I'm all for actions having consequences, I love a good tragedy, even. But that's distinct from the idea of being punished in the sense of bleeding content and ending up with a shallower experience as a result of fairly mundane choices (as in, not 'lets see if I can break the game by murdering every npc I come across'). I know I have harped on the disparity in content between the 'evil options' and 'good options' in this game before, but it really stings in regards to party members. We already know that it's unavoidable to lose Wyll if you side with the goblins, and fairly easy to Lose Gale as well, and you lose your romance option with three of the existing five party members if you choose to do so, but it gets even worse in the datamined stuff.
IIRC Karlach has dialogue lines for her leaving if you side with the goblins, like Wyll and Gale. Add to that Minsc being another unadded companion, and Helia's uncertain status as a companion at this point, you could be looking at losing half to more than half of your companions in the entire game with a single choice not even halfway through the first act
In additionally, in regards to a future conflict not yet added to the game but revealed in datamined stuff:
Shadowheart will try to murder Lae'zel, forcing you to choose between them. You can only defuse this situation with a IIRC DC 20 check (Larian really likes adding ways for Lae'zel to die, don't they?)
So keeping in mind that if you choose to play an Origin character you'll have one less party member and one less romance option, you could be looking at a party size of one+your PC and 1-2 romance options before you even reach the much dreaded 'party member guillotine' or w/e it ends up being at the end of act I-just based on your choice of Origin character and siding with the goblins.
I'm pretty sure Larian has talked about making failure interesting in the past, but I really hope this isn't it at the end of the day.
But yeah, the rate of attrition for party members in Act I is extremely high, and we absolutely need understudies/more party members to fill out the gaps if they want to pursue that sort of high-turnover story where your actions have consequences and people end up dead that otherwise would be with you till the end of the game.
