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Ideal party size?

Ideal party size?


  • Total voters
    153

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,232
8. And it must be a blobber.
 

hivemind

Guest
If you can't solo party based games on highest difficulty you are a beta faggot
 

undecaf

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 4, 2010
Messages
3,517
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
I'm fine with a lot of party sizes, but 4 seems to have hit the sweet spot for me. It's less messy when things go that way and each member tends to pack more value.
 

kwanzabot

Cipher
Shitposter
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
597
i like games like fallout/arcanum most when you have 1 + npc's

some party based games are fine though, usually 6-8 is nice(IE GAMES/toee/wl2)

3-4 bit too small and unnatural for me, like you dont have a reason for not bringing more help in the kotor or ME games you just cant do it because of limitations
 

TigerKnee

Arcane
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
1,920
For turn-based, higher is almost always better but depending on how complex the character system is, 7-8 might get very unwieldy, especially if you're expecting to roll stats or build very complex stat sheets.

If the combat system actually has positioning involved, then the correct number will definitely depend on how big the battlefields are - you want to actually be able to block off enemies that usually is what pushes it towards more characters. There are some exceptions - Dark Heart of Uukrul had very small battlefields and therefore 4 worked fine in it.

Action RPGs are usually the only ones that can get away with a small number... and ironically, the smaller the better since it's almost inevitable your allies will be retards. That being said, 1 character turn-based RPGs are possible and surprisingly usually preferable to 2-3 member party ones - they just become Roguelikes.
 
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Sacred82

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What part of experimental custom character do you have trouble with? That free agent can be configured as heavy fighter if you like infantry, or ranged if you want a distance, magic if you like boom. A party with two mage is different from a party with two heavy infantry.

One character out of 6 won't make your party behave differently, is what I'm saying. Now, if you really went off the deep end, and picked F-C-T-M-M-M, that would give your party a certain magic-heavy bent. But how many 6 character games do you know that support this? I know that i.e. in the Infinity Engine games (my go-to example for 6 character games) I would always get fucked if I had only one tank, and this was despite the fact that small parties tend to do very well in the IE games. And of course they limited the spells available to avoid mass fireballing. So, what you really tend to do with those (4+)2 characters is that you make one of them the sturdy kind, and the other a squishy DPS.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Wrrrrrong~ The benefit of second mage is that now you can mix summoning, indirect status attacks, in with direct magic attack. You can create a meatshield wall of summons, with the fighter to block leakers or the one make the save against disabling AoE effect. The benefit of second heavy infantry char is that your meatshields are no longer a blocking force but a main thrust toward the wave. The benefit of second ranged attacker is that you can pinpoint attack target of desire faster, than a single guy doing that.

You have to learn to use the classes you have effectively to play a party of varied characters. A party of one dimension design, like FCTMMM like you said earlier, is too fragile and can get stumped at new situation. Like, what happen if the game present a magicless area? Dead meat, is what they are.
 

skyst

Augur
Joined
Jul 26, 2010
Messages
294
Location
Philadelphia, PA
5-7 is the sweet spot for most types of games, tactically as well as allowing for the potential to surround yourself with interesting companions.

Reading the responses, I couldn't help but be irked by the support for this 'holy trinity' party requirement. Where you typically have the fighter that takes hits and deals no damage, the rogue who murders everyone and picks locks but is a glass cannon, the wizard that torrents endless waves of flame and energy but is also a glass cannon and the cleric that heals them. When did this become standard? Did MMOs do this?

I would rather an RPG where my fighting man was the undisputed master of dealing and taking damage, where a sword and shield was actually a lethal combination like it should be instead of him hitting like a wet noodle unless armed with a greatsword or dual wielding. Where my thief was the master of trickery inside of combat and out, picking the lock, sneaking in, stealing the loot and sweet talking his way out when caught. Where the wizard has the knowledge of the universe and ability to change the tide of a battle or even a war with a great expenditure of power but usually is just clever with herbs and alchemy. Where my cleric stands beside my fighter, mace in hand and has the ability to bind our wounds after the battle with some help from his patron god.

Perhaps it comes from spending more time with pencil and paper than mouse and keyboard over the years and maybe the two examples get boiled down to the same damn thing. I just think that the soul of our genre is lost when we see each class as tank, dps or heals.
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Messages
4,065
The bigger issue I have with larger groups is how non-combat skill are used. You could have a Core group of handcrafted indiviuals that make all the skill checks and then some allies that would aid more or less depending if you get along.

