Basically, which team constitution design would you prefer Persona 5 to be based around?

In Persona 1 and Persona 2, there were only ever 5 people in the team, meaning that the player did not have to make any choices regarding who to bring into dungeons. There also was no tactical support, so there was no context given for discovering enemy weaknesses except for when they were discovered by chance.

The formula changed in Persona 3 and Persona 4, where there was a bigger team of Persona users and players were forced to choose who to bring into the field, most likely sticking to their initial choice for the duration of the game. There was also the introduction of tactical support characters Fuuka and Rise (who replaced Mitsuru and Teddie respectively) who, in addition to conveying enemy weaknesses and strengths, could also provide other kinds of support (like Fuuka's Oracle ability and Rise's new abilities in Persona 4 Golden).

I'm for more characters since that's one of my favorite parts of Persona. So I say more party members.

Oh, I don't know, honestly at this point I trust just Atlas to make a quality game. That minor detail wouldn't bother me either way. I'm really more curious about what the tone of the characters and story are going to be like. Gameplay isn't the largest draw, for me.

EDIT: I suppose I do enjoy having a support character chiming in, so if a 5-man team means not having a support character, I suppose I'll stick with the P3-P4 model. I don't mind if they shake it up a bit, though.

5. Why call it Persona 5 if you're not gonna have 5 characters? FALSE ADVERTISING!

@TooWalrus said:

Oh, I don't know, honestly at this point I trust just Atlas to make a quality game. That minor detail wouldn't bother me either way. I'm really more curious about what the tone of the characters and story are going to be like. Gameplay isn't the largest draw, for me.

Yeah, making threads/polls for P5 even though we practically don't have any information on the game is my way of biding time for anything and this is a topic that I just thought of.

Took a bit of thinking, but my vote goes for the 4 man team + tactical support. I like the concept of a character who's powers is exclusively to support the team in terms of tactics and not just a healer. Though, I can't help but think of FFXIII's battle system when I look at option C. A 3 man party with "Paradigm Shifts" being replaced by Persona changing in a more active battle system could be interesting.

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

@Bocam said:

Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls

Persona 4 Golden does this on Valentine's Day, doesn't it?

@FluxWaveZ: Yeah, this series has been around long enough to show that the ability to change & fuse Personas isn't completely unique. What's stopping them from having, like, three 'chosen ones,' to control? It's an interesting idea, for sure. Persona 5 is definitely my most anticipated game at this point though, by far.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Bocam said:

Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls

Persona 4 Golden does this on Valentine's Day, doesn't it?

Yes and it's the best thing in the fucking game.

I like 4 man teams because you'll probably get way too much coverage with a 5 man team and I enjoy paying my mans the Fox.

I like 4 man, covers all my bases that way but I'm not overwhelmed

Like other people, it doesn't really matter to me. As long as the tone of the story and the characters are both awesome, I'm pretty much sold. Oh, and the game must have style. P4's menus/art and whatnot look amazing in HD.

An 8 person team consisting entirely of Teddie

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

The way that P3/P4 did it was you had more characters that you could chose from, but each of them could only use 1 Persona and were limited in that Persona's skillset. In P1 and P2 you only had 5 party members ever (more or less) but each one could use multiple Personas, so there was a lot of variety in terms of the skills your team had (they still had their stats predetermined by the game, but you could change abilities at least). They all had pretty good stories, and that is what I'm most excited for...especially with the implications that P4A made in its ending.

If anything, I'd like for all the characters to gain experience whether you take them into the dungeon with you or not. It'd be great if I could have switched out Naoto during boss battles without having to go and grind Kanji up 40 levels or so.

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

No, I want the next game to have a tone more like Persona 2.

@Bocam said:

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

No, I want the next game to have a tone more like Persona 2.

Now that will never happen, not when the much lighter tone of the last two games sold far better.

I'll go with something different but if they did P3/4 style I wouldn't care because I still like that style. Haven't played 1 or 2 yet so I don't know how the 5 team works.

Something different.....something different.....XCOM like with your team? I don't know, why I'm not a designer

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

No, I want the next game to have a tone more like Persona 2.

Now that will never happen, not when the much lighter tone of the last two games sold far better.

I know... I'm not delusional ;-;

@Bocam said:

@Turambar said:

Now that will never happen, not when the much lighter tone of the last two games sold far better.

I know... I'm not delusional ;-;

Not that this has much to do with this poll, but I don't understand when people say that P3 and P4 have a lighter tone after playing P1 and P2:IS. There were a ton of lighthearted moments in Innocent Sin, like when you discover the chaos that is Maya's room, the girl group moment, the blimp taking off with triumphant music and then a record scratch as it catches fire. On the opposite end, P3 and P4 have their share of dark moments. To me, all of them are actually much more similar than some people state.

