Solo vs. Party

[@PXAbstraction]

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

[@ilcorvo9559]

My first memory of this classic message was on KOTOR

[@PXAbstraction]

@@ilcorvo9559 Baldur's Gate 1 here. Heard it soooo many times that I could be completely braindead and still remember it clear as day.

[@cacherow]

You must venture forth before gathering your party.

[@plebisMaximus]

@@cacherow The Fallout model. The real apocalypse were the mutant friends we made along the way.

[@JimmyMon666]

Fallout 1: Your party member blocks your exit, so you can't venture forth. 🙂 I kid, I love the game, but so glad they fixed that in F2.

[@luisgavila8412]

I think that you guys nailed it in The Outer Worlds. I love companion-based builds and it made me feel like a captain IF I wanted to roleplay as such. A companion is not just an additional PC. It is, first and foremost, a very important type of NPC. Issuing them orders rather than taking direct control of them feels very immersive. Especially if their capabilities depend on your own build.

[@akhigasi]

Ah, the love taps of Ian in Fallout 1. Never give a companion a fully automatic gun.

[@Odisseia-hh2td]

Hey Tim. Your channel is a gem. Also, just found a channel you might like from the industry veteran Laura Fryer. Nice to see folks sharing their experiences.

[@CainOnGames]

Oh, I watch her channel already! It's very good!

[@Odisseia-hh2td]

@CainOnGames nice!

[@dasphoenixable]

Oops all bard/(insert any class) is one of my favorite party comps. This is one of the most interesting channels on KZbin as a nondev it always amazes me how design choices have a cascading effect throughout development.

[@colinfrederick2603]

2:45 is 100% about Baldur’s Gate 3 lol. Minthara: ‘A trap! Let’s send our least important person to disarm it’

[@wormerine8029]

Eh, not really - it’s a common scenario. Though BG3 terrible chain system is a special kind of clunky.

[@HelloChief117]

Or one of your party members just happens to walk slightly ahead of you and triggers a cutscene in which they're the one doing the talking while having the worst stats for conversations or persuading people. While your own character is the one with all the charisma. That happened to me a lot in the early days of BG3.

[@wormerine8029]

My personal favourite is party games, but with player protagonist, like Pillars. A more tactically interesting combat, but still a fairly unique experience playthrough to playthrough. That said, single character games can really highlight the roleplay aspect, especially with games like your Fallout or Arcanum were combat is build-driven rather than a mandatory aspect of a game.

[@imALazyPanda]

Pillars 2 is my top crpg of all time, beating out pathfinder wotr because of AI system. I found a lot of joy in setting up crazy complex conditionals and just let the game play. I beat PotD difficulty without ever taking direct control in combat.

[@BlackJar72]

To me single-character, especially first-person, feels more like roleplaying, while party-based feels more like a strategy game (like moving pieces on a board). I do know of a party-based indie game, Archaelund, that uses real-time first-person for exploration and social interaction but switches to turn-based third-person for combat, which is an interesting (though probably not something I'd try to do in a game I was making).

[@facundog1654]

Hi Tim, thanks for your interesting videos. Thinking about what you mention in this video, there is an interesting variation that I remember from games like Throne of Darkness. In this game you always control a single character from a party of four who react autonomously to your actions (and you can configure how they react), but at any time you can rotate control of your main character. I found it interesting to comment on. Beyond the focus of the debate in this video, I want to tell you that Arcanum was one of the games that marked my childhood, even more than Fallout 1 and 2, and I am grateful that you and your team created this masterpiece of video games. I am always hoping for a sequel, we will see if it happens one day. I do not want to forget to highlight the beautiful musical pieces of Arcanum, which generate even greater immersion. Greetings!

[@brianviktor8212]

In all games in which you can have companions, I always preferred to be solo. It's something about having it too easy with companions, and wanting to play without the help of others. I think the best solution is to have enemy strength (and/or count) be scaled based on your party size. Not sure if that's already the case with those games, but it should be. Oh, and there was the common experience splitting... I wanted it all for the main character. It would be different for games where there is no main character. Games like X-Com come to mind. That however is good, because you are not bound to one main character + x. In that case they aren't companions. Alternatively I'd like it if you could setup a team of characters from the beginning. Not that I'd be too thrilled about it, but that could be a nice idea.

