i was having so much fun with pathfinder wrath of the righteous. it's the first game that make me feels that i needed 7 party character instead. not a joke. i'm intending to use a mod to increase the size to 7. here me out why. i play on core difficulty and above so it seems to cover most of the roles to have the best gameplay (for myself personally), some companions are simply required for every playthrough... except if you play on normal difficulty i don't think it's going to matter.
camellia - simply required for me as she's the best party buffer, tank and critter. seelah - she's really powerful with mark of justice and really required if you play higher difficulty. sosiel - mandatory for me over daeran. sadly daeran has to go because sosiel much better. nenio or woljif - nenio here winning over both woljif and ember. ember sleep is really nice though. but cam got her covered.
so the other party companion, unless you are playing as a range MC yourself, i would say arue or lann is simply mandatory. but due to above party setup, if my main character isn't a DPS himself, i would rate that greybor is mandatory.
due to this design it simply leave me no choice for a 7 party character setup. also.. a pet companion is simply very important! in higher difficulty as well.
bottomline: i find myself enjoying and having alot of fun with pathfinder wrath of righteous given alot of options and different playstyles. with 4 party character in bg3 sadly to say.. i only completed EA once and never have touch it anymore.
for the sake of gameplay, i honestly think larian should increase the party size to 6 instead of 4. but i can really see through their intention which they really wanted that 4 party multiplayer thingy. but for single player i really urge larian to do the right thing. not everyone plays multiplayer. i have DOS / DOS2 and i never once touch the multiplayer. i don't see it any issue giving more options to players who want 6.
instead of giving more options and flexibility why larian chose to do the opposite?