Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Party Size Discussion

The main issue I see with increasing party to 4+ is that the game is not being built around it. Personally, I think party of 5 would be the best for me; 4 is playable but pretty limiting in choices, 5 is more flexible while 6 might be a little too many for me to manage.

So if there are 5-6 active party members that will definitely require a rebalance of enemy stats/numbers for a default difficulty level. And with increased enemy numbers maps can become pretty crowded leaving less space to manuever and maybe opening an issue of a party member being more likely to be alpha-striked (probably less relevant as party levels up?). So that might require map rework, and that I don't really see happening. Plus there's multiplayer aspect, and I think getting and commiting 5/6 people to play a long campaign (I'm assuming it will be around DoS2 length, so probably up to 100 hours?) can be harder.

This is exactly the claim that @GM4Him is refuting, by pointing out that there is no such thing as "standard party size" for a D&D game module because the exact same module can be played tabletop with party sizes ranging from as small as 4 to as large as 8.

Well, I did not look at the whole issue as a "standard party size in D&D". I'm actually pretty far from D&D (never even played BG1/2) and my knowledge is more about bits and pieces of lore rather than tabletop mechanics.

I don't see a module that can be readily adjusted to a varying number of players. What I see is that BG3 is being built with an exact party limit in mind - four, standard or not. No way around that. Any adjustments to party limit will require more work that just ramping enemy stats or numbers up if were're expecting some balance difficulty-wise. And would I like to see party size changed? Yes. Can I see it happening, even as option? Not really, outside of mods.

Please define for me "not being build around it". O_o

Are you adressing problems with combat dificiulty?
> Allready talked about, as long as party of 6 is OPTIONAL (wich is what most people want here) its not a problem, bcs people who will want it will be notified that difficiulty of game will be affected ... and people who dont mind will not activate it ... sure there will be people who will activate it anyway and then complain that game seems too easy, but you cant save everyone, especialy not those who are swimming in acid and cry "it burns".

Are you adressing UI issues?
> Larian actualy (paraphrasing Swen himself) "count with the fact that 6member party mod WILL be present for many players and preparing all UI to be as possible to adjust to it as it can"

Are you adressing problems for some players to operate with more characters?
(I honeslty never understand this argument, its turn based, you allways use only 1 character at the time)
> Again not a problem ... if rule (as we ask) will be optional ... is party of 6 too much for you? Set party of 5.

Are you adressing anything else?
> Please tell me, those were meerely FRC ... frequently repeated complains

Simple as it is - it is the *intended* experience, crafted by the team. Larian chose this limit and the systems will be more or less revolving around it.

For example, GM4Him mentioned quite a lot that BG3 creatures don't follow "true" D&D stats, so it's reasonable to assume that Larian did not build their encounters around D&D challenge rating. Hence the most probable measuremnt - party size and expected levels of encounters. If we change party size then any kind of balance (which I think is in OK state currently, assuming it's the intended default difficulty) is thrown out of the window - 5-6ppl party will easily stomp through current content with much higher potential for removing enemies per turn or nuking high HP targets, and that also opens more class options which would provide more general flexibility for the party.

Can Larian make a setting for an optional 6ppl mode? Sure, and I'm pretty sure that's the easy part. Will it provide the intended experience that way? Nope, as the balance will swing heavily into players' favor, even if they were warned, and it's Larian who get blamed for an imbalanced mode even if it were players who asked for this. Then add difficulty settings and it's a whole another can of worms in regards to balance. Reception from players will vary a lot too and in case of further changes Larian might have a hard time finding what was truly overtuned or undertuned to fix.
I would also say there's a good probability of DOS2-like event that will "seal" the party composition at one point (I wouldn't want that but that's something I expect nontheless) and I'm not sure how the game will react if there are more people left. Will the possibility be accounted for or will some scripts just break, etc?

it's nice to hear that they are trying to adjust the UI for people who want bigger parties though. And if there's to be a "proper" 6ppl mode... it will require a lot of work, which I've already mentioned. Maybe it could happen after release if demand will be high enough?

And I'm not really complaining, I'm just saying why I think it's unreasonable to expect a 4+ party size from the game. I would like an officially supported bigger party too as I think 4-man is a little too rigid but I don't see it happening. So even if 6 ppl will be supported by the game from a techinical point, you would probably still need a mod for this rather than an official setting.