[@alexnawn8712]

HI TIM! Nice video, haven't been this excited for one of your topics before! I agree with having a single character as the main focus of the party. I've forced myself to do this in Wasteland 3, even though it starts you with 2 player made characters, and it really added to the immersion and connection. HOWEVER, I think it should be a choice for players to make. I know many players will make the wrong choice for themselves, but a lot of people want choice over all characters at all times to the point that they sometimes won't even consider touching a game if they can't do that. Also, having it based on party in combat is an absolute MUST. I'm glaring at friendly fire and Ian being best friends in Fallout when I say that. (No offense.)

[@dempa3]

I always find it strange when the party is fighting to save the world, but can't bring everyone with them, due to constraints of the party size

[@lhfirex]

I usually like single character vs party for a lot of Tim's reasons. Also, it feels faster compared to moving a whole party, regardless of real time or turn based. That makes the pacing fun. Party's versatility is fun when you're building a team, but I really get annoyed when, for example, you gotta split them up to do individual things on a map or a dungeon. I think that could be pretty easily fixed with the UI though. You could design a button to bring the party back together, either on the focused character or clicking on a location. I also think party based RPGs work better with some class customization. Multiclassing, skills instead of classes, ability to change classes, something like that can alleviate the "bad party build" hurdle. This makes me think of the good/bad with the Divinity Original Sin games. I enjoy building characters in DOS2 because they generally get to go pretty far into 3-4 skills, but the bad is you get virtually no customization with the out of combat skills. Points are too infrequent to do anything but make one character focus on thievery, one character focus on diplomacy/bartering, one character focus on loremaster. And if you want to make a summoner, that's a skill where you have to go all in, meaning it will take a long time before you can diversify to shore up weak areas your party may have.

[@nofuture9971]

Hi time i just want to say your vidoes is major morale boost for creating games thank you so much have a nice wonderful like kind man!

[@JimmyMon666]

I like them both. For D&D type games, I still prefer party based games. It just fits with the D&D roots. So games like Baldur's Gate games, and Dragon Age 1 and 2 are good examples of this. For Fallout and Mass Effect type games, solo players with 1 or 2 companions seem to work well.

[@KCVitamins]

I think solo control in a party game can have issues and I have seen it cause issues in a lot of games. It can be immersion breaking and annoying if you don't deliver a good enough AI / script for them. An enemy that behaves poorly and is perhaps suicidal can be funny, preferably not all of them do. But when party members just keep killing themselves and you have little to no control over it it can be infuriating. For example followers in early fallout games being excellent at killing themselves or you. Followers in games triggering mines and traps you've avoided and either killing themselves or you. It wasn't necessarily something you had any control over and sometimes I just ditch followers in games and play it solo if those things happen a lot even though I want to have them for story and dialogue reasons. That or keep saveloading because of them which again can be frustrating and not optimal. Also they kind of need to be smarter than enemies since you often have good vision of what they do and any issues you are more aware of. In many games where you can give your followers good items or level them yourself and pick a sweet ability you still might not be able to get them to use it and instead prefer to use some way worse ability. But unlike enemies you are aware that they have that good ability and if they don't use it it can be frustrating.

[@OpenGL4ever]

In Fallout 3 I did almost everything on my own because I can't afford to have bad AI at my side. In Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 I only control one character during normal game play, but in battles I can control all of them. I liked that a lot because it allowed for interactions between the characters and the stories they had to tell and didn't get in my way in battles. I would therefore assume that KOTOR belongs in the party category.

[@flyerfan1991]

I can completely understand the view of solo versus party, Tim, but for me the issue with solo games is that a lot of solo RPG games are also done from first person perspective, which gives me motion sickness. I discovered this problem back in the original Doom days, and almost 30 years on it persists. Skyrim at least allows me to switch between perspectives, so there's some relief there, but so many games I'd love to play (Cyberpunk 2077, The Outer Worlds, etc.) are simply off the table. I don't want to have to pop Dramamine every time I want to play a video game (and to be honest the drugs only work about half the time) but if I want to play a solo RPG game my options aren't very large. Hence, I'm back to party-based games, because most of those operate from third-person perspective or isometric view.

[@mandisaw]

This! I've noped-out of entire genres and console generations due to simulation sickness. I suspect it's part of why we see some genres & playstyles gain adoption among older gamers. Case in point, my VR headset sits forlorn in its box. (I was at least able to make a couple games for school & myself with it.)

