Yes, it's a complete mess. Managing the party in itself is a frustrating mini-game.
If the the "party" UI and functions will remain unchanged, then we need at least a keyboard map to unlink all and another to party them up again. Also each character needs a hardcoded F1 to F4 link, so F1 always selects the same character and they never switch places. Clicking with mouse doesn't select them, like needs clicked 2 or 3 times until reacts.
This stuff should have been seen during early Alpha; it's very bad coding and party management "solution" for a game that constantly needs to select each character, one by one, all the time.
Hmm, 5 companions, 3 buttons to map them to. Something doesn't add up here. I can agree with the keybind for chaining/unchaining though, I was lamenting the absence of this yesterday. As to the rest of party management, I'm not having any real issues. If I want to scout with a party member, I use stealth. The stealthed character moves around freely, and everyone else stays put. If I'm going to do something that may require me to break stealth, I'll unchain, as this is the RP equivalent of "Wait here, I'm going to scout this out". The only time I have to select different characters "all the time" is in combat, and then they don't move unless I tell them to. In fact, they're locked in place by turns.
One thing I have noticed is that I've started having an issue where I'll leave camp, but the party just hangs out there.
