Back to the main point, yes, exactly, we stand to potentially lose some of our companions in later parts of the game due to the dialogue choices and other roleplaying decisions we make, not to mention them getting chunked. And if at that point my only option is to bring in an empty-suit "no interactions" merc, there is no way in hell that is happening. So I would either have to continue on with an even smaller party (and I consider four to be way too small a party size, so ...) or else restart my game from the end of Act 1. All rotten and ridiculous options.
You forgot the also-rotten options of save-scumming to undo their death or choosing a dialog option that doesn't result in that party member leaving. I'd be much more likely to do one of those things than continuing with 3 members (mercenaries don't count) or restarting back to Act 1. Which is bad on two fronts: 1.) Larian has strongly emphasized their desire for people not to savescum and 2.) choosing dialogue options to solely prevent a forced 3-man party completely invalidates any role-playing decisions by turning them into purely tactical ones.
IF we are not able to replace lost companions with other Origin characters with actual personalities, then Larian has gone significantly against their goal of making this game feel like an authentic roleplaying d&d experience.
Are people really so stuck in their principles that they wouldn't just do another playthrough to see how the other character stories or other decisions pan out? A lot of the comments that I'm seeing make it seem like you only get one shot at this and I can't for the life of me figure out why everyone needs one perfect playthrough.
For the record, I plan on doing multiple playthroughs and I agree that every playthrough does not need to be “perfect.†I just think that it would kind of suck if one of my 3 companions dies/leaves a few hours into Act 2 and I have to go through the rest of that playthrough having only 2 companions that I can meaningfully interact with and learn about their story. 80+ hours per playthrough is not an insignificant amount of time…
Again, this is all assuming that you can't fill an empty slot with an Origin character past Act 1, quite possibly a faulty assumption. If we are able to go onto a quest to locate and convince someone we left behind earlier to rejoin us, hopefully starting out with a very strained relationship from whatever choice in Act 1 led to them leaving our party, I'd be more than happy!
