Decline Why 4 party members?

[Lilura]

ToEE party of 8:

Jagged Alliance 2 party of 18:

Jagged Alliance 1.13, party of 32:

 

[Lurker47]

Purrrfect number for shippping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~ <W>

 

[Quillon]

JA2 devs must have tank top fetish

also there are 33 characters in that pic

 

[Bester]

ToEE party of 8:

Jagged Alliance 2 party of 18:

Jagged Alliance 1.13, party of 32:

As always, perfect analysis from the blog lady. I only wish you did a write-up on the subject on your blog. So I could read about it on your blog. Love your blog by the way.

 

[Lilura]

Some more parties:

 

[Quillon]

party like its 1999!

 

[PapaPetro]

4 man band of brothers.

 

[huskarls]

i prefer something around 8 so i can have some variety like an off tank, two kinds of mages, a bard, etc with no level cap incase i want to trade party size for more exp. For the cinematic rpg experience i thought bioware was fairly reasonable where you pick two dudes of a handful to ERP with for a three man party

I've played several rpgs where its 6, and you get to the same level with or without 6 so its a handicap not to use that number, and the companions are premade with little stories. I always feel like im saddled with 1-2 useless party members in these RTWP left click simulators. So that's why i feel its important to scale the party size realistically to the stragetic depth of the game so that its giving the player options and not busy work

 

[deuxhero]

I recall there's an Etrian Odyssey interview out there that states they chose five as the party size because it meant you would always feel like you were missing something.

 

[Incendax]

8 characters is way too crowded. 6 is pushing it. 4-5 is my sweet spot.

Like, I only take 4-5 in Baldur's Gate and Grimoire even if they let me have more. That said I prefer games that let you do both so everyone can have their cake.

 

[Lilura]

8 characters is way too crowded. 6 is pushing it. 4-5 is my sweet spot.

That's because you play soft-ass shit. Hell, you probably haven't even played ToEE, Jagged Alliance 2 or Silent Storm!

You probably also dislike in-game party arbitration and deep companion pools because it takes away from your intimate relationship sim. Indeed, I'd go so far as to suggest that you are a storyfag that plays RPGs for romances, and LARPing.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Because good role-playing systems have 4 classes: fighter, cleric, magic-user and thief. And while sometimes you can see crpgs which are good but have more classes, this is mostly because their creators were still consciously or subconsciously designing the game around good roleplaying system in mind.

 

[Casual Hero]

In turn-based, it makes the combat drag on too long, assuming you are also adding more enemies to balance the increase in party size. In real-time it becomes too much of a chaotic clusterfuck.

Also, the more party members you have, the longer is takes to go through the level up process and do equipment/inventory management on those party members.

Sounds like you have not played enough good RPGs.
A good RPG will make combat interesting and fun rather than just cutting things out in order to speed it up. I stand by the assertion that Wizardry has some of the best party based combat you can get, and the combats always stay nice and snappy (Wiz 1, at least).

 

[DraQ]

I have noticed this trend in most new RPGs, even RPGs that are spiritual successors to old titles(like BG3) that they are abandoning the traditional party size of 6 in favor 4. I wonder what could be the reason for that? Will we witness RPGs with 3 or even 2 party members limit in the future?

Let me gaze into my crystal ball to see what the future holds...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Solo RPGs are also going to be a thing...

Oh, wait, huh? I was holding the crystal ball upside down. Nevermind.

Spoiler

I actually do prefer larger parties in (TB) party based RPGs but headcount limit is always going to be arbitrary. Also, why no large-ish odd-numbered parties, just for the sheer novelty of it?

 

[Kliwer]

I like 5-6 party size the most (in cRPG; in PnP 3-4 is optimal because of "screen time" necessary for every party member and his unique story).

8 and more in most systems means that you could have almost any class in your group what I do not like. Composing our party should be a matter of hard choices (paladin or warrior? bard or druid?). Building a party with all essential skills, a party capable of passing every test and check shouldn’t be possible. Because of that cRPGs with more simplified systems than D&D (ex. with only 5 or 6 classes) should limit themself to 4 party size (but it is, of course, better to design richer mechanics).

 

[Incendax]

8 characters is way too crowded. 6 is pushing it. 4-5 is my sweet spot.

That's because you play soft-ass shit. Hell, you probably haven't even played ToEE, Jagged Alliance 2 or Silent Storm!