I would like to see a expedition type game where the focus is less raiding dungeons, but on keeping and managing a larger group. Like Storm of Zehir or Conquistadores but with intraparty mechanics where every character has an affinity value to each other, with plenty of events etc (aligment issues, agenda conflicts, thefts, quarreling over loot and more personal issues).
You would create a core party of 1-4 like in Wasteland and then recruit some folks having potentially a big rooster (over a dozen or so). You deploy 4-6 or so and have the rest follow with the mules, supplies, etc (diferent terrains/situations would allow you to deploy more or less). When creating your core party you would be able to edit their relationship with each other, like making everyone actual bros or make them bitter rivals, lovers, etc. Then when the party grows with outsiders you will need to do your best to keep a party large enough to rotate injured/exhausted allies without wasting time in an inn or camping (would need some sort of time limit mechanics to keep the pressure to go forward) but keeping the inner cohesion so they don't turn against the leaders (the core party). So you could play your party as a fast group of explorers that do the occasional dungeon crawling with just a couple of backup units, or as a small band of (elitewannabe) mercenaries. The game could be set on a new continent or an abandoned cursed wasteland or whatever.
You could be competing with other parties to reach some sort of El Dorado, Dragon hoard, magic UFO/Meteorite crash site or whatever, so you will need to keep the pace, and even fight other parties.
 
Last edited:
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Sacred82

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Wrrrrrong~ The benefit of second mage is that now you can mix summoning, indirect status attacks, in with direct magic attack. You can create a meatshield wall of summons,

Usually done away with with summoning limits, PLUS if you have a second fighter your two mages could concentrate more on direct damage spells, equaling out that "advantage".
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
If the game has more interesting classes than Fighter, Mage, Thief and Cleric, 4 can be good enough, but 6 are better.
 

Carrion

Arcane
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Jun 30, 2011
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Lost in Necropolis
Reading the responses, I couldn't help but be irked by the support for this 'holy trinity' party requirement. Where you typically have the fighter that takes hits and deals no damage, the rogue who murders everyone and picks locks but is a glass cannon, the wizard that torrents endless waves of flame and energy but is also a glass cannon and the cleric that heals them. When did this become standard? Did MMOs do this?
I agree that the tank/DPS/healer trinity is an abomination that needs to die.

Still, regardless of the game or system there are usually certain roles that you'll want to fill in your party. You almost always need a character that can patch your party up after a tough fight. You'll want a character that can open locked containers and disarm deadly traps. If the game has magic in it, you'll want to have a mage since they are usually the most powerful characters around, and you may end up facing enemies with protection spells that can only be reliably dispelled by another magic user. Straight-up fighters are utility characters that you'll want to have around for numerous reasons, for example because your mages are probably squishy and don't necessarily have an unlimited supply of spells.

Depending on the system you may be able to fill these roles with a varying number of characters, though. Perhaps you have a multiclassed Fighter/Thief that can open most basic locks while still being adequate in combat. Or perhaps you'll use your mage instead, giving her spells that allow her to open locks or turn herself invisible. Or perhaps you leave the fighter out of the equation entirely and instead turn one of your mages into a close-combat monster with the correct buffs and items. Rangers might be able to switch between melee and ranged combat while being effective either way, and clerics and druids could serve multiple purposes, using a varying degree of defensive and offensive spells as well as traditional weapons, perhaps replacing basic fighters or even mages to an extent. This means that even with a party size of four you might be able to do some interesting stuff, rather than just having a fighter, thief, mage an cleric with you, each serving their one and only possible role.

On the other hand, especially with newer games the systems tend to be very rigid, with each role tied strictly to a single character, which also makes small parties much more boring. Mages are often mostly just damage dealers and/or healers, lacking effective protective spells as well as useful utility spells (like ones that would allow them to open locks). This means that you'll need a fighter or two to protect them. Clerics often don't even exist, but if they do, their role is usually to strictly cast buffs and/or healing spells, with little room for other things. And then you've got thiefs rogues, who'll deal more damage than anyone but need those fighters to keep enemies from attacking them. As a result four-character parties tend to become very dull, as you need a different character for each role, and even though there may be a few different paths you can take with each character (like choosing whether you want your rogue to use daggers or bows, or which weapon you want your fighter to specialize in), it tends to make all parties feel more or less the same.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
3-4. I always thought 6 is too much. Few games can provide a wide enough system that you can have 6 characters without being good at everything or putting a couple of them on autopilot. D&D obviously is better at this than most, but 3-4 just seems a good balance between tactical options & unwieldiness.
 

