want to leave your party >Tell them you don't want to travel with them for now >They whine "aww comeon man" >You have to confirm it by saying "no I want you gone" a second time before they'll actually leave >then you have to run over to the other side of the camp to tell the character you need in your party that they should join you
What's actually annoying in bg3: >Try not to have Wyll in the party >He shows up anyway to make a show of killing karlach so you can forgive him and his Multiverse of Marysue backstory: >premade legend folk hero with obnoxious self important dialogue (look who's here the guy who barely did anything at the gate kids yaaay) >pact with devil lady of which production value should have gone into multiple patrons for mc warlock but nah...frick em wyll is some devpet char >oh how misunderstood tragedy of hunting other devil lady >oh mysterious stone eye >aaaand tadpole >aaaand daddy issues >kill him right away >corpse is there in pool of blood to muck up all your karlach snu snu scenes >how many times must she re-dump his corpse in the river >can't stuff it into crate >can't sell it to withers >can't be rezzed to tell him to frick off forever
Please, anon, Larian is a small indie studio working on a shoestring budget, you can’t expect them to implement things such as a party select screen. It’s their first game.
I have mixed feelings on this. I think as long as the party is large enough that you have "flex" spaces, it's okay to have more companions than slots. But if you don't it can be frustrating.
For me, Wrath of the Righteous is a good example of the former. 5 party members on top of my character means I can have a few mainstays that either I really need or else just really like, but can also swap out other characters for variety or to try out different strategies.
BG3 is an example of not enough slots. Having only 4 slots is frustrating when you'll want at least a warrior, a mage, and a rogue, leaving you with one flex slot to work with. I got a mod for larger parties, and once again 6 feels like the right balance. You can have your 3 critical party members and then 3 less focused party members. I wish that was the party size they built the game around.
>BG3 is an example of not enough slots. Having only 4 slots is frustrating when you'll want at least a warrior, a mage, and a rogue, leaving you with one flex slot to work with. I got a mod for larger parties, and once again 6 feels like the right balance. You can have your 3 critical party members and then 3 less focused party members. I wish that was the party size they built the game around.
You are incorrect to the point of being cancer and close to receiving judgment off the board for lack of RPG ability. Rogue abilities are largely superfluous for locks, traps and stealth. Examples: >Urchin background + knowledge cleric >Urban ranger class package >Replication abilities such as Knock, Invis
That leaves a dual wield combo of questionable value, bonus actions from thief, assassination stuff (about equivalent to gloom ranger but can't get free invis), and the much maligned but sadly underutilized arcane trickster
5e in BG3 is much better at multiclassing than people believe it to be. You can combo an eldritch knight and wizard pretty damn well, or a paladin and sorceror and reduce the slots you believe you need and make the fights more interesting at the same time.
I reduced all my WOTR parties to 4 as well with similar methods, I never even triple class as it's lame RP wise, stick to thematic choices for the companions etc. Usually MC is the only one I allow a dual class if I can help it.
Depends on what kind of game it is, really party size is a function of how much micro you need to perform on each character, the more automated and abstracted out the more characters you can have under the player's control without it feeling bogged down. A turn based game like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest where you issue every order individually should stay between 3-5 characters because if you go higher than that its just too time consuming to get through a combat round. RTwP top down full party RPGs like BG and IWD usually stick to 6 but it really comes down to how many casters you have in your party. Martials are usually fine just auto-attacking and only need occasional adjustment in the form of target selection or ability activation, while casters are usually very micro heavy where you need to pause and fine tune every spell's placement. Top down turn-based RPGs can easily support a dozens or more party members, think Jagged Alliance, Battle Brothers, or X-Com but having to move a couple dozen characters each turn does become annoying so if you're making a system like that its usually best to include waypoints that can automove characters across several turns automatically. A top down real-time game where you could assign AI macros to every character and/or class and assign them to groups which you can order around as a single unit could conceivably support total war size engagements.
What is a good in-universe explanation for a party limit? I don't think that people would like a splitting the reward mechanic. There is also the guest character which is common for escort missions.
A soft limit by having NPCs conflict to varying degrees scaling exponentially based on party size. A player investing in charisma or picking party members that are particularly compatible with each other would be able to have a bigger party.
I honestly think it's more annoying when they actually try to explain it. The player understands that it's a video game. You don't have to call it out. It's stupid to think that a group of 7 might draw too much attention but 3 or 4 is just fine so we have to split up but go the same direction and destination anyways.