[@gaxmo920]

Hi Tim. I'm developing several games, but I've been focusing on one in particular for the past year. For this project, I'm considering using morphs for certain characters instead of bones. I know bones are more efficient and that recalculating vertices is costly. However, for facial expressions, for example, the number of bones required is quite high and I think morphs would be more efficient. On the other hand, if I use bones, I save a lot of work by being able to reuse the same rig for multiple models. It's a tough decision, like the dilemma of whether to do UV maps or skinning first. Luckily, I still have time to decide, as I'm currently in the process of programming how objects interact with each other and the environment.

[@rusty_from_earth9577]

I've long had an idea written in a notebook for a game where it is single character, but when combat starts the character can split (astral project or whatever spiritual woo woo) into different parts of themselves. Maybe the different fractions that are split out embody different aspects which also happens to align with combat roles. You only die if the real physical original you dies, but if one of your spiritual fractions dies in combat you have a corresponding debuff for a while after combat ends and all of the split astral parts merge back into your physical self (ie the wise magic channeling part dies and after you have an Intelligence debuff until you fix it). Fixes or "fixes" maybe the issue where combat is (to me) more interesting with a party, but where a single character in all other circumstances is more immersive

[@felmaci3910]

I always prefered RPGs with solo characters, but as getting older with a lot of work and family needs I do not have much time and especially brainpower to create builds and optimize skills, items, perks etc for a whole party for 100+ hour games. The recent Pathfinder CRPGs are great but so demanding, I only finished each once and even then the planets must align before I can start a new RPG of this scale. Sometimes I can only sit and game for some 30 minutes, hard to do it with a full party, it can take quite a while just to get back into the game and remember all the characters and how to make good use of each.

[@mandisaw]

Strategy RPGs with more limited party NPCs and shorter playthroughs are probably a better fit. Aside from behemoths like Fire Emblem Three Houses, they usually top out around the 30-40hr mark. You might try the first Mario & Rabbids game - it's proven to be a nice intro to the genre, or a fun little palate cleanser if you're already into it. Saw at least one reviewer played it as a Daddy & kid sort of game.

[@MrFireCurse]

Hi Tim, Thank you for all your insightful talks! I was wondering what you think about respeccing in RPGs. I’ve searched your channel but couldn’t find anything on the topic. According to my quick google search, respeccing is only available in your latest three games (Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, The Outer Worlds) out of the nine you presented in your Rising Game Budgets video. I was wondering if it’s a mechanic you hadn’t considered before, have changed your mind on, or if players have recently come to expect. I personally think that respeccing is at the opposite of roleplay, but do not mind its presence in games. However, I do become frustrated when games brand themselves as RPGs but expect the player to rely on respeccing to progress through certain encounters. I am very curious about your thoughts on all of this.

[@CainOnGames]

Respec is something I never even considered adding to my earlier games. Since I came from table top RPGs, I never thought a player could say “I want to change my character decisions now”. It seemed antithetical to my choice and consequence design POV. But like many other features that are common in RPGs now, players have come to expect respec. Reasons vary from not understanding the choices to complaints that the game is unbalanced, making some choices less useful. And some players just don’t have the time to replay the game to make other choices. So respec is one of those features that increase your audience and that is completely optional to use…although many players don’t like options either.

[@MrFireCurse]

​@@CainOnGames Thanks for the reply! And I really enjoyed today's video :)

[@UlissesSampaio]

@@CainOnGames I love respecting it since it allows quick experimentation. Nowadays, I don't have as much time for gaming as I used to, and getting stuck with a build that turns out not to be fun is a bummer. Also, to add salt to the injury, in most games the skill/perk descriptions are vague (you will deal "major damage instead of average", "get +10 of this arcane resource you don't really know how it works") so you often don't really know what you are getting. In TT I can see that indeed it doesn't make sense, but you can always talk with your GM to get tips on how to build your character in a way that will be fun and useful.

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@UlissesSampaio How does a build turn into not to be fun? Could you explain this in more detail using an example? I stick to my builds and consider disadvantages that have subsequently arisen due to a wrong choice of build as a challenge.

