Why aren't there 6-player fireteams in patrol? (Destiny)

by Xenos , Shores of Time, Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 19:25 (3445 days ago) @ dogcow

I wonder, why aren't there 6 player fireteams? What was the reasoning for that design decision? I have trouble believing it's because more than 3 people are too powerful for public events as instances with public events often have that # of people in it. Is it because patrol missions would be too easily accomplished, I doubt this too as they could be adjusted based on the # of players in the fireteam, except for the scan a specific location, but then they'd just be saving time if they were spread out.

I've heard two explanations from Bungie employees (both are true, just it's more than one reason):

1. They wanted to design for a number of people that made the most sense and allowed for the best encounters. With 4 they found that it would be too easy if it was also relatively easy to do with one person, and they found 3 to be the perfect number to balance that. (You can even see this in Halo. Halo on Legendary with more than 3 people is super easy).
2. The bubbles can only handle 12 people, and they try to keep enough slots open so that you can bring in a full fireteam (this obviously isn't true in the social areas), so if they gave everyone five slots, then only two random people could encounter each other, now 4 random people can encounter each other, and they can still have a full fireteam of 3 each.