I see ...

Well, i dare to presume this isnt actualy a "problem" tho, is it?
Since as i said, that people ask for is option to enlarge the group size ... so as long as other people want to get "intended experience" all they need to do is dont flip that switch.

Yeah he does that a lot ...
I dunno how often you read this forum, but sooner or later you find out that many people around here have few topics they are REALLY interested in ... and some of them then waste no chance to mention it once again.

But still, its separated suggestion ... he only use it often as yet another reason for 6 member party, since as it seems he believe that those two suggestions works best together.

Yes, this was allready mentioned countless of times ...
But most people who participated in this very topic agreed on that "at very least" they would settle with just option to enlarge your group, with NO futher ballance adjustments ... just note for players ... something like:
"WARNING: This game has ben prepared and intended for party of 4 ... if you check this window, your party size will be incerased to 5 / 6 ... please understand such change will affect your gameplay experience and difficiulty setting ... now, when we understand each other please feel free to play however you like."

And voila! Whoever pick the option takes responsibility for himself.

Im confused now, that is bad thing?

And the third imporant questions would be:
Who cares? In my opinion the answer is: Not the people who will turn this option "on" even if this is what they will be warned about.

Thats something we dont really know right now ... Larian do.

BUT!
It was allready confrimmed by Swen himself that there will be mercenaries in this game, to fill role of our potential companions in this adventure.
And since there is no mercenary so far in EA, one could presume that our party will "somehow" possibly change even futher in game.

My personal theory is:

Yup ... and since 6member party "mod" is allready there we know that all it require is change single number in the code.
So ... basicaly it would be nice if Larian would allow us to do this without any need to download and use any external applications.

Yeah, that would require tremendous amount of work ...

Unless ... the person who would be using it would be using it as simply yet another part of settings.
You know ... hard ... but with party of 5 so not "as hard as it should be, but still harder than normal".

And that is exactly what we are trying to change here.

The problem is that the moment this setting gets added by Larian - it's their responsibility to keep it functioning. In the end, what good would this setting do if due to some script interaction later in the game you can get your campaign stuck or, for example, lose story progress for two "additional" origin characters? Even if caring about balance is not an issue that adds additional work on bugfixing and testing if everything's working fine for, essentialy, two campaign modes.
Tbh that's doesn't necessarily sound to me like it's BAD... but it's clearly not the approach Larian took and I think it's kiiinda too late to fully revert to tabletop stats at this point due to how much rebalacing that would require.
See the first part of my answer
Not bad on its own - but it does throw balancing off even further. Not a problem if you don't care for balance ofc...
See the first part again. Yes, no care for intended experience again, but Larian cares (I hope so...) and having a single template would make it easier to work out the intended easier and harder difficulty settings rather than having to remember that "yes, we do totally have this imbalanced mode that still requires looking at". Having options is good but there's also a cost of implementing options.
Personally I'm not a big fan of mercenaries. Feels like you're throwing away a proper party member if you're using one unless merc would be an only option to fill a slot indeed.
Again, first part. Enabling 6-member party might require changing just a single number but there may be more issues down the line; even worse if they cannot be found during EA period simply because, well, we don't have the full game on our hands. Might be a game-breaking issue, might not be an issue at all.
Again, a single template would be easier to work with. Larian setting some foundanions for potential 6ppl party seems to be an afterthought (if a good one) so party size seems to be unlikely to be included as a part of difficulty setting.

Speaking for myself? Rest of the time.

So far there is single problem with 6member party "mod" ... and that is when you get on that boat in the Underdark ... your first 4 party members get on it, and last two die on the shore since game dont know what to do with them.
Of course, that is indeed bad experience ... but in the end its Larian who knows exactly where they are putting such limitations ...
And once again, all you really (and i mean really, we are talking here about bare necessities) need in such situation is yet another popup window warning player that while he choose to play with more party members, in this particular part it is cruicial to have only 4 ... so he should pick 2 and leave them behind for a while.

Still better experience than have 1/3 of your party killed bcs of inperfect mod.

Yeah, no arguments from me.

Dont care is a little strong wording ... i would say its lower on my priorities, compared to other things.

Well, we will do it anyway ... just this way, Larian could save us lots of frustration with investing little resources.

Every studio must ask the question eventualy if purity of original vision thei had for their product is more important for them than satisfaction of their customers.