I haven't played Eternal Punishment, though, and that might actually be the darkest one from the little I've read of its story.

I can't divorce the idea of 5 party members from the battle systems of P1 and 2. Which I hate. Anyway, if it ain't broke don't fix it, as they say.

A 4 man party system is definitely bettern than 5, if anything I'd almost hope they cut it down to 3, I know most people aren't a fan of smaller groups, but I feel like the wild card mechanic already gives you so much variation that all the other party members barely matter. So I guess what I really wish is that they would find a way to make non MC's more relevant in battle, at least like a unique skill or something. Also there needs to be some sort of out of party levelling mechanic, because the current system stifles experimentation.

Support characters are annoying as heeell. So none of that please, or have the context of them taking notes of weaknesses but make them shut up, either way works.

I'm all for many characters, and choosing who I want to bring with me and I find the 4man party to be a good fit. So make it 8 or so characters and let me bring 4 into battle.

@TobbRobb said:

Support characters are annoying as heeell. So none of that please, or have the context of them taking notes of weaknesses but make them shut up, either way works.

I'm all for many characters, and choosing who I want to bring with me and I find the 4man party to be a good fit. So make it 8 or so characters and let me bring 4 into battle.

I was going to make some "clever" sarcastic post about pretending to disagree with this while being repeatedly interrupted by support characters talking but instead I'll just say I agree. Any flavor this may have added to the games is long since lost for me after hearing Rise squeal and Fuuka monotone about every single thing that happened at any time.

@Bocam

I've never actually dated more than one girl in these games because I would already feel like a piece of shit for doing it even if the game doesn't tell me to. Does that make me a nice person or just insane?

 Also there needs to be some sort of out of party levelling mechanic, because the current system stifles experimentation.

@Bocam said:

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

No, I want the next game to have a tone more like Persona 2.

You're better off holding out hope for them to get off their ass and make SMT4 at this point.

I would be OK with the P3/P4 system. I would like to be able to switch out support characters though. Maybe one could analyse faster, one would give you back more Hp/Sp and one would fill out more of the map; or something like this.

@Terramagi said:

@Bocam said:

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

No, I want the next game to have a tone more like Persona 2.

You're better off holding out hope for them to get off their ass and make SMT4 at this point.

Aren't they making SMT IV for the 3DS?

I feel like the support characters were basically useless in P4. I could generally keep track of the weaknesses on my own, and even Rise's max social link power was more often than not totally useless. "Umm, probably don't use fire on one of these 3 different monsters. Not sure which one, but one of them. Maybe that big fire using monster."
The battles were also faster paced than in 3, so the support often got their lines cut off when someone else started to scream.
 If they keep the P3 and P4 battle system I think a 5 person party would be overkill. I assume they're going to mix it up though. 
 
@Hunter5024: When I played through P3 I always swapped characters in and out, which made boss fights easier than if I'd kept only one party. By the end of the game the MC was a few levels ahead but I had a pretty strong cast.

REINVENT THE SYSTEM

MAKE IT CRAZIER

@Petiew: I bet that method led to more overall grinding than people who just used the same core characters.

@FluxWaveZ: Persona 3/4 did not have main characters that had sex with old men for money and did drugs.

@Petiew: I did this in 3 as well and tried to do it in 4 but eventually gave up. I don't know if it was just me but characters who were behind felt like they caught up a lot faster in 3, especially with the exp bonus shuffle time. The other reason was money. In 3 I could buy all the best gear for the entire group at all times while fusing personas and using the healing clock like crazy, whereas in 4 just buying 1 or 2 weapons would clean me out and healing with Fox was much more expensive than the clock. I couldn't keep everyone's gear up to date and leveling sessions seemed inefficient with those healing prices so eventually I just stopped using those other characters. The fact that the first 4 characters form a near-perfectly-balanced party also didn't help in motivating me to use the others.

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Persona 3/4 did not have main characters that had sex with old men for money and did drugs.

Whoa what? I guess I really need to play my copy of Persona 2...

@Hunter5024 said:

A 4 man party system is definitely bettern than 5, if anything I'd almost hope they cut it down to 3, I know most people aren't a fan of smaller groups, but I feel like the wild card mechanic already gives you so much variation that all the other party members barely matter. So I guess what I really wish is that they would find a way to make non MC's more relevant in battle, at least like a unique skill or something. Also there needs to be some sort of out of party levelling mechanic, because the current system stifles experimentation.

In SMT Nocturne, the party consisted of the protaginist+3 personas (called Demons here), and so the party could vary as you could fuse new dudes for your team, and the protaginist was a demon as well, but had a "skill tree" where he could learn unique skills.