You probably also dislike in-game party arbitration and deep companion pools because it takes away from your intimate relationship sim. Indeed, I'd go so far as to suggest that you are a storyfag that plays RPGs for romances, and LARPing.

I'm playing ToEE right now at your recommendation in a previous thread. And I'm an Explorationfag thank you very much.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I have noticed this trend in most new RPGs, even RPGs that are spiritual successors to old titles(like BG3) that they are abandoning the traditional party size of 6 in favor 4. I wonder what could be the reason for that? Will we witness RPGs with 3 or even 2 party members limit in the future?

Let me gaze into my crystal ball to see what the future holds...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Solo RPGs are also going to be a thing...

Oh, wait, huh? I was holding the crystal ball upside down. Nevermind.

Spoiler

I actually do prefer larger parties in (TB) party based RPGs but headcount limit is always going to be arbitrary. Also, why no large-ish odd-numbered parties, just for the sheer novelty of it?

Fallout is an example of what I consider perfect: I am roleplaying the Vault Dweller and nothing more. I am fully immersed as the Vault Dweller. I can choose to bring companions with me(or not), and I'm not forced to do so nor do I directly control them as my representation in the game is merely the Vault Dweller. The charisma of the Vault Dweller even directly impacts how many companions I can even bring with me.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Lilura]

I'm playing ToEE right now at your recommendation in a previous thread.

Nice.

And I'm an Explorationfag thank you very much.

Meh..

Fallout [...] The charisma of the Vault Dweller even directly impacts how many companions I can even bring with me.

Charisma doesn't impact number of companions in Fallout. Only Fallout 2.

 

[Maxie]

Four is perfect for symbolic reasons - four primordial elements of nature, four sides of the world, four buttons on a D-pad etc.

 

[Thac0]

Be thankfull we are still at 4 party members, 3 party members is reasonably common in JRPGs and it is always as haram as it sounds.
I once even played a JRPG which had 2 party members, that was some next level wank.

Edit: Chaos Rings 1 for android for the sceptical Maxie. No longer runs on modern android versions, thank god it was wiped from the world.

 

[Apostle Hand]

it's easier to handle four party members than more than 4 party members

although 4 party members is already too much to handle

 

[Sykar]

I have noticed this trend in most new RPGs, even RPGs that are spiritual successors to old titles(like BG3) that they are abandoning the traditional party size of 6 in favor 4. I wonder what could be the reason for that? Will we witness RPGs with 3 or even 2 party members limit in the future?

3 has been used quite a bit as party size, especially by Bioturd (ME, KotoR, DA).

 

[Ismaul]

and thus leave out all cool classes like bards druids on a shelf.

Roles aren't classes though. You can have different classes fill the same roles, so that you pick the one you want for your party.

Bards, depending on how they're built, can sub for a rogue (skill mokey / explorer) or a cleric (healer / support). So they might be a hybrid-role class, but the build can make it fill one of the roles well. Druids are just an alternate cleric (support / healer), or if build that way usually with shapeshifting they could be an alternate fighter (tank). So you can have bards even in 4-players parties, they don't need to be the 5th member if they can substitute for one of the 4 and fulfill the same core gameplay functions, albeit in a very different mechanical way (otherwise what's the point?).

As a design principle though, having 4 distinct types of gameplays / roles each tied to a class makes sense. Instead of multiplying the number of classes, you could just widen the character build options in each of the base 4. Not to say that alternate role-filling classes or hybrid-roles classes are pointless, but they're more for advanced players really. They can fit the 4-party-member model as I said, it's just that designers are going to build first for the core before they expand into hybrids. And since development resources are limited, it's best they have 4 good mechnically distinct classes than 8 shitty ones.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I have noticed this trend in most new RPGs, even RPGs that are spiritual successors to old titles(like BG3) that they are abandoning the traditional party size of 6 in favor 4. I wonder what could be the reason for that? Will we witness RPGs with 3 or even 2 party members limit in the future?

3 has been used quite a bit as party size, especially by Bioturd (ME, KotoR, DA).

These games tend to have more companion interactions than typical RPGs along with a lot of choices that impact the story therefore the limitation is likely for this purpose.
A bioware writer(can't remember which) summed it up as:

Imagine that you have to write a scene where one potentially dead character talks to another potentially dead character about an event that might have happened or might have not.