Thats the best part ... as i said, we allready have the mod and it litteraly only changes single number in game files.
Add few "signs" or "system popup" ... and voila!
Cheapest possible implementation is live.

Agreed ...
But in my Evil playthrough i quite often loose Wyll and Gale ... in such situations your party options gets quite ... well, lets say limited, without mercenaries.

Exactly!
Thats the reason we are (or at least i am) adressing this to Larian ... who would know better than them?

I believe this was promissed even before EA even started.

Indeed ... but man can dream. :P
Its not like this forum would have many other interesting things to talk about, rather than our dreams and hopes ... especialy lately.

In that case you, however, would not get to the "end" of the product you've paid for. You may be fine with it but that's a good potential for backlash here as you, well, cannot finish a game you've paid for; don't know about possibility of legal action against Larian in that case but that's something to consider I think.
This is exactly what I worry about. It at the very least should not be a simple "change a number in a setting" change but it would require proper work and sweeping for bugs to be functional. If it already can kill 2 characters this way who knows what else can happen later and how many popus would be required (and would they even be a good solution, or a solution at all).
I do think internal balance is something that's desperately needed, or at the very least balanced "normal" setting so you can work with it. A little offtopic but in fact it causes me a lot of struggle with PF WOTR currently. The question is... can 6-party "issue" really be solved with little resources? Again, changing one number in party size already brings some unintended consequenses.
And if we're talking about vision and satisfaction of the customers... I think BG3 is in an insanely precarious position simply because it's called Baldur's Gate 3. There's weight of nostalgia, weight of the franchise name, weight of D&D edition, weight of DOS2, etc... I'm probably going to say a controversial opinion, but everyone expects something else from BG3 and it easily contradict others' expectations; since the release of EA I feel like all this collides into an enourmous ball of untempered expectations that cannot be satisfied no matter the effort Larian puts in the game - as someone who's essentialy an outsider to D&D and BG this is insane to watch. Some things should be worked out (example - relentless shoving, Wizards learning divine spells, reactions) but at this point I would rather see Larian iron out their vision during EA rather then trying to do the impossible.
And again, then Larian actualy need to dedicate resoures to keep this implementation functional. There's no guarantee that it can jsut be solved with popups.
Curious. If so, I didn't know that.

Bottom line.

Party of 4 multiplayer = 0 party slots = Absolutely no ability to enjoy the full game because you can't do a single origin character quest because you can't include a single origin character in your party.

Party of 6 with 4 player max = 2 party slots so party of 4 multiplayer CAN enjoy the full game because you can do a origin character quest because you can include 2 origin characters in your party.

+ Less switching out party members
+ More character banter and interaction
+ Party can carry more so less hassle with item management (less running back to the merchant to sell)

And so much more

How so?
I would get exactly the same product as i would get if this option would not be included ...
The only difference would be that i would have option to adjust one of most frequently asked feature right in the options, with clear warnings how it would affect my experience ...

This isnt case of "game cannot be completed" kind of bug ... since even if you would meet some issue, as we did at the boat, all that would happen to you would be redution of your party for a while to original (aka intended) size.

As for the legal actions against Larian ... i believe that the best players could hope for is refund, wich would not be resolved with Larian, but with store they buyed this game from ... i mean i know many games that were released in much worse shape than "including mod that would potentialy cause some troubles" ...
Few examples:
- Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Mass Effect: Andromeda
- Mass Effect (1) ... this game was so unstable on my PC so my record in playing without game crashing error was cca 40 minutes.
- And basicaly everything Bethesda released in last decade.
Those are games that were for various reasons basicaly unlplayable in their "day one release" state ... and what happened? Few people get mad, some bad rewievs were written ... and everyone forgets about it in two weeks.

Well as i often say, my kowledge of programming is not anyhow deep ... but i have fundamental basics.

So i can tell you im quite sure about this statement:
If the game runs smoothly and gives you zero errors with party of 4 ... and cause problems at the exactly same moment with party of 6 ... easiest solution, even tho certainly not any ellegant one, is to force players to reduce party size to 4 during this problematic part.

As for how many popups would be required ... i dont know, since i dont have acess to whole game.
During whole EA its exactly 1 tho, that much we know.