>I honestly think it's more annoying when they actually try to explain it. The player understands that it's a video game. You don't have to call it out. It's stupid to think that a group of 7 might draw too much attention but 3 or 4 is just fine so we have to split up but go the same direction and destination anyways.
It is a necessary evil for the characters say that they aren't joining you only because there are too many people in your party. >Get me out of this Hell hole! Oh? You have 2 other people with you. You know what they say "Three people is a crowd and four people is an army or whatever. You better dismiss another party member before you get me out of this slave camp.".
https://i.imgur.com/XRC8K4D.jpg
Any RPG with more than 5 party members is dogshit.
The oldest of rpgs already had 6. The fact they downscaled it is sad. It probably happened for rendering reasons. When you need to show all those characters in great detail on screen, it was probably too much, and then it stuck.
3 is definitely too little though. Even 4 is questionable.
6 party members is used to be standard for dungeon crawlers. Etrian Odyssey had a party limit of 5 with an extra slot for temporary party members like summons.
>It is a necessary evil for the characters say that they aren't joining you only because there are too many people in your party.
It's not necessary at all. You don't have to explain why battle works by homies standing in a row. You don't have to explain why you're carrying more weapons than can possibly be held. You don't have to explain game mechanics. If your player is stopping to question things like this then it means you've already lost their attention and their mind is wandering to stupid shit.
I thought he was talking about in general
a lot of games have more than 5 party members
OP didn't respond when I called him out so I assume it's just another content farm
the game he posted is stupid
combat seems to be real time instead of taking turns or something in between
it looks like someone rehashed major bits of a canceled MMO just like it happened with FF13
if its an action game and the AI can attack as well, why would I ever want to switch away from the MC during battle? I would only play the MC through the whole game and let the AI do whatever with the other party members...
>Hey random dudes want to almost certainly get killed or turned to stone and perhaps a curse placed upon you for generations of your lineage after you are dead? >Well then, just sign up right here! >Incentive? What? Look at the size of the sword that guy is carrying and his spikey hair, how does this not convince you?
A problem with modern fantasy in general is so many millennials grew up with DnD and fireballs influence on pop culture now a trip past ravening flesh beasts from the outer planes to learn it is made narratively even more mundane than a trip to the hardware store to buy a wooden dildo lathe as you step over the metropolitan street person blaming capitalism for his lack of self control about drugs.
Well rendered cut scenes do a bit of work and all, but the feeling of actual danger is always underplayed when the people being eaten on screen have as much narration weight as extras in a Godzilla movie. In addition to slow buildup and setting a mood seemingly being lost arts.
>yeah that dungeon might need a wheelchair ramp, that'll bring the setting to life
I like to have 5-6 characters with 3 being for encounters. having 3 of the 6 fighting makes sense to me. plus if they ever had to split up it can be even.
I actually really like how this game never made me feel like a single one of my party members were warming the bench. I don't think people understand the distinct kind of disappointment in games like Chrono Trigger that make you have to choose who gets left out of the final battle, including the fact that they all have a unique line. It's nice when everyone is contributing
The oldest of rpgs already had 6. The fact they downscaled it is sad. It probably happened for rendering reasons. When you need to show all those characters in great detail on screen, it was probably too much, and then it stuck.
3 is definitely too little though. Even 4 is questionable.
Because every character is basically a mapped to a button rather than playing one person and the AI controls the rest. If you think about it it's kinda like how people describe blobbers where the entire party acts as one unit, the entire party is controlled effortlessly with just face buttons.
Because every character is basically a mapped to a button rather than playing one person and the AI controls the rest. If you think about it it's kinda like how people describe blobbers where the entire party acts as one unit, the entire party is controlled effortlessly with just face buttons.
sort of but not really, plays like an action rpg, with one shared health bar for the squad, except only the characters that you're actually using their button for at any given time can take damage.
>suikoden
it make sense when you have 70+ combat-usable characters in each game. if you want to see it done badly look at chrono cross which has 45 characters and lets you only use three in combat.
>The original 360 release, like later versions, had enough unique characters to eventually fill your entire army with uniques and still have a few left over >But for some reason they made it so each squad could only have one unique as a lead and the rest of the party had to be generics
I have literally no idea what they were thinking there. Thank God they changed it with the PC release on
The ideal party size is whatever you are allowed to take with you into combat. Benched member mechanics is shit. There are many crpgs made much better with mods that allow you to take all party members with you. Not better as in easier, but more convenient. No running back and forth to fetch members for their personal quests, all dialogue variations are shown, no one levels at half speed etc.