[@UlissesSampaio]

@@OpenGL4ever For instance, If the build's gameplay is too repetitive. Or being too strong or too weak (I kind of like "glass-cannon" gameplay where neither player nor enemies are health-sponges). But it's hard to pin a reason. It's a gut feeling thing. Lets say a game's ranged combat is not that fun when compared with melee: then playing a ranged build will be a bummer.

You know what would be funny? You send the sneakthief ahead to scout and unlock a new path for the party, but if you aren't the thief, you and the other party members actually have to sit around waiting in real time. Maybe some awkward conversation related to the quest gets triggered to "pass the time".

[@plebisMaximus]

My brain just doesn't multi-task well enough to handle party based CRPGs, which sucks, I'd really like to see that story in Planescape Torment everyone talks about, but c'est la vie. I don't even pick up companions when I play single character RPGs. Being allowed to really go into one character also benefits immersion a lot imo, although I can definitely see the benefits of party based games. It opens up more strategy, fun team composition and allows for more deep difficulty.

[@zlac]

Turn based - party Real time - solo

[@anomalyraven]

It's not a CRPG or ARPG, but I've been putting about 300 hours into Monster Hunter Rise on PC this year, and I love how they handled the solo and party aspect. Sure, the option to play with other real players is available and probably fun if you have friends. But compared to the earlier title (Monster Hunter World), you have a variety of NPC followers you can bring with you on missions - they make it a lot easier for solo players to complete missions as they support you in various ways (healing, aggro, buffing or even attracting other monsters to fight the one you're currently in battle with), and best of all, they don't feel like a burden or a huge risk, because if you play with other people the risk of running out of attempts per mission is pretty high depending on how good they are. With the NPC followers, if one gets downed the monster won't be focusing on killing them and they can revive themselves unless you do it first.

[@FerreusDeus]

I tend to look at party games where you create 2 or more characters "hot-seat" style multi-player. I often play them with a friend by having each of us create the same number of characters and then we sit together and make decisions for our own characters as we play.

[@BradTheAmerican]

Dragon Age Origins is my favorite game of all time. If it didn't have a party and it was just Main Character running around the world, it wouldn't be anywhere near as memorable. The companions offer more than just combat capability.

[@PretendCoding]

I really appreciated in Arcanum that if he got good enough (and you weren't a techie), Virgil could actually raise you from the dead!

[@CainOnGames]

I just wish my AI code for Virgil recognized when the player was too tech to try.

[@PretendCoding]

@@CainOnGames I happen to know someone who has the full source code XD I know you can't release it for many reasons, but thank you so much for making it. It is one of my favorite games.

[@SubzeroBlack68]

Quick question: Are there any games that existed at the same time as the first Fallout from other studios or franchises that you would have/like to see still exist today? As a remake, sequel, remaster, or any form.

[@TimmacTR]

Party control by far. Btw, you never talked about Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel!

[@MudHoleCreation]

Hey Tim, I am reading the book "AI Game Programming Wisdom." I noticed there was a chapter by you. I heard your voice reading it, but no snoring dog. Wasn't the same.

[@Ratty524]

I like the tactical aspect that comes with party gameplay, but the justification for solo play also makes a lot of sense. Plenty of times playing BG3 I want to just switch to my charisma character to handle dialogue situations but I can't.

[@ephiscus224]

I don't think that's the fault of it being a party based game. In Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, skill checks in dialogue use the companion with the highest score in the required skill that's currently in your group rather than pretending they don't exist. And in Divinity: Original Sin 2, you can switch to any of your companion characters and have them talk to an NPC in your place.

[@deade633]

Hey Tim, I've always wanted games like Fallout to be Coop instead of just singleplayer. But as I have become a gamedev myself I've started to understand the challenges that come with making a Coop RPG. Did you ever consider making Fallout Coop? - Best regards Brian, love your work and vids!

[@CainOnGames]

We never planned for Fallout to be multiplayer, although marketing asked for real time, and I felt that an ask for multiplayer was right around the corner if we had done that change. Interplay started an online gaming division called Engage that was considering an online multiplayer version of the game. All I remember is they want to call it Fallout Online, and I said "hmm, the acronym will be FOOL".

[@deade633]

@@CainOnGames I can rest peacefully now that you've responded to my comment, also I'm glad that the classic fallouts aren't real time, I wasn't too fond of that in Fallout Tactics. Classic Fallout online is a thing now though! Are you familiar with FONLINE?