Yes ...
But i dont see any contradiction here ... i mean whole ballance, and normal, and other stuff would be created for regular game ... meaning party of 4.

Well, party efficiency sound to me like argument for party of 6 ... rather than 4.

I mean, if you have only 4 places ... you really want to have Tank, Heal, Utilitiy Guy, and Damage Dealer ... and thats it.
You of course can easily mix this with pseudo-roles ... like Ranger, or Druid who can deal damage and help with at least "some" healing ... but still, having two open slots in your party gives you much more freedom ...
Especialy in game like BG-3 where the only companion that actualy can heal your party right now, is Shadowheart ... the only companion that can effectively Tank is either Lae'zel or once again Shadowheart, but sending her up front means potentialy loose concentration fast ... Astarion would be the only one who would fulfill the Utility role, IF Larian would give Expertise to Rogues ... and the rest are just Damage Dealers ...

Yes, im sure of it.
I know warning popups are not ellegant solution, it can potentialy become quite anoying ... but i also know it would work.

Agreed ...
But there are things Larian can affect, and things Larian cannot affect.

Exactly this you mentioned is something they simply cant resolve, there is no scenario where both factions will be satisfied ... fans of DnD or original BG series demand something that is in direct contradiction with things Larian and Divinity series fans demand ... in this case, Larian can only choose side, or try to please both at least a little bit and hope people will actualy focus on this game, rather than their own hopes and dreams.

And that is up to them to decide.
Aswell as it is up to us to bring them feedback and suggestions ... as they litteraly requested.

Im not so sure either ... but i believe it was said in one of those pre-EA interwievs.
Can be misstaken tho.

Warnings or not, you're pretty much asking for an effectively untested mode, and that' something I struggle to understand - you're willing to potentially trade your campaign's/game's stability (and others in fact', if somebody decides to play MP with 6ppl enabled) for 6ppl party? Because while there's nothing bricking the game curently doesn't mean it cannot appear down the line. All this doesn't sound like a fair trade to me. Sticking warnings in obvious or semi-obvious problematic points like boat sounds like bandaiding and just screams "unfinished content", like in various EAs; if an issue is found, at this point why not fix it rather than intentionally ignore if this mode is being worked on already? Outside of issues like "completely out of time to finish it before release".
I can understand wanting more than 4 people in party but I cannot understand your willingness to sacrifice for its sake. If I would want this mode I would at least want it fully functional (if imbalanced), playtested and as clear of bugs as possible.
"Legal trouble" was probably too much of a hot take from me tbh. I wouldn't say that everything went fine and dandy for these games though.
VtMB didn't make as much money as it was expected on release and picked up popularity much time after the release and, as I understand, was one of the contributing factors for Troika Games disbanding. It's the community support of the game that ended up keeping it afloat to my understanding.
Cyberpunk lost its intended multiplayer part and any planned major single player DLCs seem to be reduced/merged to one. Not a financial failure per se but it also clearly did not sell as much as intended while tanking CDPR's reputation and losing console sales after it was pulled from console stores.
MEA lost any planned DLC content and killed any plans for its sequel.
ME1... well, while you did not have a fun time with it it was clearly a success overall to spawn a franchise around it.
Can't say much for Bethesda games though, not a big follower.
Yes, assigning clear roles will be easier with party of 6... but I think that as far as BG3 goes 4 still works fine. For example, I don't see a need for dedicated healer for a simple reason that said healer won't be able to outheal all incoming damage anyway (unless you LR after every encounter *cough*, just not enough spellslots otherwise most likely). The only hard-pressured slot I currently see is Gale due to him being the only full-on arcane caster (but I also can see that a 4-ppl without Gale still working out). For example, my party for my only proper full playthrough was Fiend Warlock Tav(EB spam, priority target nuker, party face, semi-frontliner), Shadowheart (buffer/emergency healer/ranged shooter/occasional nuker - kinda everything a bit), Thief Astarion (ranged DD/mobile frontliner as situation demanded) and Evocation (I think) Gale (wizard things - utility or damage as situation required)- not exactly what I think people would call an optimal composition but it worked pretty fine to me. I don't think that party roles are so strict in BG3 that you need to build your party like in a MMORPG.
The thing is... I don't see *only* two "factions". It's more like a lot of sub-factions that can barely agree on some things, and every single one thinks they are in the right. Hence I would rather trust Larian based on what I see in EA (but not everything is perfect ofc) because at least they have more or less clear vision on what to do with, well, their game. And that's coming from someone who has quite a lot of grievances with DOS2.

