As far as recent trends --
1) To the degree it's true it's bad trend. We shouldn't settle for trends, this EA and we've been invited to advocate for what we want. I want moar.
1a) That trend only works with classless systems
2) It's not true of D&D. Critical role -- 8 people. Force Grey -- 5. The guild (lol) 6. I'm looking through the modules. Avernus -- 4 to 6. Waterdeep, no mention . . . Only one I can find that says 4 is Hoard of the Dragon Queen and it says you can increase the enemies for larger parties. So one module says 4 or more and others say 4-6.
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Otherwise,I'm with you on the longer battles. I'm thinking this "longer battles is" excuse making. I don't see that many people upset by the length of the battles. Long battles are only boring with boring encounters. (and again with mod they are shorter and truer to DnD) The longest battle is the spider matriarch and that's crazy difficult but also fun.
I remember when NWN told us that they took out verticality because fly allowed people to skip parts of dungeons. It was marketing BS and everyone knew it. "Battles are too long" seems a similar narrative.
Besides, any disagreement can be resolved by saying "Tolkien" -- Fact.