[@thatradiogeek]

Unless the story revolves around one specific character (which I generally don't like anyway, with few exceptions), then I think full party is the way to go.

[@omerkeidar95]

I remember you talking about this before as well. Maybe as a side tangent on a different video (I love when those happen)

[@hardin_of_astora]

Hey Tim, what are your thoughts on machine learning based solutions like DLSS etc. and also on the difficulties of "good" CPU and GPU utilization in PC games (or PC ports). Also thank you for this channel, very insightful!

[@pelicano1987]

Planescape Torment have a protagonist that could be defeated without a game over. He was already dead, Tim (cross pun to Star Trek). Baten Kaitos did well with "who are you" in a party. You are a spirit, guiding the party. Characters turn to the camera to ask your opinion. It works great and when the plot twist arrives it is just awesome. XCOM declassified and Mass Effect were good solutions for an unorthodox type of RPG with companions.

[@ThePirate193]

We like to paaaarty

[@jamesboyd-w7g]

What is even a bard? Is it a jack of all trades, master of none? Is it a hybrid melee/caster? Is it filler class? I have never understood where it stand since 2nd edition DnD.

[@imALazyPanda]

Ive asked before but its finally relevant to the video im asking about. When it comes to RtwP games how hard is it to implement a conditional AI system like in Pillars of eternity 2. This is by far my favorite crpg mechanically because i love setting up really complex tactics and watching combat play out flawlessly. Games with this are few and far between, and most RtwP crpgs i dont enjoy as much because its just chickens with their heads cut off, running around and chaos. In that aspect i do like turnbased more often as it provides more tactical control. But a well made RtwP with a party AI editor are by far my favorite.

[@mandisaw]

I think Bioware had a GDC talk about resurrecting RTwP back when Dragon Age Origins came out. Pretty sure Josh Sawyer has mentioned some of the tech & design challenges back when making the first Pillars as well.

[@coupdeforce]

I don't think you're crazy, I think you definitely talked about it in Arcanum tangentially.

[@jeffreylyons7228]

Would having one player created character and one joinable NPC of each class in the game, like Pillars of Eternity? That way five of the six party members will definitely be different classes and you know they have fairly balanced base builds for their classes, which eliminates the all bard type party from testing.

[@pitchforker3304]

On the other hand, with full party control Ian will stop shooting you in the back.

[@ghjong001]

Anyone feel like Tim's going to start taking notes about his video uploads so that when someone asks about something he thought he already posted on, he's can go check his notes to be sure?

[@calebpace8788]

Hi Tim, out of curiosity, have you ever dabbled in/discussed over the years something along the lines of controlling a party in a RPG using squad based mechanics like in the old SOCOM games for PS2 or Republic Commandos? If so, is it something that would be feasible and fun in your mind? I figure any idea I come up with has probably already been discussed by veteran game developers thoroughly.

[@LonelyGamr]

What games are you playing?

[@greenya84]

Also, I think if you do "solo control" and can have a party, the AI should be decent for them, which will require more time to implement.

[@0Gumpy0]

That "all bard" party got me thinking. Should you worry about those players? That seems like a very deliberate and obviously suboptimal choice that the player is making that will handicap them. If I wanted to beat the game by only doing damage throwing spoons, should you account for that too?

[@0Gumpy0]

I guess to rephrase this into more of a question - where would you draw the line between letting players play how they want (and spending time, energy, and money making sure to accomodate this variety of playstyle) vs having some sort of experience in mind, and anything beyond that is "play at your own risk"?

[@CainOnGames]

Usually the line is where they make irreversible decisions. If the game cannot be finished with an all-spoon party, the player can always change weapons and keep going. But if the player reaches the end boss of the game only to discover that their all-bard party cannot beat that boss, that's different.

[@doccroc5962]

i feel i should bring up the shift from a party of 8 in Dungeon Siege 1 to a party of 1 and 1 un-customisable follower in Dungeon Siege 3

[@apresmidi153]

I prefer the ability to control multiple characters but moreso the ability to create them as I often find that premade companions can be limited somewhat in variety or just not all that well optimized.

[@dlpatri]

Personally, as a player, I very much dislike having to manage any character other than my own. So, BG3 is a huge turn off for me. I especially dislike that I have full control to respec any of their pre-made characters. Building out my own character, managing my own inventory, hot keys, etc... that's more than enough work already. Having to do it again for each party member I pick up is just too much.

