If you always have a smooth-talking bard because the game doesn't make you narrow your party down, you might never learn about those other options.
If you always have a full skillset available, there is a tendency to fall into the habit of doing whatever seems the most obvious, which is probably the same thing over and over again and tends not to be as fun.
ya i still dont agree with your logic or rationale here fam but enjoyed the life sharing
1) as a player, you dont need to choose to use the smooth-talking bard for every encounter - you can use the strengths of your other companions for any of the variety of scenarios you detailed above. in fact, if im restricted to four party members then i for sure will not learn about those other options or varied strategies bc the game is arbitrarily limiting my adventure party to four ppl already. (disregarding multiple playthrus - which is a different discussion)
2) respectfully, not really sure how to even respond to the second comment particularly given the current development status of bg3's ea build. idk, id say that if we had the full skillset, which can be interpreted as having the traditional 6person BG party size, or more class/race options, or a closer adherence to 5e balancing then maybe larian's ea build would be more fun? there at least would be less need for the larian cheese/exploits currently in ea and swen may actually show content during his panel playthroughs that dont consist of 'gaming' boss encounters
if you like the restrictions that a four person party currently imposes, have at it, you can still run with just four if the party size gets bumped to six, but atleast the rest of us wouldnt need to be subject to the same 'interesting' restrictions
2) if they just bump it up to 6, they will adjust the difficulty of combat to match, so it would be silly to then run 4. Also, everything I have read about 5e it is targeted at 3-5 party, not 6. Six was 2e and 3e.
so i somewhat dont disagree with your point here about anticipating larian to adjust the combat difficulty for a party size of six (rip solo players/runs) and i could sympathize with those whom prefer to limit the party to 4 of the possible 12 standard phb class options if that happened, bc 'interesting', but i think that really is a larger discussion related to bg3's overall game balance or difficulty and may be beyond the scope of this particular thread (altho since difficulty settings/slideable toggles have been cited/requested in these ea spaces, why would a 4 v 6 party setting be unreasonable?) as when talking about 'difficulty' for a dnd video game there should be a number of other variables to consider too and not just 'combat' related. imho one variable that should be vetted is the actual assumption/expectation that larian would adjust the current build or the ultimate game's 'difficulty' even if the party size is increased to 6
not to get too sidetracked, but conversations could be had surrounding game balance and difficulty concerns that includes '3 pillar' topics like the 'agency' of party members during narrative or social encounters, exploration/movement/resting of party members in bg3's current ea theme-park map/world, and the application of hybrid 5e/larian ruleset in and out of combat (which in itself is 20+ thread pages on these forums across varied topics), before you even consider larian's reduced party size. it may be most glaring in the combat pillar given the hybrid ruleset currently in place and other limited ea features, but it does seem like larian is designing a dnd adventure for a four person party, which admittedly i find to not be the ideal BG experience.
and as a point earlier to enjoying 'interesting' restrictions, wouldnt it be interesting as a player to restrict yourself to a four person party for a game that is balanced for six?
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just some thoughts below, bc this is more a critique of larian's staged combat design/zone approach and more tangential to 4v6
largely i think significant encounters should be static and narratively driven and designed - i dont want the 'game world' to scale based on party size (ie. the hobgoblin boss to all of a sudden have four more henchman or have increased HP because i brought two extra companions - id want the boss to already be a 'dangerous and resource intensive encounter' regardless of when i stroll in or how many companions i bring, bc narratively hes the hobgoblin boss and supposed to present a challenge [and i dont want to just yeet him off a cliff either lol]), but at the same time i dont want to feel like i need to clear each map zone or do every single quest to level to make such above encounters engaging, which i think is where random encounters/camp and resting mechanics need more attention - but there are other threads for that
