Any larger than 4 would need complete rebalancing of /all/ combat encounters in early access. If that was a prank, it was an expensive one
To be clear and as I stated in my original post, I am fine with the 4 person party. But I would personally like it even more if it was 5-6.
And it is not without precedent for a game to change the balance with this type of change between early access and full release. I am blanking on the game, but there was at least one other early access I participated in where the initial party cap prior to full release was one thing and then expanded to another on release. I want to say NWN, but I am probably wrong about that. Certainly, there have been several games where expansions have increased the party numbers that was retroactive, allowing you to play the full game with the expanded party (NWN2 was like that).
Not saying it will happen, nor even that there wouldn't be challenges associated. Just that it would be something I would personally like to see.
Sure. It's, in its best form, a way to increase combat difficulty and complexity by adding passive scaling. An option for combat enthusiasts. It can also be another path of implementing an easy mode. However, it requires a clear vision to pull off. Merely increasing party size is not enough go get benefit out of the feature.
The diablo style enemy stat adjustments aren't necessarily popular, yet adding amount or "levels" comes with it's own problems. Still, any solution is better than none. Being stuck in default story mode combat /or/ elongating encounters for everyone are non optimized choices.
Since it increases complexity of fights, however, it has a lot of potential of being part of a hard mode. Enemies hit harder, /you/ hit harder, everyone gets to employ more complex strategy. Infinitely better than making every goblin a tank and calling it a day