[@PseronWyrd]

Yes, exactly. This is my preference as well.

[@Sigurd_55]

Nobody is forcing you to recruit companions - do a solo run. ez

[@mikeuniturtle3722]

I think a good companion topic would be indirect party controls, like how the Outerworlds does it. you'd have to think about things such at behaviores, do you want behaviores to reflect a preset behaviore tree? do you allow players to create behaviore scripts through a UI? I've seen this be done as simple as, aggro, defensive, support. To allowing the player to set party members to cast spells or use items automatically at a certain level of health or mana. im going to stop here before I ramble to much, but how do you like to go about this situation?

[@wesss9353]

Hey Uncle Tim, How about NPC agency? Or we don't have the technology for NPC agency yet? Let certain NPC be self aware. Not vender NPC, because I have stuff to sell them.

[@juamibenito2558]

would you have any opinions on card/deckbuilder-based rpg's where character abilities are represented by cards and are also not guaranteed to play out the same way every combat since in some fights you might never draw ___ card? deckbuilders used to be purely roguelikes but there's a rising number of deckbuilder rpg's since it's extremely diegetic to tell stories through adding/removing cards to the player character's deck: Novice Slash was a clunky damage card that served its purpose in the early game but is only clogging the deck (diegetically/metaphorically clogging the player character's thoughts in battle) here in the mid game so you find some story event focused on growth/character development that allows you to choose a card to permanently forget, and some players will forget Novice Slash, others might forget about Desperate Block, etc., it's interesting to let go of old tactics but their absence ends up being stepping stones to narratively and mechanically getting stronger (smaller decks in deckbuilders are more consistent and allow you to play powerful cards over and over more often) here we are in the late game and the player gets to decide which powerful card to add to their deck: Stunning Slam, Banishing Blade, Vampiric Cleave, Guardian Angel, etc. now stories will be told when a player miracrulously draws their key card off the top of the deck among many other dud cards or when you progress a companion quest it's diegetically commemorated by their card reward: Shared Strength, Tandem Strike, Anything for a Friend, Drinking Buddies, etc. or when you run into a traumatic event in the storyline and it's forever engraved as a deadweight curse card purposefully clogging the player character's deck and maybe causing debuffs whenever they draw it as it once again diegetically expresses fruitless thoughts/baggage in the player character's mind so far a lot of them have been plagued by balance problems to the point that card ideas are very constrained to what's easiest to balance/playtest so the supposedly varied combat falls back into being very samey combat especially in the late game but im very optimistic about the future of deckbuilder rpg's as a genre would be interested to hear your thoughts about the concept and the pros/cons you personally see!

[@CainOnGames]

I added your question to my queue!

[@juamibenito2558]

@@CainOnGames oh wow thanks so much! im always looking forward to all your videos hahaha

[@wizardscrollstudio]

I kinda like how Fallout 3 or NV did it solo +1 Not alone but not a party either.

[@NameNotAChannel]