Some of those hard-to-get skills were OP, but it made him unique, and most definitely the strongest protagonist in a SMT game.

As for the P5 party, they should stick with 4 characters..tried and tested. However, maybe there should be more uniqueness for the party members. In P4 the only one who achieved that was Naoto because of her unique affiliation towards light/dark, but I like someone else's suggestion that party members can instill different buffs like filling out the map or treasure finder.

Eh, having 4 or 5 characters is a design choice, so whatever works best. I prefer having more dudes, though, so I'd like a 5 person crew better.
 
(the "support character" thing doesn't add much to the games, anyway.)
 

@Bocam

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

@Bocam said:

@Turambar said:

@Bocam said:

Whatever Persona 5 turns out to be, I want them to get rid of their otaku pandering. Make me feel like a piece of shit for dating multiple girls, don't have the girls be pure virgin waifus, etc.

This will never happen.

So you want Persona 3 then? Very annoying to manage social links due to a hidden jealousy meter?

No, I want the next game to have a tone more like Persona 2.

Now that will never happen, not when the much lighter tone of the last two games sold far better.

@mutha3: I was fine with the pandering until P4G, that game pushed it over the edge.

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Persona 3/4 did not have main characters that had sex with old men for money and did drugs.

Persona 1 and 2 did not have children who's parents were killed by a teammate, causing those children to want to murder said teammate and commit suicide afterwards. It works both ways.

I've never played any if the Persona games before picking up Persona 4 Golden for the Vita. Currently in the bathhouse looking for Kanji. Having a lot of fun and the game seems to balance dark, serious sequences with the light heated shit. Are any of the previous games worth a play through? I have to admit, had it not been for all the talk about the Persona series on the forums here I would have never picked up the game. Glad I did though, it's a genre I had previously written off but I'm having a blast.

I'd prefer a 5-man team in the P2 style (i.e. gridless; let P1's mechanics stay in the 90s where they belong) but with a support character a la P3/P4. Mix it up a little by giving us a choice of supports, or even two supports serving different purposes. For instance, you could slot in Fuuka for dungeon mapping stuff, and Rise for battle analysis.

Regardless of how the exact mechanics turn out, ideally it shouldn't be a total reuse of either system. Keep it moving.

I would like the p3 & p4 party system system but I'm sure i would be cool with whatever they come up with. I would like a combination of the two, I kinda like in p3 that sometimes party members were unable which made me play the cast more evenly. So if they had an item they gives the wears half exp earned outside of battle would help with grinding characters you don't use.

@Bocam said:

@mutha3: I was fine with the pandering until P4G, that game pushed it over the edge.

How is P4G doing things differently than P3FES?

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Persona 3/4 did not have main characters that had sex with old men for money and did drugs.

Persona 1 and 2 did not have children who's parents were killed by a teammate, causing those children to want to murder said teammate and commit suicide afterwards. It works both ways.

Maybe I'm just misremembering, but the lighter tones of P3/4 is far more structured, and walled off from the srsbzn stuff than P1/2. There was no delineation of "school life" where there was no actual danger and "midnight hour / tv world" where dangers abound in the earlier two.

I'd like the 4+support, but I'd want them to add in out of party members gaining the same experience as everyone else to make it viable to have everyone in. I would have loved to get some time in with Naota, Kanji, and Teddy in P4, but they were so far behind everyone else I had that it just didn't make sense to spend the time grinding them up to par with my main 3.

I am all for satellite or broadcast oriented Persona because I think they look even crazier than normal Persona. So... I like the system from 3 and 4.

@Turambar said:

Maybe I'm just misremembering, but the lighter tones of P3/4 is far more structured, and walled off from the srsbzn stuff than P1/2. There was no delineation of "school life" where there was no actual danger and "midnight hour / tv world" where dangers abound in the earlier two.

Sure, the one way I could see people arguing that the tone is "darker" is that in P1 and P2, there was an ever-present sense of danger with demons roaming all over the town. Because those games didn't have the daily schedule system of the newer Persona games, things were always "on" like and the characters were constantly working towards saving the world, unlike P3/P4 where there are times of respite. Still, I don't think that warrants people's seemingly overestimation of the older games' tone.

On topic, I like the idea some people have been suggesting of multiple tactical support characters to choose from like P3 and P4 have with their battle characters.

@phantomzxro said:

I kinda like in p3 that sometimes party members were unable which made me play the cast more evenly.

I forgot about that and I like that system, as well. Something that occasionally forces players to play with other characters in a party instead of the ones they're used to would be interesting.

I liked the lighter tone of 4 more than the dark of the 3rd.