Not sure why you're getting so upset. Well, it seems to me like you're getting upset. No one's all like, "I'm right and you're wrong." Shoot. Ragnarok's been one of the people out here who has argued both sides of the issue at various points.

It's all suggestions. I've played the game both ways: party of 4 and party of 6 via the Mod someone put out there that allows you to just tweak the max party size to 6 or even 8. Party of 6 worked just fine. I thought it had issues, but it was just my computer's dumb graphics card needing an update to its drivers.

The game is beautifully designed to work with party of 6, even expanding inventories out, allowing for more on the road dialogues where party members interact more frequently because they're all together. So Wyll and Lae'zel will have a convo while we're jogging about, and then a few minutes later Gale strikes up a convo with Lae'zel about the Astral Plane. Then Gale and Shadowheart have a convo, or Shadowheart and Astarion... It's like night and day between party of 4 and 6 when it comes to this. Party of 4... crickets. Party of 6, they TALK to each other.

And I really liked how I didn't have to switch people out - EVER, with my single MC and the 5 origins. I didn't have to switch in Lae'zel to talk to the tiefling guy or go to the gith patrol, or switch in Wyll with the windmill and spike and such... They were just all there, ready for whenever I ran into anything. We could carry a ton more items, so I didn't have to go to the vendor as much, and I didn't need to Long Rest hardly at all, thus making the story flow more smoothly instead of having burning buildings burn for days and rituals that never end even after a week.

And combat actually went a bit faster, in my opinion. Why? Because I got 6 turns instead of 4 per round. Sure, enemies were easier, but that's because they've nerfed them. Give imps and intellect devourers back their resistances, and make wood woads and mud mephits actually according to 5e stats, and tweak a few other encounters, and the game would be challenging and yet not as cruel at certain parts.

Take the gith patrol. No change needed on this one. They are brutal even against a party of 6. Phase Spider Matriarch? Definitely easier with party of 6, but she's still a beast.

Granted, if you already know what's coming and you know all the gimmicks, you don't need a party of 6. You can go around and beat the crap out of everything, but that's not the point.

The point is, party of 6 works. Even as is, it works just fine. They wouldn't really need to change a thing except to ALLOW players to add more people to their party. If I go up to Lae'zel after I already have a party of 4, and I ask her to join my party, let her. If you don't want her to join your party because 4 is your limit, just tell her to go to camp and wait there.

Everybody's then happy.

Sorry if I'm giving the impression that I'm upset. I am not. Well, unless it's about overall expectations for BG3 in general I would say. Currently just struggling to comprehend the desire for party of 6 while disregarding any issues that might come with it.

And while I probably won't have time to make a 6-ppl playthrough to compare everything myself I cannot believe that ramping up party from 4 to 6 with current rules and no other adjustments changes very little in terms of combat. More carry capacity, more talk - no disagreement here, that is perfectly fine. But combat... Let's take the party I had for example - Warlock Tav, Shadowheart, Thief Astarion, Gale. Tends to fight at range but everyone outside of Gale can take a hit, although SH gets a staff later and becomes more of a backliner. Now add Laezel and Wyll - suddenly there's a pure frontliner and another Warlock that will most likely help keep enemies at range (unless he gets a more fitting subclass for his origin, then there's another frontliner). Balance immediately swings - now I suddenly have clearly dedicated frontline and clearly dedicated backline, so backline has much less worries about being hit while nothing changes for the enemies; that is already a much safer situation for the player. And the newcomers aren't just going to sit there - they are still adding to damage output of the party so it becomes much easier to pile up on enemies to remove them out of combat with lesser effort.While incoming damage remains teh same and can be managed much more efficiently. And that's not counting that level 5 will shake things even further eventually.

And while party of 4 is a more rigid composition every decision becomes much more important and more tactical. As I see it, party of 6 lessens the impact of a single character in current circumstancses as you get significantly more turns, more damage, more spellslots, etc.
Gith patrol? IIRC there are 4 or 5 of them so now they're outnumbered and much more vulnerable to being focused, although they still have high HP and damage on their side.
Bulette can probably die in one, max two turns.
Goblin camp - as it takes some turns for goblins to converge on the party it becomes much easier to remove them one by one and get yourself into a better defensible position.