Shin

Cipher
Joined
Jan 5, 2015
Messages
677
I usually like 6, because I'm from the ole school bro.

this had me wondering though, are there any RPG's which feature armies/divisions/large groups of characters -instead- of single characters? There isn't really a single reason why they should be restricted to single character groups all the time. And yes, I know Civ isn't a RPG.
 

snoek

Cipher
Joined
May 5, 2003
Messages
1,125
Location
Belgium, bro
40+ for intimidation purposes.
(On a more serious note, I like the idea of a major sidekick character who reacts/inluences the PC)
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
An actual competent large group (40 is nigh impossible to find, but 10 is easily doable and 20 isn't too big a stretch either with guilds and such) is really fun to play with in a large scale combat scenario. Takes the tactics to an entirely different level when you have groups splitting off and reforming in the middle of combat to accomplish different goals, and coordinated use of powerful abilities that can only be used once or twice during the battle.

Even for single player games, more is better. LoT has a party size of 12 and you'll use every single member until they're dead/exhausted by the end of the more difficult fights. Managing all that (both in and out of combat) makes for excellent gameplay.
 

Roqua

Prospernaut
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual In My Safe Space
Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Messages
4,130
Location
YES!
I like there to be a lot of choices and to have to go without. I dislike recruitable party members immensely. But I think the game should shoot for having too many areas to cover and not enough people to cover them all, where you need to really plan your party and when you are done you continually second guess yourself because of all the things that pop up and you can't do or have to miss out on because of your party composition.

For instance - imagine if WL2 didn't have recruitable NPCs. You really wouldn't be able to cover all the skills while maintaining combat effectiveness with just four characters. You would have to decide what exactly you want to skip out on. All of a sudden that "Asshole" trait looks better and better.

Also, the first play through is crucial. I think all games should be balanced around an Ironman mode like ToEE was, that way I could go in blind my first time and not know the fights and really see what I can do. I did this with my first playthough of ToEE and it was amazing. I do this when I can. Doing Ironman after you know the fights isn't really much of a challenge if you aren't retarded.

I also think games that don't offer Ironman should have the save system of the orginal Blade of Destiny where it cost 50 xp every time you saved. That is good choice and consequence.

So the following is the ideal-
1) I create three to five characters myself, there are no recruitables in the game. I have only the ones I created.
2) There are more skills or "areas" I cannot cover with the amount of characters I can create.
3) The game has enough of this content supported where you feel the consequences of not having these areas covered, or missing out on specific functionality. Like having a bard class that halves rest time, and the longer you rest the higher the risk of being interrupted. Or deciding to have a gimp guy that sucks at combat to be able to be a skill support type character or charisma character.
4) Balance the game for Ironman and only have two difficulties - ironman and normal. And make normal challenging. None of this NWN1 and 2 type normal where you have to be a complete fucking idiot to die on normal.
5) Make everyone sign a NDA stating they are not allowed to make a walkthrough or answer game specific content questions.
6) Winning
 

Fug

Educated
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Messages
87
Location
Finland
Depends on the type of game. For a traditional turn based RPG, 5-7 is the sweet spot. For strategy/tactical rpg's, 10+. It's one of the reasons I can't stand Expedition:Conquistadors. I love the setting and story, but the combat is awful due to you always being outnumbered and disadvantaged, with no way to increase the amount of guys you can send in.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
3,524
I usually play solo, party game or not. Especially in games with large parties where you have all roles at once I feel the playtime is spread thin with more busy work and time spent playing with character classes that are inevitably less interesting than others.

If the game has experience shared from a pool then I'll almost always solo so I can face encounters that are much harder leading to advancement rewards that are much greater. I also like the challlenge of overcoming obstacles with a limited skillset which you don't get with an all-round party. I'm not a completionist so I'm happy to play only a part of the game and miss the rest.
 

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