4 is the ideal number >in a row: looks good, press A a lot >not in a row: >you don't need more than 4 mary sue'd up backstories hanging around camp either to make the narrative stupidly complicated fanfiction, ever heard of replay value >you're a ranged mc, this gives you front line tank, backline off tank, healer while you do the fun scouting and traps and assassinations work >you're a tank, this gives you two flanking ranged and a healer >you're a healer, this gives you three servants to do your bidding or be declared heathens and no longer receive the loving heals of your divine embrace >you're some edge lord with dual wield this lets you put on a clown show and win more things that you would have already won while the rest of the party does the actual heavy lifting
For me, it's 1 homie in a row.
the ideal party size is one member with maybe a temporary companion for certain quests you have no control over
this
If a data set is one point it isn't a column, row or line.
It's a joke based on the "4 homies in a row" phrase you pedantic Black person.
I can't see a 7 person party in an action RPG and not think it's not just gonna be a headache inducing cartoon dust cloud.
What game is that
...u don't wanna know, trust me.
Okay, I really didn't need to know, but thanks for the quick response
star ocean 5,its actually an alright game,the new one though divine force or whatever? absolute dog shit ignore that one.
Star Ocean 5
The ideal number of companions is just enough to fill the the party. If I have leftovers sitting on the bench you fricked up.
I came here to post a slightly modified version of this.
The ideal number is enough to to play with all the characters the player actually likes. If I've got 5 party members to pick out of 10 companions there better not be 6 characters that are actually interesting/useful.
I really sort of miss when characters would only hang around for a while and the part changes over the course of the game. It lets you keep a tighter focus on the plot and story arcs of everyone and while it can be a bummer if a character you like doesn't stick around it also makes that part of the game more meaningful. Which is something I think a lot of games now have lost. Make the moment to moment parts of the journey distinct.
That is preferable to "I'm sorry chosen one but I can't join you on your raid against the ancient evil's doom tower where you will face a hoard of his vile minions and re-fight every boss we've encountered thus far because you've already got 2 companions with you, I'd just get in the way, have fun!"
Characters in the party should have their own motives and story arcs. A lot of the times those ends where a character either a new responsibility or reason to stay where they are in the the plot because they have no real relationship with the later elements of the story and are just hovering around to pad the roster. Some characters will see everything through to the end because they have a reason but not everyone needs to and it's better than just hovering around not contributing.
This alone makes the original version of dragon quest 8 better then the remake. playing a game where I had the entire squad out at once was very liberating
Wait what? They made an DQ8 remake and made the party size smaller? or did they add new members that don't fit?
The latter.
This shit annoys me in BG3
>*Quest needs a specific companion to be in the active party*
>There isn't just a party management window where you can make the swap in seconds
>Have to go back to the camp
>Run over talk to the person you want to leave your party
>Tell them you don't want to travel with them for now
>They whine "aww comeon man"
>You have to confirm it by saying "no I want you gone" a second time before they'll actually leave
>then you have to run over to the other side of the camp to tell the character you need in your party that they should join you
What's actually annoying in bg3:
>Try not to have Wyll in the party
>He shows up anyway to make a show of killing karlach so you can forgive him and his Multiverse of Marysue backstory:
>premade legend folk hero with obnoxious self important dialogue (look who's here the guy who barely did anything at the gate kids yaaay)
>pact with devil lady of which production value should have gone into multiple patrons for mc warlock but nah...frick em wyll is some devpet char
>oh how misunderstood tragedy of hunting other devil lady
>oh mysterious stone eye
>aaaand tadpole
>aaaand daddy issues
>kill him right away
>corpse is there in pool of blood to muck up all your karlach snu snu scenes
>how many times must she re-dump his corpse in the river
>can't stuff it into crate
>can't sell it to withers
>can't be rezzed to tell him to frick off forever
Please, anon, Larian is a small indie studio working on a shoestring budget, you can’t expect them to implement things such as a party select screen. It’s their first game.
I have mixed feelings on this. I think as long as the party is large enough that you have "flex" spaces, it's okay to have more companions than slots. But if you don't it can be frustrating.
For me, Wrath of the Righteous is a good example of the former. 5 party members on top of my character means I can have a few mainstays that either I really need or else just really like, but can also swap out other characters for variety or to try out different strategies.