"RPG" is a pretty broad category... but boil down to western CRPGs like Baldur's Gate/Bard's Tale... that are more like simulations of D&D, with more sandbox types of environments and loose stories that you can work your way through. and eastern JRPGS, like Final Fantasy... that are more like playing through a very set story. (Then you have quasi-RPGs that are other games with RPG elements - any game can use level-ups and skill progression systems to add complexity and a sense of building your character/power with player agency, so I don't fault them for this - though I do fault them for claiming to be RPGs just for having those progression systems... or mix genres, like Mass Effect (most RPGs aren't clumsy shooters tacked on to "choose your own adventure" books with a dating sim for good measure - yeah, I didn't like Mass Effect.) Oh, and who can forget "Action RPGs"... which I consider "Horde Looters" ... with RPG progression... but it's all based around getting loot, and upgrading your gear - with a main story campaign that makes up the first 2-4hrs of gameplay, when the player enters the "endgame" that consists of mindlessly clearing map after map of enemies for loot.) Personally, I don't like CRPGs. The settings are generally boring, in my experience with them. I'm not enthralled by the medieval setting, or attempts at restrictions and systems based on the excuse of realism. Juggling inventory space and weight limits and rolling dice to determine success or failure are all massive turn-offs, for me. These games put a heavy focus on character creation, and skill selection, often making use of skills chosen separately and improved by use. Again, generally speaking, they focus on your main character, and you gain NPCs along the way. Normally, you can choose to have an NPC join, or not. JRPGs, on the other hand, have you take control of the main character of a story, and their entire team that they gather (and lose) along the way, as the story dictates. The main character can change over the course of the game, but it's not really important who you are currently controlling, since I see it as I'm "playing the story", rather than any individual. Most JRPGs don't have "choices" that are important to the progression of the story itself. (the notable exceptions ... are exceptions.) When it comes down to combat, I like JRPGs. I also prefer full party control in turn based combat. I like the strategy of gearing up my team to meet the challenges most commonly encountered in each themed area, with set groups of monsters, and their status effects and what they're strong/weak to. I like the tactics of employing those strategies in battle with those monsters. Final Fantasy 12 was a weird beast. (almost like they were trying to make an off-line game based on FFXI online) This is a real-time, action based combat system, utilizing Active Time Battle, where characters have an action bar that fills up based on their speed attribute, to wait their turn to take action, while being able to freely move around the battlefield the entire time. You can control any single character, and all their actions. You can switch at any time, during combat, to your 2 other team members in the active party. You can issue orders to them by switching to them and manually using their abilities, and then switch back to one character you want to manually control the majority of the time. When you are not controlling a character, they act based on a set of rules that you "program" them with (the Gambit system). I LOVED the gambit system (with the caveat, that I hated having to buy individual "conditionals" to use as programming triggers/actions.) The Gambit system felt like an extension of the Seiken Dentetsu 2 AI grid (this grid allowed you to control how aggressive your team mates would be, and how frequently they'd use abilities and expend resources.) And I liked this slimmed down version of that system just fine for the purposes of that game. When Final Fantasy 13 decided to go in a more action based direction, where you only controlled 1 character directly, with the rest of your team using "Paradigms" that you switched between to change the jobs and abilities they used... it fell flat, for me. That was not fun AT ALL, for me. It was extremely spammy, and didn't feel like I was contributing any strategy at all... beyond timing when I switched paradigms to focus on staggering the enemy, dealing damage to the enemy, buffing/debuffing, or healing my team - all with choices chosen by the team Paradigm AI - and it was VERY cumbersome to manually take control and choose abilities to use in that combat system. I think I had more to say... but I can't formulate it at the moment... so that's all I'll contribute to this subject for now.

[@cengiztaner4754]

Party-based games FTW. Solo party is no different than a Diablo, might as well go full ARPG. As for party size, I always like larger parties, larger the better. At that point, not being able to micromanage every companion and getting indifferent towards some comes a diegetic part of the game

[@t2av159]

I solo most party games.

[@SiriusMined]

I've never heard of a multiplayer game where each player would control a separate party. Does that even exist?

[@gerbenvanerkelens4475]

I can only think of games where you can have your companion with you while in a party with other people. But besides that I also can't think of any.

[@justanobody0]

but I mean at a base level, technically you could view chess as two people controlling 2 parties, each with 16 different characters in the units (albeit 8 of the units share the same strengths and weaknesses) if the game has to require character leveling as part of the definition, then the original pokemon kind of was a multiplayer game where two players controlled two parties (albeit battle was 1 on 1) I think pokemon stadium (if not the 64 version, maybe a later version) might have had multiple pokemon battling multiple other pokemon at the same time (which would qualify for what you're talking about, but if it does exist, I don't know if it caps out at 2v2 or 3v3) I played a game 20 years ago briefly, can't remember the name that you had some squad of like 5 or 6 units, and I'm pretty sure the units leveled. I think you could have a mismash of units, I'm not sure. I can't remember the game, but I don't think the units were customizable. The game was based in space

[@PseronWyrd]

The closest thing I can think of is Star Wars: The Old Republic, where every play is accompanied by a companion. I view this arrangement as a kind of "mini-party."

[@simonstrane]

I liked Diablo 2 - just you and a mercenary.

[@fixpontt]

if there is unwinnable combination in party games.... so what? party games usually allow to go back to the town and change your party composition, party based games are not permanently fixed, just go back and try a different party, i dont understand why should every combination result a winnable fight

[@chadwarden593]

How do you feel about DEI and the failure of Veilgaurd?