you only have effectively 3 companions which is a joke compared to every single party-based CRPG I have ever played: you guys said you listen to feedback so I really doubt anyone thinks this is good so please post here to make sure Larian changes this ASAP!
Losing party after act 1 was hated by everyone in DOS2 and no other RPG ever did it because it means the player loses the choice to build the right party for each encounter, meaning the game losing depth!
I don't feel quite as strongly about this as you--but I do feel strongly nonetheless, and I've written out my feelings about this as follows:
This essentially
forces a roleplaying style that won't fit all characters. Some like to develop close bonds, others like to whimsically mix it up and never get too close. I'd rather they find a way to push us to
choose to have fewer camp members--like if some of them will murder each other in their sleep, or if we can murder them in their sleep and dump their bodies in ditches, or if we have to defend ourselves because we or those who like us make a perception check on someone trying to murder us in our sleep. Maybe Astarion can get discovered as a vampire and lynch mobbed, or you have to murder someone who found out what he is before they get back to camp if you want to save him. Maybe other disagreements provoke deadly or dealbreaking conflicts and if you don't have the mental stats, you lose them. Then despite combat being overall more important, there's an actual benefit to being mentally gifted because it saves you some of the best companions to take along
into combat.
Losing companions should feel like a consequence we brought on ourselves, not a deus ex fuck you.
There are better ways to get results than an arbitrary immersion-breaking party lock. If someone I like dies and all I have as an alternative are mercs, I will reload. If the game instead wants me to be forced to travel with someone I dislike, that is a better mechanic for handling the loss of that party member, and I am much more likely to do that than ever hire a stupid boring personality-devoid merc. That is more likely to prevent me from reloading. "Okay, poor Shadowheart died, so I guess it's trying to make peace with the paladin time. Ugh." THAT feels like a story, like events that could happen in reality, in life.
Maybe a soft lock wouldn't be so bad. Like, you lose someone on a critical mission and have to travel back to Waterdeep to find Gale and drag him out of his tower because he left, but now you need him because Wyll died. If Gale looked at your face and knew something happened to your mutual companion, that would feel so much better than some random permakilloff or whatever.
People won't want to trade out beloved party members; player love is already a natural deterrent.
Dragon Age: Inquisition showed us how to fix any issues with frivolous swapping, because anyone back at Skyhold will still hear about your big decisions, making it irrelevant to switch them out. You have to just live with your choices, though you can mitigate things by talking to a companion and showing your reasons. Much truer to life, there are consequences, but you can talk things out.
What if you have a personal falling out and it makes more sense to ditch one person for another? What if you break up with someone because they're too clingy? Because they were cheating? Because you discovered a fatal flaw in the relationship? How on earth would you keep going on with them? Some characters just plain wouldn't and they should be allowed to take another
friend along, not a dull merc who's barely more than a set of pixels to you! And those who can't bring themselves to just won't change the party anyway. They'll try to make peace or move on.
I just disagree with this whole forced party lock thing. Very hard. There are better ways to do this than a party lock, at least a strict one, especially in D&D where unlike DOS2 you don't get to
choose party members' classes, so there's already a huge
natural incentive to keep the same people around.
Value your characters more. We sure do! Let US decide if we want to lose them on any given playthrough. Sure, make us pay for it, even... but let US choose. And if you want to create stronger bonds between party members that have traveled awhile, then give us some kind of points system--keep track of who we've kept around, and at the end of each quest give those still with us "companion points" or something. Then if you want to make those bonds feel more powerful, you can just flag those more chummy moments of camaraderie and warm group interactions to require a certain number of those points.
Or if the gating has a real purpose, then let us know. If there are a lot of things you want to do that require companions to have known each other awhile, so be it. But only 3? That's an awfully, awfully low and lonely number. At least let us purchase one or two more by having high Charisma. That's another reward for the mental stats that so often get neglected in games like these. If 14 in one mental stat lets you take one more and 18 in one mental stat lets you take two more, not as many people will dump. It makes sense, too--you're either charming a larger number of people with looks and/or interpersonal warmth, convincing them your pragmatism makes you worth following, or convincing them you're smarter than anyone else they could chase.