Yes, it would be different if Larian used true D&D stats, maybe better and I would actually like to see it. But that's not the approach Larian chose and I'm looking from currently existing gameplay perspective - and I think outside of few issues, BG3 has a decetly balanced and healthy difficulty. I think it's a little too late for "true D&D mode rebalance" simply because that will requre fully rebalacing every existing encounter - not just ones we know, but everything we did not get to see yet, and that's unlikely to be just copying numbers from books. I can see this happening after release though - so, when Larian's resources can be fully dedicated to the rebalance.

And I'm only against "give us party of 6 just by changing a number in a setting" approach, hell ,even throw the balance out of window. Because we do not know how tangled BG3's code is. We do not know how event and quest triggers interact if there are more people in party than intended and how much it can affect down the line. We do not know how easy it is to find and fix potential issues stemming from increasing party size. Maybe it's super easy and barely affects anything. Maybe it's surprisingly rigid and needs more effort to work out. But we do not know, hence I think it's better to assume the worst (or at least the worse). Asking for 6ppl mode is fine. Asking for it to be improperly implemented via a simple but lazy, untested and potentially unstable solution? Not a fair trabe-off as I see it.
And I'm not a very fast at typing, so sorry if my answers might take too long to appear sometimes.

But the've talked about adding difficulty settings even. So, why not have a difficulty setting that is recommended for party of 4 with current balance and difficulty setting for party of 6 with a different setting.

And if we don't know, why not ask for what we want and hope we get it?

On the contrary my friend.
One of main purposes of Early Acess is to test things after all.

Well ...
I would say that everyone is potentialy trading game stability for themselves, since nobody is forcing you to flip that switch ... so ... no, i dont trade others stability at all.

And i dont think i trade even my own ...
You know, when you look at that single problem we find out right now, when we use 6member party mod ... i would dare to say that problem that is there is that game have only 4 spawning points on the boat ... therefore (logicaly) once you have more than 4 party members, game dont know what to do with them, you dont "walk" on the boat ... you spawn there.
So thanks to existence of this mod, Larian claimed to count with, we find out the problem ... it would be resolved by simply adding two more spawning points, or adding message that would inform player to keep two persons behind.
And IF we would get this feature, that would help us revealing another problems that will be there after ... i mean, sure Larian totally can just say "you used mod, you broke your game, not our problem" and it would be perfectly fine ... or ... and there should be no surprise when i say this, they could potentialy take under concideration how easily they could fulfill one of th greatest wish of their comunity ... i mean come on, this topic have almost 100 pages, that alone should speak for itself.

You are talking about "some imaginary problem that may (or may not) occur" ... well, that is hard to argue against, quite honestly.
Its as if someone as you "what would you do if something goes wrong" ... good question, its important to ask it in any case, sure ... but how can you answer it if you dont know what would go wrong, or in what situation?

I cant honestly imagine how would you like to make it fairer(?).

I presume this is matter of attitude ...

To me it screams:
"Do you remember how we warned you that turning this option *ON* will cause problems, bcs (as we told you back then) the game is NOT created for this? And you decided to turn it *ON* anyway, while you agreed that you will be restricted? ... Well, this is it."

Well, it would certainly be preffered, yes ...
That is one of reasons we keep asking for it, the sooner we get it (if we get it) the more we will be able to test it and report bugs.

But if we dont get it, we will use the mod anyway ... and mods cause problems, bcs people who made them usualy dont know whole coding and may cause some colisions ... many of those would be prevented if the mod would create someone who knows whole coding ... aka Larian.

I didnt mean it did ...
There was some problems, but through them ... those games become sucesfull.

Basicaly yes ...
ActiVision forced Troika to release before the game was ready, there was massive cuts of content and not enough bug catching, you were not even able to finish the game in released state, since it crashed every single time in certain quest.
Also, Half Life were released in same week and that alone casted LOOOOONG shadow to basicaly everything else ... coincidence? I think not.
And you just cant left out that in those times game releases certainly didnt have as much attention as they have now ...

Exactly my point ...
You dont *need to* but it would certainly provide some benefits ... among many others, people who are perfectly fine with 4, would simply keep the switch turned off ... and they would be perfectly fine.