BG3 is an example of not enough slots. Having only 4 slots is frustrating when you'll want at least a warrior, a mage, and a rogue, leaving you with one flex slot to work with. I got a mod for larger parties, and once again 6 feels like the right balance. You can have your 3 critical party members and then 3 less focused party members. I wish that was the party size they built the game around.
>BG3 is an example of not enough slots. Having only 4 slots is frustrating when you'll want at least a warrior, a mage, and a rogue, leaving you with one flex slot to work with. I got a mod for larger parties, and once again 6 feels like the right balance. You can have your 3 critical party members and then 3 less focused party members. I wish that was the party size they built the game around.
You are incorrect to the point of being cancer and close to receiving judgment off the board for lack of RPG ability. Rogue abilities are largely superfluous for locks, traps and stealth. Examples:
>Urchin background + knowledge cleric
>Urban ranger class package
>Replication abilities such as Knock, Invis
That leaves a dual wield combo of questionable value, bonus actions from thief, assassination stuff (about equivalent to gloom ranger but can't get free invis), and the much maligned but sadly underutilized arcane trickster
5e in BG3 is much better at multiclassing than people believe it to be. You can combo an eldritch knight and wizard pretty damn well, or a paladin and sorceror and reduce the slots you believe you need and make the fights more interesting at the same time.
I reduced all my WOTR parties to 4 as well with similar methods, I never even triple class as it's lame RP wise, stick to thematic choices for the companions etc. Usually MC is the only one I allow a dual class if I can help it.
>Party maximum of 6
>Good path has 5 good companions + PC
>Evil path has 5 evil companions + PC
The few games that actually do this are such a relief
Sweet spot: one full party that you create and customize yourself.
Depends on what kind of game it is, really party size is a function of how much micro you need to perform on each character, the more automated and abstracted out the more characters you can have under the player's control without it feeling bogged down. A turn based game like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest where you issue every order individually should stay between 3-5 characters because if you go higher than that its just too time consuming to get through a combat round. RTwP top down full party RPGs like BG and IWD usually stick to 6 but it really comes down to how many casters you have in your party. Martials are usually fine just auto-attacking and only need occasional adjustment in the form of target selection or ability activation, while casters are usually very micro heavy where you need to pause and fine tune every spell's placement. Top down turn-based RPGs can easily support a dozens or more party members, think Jagged Alliance, Battle Brothers, or X-Com but having to move a couple dozen characters each turn does become annoying so if you're making a system like that its usually best to include waypoints that can automove characters across several turns automatically. A top down real-time game where you could assign AI macros to every character and/or class and assign them to groups which you can order around as a single unit could conceivably support total war size engagements.
6 + 2 npcs is best. End of story.
>Any RPG with more than 5 party members is dogshit
why
What is a good in-universe explanation for a party limit? I don't think that people would like a splitting the reward mechanic. There is also the guest character which is common for escort missions.
Your mecha knights run on magic crystals and you only possess 3.
A soft limit by having NPCs conflict to varying degrees scaling exponentially based on party size. A player investing in charisma or picking party members that are particularly compatible with each other would be able to have a bigger party.
I honestly think it's more annoying when they actually try to explain it. The player understands that it's a video game. You don't have to call it out. It's stupid to think that a group of 7 might draw too much attention but 3 or 4 is just fine so we have to split up but go the same direction and destination anyways.
>I honestly think it's more annoying when they actually try to explain it. The player understands that it's a video game. You don't have to call it out. It's stupid to think that a group of 7 might draw too much attention but 3 or 4 is just fine so we have to split up but go the same direction and destination anyways.
It is a necessary evil for the characters say that they aren't joining you only because there are too many people in your party.
>Get me out of this Hell hole! Oh? You have 2 other people with you. You know what they say "Three people is a crowd and four people is an army or whatever. You better dismiss another party member before you get me out of this slave camp.".
6 party members is used to be standard for dungeon crawlers. Etrian Odyssey had a party limit of 5 with an extra slot for temporary party members like summons.
>It is a necessary evil for the characters say that they aren't joining you only because there are too many people in your party.
It's not necessary at all. You don't have to explain why battle works by homies standing in a row. You don't have to explain why you're carrying more weapons than can possibly be held. You don't have to explain game mechanics. If your player is stopping to question things like this then it means you've already lost their attention and their mind is wandering to stupid shit.
That's just a shitty explanation.
You get around in a car/wagon/spaceship that can only carry n people at a time.
This is the X-Com explanation, your first ship seats 14, your second ship is stronger but only seats 12, and the ultimate ship seats 24.
