Sometimes when there's a dialog response it'll show the icon (like the mouse for streetwise) followed by a number and an asterisk. In my case right now, it's 2*. What's the * mean? And is it saying I need a 2 minimum?

When I mouse over the stat and hold shift, it shows that I have 1 and am getting 3 from party assist. Which I'm also confused about because it also shows that one of my guys has 1 and the other has 5, which in my eyes would equal 6.

Further confusing me are these green bars underneath all that, which is shown in my attachment. I edited the attachment to hide any dialog text btw so I don't accidentally spoil anything.

I'm puzzled by this, too. mMy maincharacter for example has 0 skill at explosives Partymember A has 2, Partymember B also 2 and this gives Party Assist 3 (0 Self, +3 Party). Why is it 3?
With Athletics it's: 0 (me) 5 (A) 1 (B) 1 (C) gives 4 (0 Self +4 Party)

I asked this at the Steam Community, and it seems like the exact formula as of how the value is calculated, is not published (yet).
One anser was:
"I assume that the amount of bonus you get per point is reduced as it goes up.

For example, the first 3 points = +1 per 1 points
And after the 4th points, you get +1 per 2 points.
And so on every X points.

That's the only way to explain why the calculation can go up and down so much and it's the only way to make it so that sleeping at Wild Mare for +1 on all skills doesn't give you +5 in total with party assist."

Interesting, thanks. Guess we'll have to wait for some more clarity!