Well, yeah ... they are more like the two major factions ...
Then there are DnD tabetop hardcore fans, DnD tabetop casuals, people who just likes RPG and didnt know BG, nor DoS before this (that would be me) ... and the best part is that those factions are not exclusive to each other.

---

Sometimes i wonder why you keep presuming everyone around you is angry ... force of habbit?

Wrong ... as usualy.

Probably for the same reason people keep thinking I'm complaining about everything in this game instead of simply making suggestions and hoping Larian listens. Tone in email is hard to determine, and sometimes the way things are worded sounds angry when read. But whatever. Glad they're not upset.

As for you arguing both sides, my goodness. Do you want me to pour back through 93 pages to find the conversation where you were arguing with me about how party of 6 could unbalance gameplay or how we'll get more than 5 party members so arguments about bringing them all at one time are not valid? I can't even remember if there were more moments where you were arguing with me on this topic.

Amazing. It's like you can't help but argue with me even when I'm trying to establish you to another person as a person who is somewhat more unbiased.

I just find it unlikely to happen (at release at least I would say) precisely because it adds another component to balancing the difficulties (and therefore adds more work on top of exisiting balance) while the game is still in development and probably it was not something planned.
As for your question... That's on Larian I think. I don't think they've been too clear on what exactly they might be incorporating (to settle some debates) from the feedback and I can understand that, because you may say that you're implementing one thing but end up unable to do so. On the flip side I think it creates a situation when you might feel your feedback is useless, so I do feel they need to be more clear on what they might do and what they won't do just so there would be some clarity.
The issue is that due to BG3 not being traditional Early Access there will be no means for players to playtest later stages of the game, and that's where most script issues will be much more likely to pop up me thinks. Especially if Larian by default enforces fixed 4-party setup at some point similary to DOS2.
Except somebody will be happy to jump in for 6ppl party because they were excited to so it, thinks it's more fitting - just like you, someone who might not have followed the development... and are greeted by a warning that hey, it wasnt really tested and you might encounter issues. Not exactly something what a game should have on release, don't you think? Esp;ecially one that's probably going to be around 100h long. And people will be reasonably pissed at Larian for an incomplete feature. In that case it makes more sense to lay some foundations for modders to work later on rather diverting focus to a mode that was not a priority.
It will only help find issues similar to "the boat killing". As I said, it's unknown what other problems and bugs can stem from altering party size later; something I wouldn't call an imaginary issue bur rather "possible but very probable" issue. Only Larian know and as far as I know, they don't share much on this. I would be absolutely glad to be wrong if Larian actually delivers a functional 6-mode on release though.
Make a properly worked on mode instead of bandaid solution? I don't really see a good middle option.
The issue is that Larian is the developer, not a modder. There are wages to pay, work to be done within some window because they can't be developing forever or run out of money so focuses and sacrifices are inevitable. Modders are usually not restricted by these constraints because they are not a company and installing a mod is always at your own risk by default. So modders can try and do things that the company might find unreasonable in certain circumstances precisely because they're a company. A modder is unlikely to be restricted by having to proft from his mod and can allow work at a slower pace.
From what I see a lot of RPG fans don't necesarily agree what substitiues a good RPG anyway. Take me for example - I value story over deep gameplay mechanics while I still don't want an RPG turning into a purely interactive story while some more old-school gamers would probably prefer much more mechanical depth. Then there's the whole RTWP vs TB, voiced vs silent protagonist, fully custom vs more defined protagonist, origin vs fully NPC companions, true to tabletop stats vs altered stats... the list goes on and on and all these vary from person to person. BG3 by virtue of being named BG3 managed to bring in pretty much every opinion and they're constantly clashing - here, on reddit, on Steam... And because the opinions can be so diverse even within a single group it's an impossible task for Larin to "properly" pick a side in this clashing... outside of their own, most likely.

On this, we agree. I do feel like my feedback is useless. But I'm bored and still love the game, so I post still hoping maybe they are listening... Maybe...

Oh I see. Ruswarr is the new chapter of "I'll throw at you guys every single rebuttal that has already been argued to hell and back for two years, in an attempt to make it sound like I'm making a compelling point".

"That would be untested" is one of the funniest ones, though. If only there was some type of environment where a lot of people would be able to test something that was yet to be finally released to the public.
We could call it "Anticipated Entry" or something like that.