I thought he was talking about in general
a lot of games have more than 5 party members
OP didn't respond when I called him out so I assume it's just another content farm
the game he posted is stupid
combat seems to be real time instead of taking turns or something in between
it looks like someone rehashed major bits of a canceled MMO just like it happened with FF13
Shame i liked Star Ocean 5 visuals more than 6
why can't you play as the e-girl in this game, asking for a friend.
if its an action game and the AI can attack as well, why would I ever want to switch away from the MC during battle? I would only play the MC through the whole game and let the AI do whatever with the other party members...
>Hey random dudes want to almost certainly get killed or turned to stone and perhaps a curse placed upon you for generations of your lineage after you are dead?
>Well then, just sign up right here!
>Incentive? What? Look at the size of the sword that guy is carrying and his spikey hair, how does this not convince you?
A problem with modern fantasy in general is so many millennials grew up with DnD and fireballs influence on pop culture now a trip past ravening flesh beasts from the outer planes to learn it is made narratively even more mundane than a trip to the hardware store to buy a wooden dildo lathe as you step over the metropolitan street person blaming capitalism for his lack of self control about drugs.
Well rendered cut scenes do a bit of work and all, but the feeling of actual danger is always underplayed when the people being eaten on screen have as much narration weight as extras in a Godzilla movie. In addition to slow buildup and setting a mood seemingly being lost arts.
>yeah that dungeon might need a wheelchair ramp, that'll bring the setting to life
I like to have 5-6 characters with 3 being for encounters. having 3 of the 6 fighting makes sense to me. plus if they ever had to split up it can be even.
I actually really like how this game never made me feel like a single one of my party members were warming the bench. I don't think people understand the distinct kind of disappointment in games like Chrono Trigger that make you have to choose who gets left out of the final battle, including the fact that they all have a unique line. It's nice when everyone is contributing
The oldest of rpgs already had 6. The fact they downscaled it is sad. It probably happened for rendering reasons. When you need to show all those characters in great detail on screen, it was probably too much, and then it stuck.
3 is definitely too little though. Even 4 is questionable.
Really depends. 6 is cool in crpg, and I wouldn't mind 2 additional auto piloted grunts.
What should the pros and cons be of using fewer mates than max capacity?
>action combat
>6 party members all fighting at once
>the player controls all 6 of them at the same time
>it's amazing
How'd they do it?
Because every character is basically a mapped to a button rather than playing one person and the AI controls the rest. If you think about it it's kinda like how people describe blobbers where the entire party acts as one unit, the entire party is controlled effortlessly with just face buttons.
Kino.
>it's amazing
It's not even good enough to be mediocre, you cum guzzling homosexual.
its Valkyrie profile combat system?
sort of but not really, plays like an action rpg, with one shared health bar for the squad, except only the characters that you're actually using their button for at any given time can take damage.
Suikoden 1 and 2 have 6 characters in a battle party at a time, those games were great.
>suikoden
it make sense when you have 70+ combat-usable characters in each game. if you want to see it done badly look at chrono cross which has 45 characters and lets you only use three in combat.
i kind of liked it
What if the game has a shitload of party members but they're controlled as 3-5 squads?
>The original 360 release, like later versions, had enough unique characters to eventually fill your entire army with uniques and still have a few left over
>But for some reason they made it so each squad could only have one unique as a lead and the rest of the party had to be generics
I have literally no idea what they were thinking there. Thank God they changed it with the PC release on
The ideal party size is whatever you are allowed to take with you into combat. Benched member mechanics is shit. There are many crpgs made much better with mods that allow you to take all party members with you. Not better as in easier, but more convenient. No running back and forth to fetch members for their personal quests, all dialogue variations are shown, no one levels at half speed etc.
Idk Suikoden did 6 pretty well.
4 is the ideal number
>in a row: looks good, press A a lot
>not in a row:
>you don't need more than 4 mary sue'd up backstories hanging around camp either to make the narrative stupidly complicated fanfiction, ever heard of replay value
>you're a ranged mc, this gives you front line tank, backline off tank, healer while you do the fun scouting and traps and assassinations work
>you're a tank, this gives you two flanking ranged and a healer
>you're a healer, this gives you three servants to do your bidding or be declared heathens and no longer receive the loving heals of your divine embrace
>you're some edge lord with dual wield this lets you put on a clown show and win more things that you would have already won while the rest of the party does the actual heavy lifting
4 is the golden standard.
Put 4 more in the back row as backup to switch when needed and maybe provide some assists/passives and we're golden.